WM general manager wants to clear the air

I want to set the record straight about our company and our work in Simi Valley and throughout the county.

GI Industries and Simi Valley Landfill are locally managed and operated. We are made up of more than 250 employees, including office workers, mechanics and drivers like Camilo Mendez, who has picked up your trash since 1987. Our employees in Simi Valley also include Marilyn Farnsworth, who has answered your customer service questions since 1972.

We are also part of Waste Management, a nationwide, Fortune 200 company that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. As such, we are governed by all of the local regulations that apply to local businesses and by strict federal regulations, including Sarbanes Oxley Act disclosure laws.

WM has a strict code of ethics to protect our communities, employees and investors. In the mid1990s, we were concerned and embarrassed when many top officials in WM were criminally prosecuted. None of the former corporate leadership of WM currently works for WM.

Our first commitment is to Ventura County and the cities in the county.

However, WM is not subsidized by your tax dollars, like the Ventura County Sanitation District. We are challenged with blending our responsibility to our local communities with our responsibility to our shareholders and employees to be profitable.

Our challenge is made greater by the expense of complying with state, local and federal regulatory and environmental requirements. More than 10 government agencies regulate our facility.

Intense regulatory requirements, however, mean that today's modern landfill is environmentally vastly superior to the local dump of our memories. Consequently, the high cost and technical sophistication necessary to operate today's landfill have led the smaller operators to get out of the business. The days of local municipal dumps are gone.

Today, landfills are better, but there are fewer of them. Those that remain must serve a larger geographic area. For host communities, this can present challenges that should be addressed. On the other hand, business from other areas helps offset some of the new expenses.

WM has been able to maintain reasonable prices and provide guarantees for disposal to Simi Valley and other local communities.

In 1999, we signed an agreement with the city of Simi Valley in which the city agreed to support a limited landfill expansion in 2002.

We never intended this agreement to apply to future expansions. (Recently), to make sure everyone knew our intentions, we instructed our attorney to write to the city to clarify our understanding. You can view that letter on our website, www.keepingventuracountyclean .com.

I hope I have addressed some questions that have come up about Waste Management. Please contact Scott Tignac, our landfill manager, at (805) 579-7478 if you have more questions or would like a tour of the landfill. Mike Smith Market area general manager Waste Management of VC