San Marcos to Approve Expansion of Landfill : Politics: City agrees to OK enlarging dump after five other critics say they will drop lawsuits against a proposed trash-to-energy plant and recycling center.

North County officials, faced with the closure of the area’s only landfill by July 1, called a trash war cease-fire and are now negotiating a compromise that will extend the life of the San Marcos landfill until 2000.

San Marcos City Council, at a special session Wednesday, will rescind an ordinance that has blocked expansion of North County’s only landfill, Mayor Lee Thibadeau said Monday.

In return, he said, five North County cities will drop lawsuits against a proposed trash-to-energy plant at the site and will agree to pay San Marcos reasonable “host fees” to cover damages to city streets and property values caused by the immense landfill.

County Board of Supervisors chairman John MacDonald warned that the accord, reached Friday, is “a small step” toward the goal of building the $238-million trash-burning plant and recycling center, which would extend the life of the San Marcos dump far into the future.

The county landfill expansion was halted when the San Marcos City Council voted to stipulate conditions that had to be met before the city would approve a necessary expansion permit.

“We’ll rescind the ordinance so the staff can start processing the permit,” Thibadeau said. “We put three conditions on the table, and the other cities said that they could accept them. Of course, we have a few minor differences, but I think they will be resolved.”

Earlier, Thibadeau had said that San Marcos would not permit the landfill expansion until every community agreed to commit its waste flow to the San Marcos site for several decades, which would help fund the trash-burning plant and recycling center. Without the commitment, he had said, the cities would face major penalties, amounting to hundreds of dollars per ton, to dump trash at the facility.

If the expansion is not approved within the next four months, North County residents face an increase in garbage pickup fees of up to $7 month to cover hauling the refuse to Sycamore Canyon landfill to the east or Otay landfill to the south.

Bill Worrell, deputy director of the county Public Works Department, said his staff plans to submit an expansion permit application Thursday, the day after San Marcos is expected to lift its ordinance blocking the expansion.

Worrell said the county faces several other hurdles before it can begin the $30-million expansion of the San Marcos dump. The regional Water Quality Control Board must approve the expansion at its March 11 meeting, and a suit challenging the dump’s environmental impact study must be resolved, he said. Christward Ministry, which operates a religious retreat on a hillside overlooking the landfill, claims the environmental report is incomplete, Worrell said.

Supervisor MacDonald said that another meeting of North County city officials has been called to work out other issues.

“Several of the officials from other cities have objected to having the county and the city of San Marcos pull all the strings on this,” he explained. “They want to work out some sort of joint-powers authority, which will give every city a say in this matter.”