By Eddie Cota

Whittier's landfill is getting close to running out of room, and on July 14, the City Council approved the next phase of construction needed to keep it operating.

The council signed off on three things: a construction contract worth up to $6.2 million to build more dumping space, a $408,076 contract to inspect that construction, and a fee increase that raises the cost of dumping trash at the landfill for the next two years. Together, the two contracts commit more than $6.6 million.

All three passed as part of the meeting's consent calendar, a bundle of agenda items considered routine enough to approve together in one vote, without individual discussion. No one pulled any of them out for a closer look, so none were debated on the record before passing. 

The city's own paperwork doesn't fully explain how the construction will be paid for — part of the money isn't there yet, and the rest is expected to come from a loan whose terms aren't in the record.

Why the city is building now

Savage Canyon Landfill is owned and run by the City of Whittier. Before trash can go into any new section of the landfill, state regulators require the city to line it with a waterproof barrier that keeps landfill fluid from reaching groundwater. Building that lining for the next section is the work that just got approved.

The city finished lining the last section on February 12, 2019. Staff reports say that section created about five years of dumping space, plus roughly three and a half years of leftover space elsewhere at the site. Counted forward from 2019, that points to the landfill running out of room sometime around 2027.

The city's documents do not say how much room is left today, or how many years the new section will add. The landfill is permitted to keep accepting trash until sometime in the 2070s, but only if the city keeps lining new sections as the older ones fill up. This one will not be the last.

One bidder, one proposal

The construction work went out for competitive bidding. One company bid: Sukut Construction, LLC, at $5,646,775. The staff report notes Sukut has worked at the landfill before. It does not say how many contractors were invited or why only one responded.

The inspection contract followed the same pattern. The city sent requests for proposals to three firms: Tetra Tech, SCS Engineers, and Geosyntec Consultants. Only Geosyntec responded.

The firm that designed the project will also check the work

Two separate jobs are involved here, and one company is doing both.

The first job was drawing up the plans. The city hired Geosyntec Consultants on October 24, 2023, to handle design and permitting for the new section. Geosyntec prepared the design drawings, the technical requirements the contractor has to build to, and the plan for how the finished work gets inspected. State regulators at the Regional Water Quality Control Board reviewed and approved that design in February 2026.

The second job is the inspecting. That's the contract approved on July 14, and it also went to Geosyntec. Over the course of construction, the firm will test materials, watch the work, and at the end certify that the landfill was built in general accordance with the approved design.

Spending that does not need another vote

Two provisions let City Manager Conal McNamara, acting as the landfill authority's executive director, approve additional spending without returning to the City Council for approval.

The construction contract includes $564,677 in contingency money for unexpected costs, and the vote already authorized McNamara to release it.The Geosyntec contract works similarly. If the city asks for work beyond what the contract covers, the added fees are capped at about $102,000, and McNamara can approve that himself without another vote.

Together that is roughly $667,000 that can be spent at the city manager's discretion, without a further vote.

Where the money comes from, and does not

Both contracts pull from the same city account: the Solid Waste Disposal Fund's Back Canyon account.

For the $408,076 inspection contract with Geosyntec Consultants, staff wrote that the money is already there.

For the $5.6 million construction contract with Sukut Construction, staff wrote that only part of it is, and the rest will come from a loan of about $2.5 million that still needs approval at a future meeting. The documents don't say where that loan would come from, what interest rate it would carry, or how it would be repaid.

Whittier Informed asked Deputy City Manager Kyle Cason how the city plans to repay that loan. Cason did not respond.

The fee increase, and what it covers

The board also approved higher fees for dumping at the landfill, going up 5% in each of the next two years. Here's what changes:

• Regular trash: $61.45 a ton now, $64.55 starting July 1, 2026, then $67.80 on July 1, 2027
• Concrete, dirt, and other inert material: $48.84 a ton now, $51.28 in 2026, then $53.85 in 2027
• Bulky items: $70.67 a ton now, $74.20 in 2026, then $77.91 in 2027
• Residential dumping permit: stays at $42
• Saturday residential rate: stays at $20 a load

The city's own resolution says these fees exist partly to pay for building liner expansions, which is exactly the work approved that same night.

Three things about the increase are worth knowing.

First, trash from outside Whittier gets a better deal than trash from inside it. The fee for "foreign trash," waste hauled in from other cities, stays frozen at $61.45 a ton for both years. So by July 2027, dumping outside trash here will cost $6.35 a ton less than dumping Whittier's own. Whether the landfill takes that outside trash depends on available space, and it needs sign-off from Deputy City Manager Kyle Cason.

Second, the increase doesn't come close to paying for the construction it's meant to help fund. The city expects it to bring in roughly $200,000 more the first year and $210,000 the second, against contracts totaling more than $6.6 million.

Third, this reaches past the landfill gate. Since 2017, the dumping fee has been one factor in how the city's franchise haulers set residential trash rates. Athens Services, a longtime hauler here, works under its latest agreement with the city, which started November 1, 2025, and the city says Athens needs both years of these disposal costs to calculate and propose its rates. What the documents don't say is how much of your bill that actually accounts for, or when any change might show up.

Both years were approved in one vote, so the second increase in July 2027 happens automatically. No second council vote, no additional chance for public comment.

What happens next

Construction is expected to take about 110 working days once it begins. Geosyntec's schedule anticipates finishing its final inspection report by February 2027, and the firm's contract runs through January 2028. That report, certifying the work was done according to the approved design, goes to the city and to state regulators.

The environmental review covering this construction dates back to 2001. On April 24 of that year, the city adopted what's called a Negative Declaration, a formal finding that a project won't cause significant environmental harm. No update to that review is mentioned in the city's documents.

The work itself is substantial. Crews will dig up about 51,500 cubic yards of soil and set aside roughly 41,500 cubic yards of it in stockpiles.