= Chiquita Canyon Landfill officials are once again threatening to sue L.A. County over an agreement the two parties made, the most recent letter stemming from the landfill operators’ concerns over a previously agreed-upon trash-intake reduction.   The letter states the Texas-based operators of Chiquita Canyon agreed to the reduction of waste as part of the terms agreed to with L.A. County in 2017, when the landfill was granted an extension of its operating permit by the county over residents’ protests.  The landfill sued the county over the agreement not long after, which led to a 2022 settlement.  “Specifically, Chiquita Canyon Landfill faces on Jan. 1, 2025, an enormous drop in permitted solid waste volume under the terms of the old 2017 Conditional Use Permit,” according to the letter. “This 50% drastic reduction in capacity will seriously damage solid waste management in Los Angeles County and likely compel the closure of the landfill, undermining vital public infrastructure.”  The landfill has plagued an ever-increasing area for more than a year with its nauseating smells that residents have claimed are linked to a number of health issues. The landfill’s land has a settlement issue, which is resulting in a couple of significant community problems: an abnormally large amount of landfill gas is coming from the landfill; and there are thousands of gallons more than normal of leachate being produced daily, and the landfill doesn’t know exactly what’s causing the problems or how to stop it.   The South Coast Air Quality Management District receives thousands of complaints each month due to the odors emanating from the landfill.  Months of mitigation efforts have done little to stem the smell so far, according to residents who have recently grown increasingly louder in expressing their health concerns.   The landfill’s letter goes on to threaten that a “crisis in solid waste management” will occur if the company is held to the terms that it previously agreed to in the 2017 permit extension.  Fifth District L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement via email through Helen Chavez, her communications director, after a half-dozen local residents came from Castaic to speak during public comment in downtown Los Angeles.  She also said she was looking forward to a community meeting that’s been scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at Castaic Middle School.  “To the community members who provided testimony at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting: I see you. I hear you. To the many more community members who were not able to physically be present, your suffering is not lost on me,” Barger said. “It’s been top of mind for me ever since I first learned about it over a year and a half ago. On Monday, I look forward to having a candid conversation with the community — one that is based on facts, focuses on problem solving and honors the very real suffering that is occurring due to the Chiquita Canyon Landfill.”  Chiquita’s letter to Barger requests a meeting with her and “county leadership to discuss the implementation of the 2022 settlement agreement” regarding waste management.  The agreement has been criticized by opponents of the county’s response to the landfill as preventing the county from properly addressing the problems at the landfill.  A “mutual agreement not to act” was part of that 2022 settlement.   After the Oct. 4 dismissal of a lawsuit filed by residents in an effort to close the facility over pollution concerns, county officials have denied that the “agreement not to act” would prevent them from acting against the landfill.  Barger accused elected officials, including Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, and Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, of playing politics with the issues affecting the residents near the landfill on Thursday night.   A group of residents spoke at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting in support of the recent calls for a state of emergency. An attorney who represents the group, Oshea Orchid, who also sits on the Castaic Area Town Council, also was not immediately available for comment.    Barger penned her own letter last week, in response to residents’ oft-repeated worries about potential cancer concerns from the landfill’s pollution.  The letter asks the county’s Cancer Surveillance Program to evaluate “potential cancer clusters” in the neighborhoods surrounding the landfill.  “The concerns regarding cancer clusters are serious,” the letter states. “Identifying increases in cancer cases and identifying a definitive cause can be challenging. Given your expertise in analyzing cancer trends, we believe your insights will be invaluable.”   An email Monday from John Musella, spokesman for the landfill, warns that, “Every customer in Los Angeles County will see large rate increases” if the landfill closes, and the anticipated increase would be about $96 to $120 per year per household. “In the Oct. 11, 2022, settlement agreement, Chiquita and the county agreed to a gradual step-down in tonnage in exchange for the landfill closing five years earlier, among other concessions. This gradual step-down in tonnage is a cornerstone of the settlement agreement, and its loss will likely trigger dissolution of the settlement and the parties returning to litigation,” according to Chiquita’s letter.  The letter asks the county for several things: six more months for its code-enforcement compliance deadline, instead of the end of the year; for Chiquita Canyon to be able to expand operations within its current footprint, which the county denied earlier this year due to the facility’s numerous ongoing compliance issues; and “the final request is to direct the County Sanitation District of Los Angeles County to immediately begin the process to open the Mesquite landfill, which would provide long-term disposal capacity for the residents and businesses of Los Angeles County,” according to the letter.  The Mesquite Regional Landfill, east of Glamis near the Arizona border, is Southern California’s first operating landfill that is permitted to receive waste by rail, according to its website. It is owned by L.A. County but has stayed dormant for more than a dozen years.  The facility is currently not on L.A. County’s list of potential alternative sites that L.A. County released in response to a request for what sites were being discussed if the landfill should close.  The list includes 10 facilities in the county and eight that are outside its borders.   The post Landfill threatens to sue county over closure talk  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.