Indian Waste Site Proposal Draws Ire

A proposal to build a hazardous waste recycling and treatment facility on the La Posta Indian Reservation in southeast San Diego County--the second proposal to build a waste project on Indian lands in the area--has angered neighbors, who fear contamination of the underground water supply, the rural community’s only water source.

However, the project’s developers and a leader of the La Posta band of Mission Indians said the recycling center would be engineered with state-of-the-art technology to prevent any leakage that could ruin well water.

Although Indian lands are outside the jurisdiction of county and state government, the recycling center would comply with all environmental regulations, corporate and Indian officials said.

But nearby residents said they will fight with the usual legal means, and hinted that they might use more radical tactics such as those employed by the group Earth First!

“A man can use his imagination,” said Ed Tisdale, leader of a group that is fighting this waste project and the other proposal, which involves a landfill. “If they keep bothering you and destroying your property and turning this area into a ----hole, then you have to fight back.”

The proposed $35-million recycling facility, which requires federal approval, would be completed within three years and would be built on 30 acres of the 4,400-acre reservation, between Interstate 8 and old California 80. It would be the third hazardous waste recycling and treatment facility in San Diego County. The other two are in Chula Vista and San Diego.

Plans call for the facility to handle an estimated 120,000 tons a year of hazardous and non-hazardous waste from industrial, military, commercial and household sources.

About 80% of the waste would be recycled, 10% would be burned at an on-site incinerator and 10% would be encased in special concrete containers and shipped to a hazardous waste landfill, said William Rickman, general manager for the proposed center. There would be no water discharge or disposal at the site.

The facility would be an economic boon for the La Posta Indians, who would receive an annual land lease payment and a percentage of the revenue from the three companies financing the project: Irvine-based American Waste Recovery; Canonie Environmental Services Corp. of Indiana, and Grace Environmental, a subsidiary of New York-based W. R. Grace Co.

Frank La Chappa, the Indians’ business manager, and corporate officials refused to release details of the financial arrangement between the band and the three companies. Attorneys for both sides began negotiating in 1986, he said.

The recycling center is the second recent development project on Indian land in the southeastern corner of San Diego County, prompting safety concerns among the several hundred non-Indian residents in the rural communities of Boulevard, Campo, Live Oak Springs and Buckman Springs.

A proposed 600-acre landfill on the Campo Indian Reservation this summer weathered grass-roots and legislative opposition, including a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Rancho San Diego). Pending approval by federal agencies, it will be built by 1992.

Rickman, the La Posta recycling center’s general manager, said there is no connection between the Campo landfill and the La Posta facility.

Shere Mann, a spokeswoman for Peace, said the assemblyman was still gathering information about the hazardous waste recycling center and was not available for comment.

Peace’s bill, which passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian last month, will be reintroduced next year. The bill would require some Indian tribes to abide by strict state regulations when planning landfills and similar facilities on their lands. The bill would require state intervention only in cases where there could be a “spillover” effect on surrounding non-Indian lands.

Mann said the assemblyman remains concerned about the sovereignty issue and possible ground water contamination from Indian reservation-based landfills and similar facilities.

However, Maya Rohr, the recycling center’s permits coordinator, said the facility would abide by all environmental restrictions and would allow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to inspect and enforce those regulations.

Ed and Donna Tisdale, ranchers and leaders of the ad-hoc organization Backcountry Against the Dump, which was formed to fight the Campo landfill, are not convinced. The Tisdales said their group strenuously opposes the La Posta project as another threat to underground water. All residents in the area rely on well water.

Ed Tisdale said he refused the recycling center backers’ offer this week to meet privately. A public meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. today at the Boulevard Fire Department.

Earth First!, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups supported Tisdales’ organization in its opposition to the Campo project, and the Tisdales say that support will continue against the recycling center.