County Orders Further Study on Landfill Sites : Trash: Warner Springs location is ruled out, but Pala and Fallbrook are still in the running. Smaller sites near urban areas will also be sought.

Two potential North County landfill sites--one in Fallbrook, the other at Pala--were blessed for further study Tuesday by the County Board of Supervisors, although it voted to drop a site near Warner Springs from consideration.

The supervisors also ordered the county’s Department of Public Works to look for “one or two” smaller landfill sites closer to North County’s population centers.

The Blue Canyon site near Warner Springs was dropped by the board because the federal Bureau of Land Management, which owns the property, has said it would literally take an act of Congress for the land to be available as a dump.

The board’s decision in not rejecting the other two sites sets the stage for more intense environmental scrutiny of them--and for confrontations with, among others, the Marine Corps and a host of other state and federal agencies who already have balked at the sites.

Nearby residents, various environmental and engineering experts, and local, state and federal officials have already complained that all three sites were fraught with environmental problems. Among the greatest--cited again Monday by the San Diego County Grand Jury--is fear that toxins might eventually work their way into the region’s ground water despite the use of a polyethylene liner to contain such leachates.

Marine Corps officials at Camp Pendleton have protested the Fallbrook site because they fear it could spoil the Santa Margarita River ground-water basin, which provides the base with two-thirds of its water. And the County Water Authority has been studying using the San Luis Rey River ground-water basin below Pala as a regional underground water storage basin.

Tuesday, there was no board discussion about the concerns of ground water contamination. Supervisor Susan Golding, who previously indicated she would oppose each of the three sites for that reason, was in Sacramento and missed the meeting.

It was a matter of interpretation whether Tuesday’s action was an implied endorsement of the two sites--one at Aspen Road in Fallbrook, the other at Gregory Canyon, alongside California 76 and the San Luis Rey River, east of Interstate 15 in Pala--or whether they might still be rejected.

At the initiative of Supervisor John MacDonald, in whose district the landfill sites are located, the board voted 4 to 0 to not change the land-use zoning of the two sites to accommodate the landfills, which was the issue before the board. Such general plan amendments are the first step in the landfill approval process.

Instead, the board voted to delay the zoning issue until the county’s staff formally presents--in 18 to 24 months--the final paper work formally requesting a major-use permit that would specifically allow the landfills themselves.

The major-use permit requires a more detailed environmental impact report, and MacDonald argued that, rather than approve a General Plan zoning change now, it would be better to wait until the actual major-use permit comes before the board in 1992, and then approve both actions concurrently. Other supervisors agreed.

MacDonald said that, after the further study, the sites may be dropped from consideration. “We need more environmental impact study on these sites before we completely deny them,” he said.

His vote, he reiterated after the meeting, is not intended to be an implied endorsement of the two sites. But he conceded that, if he lived next to the Fallbrook or Pala site, he would be “disappointed” by the board’s decision, since they are still in the running.

“I would have been as angry as these people are,” he said. “But I think we ought to move forward.”

But opponents of the two landfills complained afterward that MacDonald seemed to be leaning towards their adoption. His tactic, speculated Jack Wireman, a member of the Fallbrook Planning Group, was intended to spare the county of lawsuits that were sure to come if the board had adopted an allegedly flawed and incomplete environmental impact report.

Such lawsuits could have delayed the landfill site selection process and perhaps prompted the county to still look elsewhere for a dump.

But MacDonald said afterward: “That wasn’t my strategy. I just want to consolidate the (environmental impact report approval) process.”

The decision to move ahead on the Fallbrook and Pala sites came after the county staff explained why two other possible landfill sites, on the west side of Interstate 15 across from the Lawrence Welk Resort and an adjoining mobile home park, were not given serious consideration in the selection.

The two sites, said Kathy Lehtola of the Public Works Department, are inappropriate for a variety of reasons, including possible impact on four sensitive plant and animal species, impact on local ground water and nearby residents, and problems in providing freeway access to them.

The possibility of sending trash to Eagle Mountain, a potentially huge dump site in Riverside County, was challenged, too, because of the cost and environmental consequences of transporting trash that far away, supervisors were told.

With that, MacDonald took over the discussion.

“I don’t think any of us have been in a more intensive period, as we have in this process of trying to come to grips with the crisis we have in San Diego County, which is what to do with our waste,” he said.

“For the elected official who is caught between serving his constituents in the majority, and serving the constituents who are most affected by these kinds of things, it’s very difficult to handle.

“I represent 600,000 people . . . and I would be as anxious and irate as you are if I found that the sites for landfills were adjacent to my property or were in my neighborhood or in my region. But we must go forward and try to solve the problem, otherwise the waste that we generate will end up being piled up in the streets.”

Active recycling efforts, he said, aren’t eliminating the need for a new landfill to replace the one in San Marcos, which was recently approved for expansion by supervisors so it can handle trash to the year 2001.

Supervisor George Bailey then suggested--and his colleagues agreed--that the staff look for smaller landfill sites closer to larger population centers where the bulk of the trash is generated. The initial search for a new landfill site in North County was limited to places that could handle at least 30 million cubic yards of garbage.

At that possibility, MacDonald interjected that he could never support the development of a landfill at Merriam Mountain, opposite the Lawrence Welk Resort, because of a pledge of opposition he made to it when he was an Oceanside City Council member in 1982.

But board member Brian Bilbray applauded the idea of using smaller landfill sites closer to urban areas.

“We’re going to have to dispose of trash as close to the neighborhoods that are creating it as possible,” he said. “I’m willing to take on all the neighborhoods of the world that scream bloody murder about trash being sited around their neighborhoods, if it’s their trash.”

And scream they did.

Robert Summers, a leading opponent to the Fallbrook site, said after Tuesday’s action: “To throw more money at sites that have been documented to be deficient by every major governmental and civic organization is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. This (vote to delay the landfill site decision) effectively condemns hundreds of acres of property and families to two more years of nail biting and uncertainty. But they’ve just simply delayed the inevitable, because the Aspen Road site won’t ultimately pass muster.”

Virginia Buonarati, chairwoman of the North County Coalition, which opposed all three sites but which focused most of its opposition on the Gregory Canyon site, said she was “flabbergasted” by the board’s decision.

“The (environmental review) process hasn’t been perfect to this date, so how can we assume that it’s going to be any better? I’ve just gained another year and a half of hard work to do,” she said.

Among those who applauded the supervisors’ decision was Rick Daniels, director of special projects for Waste Management of California, which already owns the Gregory Canyon site in a partnership, with the hope of operating the garbage dump privately.

“We’re pleased they picked the site” for further study, he said. “We’ve already filed for our own major-use permit.”

The company has spent several million dollars in promoting the site as a landfill, but MacDonald warned Tuesday that the company doesn’t necessarily have its foot in the door.

“I’ve told Waste Management time after time after time that they’re spending money at their own risk, because the county does not operate private landfills. The board may change that down the road, but that’s where we stand now,” he said.

The next step in the landfill siting process will come in several weeks, when the county staff will explain to the board how it will begin its search for smaller landfill sites closer to more populated neighborhoods.