Dive Transient:
- Waste Connections has stopped accepting waste at its Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, California, efficient Jan. 1. This sudden transfer follows years of regulatory and authorized actions that the corporate stated affected operations at a website able to receiving over 7,000 tons per day.
- “Though Chiquita has obtainable airspace, because of the present regulatory setting, sustaining ongoing operations at Chiquita is now not economically viable,” wrote District Supervisor Steve Cassulo in a Dec. 31 letter to the landfill’s neighborhood advisory committee.
- Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger launched a movement asking county officers to report again on the closure’s logistical and monetary implications. This features a request to contemplate potential laws associated to “worth gouging and anticompetitive practices for stable waste disposal.”
Dive Perception:
The landfill’s closure, whereas foreshadowed in latest months, is a major growth for waste infrastructure in Los Angeles County and past. The 639-acre website was the second-largest energetic landfill within the county. It dealt with an estimated 34% of in-county disposal volumes throughout 2023.
Chiquita Canyon has lengthy been the topic of native authorities scrutiny and neighborhood pushback, together with for ongoing elevated temperature and odor points. This resulted in a posh collection of authorized and regulatory actions over a few years, a few of which stay ongoing, as detailed by The Santa Clarita Valley Sign.
Final 12 months, the Los Angeles Regional Water High quality Management Board denied a request to open new cells that might have allowed for enlargement. Additionally, the phrases of a conditional use allow required it to cut back tonnage by half beginning in January. Waste Connections tried to barter a extra gradual discount in tonnage, whereas agreeing to a closure timeline for the positioning, as a part of a 2022 settlement settlement with the county associated to this allow.
“In latest months, Chiquita had proposed a number of choices for addressing the tonnage limitations that might forestall Chiquita from sustaining an economically viable operation. However, the county was unable to completely implement the settlement settlement or present a viable various to deal with the extreme tonnage restrictions,” wrote Cassulo.
Throughout an October earnings name, CEO Ron Mittelstaedt stated the corporate had made “substantial progress” on managing odor points and downplayed the newest spherical of strain from native officers. An investor presentation on the time famous $75 million in “closure-related outlays” throughout 2024 for Chiquita Canyon. The positioning is one in all over 100 landfills that Waste Connections reported proudly owning by way of the tip of 2023, together with a number of in California.
The corporate’s Dec. 31 letter famous it would proceed working with regulators to deal with the elevated temperature difficulty and different necessities.
“Because the company liable for regional waste planning in Los Angeles County, we’ll guarantee there are not any disruptions to trash assortment companies in our unincorporated communities and can work carefully with the Metropolis of Santa Clarita to assist forestall any disruptions to their companies as properly,” stated L.A. County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella in a press release to native media.
Whereas native jurisdictions are working to scale up organics recycling techniques, as required by California’s SB 1383 legislation, the area nonetheless has substantial disposal volumes to handle. The market additionally has comparatively tight disposal capability, on account of final 12 months’s closure of an incinerator in Lengthy Seaside and different components.
Barger’s movement famous that close by websites, equivalent to Republic Providers’ Sunshine Canyon Landfill, are at present working “close to capability” and warned that Chiquita’s closure might “profoundly alter” the broader area’s disposal panorama as volumes begin shifting elsewhere.
“Even with mixed obtainable day by day disposal capacities on the Palmdale, Lancaster, and Simi Valley Landfills, logistical challenges stay important,” wrote Barger, citing issues equivalent to elevated emissions from truck visitors and better prices to ratepayers.
Barger’s movement is at present scheduled for dialogue at a Jan. 7 assembly of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.