Trash-Burning Plant’s Foes Vow to Unseat San Marcos Officials

One of the leading opponents of the controversial trash-to-energy plant planned for construction here says his organization will no longer try to block the project in court.

From now on, said Jonathan Wiltshire, the Citizens for Healthy Air in San Marcos (CHASM) will turn its attention to politics and work for the defeat of those politicians who have supported the $120-million trash-burning power plant.

Virtually no legal blocks remain in the way of the plant’s construction. Of a handful of court challenges that could have blocked construction, all have been rejected at the Superior Court level and only two remain on appeal.

Wiltshire’s group had taken its legal challenge--in trying to force a public vote on the plant’s construction--as far as the state’s Court of Appeal, where last month the effort was rejected.

Wiltshire said Thursday that he would not appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

“We’ve taken it through the courts as far as is reasonable, given the expenses and the sentiments of the courts so far,” Wiltshire said. “In weighing the time, energy and money that would go into yet another court appeal, versus taking another approach, we have decided we are fed up trying to get the courts to put the power of our environmental destiny in the hands of the people, where it belongs.”

CHASM’s lawsuit attempted to win approval for a special election on an initiative ordinance that, among other things, would have required that the plant be approved by two-thirds of the city’s voters. But both the Superior and Appeal courts ruled that the election could not be held because the initiative election process was not the proper way to overturn an administrative decision of the San Marcos City Council, which granted a special-use permit for the plant.

Wiltshire said CHASM will “now turn political--very political--and put the blame where the blame belongs, on our local elected officials who had the opportunity from the very beginning to recognize the significance of this issue and give the people the chance to vote on it at the beginning.”

He said the group will work to defeat Mayor Lionel Burton and Councilman Jim Simmons, whose terms expire in November, 1986. The group also will campaign against county Supervisor Paul Eckert, whose term expires a month later.

“We are going to work to inform the citizenry on just how poorly they have been represented,” Wiltshire said. But he discounted plans to recall the office holders.

Construction on the plant is scheduled to begin next month. The plant is designed to receive most of North County’s trash. Some of it will be recycled, but most will be burned to drive steam turbines that will generate enough electricity to serve 40,000 households.

County, state and federal health and environmental agencies have blessed the project despite local objections that it will pollute North County’s air and depress local property values.

The plant will be constructed next to the existing county trash landfill on Questhaven Road, not far from the rural community of Elfin Forest on San Marcos’ southern boundary.