Had Their Fill : North County Cities Get Together for Action on Dumps as Supervisors Talk

It is the least palatable of issues. Like a whiff of week-old garbage, it has historically prompted elected officials to turn up their noses in disdain.

But, like it or not, trash--or, more specifically, what to do about it--is a hot topic in San Diego County these days, especially in the region’s northern reaches, where booming growth has combined with dwindling landfill space to create a pressing problem.

Now, local officials from cities throughout the North County have joined to take their first tentative steps toward finding a solution to the area’s growing trash troubles.

Spurred by Encinitas Mayor Marjorie Gaines, the community leaders have begun toying with the prospect of forming a region-wide agency to oversee the selection of a site for a landfill to handle the mounting flood of trash being produced by North County residents.

The group first met in August and, since then, the City Councils in Escondido, Del Mar, Encinitas and Solana Beach have offered support for the proposal. Yet another organizational meeting is set for Wednesday.

Financed by Bonds

As Gaines and others see it, a joint-powers authority could be established to run the dump. The agency would sell bonds to finance purchase of a site and then pay off those costs with fees collected from the municipal and private garbage collectors that use the landfill. Aside from acting as a trash dump, the site could serve as a state-of-the-art recycling center, they say.

With the North County’s prime landfill, located in San Marcos, expected to be filled to capacity by 1991, Gaines and other area leaders contend the time to act in now.

Moreover, they grouse that San Diego County officials, who are empowered to handle the region’s trash matters, are moving too slowly to select a site for a new dump in the north. A joint-powers authority established by North County cities could work swiftly, they say, perhaps even opening a dump within two years.

“We could take a little bit of the burden away from the county, assume the responsibility ourselves and plan a project that’s compatible for North County,” Gaines said. “The county keeps on spinning out figures like seven years to site a new landfill. They’ve delayed long enough. Now we’ve been placed in a position with our backs to the wall.”

Nonetheless, the proposal does not enjoy universal support.

Among the opponents to Gaines’ idea are backers of a trash-to-energy plant planned on land at the San Marcos dump. They contend Gaines is pushing her plan simply as an 11th-hour effort to shoot down the trash plant proposal, which goes before San Marcos voters on Tuesday.

“I’m very suspicious about the motives behind Marge’s proposal,” said San Marcos Mayor Lee Thibadeau, a staunch supporter of the trash-to-energy plant. “I have a feeling it’s being pressed by opponents of the plant who want to botch the election, to create another cloud.”

But Gaines and others say a new landfill will soon be needed in North County, whatever the fate of the San Marcos trash plant. Even with the plant in place, the San Marcos landfill is still expected to reach capacity by the mid-1990s because of the ash and non-combustible garbage that must be dumped.

“This is not an either/or situation,” Gaines said. “A landfill has to be found, even if there is a trash-to-energy plant.”

With that in mind, county officials are studying a plan to expand the San Marcos dump into a canyon stretching south from the existing site. But that expansion plan has Gaines concerned. If enacted, it would put the dump precariously close to the Encinitas community of Olivenhain, where the mayor and her family live.

Moreover, Gaines says she worries about the effects of the expanded dump on Copper Creek, which empties into the environmentally sensitive San Elijo Lagoon.

“I think anyone who lives in Olivenhain, or La

Costa, or Elfin Forest, or Lake San Marcos, anyone who lives close to the area they’re talking about has a big stake in it,” Gaines said. “And I’m certainly one of those.”

Though the group being formed by Gaines has yet to take steps to formally establish a joint-powers authority, several city leaders have begun pointing to potential sites for a landfill.

Chief among them is Keys Canyon, a 1,000-acre parcel north of San Marcos near the eastern edge of Interstate 15. With its high canyon walls, acres of undeveloped land and close proximity to the freeway, the site has many of the right ingredients for a landfill, Gaines and others say.

Residents in the area, however, are opposed to the idea of a dump near their homes, saying the canyon is an environmentally sensitive region that deserves to be preserved as is.

“It doesn’t have a prayer to pass muster environmentally,” said Louis Wolfsheimer, a prominent San Diego land-use attorney whose family has owned a 900-acre ranch near Keys Canyon for five decades. “If it got through the county, it would never get through the state or federal reviews. It’s like saying let’s fill Mission Bay and make athletic fields. That’s about how much chance this has.”

Wolfsheimer noted that a study of the site by the county raises grave questions about the use of Keys Canyon as a landfill. The county study notes that a stream runs along the belly of the canyon, creating a situation that poses severe problems for use of the site as a landfill. It also says there is little topsoil available in the area as cover material to bury trash.

Thibadeau said San Marcos officials have qualms about Keys Canyon as well as another site being discussed, a large parcel near Twin Oaks Valley north of his city. If landfills were established at either site, San Marcos would be burdened with increased traffic congestion as garbage trucks navigated the city’s streets on the way to the dumps, he said.

Moreover, Wolfsheimer speculated that the profit motive may be involved in the push for a landfill in Keys Canyon. He said that former Oceanside Councilwoman Melba Bishop, who is representing the canyon’s owner in the landfill negotiations, “has a piece of the action and is trying to hustle the site.”

Indeed, Bishop acknowledges that she approached Gaines a month ago about forming a joint-powers authority to run a landfill in North County. But she insists the idea was spurred by the need for a new landfill, not her zeal to see Keys Canyon selected. In addition, Bishop said that she currently is not being paid for her work to push the canyon property.

“I think Keys is the best site and the one most likely to come on line quickly,” Bishop said. “It has a lot going for it. But I certainly feel that the joint-powers authority stands on its own merit as a way to site a landfill.”

Long a champion of recycling, Bishop insists that her backing for the joint-powers authority was born out of frustration with the county.

A year ago, a county consultant completed a study on possible sites for a North County dump, ultimately spotlighting three prime locations. Opposition by residents around those sites prompted the Board of Supervisors in August to order another study, this time expanding the area under consideration to include land east of Interstate 15 and as far north as the Riverside County line.

Aside from landfill sites, the new county study will deal with the possibility of establishing a network of regional transfer stations, where garbage trucks can load their collection of trash onto larger semi-trucks that would haul the refuse to distant dumps.

Gaines, Bishop and others contend the county staff has been reluctant to press full-speed ahead with selection of a landfill site in North County because of a “partisan backing” for the San Marcos trash-to-energy plant, which they say staffers saw as the end-all solution for the area’s waste woes.

“The county staff has had all their eggs in the trash-to-energy basket and they didn’t want want any landfill site touted as an answer until that election on Tuesday,” Bishop said. “The trouble is, it’s not feasible to put all your eggs in that one basket. Regardless of trash-to-energy, we need a landfill, and we needed it yesterday.”

But county waste-management officials say they’ve been working hard to find a site for a landfill in North County.

Kathy Lehtola, a program manager with the county solid waste division, said she is “sorry if there is the perception” that staff members have stalled selection of a landfill site in an effort to push the San Marcos trash plant because “I don’t think it’s accurate.”

“Finding a site takes time,” Lehtola said. “It’s a process of refinement. Every aspect is time consuming and deserves the time it gets.”

Lehtola said she could not comment on Gaines’ proposal to establish a North County agency to run a dump, noting that she had as yet not seen “what the proposal is.” She stressed, however, that the Keys Canyon site has been all but ruled out as a site by the county.

“It’s certainly not a front runner and I don’t even know if it’s a runner,” Lehtola said.

Other county officials are taking a wait-and-see attitude about the proposed North County joint-powers authority. Ted Marioncelli, an aide to Supervisor John MacDonald, said the idea “has some advantages.”

“It does have the potential for creating a support group for siting a landfill, and we definitely need that,” Marioncelli said. “Right now, there seems to be nobody out there patting the county on the back when it comes to landfills.”

Nonetheless, Marioncelli said opposition to the proposal could potentially develop among county staff as well as the Board of Supervisors.

“It would take several meetings with the staff before they’d accept the idea,” Marioncelli said. “And there’s some feeling on the board that the Supervisors themselves should accept the responsibility for siting a landfill. Some of them have the feeling that they’d be shirking their responsibility if they delegated selection of a site away to a joint-powers authority.”

But many North County officials contend the Board of Supervisors should see the proposal as a political plus, something that can free them of a tough legislative burden.

“We feel the county should certainly be happy that a number of cities are willing to help them out,” said Margaret Schlesinger, Solana Beach mayor. “When it comes to selecting a site, they won’t have to take the heat. We will.”