The L.A. County Board of Supervisors is set to discuss how waste-management operations will be impacted by the sudden announcement Tuesday of Chiquita Canyon Landfill’s plans to close that same day.  A motion by 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger mentions “the immense challenges” the facility has posed to the community with its pollution problems, but also the significant role it played in handling more than one-third of the county’s waste, around 2.8 million tons in 2024.  Barger said in a news release this week that she’s been working on the situation for months.  “This is a significant change for our community and brings a responsibility to carefully assess its impacts on residents, businesses, and our regional waste management system,” she wrote Tuesday.   She’s calling for a comprehensive examination of the closure’s effects on waste disposal, including environmental considerations and the community’s health. A study into claims of cancer clusters stemming from the neighborhoods surrounding the landfill is underway by the county’s Cancer Surveillance Program.   The county released a list of alternative waste-management facilities in response to a request by The Signal in September.  The list shows only Sunshine Canyon, which is adjacent to the Newhall Pass and described as “near capacity” by Barger, having anything close to the daily capacity permitted at Chiquita, around 12,000 tons. Chiquita had been receiving closer to 7,000 tons daily last year, according to county officials.  The news set off a number of different reactions earlier this week, ranging from relief to questions about where the waste will go and how the landfill will proceed with its obligations to impacted residents now that there’s no financial incentive to continue operations.  “My community has been suffering for far too long,” said Jennifer Elkins, a neighbor of the landfill who’s one of 2,000 suing the facility over its pollution and the alleged health impacts. “The closure of the Chiquita Canyon Landfill is a step in the right direction and will bring relief from fresh trash odors and allow the landfill to focus fully on the bigger issue, which is the reaction site.”  For years, both the county and the landfill resisted closing the facility on the grounds that it would not impact the problem, which was an elevated temperature event in an older, closed section. To date, a task force of local, state and federal agencies has yet to figure out the cause, the duration of the event and how to stop it.   Once Waste Connections was denied an opportunity to expand into newer “cells” inside the landfill by the Los Angeles Water Board, which expressed concerns about the landfill’s response to its current problems as the reason, a countdown to the closure was announced by Barger.   The letter from landfill officials sent out the day of the closure stated that Waste Connections, which owns the facility, considered the operations no longer economically viable.  In a statement announcing her motion, Barger said she was committed to ensuring the changes won’t lead to “any form of price gouging or unfair practices in waste management services.”  Protections must be in place to prevent increased financial burdens on residents and businesses, she added.  Increased costs were part of a warning from Chiquita Canyon back in October, when the landfill threatened the possibility of a lawsuit unless it was given permission to expand into new cells.  Due to Chiquita’s significant intake of waste, the closure will impact “every single resident in every single city and county area of Los Angeles,” according to an October email from John Musella, a spokesman for Chiquita Canyon. He also noted previous disruptions to operations at Chiquita have caused severe delays in the past.  During a heavy rain that washed out the entrance road, he wrote, the landfill closed for two days for repairs, and it took nearly 30 days to return operations to normal.  The information was part of a request by Chiquita for a six-month extension of its code-enforcement compliance. The estimated impact on the average resident was about $8 to $10 per month.   “As the agency responsible for regional waste planning in Los Angeles County, we will ensure there are no disruptions to trash collection services in our unincorporated communities and will work closely with the city of Santa Clarita to help prevent any disruptions to their services as well,” Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works, said in a prepared statement. “The health and safety of our residents remains our top priority.”  Santa Clarita officials said earlier this week that staff members are working on alternatives for disposal with Burrtec, the city’s contracted waste-hauler as of 2023. Those plans are expected to be part of the discussion at the next Santa Clarita City Council meeting, scheduled Jan. 14.   The post County to discuss fallout from Chiquita Canyon closure  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.