County Opts to Fix Report on Landfill : Trash: Environmental impact report on expanding San Marcos landfill will be reworked to please judge who rejected the original.

County supervisors, hoping for a speedy end to the county’s garbage crisis, decided Tuesday to correct a faulty environmental impact report and take it back to the Superior Court judge who rejected it.

In an hourlong executive session, supervisors decided that bolstering the environmental document could persuade Judge Judith McConnell to reverse her ruling two weeks ago that the report was flawed and couldn’t justify expanding the nearly full San Marcos landfill.

“We feel we can fix these problems,” Chief Deputy County Counsel Diane Bardsley said after the closed-door supervisors’ meeting.

Bardsley and County Counsel Lloyd Harmer Jr. said more material for the report will be brought before county supervisors at a July 14 meeting, where the supervisors will be asked to recertify it.

A valid environmental report is needed before the county can place another 200 feet of garbage atop the landfill’s existing 750 feet of material. The landfill is expected to reach capacity in September, and, without an approved expansion plan, county officials don’t know where else to take the garbage.

Alternatives like taking the garbage to the Sycamore landfill west of Santee or somewhere outside the county would require lengthy environmental and permit reviews, and critical questions remain about who would haul the trash and pay the dumping fees.

Judge McConnell was concerned about several aspects of the environmental report for expanding the San Marcos landfill.

She held that the document didn’t discuss the consequences of using a clay liner to separate the landfill from the material added during the expansion. Further, she said, the report didn’t contain an adequate traffic and water analysis.

Bardsley said much of the desired information is available and a better presentation might satisfy the judge.

“We don’t have a technical defect (with the environmental report), we have a failure to explain things,” she said.

County officials believe there’s still time to seek the reversal of McConnell’s ruling because it has not yet become an official court order.