Supervisors OK Study of More Sites for North County Landfill

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to hire a consulting firm to study additional sites in North County to serve as landfills after several residents objected to plans to establish them in Fallbrook and Pauma Valley.

John Rollin, program coordinator for the county Department of Public Works, said officials will negotiate the price and terms of the study with The Butler Roach Group, the San Diego consulting firm.

Rollin said an undetermined number of new sites will be looked at, which will be considered along with the Aspen Road site in Fallbrook and the Gregory Canyon site in Pauma Valley. The board also approved a plan to begin environmental studies of the Fallbrook and Pauma sites, but stopped short of authorizing environmental impact reports.

Several North County residents addressed the board, voicing concern over establishing landfills at Aspen Road and Gregory Canyon. They said they feared that landfills at those sites would contaminate the ground water and cause other environmental damage.

In other action involving landfills, the supervisors voted to prepare closure and post-closure maintenance plans for the Otay, Ramona, Borrego and Sycamore landfills. Although the landfills are not expected to be closed soon, a new state law requires the county to establish closure plans.

The board also voted to authorize environmental impact reports for possible landfill sites in several unincorporated areas and San Diego to replace the existing Otay landfill. The county sites to be studied are in Wolf Canyon on Otay Mesa; Engineer Springs and Dulzura. The San Diego sites are on Del Mar Mesa and in Upper Sycamore Canyon and Oak Canyon. The San Diego sites would be jointly run by the county and San Diego.