Supervisors Extend Hearing on Expanding Toland Road Landfill

Wrapping up more than eight hours of hearings over two days, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors today is expected to decide whether to allow the Toland Road Landfill to expand.

The contentious issue that pits the west county’s waste disposal needs against the rural ambience of the Santa Clara Valley provoked so many requests to address the board Tuesday afternoon--more than 70--that four hours of public testimony were scheduled for this morning.

The hearing began at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday before an overflow crowd of more than 250 in two separate rooms and is expected to conclude at noon today, with a decision shortly thereafter.

Citrus and avocado grower Fred Strickland, one of the leaders of Ventura County Citizens to Stop Toland Landfill, believes that one vote on the five-member board will be the difference. He declined, though, to predict the result.

“I think we’ve presented a reasonable doubt,” he said after the group’s 45-minute presentation, which included charts, photographs and even a model of the dump. “It seems like everybody’s in a hurry. I just hope the board has the wherewithal to rethink.”

The urgency exists because trash must go somewhere once Bailard Landfill near Oxnard closes this summer.

The Ventura Regional Sanitation District wants it sent to Toland, the small regional dump that serves Fillmore and Santa Paula. Some 1,500 tons of west county garbage a day would end up at Toland, more than 10 times the 130 tons it now receives daily.

Opponents want it sent anywhere else, saying the trucks and dust that would accompany an expanded Toland would despoil the agricultural region’s bucolic charms. Some worry that the dump would poison water supplies.

Several on Tuesday urged the board not to rush to judgment. The Ventura attorney representing Fillmore and Santa Paula in a lawsuit over the dump noted that agencies can be held liable for damages caused by projects they approve.

Supporters of the plan reject the environmental concerns. Their consensus is that an expanded Toland would actually be environmentally superior, as well as cheaper, than any other alternative such as trucking the trash to a private landfill near Simi Valley.

The arguments on either side have played out again and again over the last few months, before agencies that have included the County Planning Commission and the sanitation district’s board of directors.

“In the end, there is no technical basis for the objections raised by project opponents,” said Ed McCombs, sanitation district general manager. “They simply do not want this project placed in their backyard.”

Neither do east county residents and government officials.

Several noted Tuesday that their support for Toland is motivated by the desire to prevent a parade of garbage trucks with west county trash from trundling down east county highways on the way to Simi Valley Landfill.

Ventura Councilman Gary Tuttle and Oxnard Councilman Andres Herrera offered sympathy, pointing out their cities had shared Bailard for several years. But, both said, Toland remains the best option.

Only Roy Payne, Fillmore city manager, tried to portray the region’s opposition to Toland as something other than a not-in-my-backyard argument, even though his comments came against a procession of valley residents who did just that.

“This is not a NIMBY issue,” he said, pointing out that the county had failed to adequately plan for a regional dump. “We are not opposed to landfills. We have a landfill. We planned for a landfill.”