Indian Land Again Proposed for Waste Site : Trash: Agreement may have been reached on putting landfill on Los Coyotes Reservation near Warner Springs. It is the third such facility planned for a reservation in the county.

A third San Diego County Indian reservation proposes to build a trash facility, a plan that has divided its own Indian community and put a new twist on the search for a landfill site in North County.

Pittsburgh-based Chambers Development Co., a major waste-disposal company, said it has signed an agreement with the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation near Warner Springs that provides for a 25-year lease to build a 300- to 500-acre solid-waste landfill.

Some Indians, however, oppose the landfill and argue that they were not consulted before the agreement was signed.

Meanwhile, county officials, who have plans to build at least one landfill of their own in North County, have yet to receive details of this newest one, even though it could be built within two years.

The agreement is subject to approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior, said Edwin Wiles, regional manager for corporate development at Chambers. His company was attracted to the reservation because it had heard about the county’s search for a landfill site in North County, he said.

“This is in its initial development stages, we have not done any detailed designs yet,” Wiles said. “We have done a fairly extensive preliminary evaluation, as well as a lot of research on the geology of that specific area.”

Wiles said the evaluation proved to be “favorable and positive” in terms of the geography of the Indian reservation and its compatibility with a landfill.

However, the chairman of the Los Coyotes reservation, home of the Cahuilla and Cupenos Indian tribes, denied having made a landfill agreement.

“There hasn’t been any agreement with the landfill company, we just gave permission to investigate the possibility of a landfill, that’s all,” said Banning Taylor, chairman for the Indians on the reservation.

But officials at the Bureau of Indian Affairs say they have a resolution on file from June with Taylor’s signature that requests approval from the BIA for a landfill on the reservation. About 20 people live on the 26,000-acre reservation, although the two tribes have 125 adult members.

Wiles, too, said his company had an agreement with the Indians on the reservation, allowing them to go forward with the landfill, pending approval from the BIA.

When called back and asked about those reports of an agreement, Taylor again denied having signed such an agreement and hung up.

Taylor declined to say why the Indians would want a landfill on the reservation, but those opposed to the project say it boils down to money.

“They want the money, and they don’t care what happens to the land,” said Katherine Saubel, an Cahuilla Indian who lives in Banning. “These young ones don’t understand the culture and what the land means to us, they just want the money.”

Saubel accused Taylor of signing the agreement without the consent of all the members of the general committee, the ruling body on the reservation.

Saubel said that, about two months ago, Taylor told the general committee that a company had expressed interest in building a landfill, and the committee gave permission for Chambers to take a look at the land.

But, Saubel said, the committee never gave permission for entering into an agreement to build the landfill.

“Instead of asking us what we thought, Taylor made his own decision,” Saubel said. “This is land that’s held by all the tribes, and it has to be a unanimous decision from everybody.”

The proposed landfill is the third planned waste facility in the county on an Indian reservation and the second to surface in the last two weeks. Earlier this month, residents near the La Posta Indian Reservation in southeast San Diego County expressed fear that a proposed hazardous-waste recycling and treatment facility on the reservation would contaminate the underground water supply.

Another proposed landfill, this one on the Campo reservation in southeast San Diego County, is pending approval by federal agencies and may be built as soon as 1992.

Saubel is not the only one surprised by the agreement. Staff members of Supervisor John MacDonald’s office have yet to receive any detailed information on the proposed landfill and do not know what its impact will be on any of the three landfill sites proposed by the county, which includes one near Warner Springs.

“At this point, we don’t have a whole lot of information on it,” said Nancy Allen, aide to MacDonald. “We’re aware that it’s going on, but as to how it would impact county landfills, neither (Chambers nor the county) are that far down the road in planning.”

But Wiles said an extensive environmental impact study could be ready by the end of next year, paving the way for approval from the BIA.

“Assuming that everything proceeds in a favorable fashion, we could begin construction by late 1991, early 1992” and have it completed in six months, Wiles said.

Chambers, the fourth largest U.S. solid-waste disposal firm, with operations in 14 states, saw an opportunity to break into the California market for the first time when it became aware of the disputes over the sites proposed by the county.

“Obviously we’ve been aware of the ongoing process in North San Diego County, and the opportunity developed, and we viewed there to be a need in that area for environmentally sound landfill disposal space,” Wiles said.

The 75-million cubic yard landfill proposed by Chambers would be larger than any of the three sites the county is considering, including the Blue Canyon site near Warner Springs, which would encompass 63 million square yards.

Residents of Warner Springs who opposed the landfill at Blue Canyon have not had time to determine whether or not the objections to the Blue Canyon site--potential contamination of the ground water and the danger to the site’s sensitive wildlife habitat--would apply to the Chambers proposal.

“There’s very little we know about it right now,” said George Vetter, a member of the board of directors for Warner Springs Ranch.

Coincidentally, the county Board of Supervisors today will hold its second public hearing on whether to place three new landfills in North County--one alongside Aspen Road in Fallbrook, a second alongside California 76 and the San Luis Rey River in Pala, and the third north of Warner Springs.

The county staff wants permission to establish the Fallbrook and Pala landfill sites as quickly as possible, and to hold the Warner Springs site in reserve in case it is eventually needed and in the event that the federal Bureau of Land Management eventually agrees to give up the site for a garbage dump.

The Pala Site, known as Gregory Canyon, is now owned by a partnership including Waste Management of San Diego, the nation’s largest trash company. The firm hopes to win county permission to privately own and operate the landfill. County policy now dictates that all landfills be owned by the county, which then contracts with private companies for day-to-day operations.