Challenge

The Sunshine Canyon Landfill is a high profile, urban landfill located in Sylmar, California, owned and operated by Republic Services, Inc. Due to the landfill’s urban location in a suburb of Los Angeles and high volume of waste, odor has been an issue and abatement solutions were complex to implement, and the landfill has also required a variety of expansions and updates over the years as a result.

Solutions

The GLA team has provided a variety of planning, permitting, geotechnical, environmental, and construction services to support the ongoing operations at the Sunshine Canyon Landfill. GLA has provided design, planning, and construction quality assurance (CQA) services for a variety of expansion and operational projects for nearly 20 years and over multiple phases of expansion. Most notably, GLA has been involved in the Master Planning for multiple projects at the landfill including a new operations and administrative center, and design and construction of a new scale facility. We also prepared the Master Plan, engineering, design report, plans, and specifications for the western drainage channel.

GLA has been heavily involved in the expansion of the landfill. We were involved in the preparation of expansion in the CC-4 area of the landfill, providing geotechnical investigation services that were used to revise the joint technical document master grading plan and develop new grading plans. We have been the design firm for the CC-4 Parts 1, 2A, and 3 composite liner systems. We continue to provide environmental monitoring and reporting for the area.

When all filling operations were moved from the CC-3 to the CC-4 area of the landfill in 2016, GLA was also responsible for CQA for the cover of the CC-3 area. GLA provided CQA over the placement of the ClosureTurf cover for the first area of 21 acres and designed the cover for the remaining 4-acres in 2017. We have also provided CQA services for many other expansion and operational projects, such as the first phase of the new site entrance facility, the construction of the composite liner systems for several expansion cells and the east drainage channel, and during construction of Flare 9 and 10.

Results

Due to our long-term planning, design, and CQA services over multiple areas of the landfill, the Sunshine Canyon Landfill has gone through multiple, successful expansions, meeting all regulatory requirements. Our work has ensured that the landfill is sustainable and safe for the environment and human health in the busy, urban area. Our work on the cover of the CC-3 area was so successful that the ClosureTurf cover was unscathed during the Saddleridge Fire that tore through the landfill in October 2019. Our work has been so successful for Republic Services that they have recently awarded us with design for a complicated entrance facility at the landfill.