Los Angeles County is turning up the pressure on the operators of the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, ordering them to seal the sprawling dump under a specialized, thick geomembrane cover to trap noxious odors and landfill gases. The move comes after years of mounting complaints from nearby neighborhoods about foul smells and health symptoms tied to a subsurface elevated-temperature reaction that began in 2022. A county hearing board recently refused the landfill’s appeal and left in place a compliance order that sets a firm deadline for full cover installation.
What the county ordered
According to MyNewsLA, the Los Angeles County Local Enforcement Agency, part of the Department of Public Health, prevailed before the Solid Waste Facilities Hearing Board, which voted 3-0 to deny the landfill’s appeal and uphold the county’s Directive 4.1. That compliance measure requires a thick geomembrane cover over the entire facility and sets August 31, 2026, as the target date for installation, including a disputed 66-acre portion of the site. The county’s fact…..