Say Your Prayers on Dump Measure

The residents of the modest Valley Vista tract near Weldon Canyon are surely saying their prayers already, for big bucks that is, $22,727 for every man, woman and child to relocate if Measure T on the March 26 ballot succeeds and Weldon becomes a 550-acre dump.

In 1994, 22 nuns living near the Bailard Landfill in Oxnard received a settlement of $500,000 from the Regional Sanitation District. Convent residents were “suffering health problems they attribute to the landfill,” a news article said. The nuns had long complained and were hoping for “deliverance” from the sea gulls and their droppings and from the noise, dust and odor of the 180-acre dump. The nuns were to move when receiving the settlement, but could retain their 3.5-acre convent property near Bailard.

One can’t help but wonder if the facilitators of the Weldon Canyon dump and its private operators are prepared to pay $100 million-plus in settlement should Weldon become a giant landfill. What was fair for the nuns is also fair for the Valley Vista residents.

If Measure T succeeds, we must be prepared to pay considerably higher trash fees at Weldon, since any settlement costs would be passed on to us consumers. Perhaps we all should start praying.

MARIA STUDER

Ojai