A burning California landfill has made neighbors miserable for 3 years. Can lawmakers help?

For more than two years, Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo’s constituents have been complaining to her about the stench and fumes they’ve been breathing since trash buried at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Southern California ignited and never stopped burning.

Shiavo, a Democrat representing the Santa Clarita Valley north of Los Angeles, decided to spend the night as a guest of one of the 639-acre landfill’s closest neighbors. She wanted to experience for herself what life is like for the hundreds of people who’ve complained about the noxious fumes since the underground chemical reaction started below the Castaic landfill in May 2022. 

It’s not known what caused the chemical reaction, but federal officials say the burn zone has grown underground to at least 35 acres. As the landfill belches a stench like rotten milk, residents allege chemical emissions are making them sick. And it could keep burning for years.

When she arrived in Val Verde, it didn’t take long before Schiavo got a pounding headache. Her skin felt itchy. When she woke up the following day, she was disturbed to get her first bloody nose in years, she said.

“People are getting sick,” Schiavo said in a video diary taken on her phone during her stay last fall. “People are being barricaded in their homes, and not opening windows and doors and not letting kids come out and play on trampolines because they’re afraid of breathing the air. … We have to get people out of here and keep them safe.”

This week, the state Assembly held its first committee hearing for her legislation, Assembly Bill 27, a measure co-authored by six Southern California Democrats that would spare residents from paying taxes on the compensation they have received from the landfill’s owner. The relief fund set up by Texas-based Waste Connections can be used to pay for additional costs such as higher electricity from running air filters and air conditioners and for temporary housing.

Faced with lawsuits from residents and Los Angeles County, Waste Connections opened the fund from March 2024 to February to the residents of Val Verde, Live Oak, Hasley Hills, Hillcrest Parkway, Hasley Canyon and Stevenson Ranch. The company didn’t respond to an interview request, but it says on its website that the payments were expected to exceed $25 million. In December the company said in response to a lawsuit that 1,829 households had received funding.

“In addition, Chiquita has distributed nearly 3,000 air purifiers to local residents at a cost of over $1 million, and has paid to ensure every school near the landfill has carbon filtration in every classroom and multipurpose space,” the company said. 

The company maintains that it has taken steps to try to contain the reaction, but just this week state officials told community members in Castaic that the underground heat zone had expanded beyond a plastic cover over the landfill’s surface to try to contain emissions.

Chiquita Canyon residents seek state relief

Steven Howse, 50, is one of the residents who’s accepted the company’s funds. He told the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee that the money helped make life somewhat more bearable for his family, whose home is just 1,600 feet from the 53-year-old landfill that stopped trucking in more trash late last year.

Howse’s family, like many of its neighbors, claims the landfill’s emissions have made them sick. He said his wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and one of their four children was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease. He said he’s constantly battling respiratory illnesses. 

He didn’t tell the committee how much he received, but said he used the cash for upgrades for his home to “harden” it to prepare for wildfires. He also had to upgrade the home’s air conditioning system and buy new air filters and windows to try to keep the stench out. 

“A lot of times we had to leave the area due to the toxins … because it would be so bad at our house,” he said. “We also used the funds to take our RV trailer out of the area or visit family when we just couldn’t take it any longer.”

Howse has a job in the film industry, but Schiavo said other low-income residents who qualify for state assistance programs have been bumped up to a higher tax bracket after taking the payments.

“The concern has been that if you take those funds, then do you no longer qualify for CalFresh or Medi-Cal? Does it count against you because of that?” she told the committee. “Are you paying taxes now on this when that money comes in and it goes right out to pay for the costs that are associated with living with this disaster?”

Landfill blaze comes amid wildfire budget challenges

It’s no sure bet that the bill will advance to become law. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed two similar bills that would have exempted victims of three wildfires from paying state income taxes on settlement payments from the companies alleged to have started those fires. 

Now the state’s budget priorities are uncertain as officials and lawmakers continue to hash out how to pay for Los Angeles wildfire relief, hostility from the Trump administration and a home insurance and affordability crisis.

The Revenue and Taxation committee didn’t vote for the measure on Monday, instead moving it to the committee’s “suspense file” for further fiscal analysis.

In the meantime, residents aren’t likely to get tax relief from the federal government.

Late last year, then-President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that exempted wildfire settlement payments from federal income taxes, but the landfill’s relief funds don’t count since the Chiquita Canyon Landfill site has never been declared an official state or federal disaster. 

Meanwhile, residents have filed more than 25,000 complaints to local air quality officials since 2023. The South Coast Air Quality Management District and other state regulators have issued dozens of violation notices. In November, the air district ordered the company to create a webpage that includes real-time air monitoring of smelly or potentially harmful pollutants, including hydrogen sulfide, methane, dimethyl sulfide and volatile organic compounds.

As an example of how residents might be breathing potentially toxic fumes, air quality officials noted early last year that local air monitoring data showed that more than one-third of all readings exceeded state standards for hydrogen sulfide, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says can cause eye irritation, headaches and fatigue, as well as potentially causing cancer or be lethal in highly concentrated doses.

Owner Waste Connections faces citations

In June, the U.S. EPA also cited the landfill company for violating various regulations intended to safeguard human health. The company is facing potential  civil penalties of up to $59,114 for each day of violation.

“EPA cannot comment on ongoing investigations, including assessment of penalties,” EPA spokesperson Joshua Alexander said in an email.

Schiavo said that her night’s stay next to the landfill made it clear to her that residents need to get out of there until the trash stops burning. 

She has also authored Assembly Bill 28, which would secure state help for the residents around the landfill to find new or temporary housing until it stops smoldering. The details of that bill are still being hashed out.

“People are in this terrible situation where they can’t afford to leave because housing is so expensive. Now (after the LA fires), it’s almost impossible,” she told CalMatters. 

“And if you sell, who’s going to want to buy it? Then if you’re leaving, you know, you have this moral dilemma. People are like, ‘I don’t want to sell to someone else and then (what if) they start getting sick or their kids start getting sick?’ It’s this horrible situation. We just have to relocate people out of there right now, until it’s safe for folks to go back.”