Foes of Dump Attack Sponsor Firm’s Record : Toxics: Groups also say the incinerator proposed for La Posta Indian Reservation would make the county a dumping ground for imported waste.

Opponents of a hazardous waste incinerator project proposed for the La Posta Indian Reservation took aim Monday at what they called the “shoddy” environmental record of one of the project’s corporate backers and charged that the facility would turn San Diego County into Southern California’s toxic dumping ground.

At a news conference, environmental and community groups said they estimated that 71% of the wastes that would be treated, burned and recycled at the 30-acre facility would be trucked in from other counties, states and even from Mexico.

They also denounced W. R. Grace Co., a New York-based firm whose subsidiary, Grace Environmental Inc., is one of three companies financing the $35-million hazardous waste recycling and incinerating station proposed for the reservation, in the southeastern part of the county.

“The company’s history precedes them,” said Diane Takvorian, executive director of the Environmental Health Coalition, noting that, in the mid-1980s, W. R. Grace was charged with polluting drinking water wells in Massachusetts with toxic solvents.

By seeking to build on Indian land that is exempt from state and county regulations, Takvorian said, “W. R. Grace is skirting all of the . . . environmental protection laws we have worked so hard to get over the years. This is not a friendly company that we would welcome into San Diego County.”

When told of these charges, Joe Charest, a spokesman for the Gable Group, a public relations firm hired to represent the La Posta project, stressed that W. R. Grace is just one of three partners in the project. The company is not supplying engineers or executives to run the project, he said.

Charest also took issue with the opponents’ estimate of imported waste, saying it is too early to know the exact sources of the 120,000 tons of hazardous and non-hazardous waste expected to be received annually at the site. He said the 71% estimate is “just not realistic” because no definitive information is yet available.

“This will be a regional facility,” he said, adding that “potentially” some waste could come from out of state and from Mexico. “The intent will be to serve as much of San Diego County as we can. Other waste would most likely come from contiguous counties. I don’t think that we’re at a point where we could specifically determine.”

The news conference, which included several ranchers and homeowners who live near the proposed project, came just hours before 400 people gathered at Mountain Empire High School in Pine Valley to discuss the environmental implications of the project.

The public meeting, the first of two to be held by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, is meant to solicit community response to help determine the scope of an upcoming environmental impact statement, a study of the proposed facility’s ecological impact that the waste companies must complete as part of their bid for federal approval.

A second public “scoping” meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. today at the Alpine Community Center, 1834 Alpine Blvd.

In addition to making specific requests about what the EIS should address, dozens of backcountry residents took the opportunity to tell federal officials they do not want the hazardous waste project as a neighbor. Because they are entirely dependent on well water, they said, they could not risk having even the most state-of-the-art facility in their midst.

Signs displayed at the meeting included: “Drink Up While It’s Still Drinkable.” “For Sale: 60+ Acre Ranch Nestled Between Hazwaste Incinerator and Landfill Dump. MUST SEE!” “WR Grace: Don’t Kill Our Children Too.”

Earlier, at the news conference, other area residents voiced similar concerns.

“This is the choice we have: stay there and let your kids get sick or move and try to sell your land,” said Jenean Lund, a mother of four who fought tears as she described how she bought a 60-acre ranch about a year ago, unaware of the plans for the La Posta facility less than a mile away. “Do you know anybody who would buy a ranch right next to a hazardous waste incinerator? I don’t.”

“I know the Indians have sovereign land,” she added. “But those are for the Indians, not for the big corporations.”

Patricia Schifferle, the California representative of a national group called Clean Water Action, said that activity in San Diego County, where three waste dumps are being planned on Indian reservations, is being repeated across the country.

“This battle is being fought out in state after state after state--it’s a national phenomenon,” she said, noting that often impoverished Indian tribes are understandably wooed by waste companies’ promises of prosperity.

“It’s clear there are economic incentives for Indian reservations to go ahead and become the next white man’s dump,” she said, warning that all of the county’s 17 reservations could be candidates for similar proposals. “This could grow. That’s the nature of this beast. . . . But this project can be stopped. And we believe it will be stopped.”

Plans for two other dumps on Indian lands continue to move forward. The Campo band of Mission Indians is completing an EIS on its proposed landfill and trash recycling plant, which would be run by Mid-American Waste Systems, an Ohio waste management company. Pending federal approval of the EIS and a construction permit, the dump is tentatively scheduled to open in mid-1992.

Pittsburgh-based Chambers Development Co., a major waste disposal company, 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. A scoping meeting will probably be held within the next few months, officials said.