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March 28
1934 - Bouquet Canyon Reservoir, replacement for ill-fated St. Francis Dam & reservoir, begins to fill with water [story]
Bouquet Reservoir


Commentary by Abigail DeSesa
| Wednesday, Jan 7, 2015

abigaildesesaI have lived in California for 33 years, and I have discovered that our local television news is interested only in shock and sexy reporting. Every day, the news reports on murders, robberies, automobile accidents, celebrities’ affairs and politicians’ shortcomings. How often do you hear about the local, day-to-day things that affect the people living right here? I know I am not finding a news station that reports what is happening at our Town Council meetings. So, I ask myself, why? It is not sexy enough.

The greater area of the Santa Clarita Valley is looking at a life-changing plan for all of the people who live, work, shop and play here. What appears to have once been a localized problem is really not any more. Chiquita Canyon Landfill is proposing to expand to such a massive size that most of the rest of the landfills in the nation will pale in comparison. Did anyone in the greater Santa Clarita Valley sign up to have their hometown be known as the country’s largest landfill? I tend to think not. I know I didn’t.

Now I find this to be a shocking event, and I can’t seem to understand why news stations like KTLA, KABC, KNBC and KCBS aren’t plastering this proposed expansion all over their broadcasts. Then it dawned on me: It is not sexy enough. Trash is not sexy.

Just a short time ago, I remember hearing all about the big uproar in Malibu over the tainted ground at a local high school. They found the soil was contaminated with PCBs and other carcinogens. Well, that was plastered all over every news station. The reporters came out in great numbers and stood in front of this high school, trying to interview parents. Why? Malibu has celebrities. Some of the children at this school are children of celebrities, and that makes it sexy enough to put on the news.

It was determined by all who watched these newscasts that this was not acceptable. Now you do not hear about it, so what happened? It was simple.

They took the contaminated soil and sent it to Chiquita Canyon Landfill.

Now the greater Santa Clarita Valley is home to this soil. Did you know that? I didn’t.

About Malibu High’s Contamination: http://www.laweekly.com/2014-03-20/news/cancer-scare-at-malibu-high-turns-messy/

Report of Malibu High’s Clean Up: http://fipcontractors.smmusd.org/Data/Sites/6/documents/malibupublicnotice/removalactioncompletionreport-1.pdf

“All excavated pesticide- and/or PCB-affected soils were transported to the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, California. A total of 48 truckloads of pesticide- and/or PCB-affected soil were removed from the Site and transported to this landfill. Copies of soil shipping documents, including the waste profile, are provided in Appendix C.”

Two of our children’s schools are less than a mile and a mile and a half away from Chiquita Canyon Landfill. One of the schools is Santa Clarita Valley International, with around 1,000 students. These students come from all over the valley, not just Castaic. Does this mean the children of the greater Santa Clarita Valley are not as important or valuable as the children of the celebrities in Malibu? I guess so.

Before you decide to support the Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion, I suggest you do some homework on what exactly has been going into this landfill. This is just one of many examples I found. It is not just the trash from under your sink here in the valley. It comes from all over Southern California. As a matter of fact, more than 80 percent of what goes in that landfill does not come from the Santa Clarita Valley, and it is not just your dinner scraps. But again, our trash problem is not sexy enough to make the news. You will not hear about it on the 5 o’clock news until it is too late and someone dies or a group of our teachers gets sick with cancer.

If you have taken the time to read this commentary, you can no longer claim you didn’t know. Now you are part of the informed. Do your research and find out what I did. Trash is not sexy.

 

Abigail DeSesa is a 15 year resident of Castaic, 2014 valedictorian of College of the Canyons, and a volunteer turtle and tortoise rescuer.

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11 Comments

  1. Should start reporting about the conditions of some of the streets/Avenues, they are terrible,4X4 vehicles soon will be required to pass through Newhall Avenue towards 14 fwy

  2. Should start reporting about the conditions of some of the streets/Avenues, they are terrible,4X4 vehicles soon will be required to pass through Newhall Avenue towards 14 fwy

  3. Steven Lee says:

    Great article Abigail. The poor do not matter as long as the well to do have a place to dump their trash.

  4. Susie Evans says:

    Dang I guess I lost my sexiness when I moved to Val Verde.

  5. Greg Kimura says:

    I would like to know if the VVCAC was advised of this. For those who don’t know what the VVCAC is, it’s the community advisory committee which was formed as a requirement of the contract with the Val Verde Civic Association and their permit with the county.

    The management at the landfill is suppose to let the VVCAC know when things like this happen, so the community can be informed. I am curious why the contaminated soil was sent to the landfill and the community was not warned.

  6. Dena says:

    Although Val Verde has the greatest risk at this time, it’s not just Val Verde that should be concerned with this. It’s the entire Santa Clarita Valley as well as Castaic residents! They too will be greatly affected and see illnesses and odors start to pop up as this landfill expands. It’s not just a Val Verde problem. It’s an environmental problem for the entire region.

  7. Abigail says:

    Hello Greg – thank you for reading my commentary. I believe you would receive an answer something like we have seen about the other contaminated soils. It has been cleaned and is now “non” hazardous. Again we ask, why not put it back or leave it there then? Why fill up valuable landfill space with dirt if it is so clean?

    For more interesting facts and documents about Chiquita Canyon Landfill take a look at this website http://www.C4CCLC.com

    Thank you for reading and commenting :-)

  8. Leon Worden says:

    It doesn’t even make sense to be contemplating further expansion. Closure in 2019 was a CONDITION OF APPROVAL for the 1997 expansion. The county allowed the 1997 expansion ON THE CONDITION that the landfill MUST CLOSE in 2019. Anything short of closure in 2019 would be a lie — not so much by the landfill (who cares what it wants?) but by the county. I want to believe that we haven’t been living with a lie all this time, and that the county will make the only honest and ethical decision it can make in this case.

  9. David Gauny says:

    Great article and, no, I didn’t know. Funny, but for years we heard how SCV avoided a massive landfill in Elsemere Canyon. Yet it now appears that it is simply relocated. The news stations will not pick this story up until it’s in the final stages of approval and then it will be too late for the informed to do anything. Your call to action now is a good one!

  10. Greg Kimura says:

    Leon has an excellent point. The landfill expansion of 1997 was suppose to be the last one. The county allowed the expansion in 1997 with the condition that closure would occur in 2019.

  11. Thanks so much, Abigail, for this valuable piece and using your voice to shed light on this issue. We must continue to do so.

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