North County Trash Troubles Piling Up

With the closure of the brimming San Marcos dump as little as three months away, the County Board of Supervisors Tuesday rejected a second request to begin diverting some North County trash to landfills in San Diego and Chula Vista.

The supervisors’ 4-1 vote eliminated the county’s best alternative for extending the life of the dump, which could shut down as early as February, and continued the county’s race against the clock for permits needed to expand it before it fills to capacity.

“At a certain point in time, there will be no place to put the trash,” said Supervisor John MacDonald, who cast the only dissenting vote Tuesday. “I know I don’t want it to pile up in front of my door.”

Ironically, if the landfill does close before county officials can win regulatory approval for its expansion, the more than 60,000 tons of trash generated by North County residents each month would be diverted to the Sycamore Landfill on the eastern edge of the city of San Diego under county contingency plans. Landfill operations are controlled by the county government.

The diversion would add as many as 500 trash truck trips to the roads between North County and the landfill each day, MacDonald said in a letter to other board members. MacDonald predicted that such a development would prompt a lawsuit over environmental concerns, though a county public works official said none has been threatened.

With the county still years from settling on a site for a new North County dump, expansion of the San Marcos facility is the only way to provide a local trash site for the next three or four years.

But efforts to do that have been delayed by denial of a permit by the Regional Water Quality Control Board and a Superior Court judge’s order that an environmental impact review is inadequate.

Granville Bowman, director of the county’s public works department, said officials are seeking expedited hearings of permits by the water agency and the state Integrated Waste Management Board. County health officials said Tuesday that they could speed up the usual 30-day approval process of the expansion. A new EIR has been prepared and has been sent out for public review, Bowman said.

Once closed, the landfill would require more thorough regulatory review than an expansion, officials said.

The board voted Sept. 10 against the temporary diversion of 26,000 tons of trash monthly to the Sycamore and Otay landfills after officials from San Diego and Chula Vista opposed it, claiming the additional truck trips would pollute the air and increase traffic congestion.

Instead, the board agreed to study the environmental impact of such a diversion, a review that will take at least six months.

Estimates of how long the county can extend the life of the landfill by diverting trash beginning Dec. 1 ranged from four weeks to a few months, depending on how long permitting authorities allow the dump to remain open.

MacDonald again placed the issue on Tuesday’s agenda at the request of leaders of nine North County cities. But the four other supervisors were unwilling to reconsider their September vote.

“We don’t have the opportunity to just shift trash anywhere we want in this community,” South Bay Supervisor Brian Bilbray said. “We have to live with environmental regulations.”