Man Pleads Guilty in State’s First Criminal Wetlands Case

A San Ysidro businessman pleaded guilty Friday to charges of negligently filling a wetlands conservation area to create a parking lot for a swap meet, in California’s first such criminal case, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Joseph Garcia, 33, the president of Joseph G. Enterprises, pleaded guilty to filling a seven-acre parcel with dirt for swap meet parking in August, 1990, and faces a fine of up to $25,000 when he is sentenced in federal court next month.

Criminal charges in wetlands cases are rare--only 13 have been filed nationwide--because of the time and cost of identifying violators and proving that damaged areas are indeed wetlands.

The Garcia case took nearly two years to prosecute after a state fish and game warden was tipped to the violation by a county parks official.

State environmental officials said Garcia, in applying for a permit to grade his property, never informed the proper authorities that he would be filling a sensitive area only 1,700 feet from the nests of an endangered bird species, the least Bell’s vireo.

“We are not going to exterminate an entire wetland and endangered species for someone to build a business,” said Sandra Gabler, a state fish and game warden. “It was his burden of proof as to what land he was going to take.”

For his part, Garcia said he believed he was doing a good deed by cleaning the seven-acre parcel in the first place. He said it was loaded with abandoned cars, furniture and other junk when he bought the property in May, 1990.

He said that San Diego city zoning officials informed him he did not need a permit to fill the area and that he had been advised on several occasions by city officials that the property was not part of a wetlands area.

“Here I thought I was going to get a key to the city and I get a kick in the butt instead,” Garcia said. “The only wildlife out here is mosquitoes.”

Garcia, who operates the San Ysidro International Swap Meet, is being ordered to plant natural vegetation throughout the seven acres and to grant an easement on the property that will protect it as a wetlands area, Gabler said.

“This is how far we will go to get the message out to others,” said Gabler, who is part of a San Diego County task force dedicated to finding hazardous waste violations.

The task force also includes the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Fish and Game, the FBI, the U.S. Customs Service and 14 other federal, state, county and city agencies.