San Diego

Opponents of a trash-burning energy plant received bad news Monday when the San Diego City Clerk’s office announced that a recount of petition signatures showed a proposed initiative to outlaw the plant had failed to make the November ballot.

The City Council ordered a recount--at a cost of $30,000--after members of San Diegans for Clean Air complained about the methods used to verify signatures on the first review of the petitions.

The first count showed only 48,797 valid signatures, far short of the 54,454 the measure needed to make the ballot. A spokesman for the city clerk’s office said the recount brought the number of valid signatures up to 51,498, but still short of what was needed to qualify.

The initiative hoped to derail a government plan to build the SANDER plant on a 43-acre site in Kearny Mesa. The plant would burn 2,250 tons of trash a day and generate enough electricity annually for 60,000 homes. Opponents of the plant--officially known as the San Diego Energy Recovery Project--said there were too many questions about the health effects from emissions, which would include known or suspected carcinogens like dioxin, cadmium and arsenic.