AQMD Abatement Sunshine Landfill • Article - The San Fernando Sun

Posted on 03/21/2025

South Coast AQMD Approves Abatement to Reduce Foul Odors from Sunshine Canyon 

Approved odor-mitigation measures won’t stop trucks from hauling fire debris to Sylmar landfill, which began despite community protests, marking the latest ‘betrayal’ against local residents

CREDIT - by Maria Luisa Torres, San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol March 19, 2025

About two dozen people attended the March 13 meeting of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill Community Advisory Committee, where they discussed community concerns, including odor issues and fire debris disposal. (SFVS/el Sol Photo/Maria Luisa Torres)

During a March 19 hearing, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) hearing board voted to approve an order to abate the stench of trash from Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Sylmar permeating nearby neighborhoods. The facility will be forced to implement multiple measures to help local residents breathe a little easier.

But Granada Hills resident Erick Fefferman believes any changes they make will be sorely lacking.

“I’m sure that they’ll implement some mitigation measures that are going to be too little and not enough,” he told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol. Fefferman and several of his neighbors attended the abatement order hearing against Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc. (BFI) – a subsidiary of Republic Services, Inc., which owns and operates Sunshine Canyon – held at the Diamond Bar headquarters of South Coast AQMD.

“Then we’ll have to go back in front of the abatement hearing board at a later date so that those measures can hopefully be increased,” said a frustrated Fefferman. He cited Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic as a cautionary example – its owners ceased operations in January due to an “underground chemical reaction,” which is smoldering and creating noxious odors, leading to growing concerns about its potential impact on the health of nearby residents.

“They spent three years, during five different abatement board hearings, trying to get that [landfill] under control, because the measures that AQMD recommended to the board were too weak,” he explained. “Why don’t we just skip ahead to the measures that were implemented after abatement board hearing number five and put those in place at Sunshine Canyon? … Why not just be bold and aggressive, and implement strong mitigation measures right now?”

Adding to the years of mounting frustrations and increasing complaints against the landfill – which has had 17,146 odor and dust complaints and 378 notices of violation since 2015 – is the latest “betrayal,” said Fefferman: the facility started accepting debris from Los Angeles fire zones last month, despite protests and hundreds of letters against the dumping of fire waste locally.

According to the Sunshine Canyon Landfill Local Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is leading Phase 2 of the fire debris cleanup. They selected Sunshine Canyon and other LA landfills with “composite liner systems” (to prevent groundwater contamination) – including Calabasas and Lancaster – from a list created in 2020 by the California State Water Resources Control Board identifying landfills acceptable for disaster-related waste, including fire debris.

But Fefferman faults the LA County Board of Supervisors, especially Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents Granada Hills and Sylmar. Because Sunshine Canyon straddles the border between both, residents on both sides are negatively impacted by the landfill every day.

Regardless, last month all five supervisors voted unanimously to allow Sunshine Canyon to expand its operating hours and accept nearly 3,000 additional tons of waste per day for at least 120 days. That decision, said Fefferman, “gave them the green light to make more money.” 

“BFI Republic [is] not in the business of servicing the people; they’re in the business of maximizing value for their shareholders,” added Fefferman. “So if that had been denied … the incentive to accept this hazardous debris would have been removed or at least reduced.

“So the Palisades being able to heal and rebuild means that … my family has to suffer and potentially be poisoned by toxins that are being trucked into my neighborhood,” he continued.

Landfill Impacts Quality of Life

But long before Fefferman and his neighbors heard the infuriating news that Sunshine Canyon would be used for the disposal of fire debris, the landfill was already affecting the day-to-day lives of Fefferman’s whole family, including his wife and their two young sons, ages 3 and 7.

“In the morning [before] I take out my dog, I open the door [and] sniff the air to see if I’m going to be able to be outside with my dog for a period of time … or just have to hustle him back inside the house,” he said, noting that the frequent putrid odors “prevent us from using our backyard … [to avoid] the assault of all these smells and the uncertainty about what our kids are breathing.”

When Fefferman and his wife decided to buy their home in Granada Hills in late 2017, they knew there was a landfill nearby, he acknowledged. But he was also aware that the facility had been the target of complaints, violations and lawsuits for numerous years, and was under an abatement order to “mitigate the issues … [and] seemingly come back into compliance.” 

“So I felt that the risk of that happening again was pretty low,” recalled Fefferman.

Unfortunately, he said, that wasn’t the case. Fefferman said they were even forced to switch their older son to another elementary school a few miles further away to limit his exposure to the fetid odors that ebb and flow during the school day.

“My son used to go to Van Gogh Charter, which is only a couple blocks away from our home, which is a wonderful school,” he said. “Unfortunately, during the two years that my son went there for TK and kindergarten, that’s when the emissions and odors from Sunshine Canyon Landfill really started ramping up. And there would be mornings [when] I was walking my son to school [and] both of us were gagging because the smells and the stench were just so strong.” 

Fefferman said he’s incredibly worried about any potential health risks to his family, and noted that the LA County Department of Health “has refused to do a comprehensive health study for decades, despite the community asking for one.” Fefferman, who is asthmatic, said his asthma attacks have been increasingly severe; he even ended up in urgent care because he was coughing up blood. In addition, one of his sons suffered recurring double ear infections for months.

Although there’s no way to definitively determine if environmental factors have triggered or contributed to their health struggles, Fefferman stressed that doctors “can’t rule it out either.”

Looking Ahead

During this week’s abatement hearing, the hearing board listened to evidence in the case against BFI, including expert testimony and oral and written statements by affected community members. 

Dozens of mitigation activities were proposed by area residents and a professional consultant to help reduce existing odor issues, including: reducing daily waste disposal limits; reducing operating hours to avoid early morning and early evening wind patterns; prohibiting the unloading of transfer trailers before 9 a.m.; reducing sources of sulfur and other chemical compounds; and using a misting fence to help control dust and odors.

A previous abatement order against the landfill in effect between 2016 and 2018 led to a substantial decrease in odors, dust and other complaints being reported by affected residents.

“Of course, we all hope that [a new] abatement order will cure the odors, but Republic [Services] has it all figured out. They take us all for fools, and in the future, after there is hopefully a decrease in odors similar to the last order for abatement, they will return to past bad practices and once again pile up violations,” said Wayde Hunter, who has lived in Granada Hills since the early 1970s and is president of the North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens, Inc.

Hunter said it’s a cyclical pattern for the Sylmar landfill. He believes BFI deems any abatement order as the “cost of doing business” and will eventually revert back, “allowing them to accept another 10 million tons of municipal waste and gross another billion-plus dollars in revenue.”

Fefferman said he hopes more people will realize that even if they don’t live near Sunshine Canyon “emissions from that facility are being spread over the entire North San Fernando Valley, and, when the wind patterns change, it’s blowing up into Sylmar and Santa Clarita.”

“Even if they don’t smell it, they are being exposed to it,” he said, “and the only way anything is going to change is if enough people rise up and say, ‘Enough is enough.’”

CREDIT - by Maria Luisa Torres, San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol March 19, 2025