Note: the minutes of the meeting are unavailable. As a substitute, following is the content of an article that was submitted to to North Valley Community News.
As you may or may not know Northridge East Neighborhood Council meets every third Wednesday at Andasol Elementary School at 7:00pm. Quite often we have guest speakers along with our neighborhood community agenda. This month we were fortunate to have Greig Smith, City Council District 12, talk about the plans for the local Northridge Park swimming complex and his ideas to handle the City's growing trash dilemma.
This November we will see construction begin on a $4.6 million swimming complex that will enable all members of our community to once again enjoy the Northridge Park Pool. January of 1994 brought massive destruction to many areas of our community and the Northridge Park pool complex was one of them. The true damage to the pool did not show itself until the year 2000 when a major gap was found between the pool and the ground when work was being done to repair the heater. The pool has been closed since. Funding was secured, plans and permits were acquired, and now ground breaking is just weeks away weather permitting. The complex will include two pools, with restrooms, changing areas, and even artificial grass between the two pools. The big pool can be used for swimming events and general fun. The secondary pool will be shallow so young children, disabled, and seniors can safely enjoy a cooling as well when the summer months bring the high temperatures to the Northridge area.
Greig then began a 30 minute talk about his vision for Los Angeles to be at the forefront of technological advancement when dealing with it's trash. He spoke at great length in changing the paradigm from neighborhood landfills to a reuse of waste through expanded recycling and waste to Conversion Technologies. The plan proposes Conversion Technologies, which are combustion-free methods of converting waste into renewable energy,such as ethanol for gasoline, hydrogen for fuels cells or electricity. I think every Board member and Stakeholder in attendance on Wednesday October 19, 2005 left with a feeling of when can we start the program, why hasn't the program already been implemented, and how can I help to get it going today?
I can not emphasize enough how important these ideas are and how long overdue they are. Our city generates too much trash and is running out of room in local areas. We as a community can not continue business as usual and who wants a trash dump in their area? Can we continue to risk our ground water to contamination? Why are we not more aggressive in recycling? Currently we only mandate recycling in our homes but we have many apartment complexes that could be brought into the program. We can reduce our dependence in so many areas as well as generate revenue for the City. Conversion Technology Plants can begin generating enough electricity cleanly to provide up to one third of the City's 20% renewable energy requirement by 2017. Can you imagine that? Our trash providing Clean electricity and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels?
Greig calls his program Recovering Energy Natural Resources and Economic Benefit from Waste for Los Angeles. He refers to this aptly as R.E.N.E.W. LA. Los Angeles has always been a progressive city and with the best media coverage in the world could begin showing other municipalities that we don't have to hide our trash but can showcase it. Greig informed all of us step by step how we can implement the program and even talked about "test plants" locally. Greig showed us plants that exist today in Germany and Japan so it's not some dream for the future. Greig passed out Resource Management Blueprints for the City that he was the Principal Author for. He developed this Blueprint with Consultants and Researchers. This is a fully implementable plan that is here today. Los Angeles currently dumps 3500 tons a day into Sunshine Canyon landfill at the cost of $24.00 a ton. The initial cost for one Conversion Technology plant is $30 million. It is conceivable to allow private development of the plants to avoid bonds and guarantee them long term contracts at a per ton rate cheaper then we pay today. Greig would like to build seven plants around industrial zones in Los Angeles to provide enough coverage for the all of the trash that could not be recycled but was not deemed hazardous waste.
Northridge East Neighborhood Council will update their website soon with pictures of the Northridge Pool Complex, as well as provide more information on programs such as R.E.N.E.W. LA, and Emergency Preparedness. We have an active council with a lot of good ideas on how we can help our neighbors and improve the lives of our stakeholders.
Thomas Baker