Browning Ferris Industries Inc

Sunshine Canyon Landfill's operators, as well as its opponents, have filed petitions challenging a regional water board's decision to allow the dump to expand into Granada Hills, officials said Friday. The filings could extend a decadelong battle among residents, politicians and landfill owner Browning-Ferris Industries over a plan to develop a 450-acre landfill within the Los Angeles city limits in the north San Fernando Valley.

Adding another wrinkle to a decades-old controversy over a giant dump in the north San Fernando Valley, the state has approved a request by the operator of Sunshine Canyon Landfill to step in and oversee enforcement of waste laws at the facility until a city-county joint agency is approved. Sunshine Canyon is actually two landfills roughly a quarter of a mile apart, which puts them in different jurisdictions: one in the city of Los Angeles, the other in unincorporated county territory.

Overruling an earlier decision by regional planning commissioners, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 on Wednesday to approve a new operating permit for the controversial Sunshine Canyon Landfill while also calling for a possible end to dumping at the site after 30 years.

Browning-Ferris Seeks to Pick Up Rival: The $573.5-million takeover bid by waste management firm Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. of Houston is the largest in the waste industry in a decade. Struggling British waste group Attwoods slammed the hostile bid as "opportunistic." Announcement of the offer was swiftly followed by word that Attwoods' largest shareholder, Canada's Laidlaw Inc., accepted Browning's bid of $208 million for its holding of Attwoods ordinary and preferred shares.

A former Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. official has agreed to acquire Browning-Ferris' controlling 52% interest in American Ecology Corp., an Agoura Hills hazardous waste disposal company. Harry J. Phillips Jr., who is also the son of the chairman of BFI's executive committee, will purchase the American Ecology stake for $16.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The interest being acquired by Phillips includes $22.

Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., owner of the controversial Sunshine Canyon Landfill north of Granada Hills, said a state appellate court decision last week increases the likelihood that the landfill will reopen. Sunshine Canyon has been closed since September, 1991, when its operating permit expired.

The county Regional Planning Commission voted Wednesday to deny a new permit that would allow the county and city sides of Sunshine Canyon Landfill to operate as one dump. The final decision, which Browning-Ferris Industries is likely to appeal to the Board of Supervisors, means the landfill will continue operating under separate permits and conditions. Panel members voiced concerns about the lack of deadlines for closing the landfill and about its negative impact on traffic.

Citing traffic congestion and other concerns, the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission voted Monday to deny a permit for Sunshine Canyon Landfill to combine its county and city operations. The landfill, operated by Browning-Ferris Industries, currently has separate permits from the city and county.

Despite lacking a plausible alternative for disposing of more than 900,000 tons of trash each year, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday did not pass a contract option to continue dumping garbage at the Sunshine Canyon landfill above Granada Hills. The council wanted one more day to try to renegotiate aspects of its agreement with Browning-Ferris Industries, the landfill's owner, to dump trash there from July 1, 2006, until mid-2011.

Los Angeles Councilman Greig Smith proposed new laws for neighborhood councils Friday in a bid to control the lobbying that he said had popped up at that new level of government. Smith wants to require people who are hired to lobby the councils to register with the city and to prohibit these registered lobbyists from sitting on neighborhood councils.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday calling for state water regulators to reject a request by Browning-Ferris Industries to remove two provisions from its permit to expand Sunshine Canyon Landfill into Granada Hills. The resolution was introduced by Councilman Greig Smith, who represents that area, and was forwarded to Mayor James K. Hahn's office. The two provisions were included in a permit approved by a regional water board Dec. 4.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn has asked state water regulators to reject a request by Browning-Ferris Industries to remove two provisions in its permit to expand the Sunshine Canyon Landfill into Granada Hills. The provisions provide some added protection to the health and safety of residents near the landfill, Hahn wrote in a letter to Arthur Baggett Jr., chairman of the California State Water Resources Control Board, which will hear the petition.

Local and regional water suppliers, along with the Environmental Defense Fund, announced that they will file suit today in Los Angeles County Superior Court to try to block the controversial expansion of an Azusa landfill that sits atop the ground water supply for the San Gabriel Valley.

Allied Waste Industries Inc. won federal antitrust clearance for its purchase of Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. after agreeing to sell waste collection and disposal operations in 13 states. The Justice Department said the $9-billion deal as originally proposed would have been anti-competitive, resulting in higher prices for waste services to residents, businesses and government entities. Houston-based Allied Waste is the U.S.' second-largest garbage hauler, and Scottsdale, Ariz.

Sunshine Canyon Landfill's operators, as well as its opponents, have filed petitions challenging a regional water board's decision to allow the dump to expand into Granada Hills, officials said Friday. The filings could extend a decadelong battle among residents, politicians and landfill owner Browning-Ferris Industries over a plan to develop a 450-acre landfill within the Los Angeles city limits in the north San Fernando Valley.