New Trash Plant Could Revive Rail Link to East

Plans to build a trash-to-energy plant in the far reaches of eastern San Diego County or in Imperial County could resurrect San Diego’s first and only direct rail link to the east.

Richard Engle, vice president of the San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad, and Richard Chase, president of Taconic Resources Inc., confirmed Thursday a tentative agreement under which the freight operator would haul burnable trash from the Miramar landfill by rail to a proposed Taconic plant to the east.

Chase, who is managing director of a proposed North County trash-to-energy plant near San Marcos, will present a similar proposal to the San Diego City Council “sometime in January,” and expects a favorable response.

Tom Larwin, general manager of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, which owns the SD&IV; trackage and trolley lines over which the trash trains would roll, said that Chase had not approached the agency with his proposal. “But, from what I have heard about it, the plan could bring in the necessary funds to pay for repairs on the eastern line,” Larwin said. The eastern line runs from San Ysidro to Plaster City in Imperial County.

MTDB bought the 153-mile railroad in 1979 as right-of-way for the San Diego Trolley between downtown San Diego and the Mexican border, and from downtown to El Cajon. The eastern 120-mile stretch of trackage, which runs through Mexico for 44 miles before re-entering the United States near Campo, has been closed to through traffic since 1976, because of storm and fire damage.

Engle said that, under the tentative agreement, Chase’s firm would pay freight rates for shipping the trash. That would finance the long-delayed repairs and renovation of the rail line, which once was the route for shipments of grain, gypsum, copper and other products from Arizona and the Imperial Valley to San Diego’s port.

“This plant could reopen the line, which would be a big benefit to the Imperial Valley shippers and the economy,” Engle said. Repairs, estimated at $1 million, have been delayed because there were few prospects of freight revenue on the route that would warrant the repair costs, he said.

Chase said that his firm is proposing to operate a recycling plant near the Miramar landfill where aluminum, ferrous metals, plastics and other reusable trash would be removed, a small amount of non-combustible materials would be sent to the dump and the remainder would be shipped out to the plant to be burned to create electricity, turned into compost or used to produce paper products, “depending on which would be most profitable.”

That plant logically would be built along the SD&IV; rail line, where the San Diego Gas & Electric transmission lines intersect so that trash could be hauled out by rail and power returned on the transmission lines, Chase said. Two such locations are the eastern terminus of the railroad at Plaster City near the Imperial and San Diego counties boundary and at Jacumba in the extreme southeastern portion of San Diego County.

Chase is proposing to build a trash-to-energy plant similar to the 40-megawatt facility planned in San Marcos. The plant would handle 50% to 60% of the trash hauled to the Miramar landfill daily, increasing the life of the city facility, he said.

Because voters approved Proposition H last November, construction of a trash-to-energy plant within the San Diego city limits is impossible, he said, “and this plan is a sensible alternative to the city’s trash problems.”

No Commitments from Agencies

Chase said he has talked informally to city and county officials about his proposal and has looked at possible East County and Imperial County sites for the plant, but has no commitments from government agencies to join in the scheme.

Combustible trash could be hauled at night from the Miramar site in daily 20-boxcar runs to the eastern facility for processing, Chase said, so that trolley service and other freight service on the lines would not be disrupted.

Jack Limber, MTDB general counsel, said that several trash-disposal proposals have been advanced in recent years that would involve restoration of the SD&IV; railroad line, but none had come to fruition. He said that two railroad trestles, a tunnel in the Carriso Gorge area and several sections of track would have to be rebuilt before service of any kind could be resumed.