Riverside County OKs Site for New Landfill : Chosen Location in Dawson Canyon Is 7 1/2 Miles Southeast of Corona; Chino Firm to Be Operator

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors has voted to build a new county landfill near Dawson Canyon, about 7 1/2 miles southeast of Corona, and designated a Chino-based company to develop and operate the site.

The new site--to be called El Sobrante landfill--will replace the county’s east Corona landfill, which is nearing capacity and is scheduled for closing at the end of this year.

Western Waste Industries Inc. of Chino will develop and run the site, at an estimated cost to the county of $9.60 per ton of waste, said Doug Isbell, chief deputy road commissioner.

Fees Will Be Higher

The Riverside County Road Commission operates 15 other sanitary landfills in the 7,243-square-mile county. At 10 of those sites, it charges $5.50 to dump each ton of waste, Isbell said, while operating costs at the other five dumps are covered by a fee added to area residents’ property tax bills.

The new landfill will be much more expensive because “it will be the first site developed under the new (state) water-quality control regulations, which provide stringent controls to protect ground water,” Isbell explained.

In addition, he said, “a portion of the (user) fees will also cover the cost of purchasing and developing the landfill”--costs that previously had been borne by the county’s taxpayers.

Unanimous Vote

The unanimous vote of the supervisors on Tuesday followed the Road Commission’s latest recommendation for a west county landfill near Dawson Canyon. Both Supervisor Melba Dunlap, who represents Norco and part of Corona, and Supervisor Walt Abraham, whose district includes the rest of Corona and Dawson Canyon, voted in favor of hiring Western Waste to operate a landfill at the Dawson Canyon site.

The commission will recommend that the supervisors adjust rates at all county landfills, both to spread the burden of paying for the new landfill and to discourage Corona-Norco area users from taking their waste to other county landfills that cannot afford the burden of additional use, Isbell said.

Officials of Corona and Norco, the cities that will use the new landfill most, had initially favored a site closer to both cities--the Owl Rock Quarry, located northwest of the junction of the Riverside (91) and Corona (71) freeways, near Prado Dam.

Expense Cited

But a “tailing pond” of wastewater from old sand- and gravel-washing operations could make that site more expensive, even impossible, to develop, because of state rules guarding against water table contamination, Isbell said.

Western Waste, which had submitted proposals to run landfills at either site “indicated that because of the critical need to avoid any possible delay in the development of a replacement for the existing landfill, they wish to hold the Owl Rock site for future use,” Isbell said.

The company might develop a dump site for “hard-to-handle materials, such as demolition waste,” in Owl Rock Quarry, he added.