When Meg Volk and her husband Ron moved to Granada Hills with their infant son in 1991, Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Sylmar had recently been shut down. In its place, they were told a nature reserve would be created. But whether that was a pipe dream or merely a rumor spread to prospective homebuyers, it never materialized, she said.
Instead, the closure turned out to be temporary. The landfill reopened in 1996, amid expansion plans and promised funding for environmental and community programs. Those programs also failed to materialize.
She would later learn that before the short-term shut-down, neighbors and environmentalists had frequently protested against Sunshine Canyon for creating noxious odors, excessive dust and heavy truck traffic.
The problems have continued now for decades, said Volk.
Just like all those who lived in the area before them, residents in Sylmar, Granada Hills and surrounding neighborhoods routinely report the strong odors and dust from Sunshine Canyon to the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), which investigates complaints.
Many have even filed lawsuits citing rancid fumes from rotting waste.
During the summer months, when the odors are especially bad, Volk and her husband often feel like hostages in their own home, as the heavy stench of garbage drifts down from the landfill. Sometimes the putrid smell outside gets so bad “we can’t even open our bedroom windows at night to let the house cool off,” she said.
In 2024 alone, Sunshine Canyon had 2,187 complaints and 65 notices of violation, both new record highs for the landfill. But neither the residents’ complaints nor the documented violations have brought action to generate a solution.
Insult Over Injury
Now the problems have been compounded for nearby residents: Sunshine Canyon is receiving debris from the Los Angeles wildfires. Adding to the community’s outrage, the transports began furtively, without public notification – despite weeks of protests, hundreds of letters to city, county and state officials, and a Change.org petition against the proposed dumping of potentially hazardous fire waste so close to their homes.
Trash trucks from the fire zones started rolling into Sunshine Canyon on Feb. 24, one day before the LA County Board of Supervisors (BOS) was set to hear public comments from concerned community members, and vote on whether to increase daily waste disposal limits at the landfill, noted Volk.
Residents lined streets in protest the day before the vote and traveled to downtown LA for the supervisors’ meeting to urge them to consider their plight. They felt confident their supervisor, Lindsay Horvath, understood – at the meeting, she asked a lot of questions and appeared empathetic. But ultimately Horvath voted against them and joined the rest of the supervisors in a unanimous decision to go forward to allow fire debris to be dumped at the Sylmar landfill.
Following the meeting, they felt misled – all of their efforts to organize and communicate with their representatives didn’t matter in the end.
“It’s all about profit over the health and welfare of the community, including the children with growing lungs that are playing outside [their homes] and on school playgrounds, who are dealing with all of the odors and whatever toxins are blowing through the air every day,” said Volk, whose Granada Hills home is less than a mile from the site of the Sylmar landfill.
Residents thought their strong protests and testimony would matter. When she first learned that Sunshine Canyon was one of three LA landfills slated to receive fire debris despite its ongoing problems, Volk organized a protest about two miles from the landfill outside Van Gogh Charter School in Granada Hills to inform parents and the community.
“When we heard that they were already taking debris to our landfill, which already has such a long history of issues, it just felt like yet another betrayal,” she said. “I think [people] were surprised, but not completely.”
‘The Fix Was Already In’
“They were originally scheduled to vote on Feb. 18, [but] because there was such a strong letter-writing campaign and so much pushback from the community … they decided to table it until the following Tuesday,” said Volk. “So there was a whole week that went by where I think the fix was already in; basically, they already knew that they were going to allow the fire debris to be deposited in several of the closest landfills” – in Sylmar, Lancaster and Calabasas.
At the Feb. 25 meeting, Horvath, who represents District 3 – which includes Sylmar, Granada Hills and Pacific Palisades – said it was “not in the purview” of the BOS to vote on whether or not to allow the disposal of wildfire waste at the landfills. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is executing Phase 2 of the fire debris cleanup, they explained.
Instead, the supervisors voted to temporarily allow additional waste to be accepted at the municipal landfills designated to receive fire debris, including Sunshine Canyon – which increased its daily tonnage allowance from 12,000 to 15,000 tons – essentially clearing the way for the landfill to accept Phase 2 fire debris, explained Wayde Hunter, a longtime Granada Hills resident and president of the North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens Inc.
‘Toxic Trash’
“It’s not going into their backyards, so they don’t care about it; we’re the ones who have to deal with it,” said Hunter. He was especially disappointed that Horvath voted with the rest of the board – making the approval unanimous – rather than “showing she cared” about her constituents via a symbolic vote against the waiver, which will allow increased daily tonnage for 120 days.
“I wonder if the shoe had been on the other foot and Granada Hills had burned down, and we were sending our fire debris to Pacific Palisades, with all the movie stars and the high-priced homes, if exactly the same thing would be happening,” continued Hunter. “I don’t think so.”
The community’s concerns about the fire debris coming to Sunshine Canyon isn’t the usual “not in my backyard” pushback, explained Gita Belinsky, who moved to Granada Hills in 1997.
“We never wanted any of this fire debris to go into any landfill located in areas near homes or families,” said Belinsky. “We really do care about these communities [Pacific Palisades and Altadena] and we want them to rebuild, but just not at the expense of our health.”
Robyn Reinhart, who has also lived in Granada Hills since 1997, shared similar concerns, in particular regarding the lack of testing of the fire debris currently being brought to Sylmar.
Instead of testing the wildfire debris for toxic substances, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reportedly removed hazardous waste from the rubble – including pesticides, lithium-ion batteries and materials containing asbestos – along with the top six inches of soil for separate disposal at toxic waste landfills. But Reinhart and the other area residents don’t believe the remaining debris is “suddenly safe” for disposal at regular municipal trash dumps.
“Everything burned – carpets, mattresses, computers – and it’s part of all this ash, which also has chemicals from fire retardants,” she said. “When they’re scooping it up – wearing hazmat suits – how can they really discern if it’s safe, especially with the urgency to get it done so quickly?”
On top of that, stressed Reinhart, Sunshine Canyon is located “on an earthquake fault, next to a wind tunnel [created by the Santa Ana winds] and across the street from LA’s water supply.”
“Those three things are the trifecta of bad reasons to even have a dump here in the first place, and all the more reason we should not be bringing toxic trash here at all,” said Reinhart.
Possible Reprieve on the Horizon
During the early morning hours of March 5, Hunter and Volk learned that South Coast AQMD will be holding a hearing March 19 regarding a petition for an order of abatement against Republic Services, which operates Sunshine Canyon. An abatement order would force them to comply with existing regulations regarding nuisance odors and other operating issues.
Although South Coast AQMD would not have the authority to change existing city, county or federal mandates, such as the waiver facilitating the disposal of fire debris, a future abatement order could eventually force Sunshine Canyon to temporarily reduce its operating hours and daily tonnage allowance, and make other changes. A previous abatement in place between 2016 and 2018 led to a significant drop in odors and dust, resulting in fewer reported complaints.
“It was the only peace we have ever known,” recounted Hunter.
Volk is currently feeling slightly hopeful and said she will continue her crusade against the landfill as long as she lives here. But after residing in Granada Hills for over 33 years, Volk and her husband have decided they’re just about ready to move away and enjoy their retirement.
But before they start looking for a new home, she hopes to pass the baton to a younger generation of residents.
“I’ve been fighting against this landfill for 25 years,” said Volk, who was one of many local residents who staged protests and attended meetings to successfully push through the past abatement order against Sunshine Canyon. “I hope others will choose to continue the fight.”
Editor Diana Martinez contributed to this article.
Get a life. Move to Cleveland?