Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo Advances Landfill Safety & Transparency Bills to Protect Communities from Public Health Crises

• Furkan Yalcin
• [email protected]

SACRAMENTO, CA - Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo announced today that the Landfill Safety Act (AB 28) passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. For two years the Assemblywoman has worked to refine this legislation that would protect public health, strengthen landfill oversight, and prevent future landfill disasters like the ongoing crisis at Chiquita Canyon Landfill.

The bill comes in direct response to the worsening public health crisis at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill, where an underground fire continues to release toxic and cancer-causing chemicals into nearby communities. Residents living in Val Verde, Castaic, Santa Clarita, and surrounding areas have reported deeply concerning health symptoms, including chronic nosebleeds, migraines, tremors, vision loss, brain fog, difficulty breathing, miscarriages, cancer, and more.

"No one should have to choose between staying in their home and protecting their family, and those around the Chiquita Canyon Landfill are not alone. That's why I authored the Landfill Safety & Transparency Acts - to make sure that our state responds to communities that are facing public health disasters, like toxic landfill gasses, with urgency, accountability, and compassion." said Assemblywoman Schiavo at yesterday's press conference.

Members of the Val Verde and Castaic community members traveled to Sacramento to speak in support of the bills at the commuter hearing and press conference. Val Verde resident José Bobadilla shared his heartbreaking story saying, "My health problems caused me to lose my business because [my tremors meant] I could no longer cook or operate my restaurant. Then, I lost my home. A home I worked so hard to buy. A home I thought I would retire in. A home where I now lost everything I paid into it. Now I am living with my family and depending on them because I am so sick I have become disabled and can no longer support myself. AB 28 will help prevent these landfill disasters from happening in other communities. It will help protect residents' health. It will create a community fund to hopefully help people like me."

The Landfill Safety Act strengthens oversight by:

• Requiring landfill operators to alert and provide temperature data to state, local, and public health agencies when subsurface landfill temperatures persistently exceed 131 degrees.
• Requiring landfill operators to take any action CalRecycle deems necessary to control and resolve unsafe temperature increases.
• Imposing reimbursement requirements that allow state agencies to recover reasonable landfill response costs.
• Triggering the creation of a multi-agency response team, led and selected by the Environmental Protection Secretary, during subsurface elevated temperature events.
• Requiring the local county public health department to conduct a community health needs assessment within 60 days of receiving that recommendation from the multi-agency response team.
• Requiring the local county public health department to hold at least two public health hearings within communities affected by the landfill subsurface elevated temperature event.
• Allowing CalRecycle to impose penalties up to $100,000 a day for failure to alert appropriate state and local agencies or failure to implement corrective actions and monitoring requirements.
• Depositing all penalty funds into the Landfill Subsurface Fire Mitigation Account, which can support affected communities for things like relocation, home hardening, and other impacts from burning landfills.

Impacted residents from Assembly District 40 and across the state traveled to Sacramento to testify (clip begins 2:06:14) in support of The Landfill Safety Act and joined Assemblywoman Schiavo for a press conference following the Senate Environmental Quality Committee hearing. Speakers included Jennifer Elkin of the Val Verde Civic Association, Robert Dresser of the California League of United Latin American Citizens, and Dalila Barajas who has been impacted by landfill toxins in her community.

Passed in that same committee was the Landfill Data Transparency Act (AB 2674), a recently amended bill designed to make sure that landfill temperature and gases data collected as part of the updated landfill methane regulations are posted online for communities and the public to access. Schiavo said, "The community members around Chiquita Canyon Landfill were the canary in the coal mine, raising the alarm to raise concerns about the health impacts they are experiencing. We need to make sure every landfill community has access to this information that can help raise alarms and ultimately keep them safer."

Both The Landfill Safety Act and Landfill Data Transparency Act now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee. If approved, the bills will move to the Senate Floor before returning to the Assembly for final vote and then sent to the Governor's desk for his signature.

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Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo was elected to the California State Assembly in November of 2022 and re-elected in 2024 to represent the 40th Assembly District, representing the Northwest San Fernando Valley, Val Verde, Castaic and the Santa Clarita Valley. Upon her election, she was appointed as Assistant Majority Whip by the Speaker of the Assembly and now serves as Chair of the Assembly Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs. During her first term she brought back a record $100 million district investments in school and community safety, seniors meal programs, veteran housing, domestic violence services and creating local jobs. Prior to her election, Assemblywoman Schiavo was a Nurse Advocate and Small Business Owner who worked in the labor movement for more than 20 years. Throughout her career, Assemblywoman Schiavo helped deliver healthcare, including reproductive healthcare, to more than one million people. In the Northwest San Fernando Valley, she co-founded an organization that helped secure housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness, has delivered more than 50,000 meals to people in need, and increased resources to help keep our communities safe. Assemblywoman Schiavo lives in Chatsworth with her creative kid where they love to hike in the Santa Susana Mountains.