County Trash Crisis Is Avoidable : Supervisors must stop dallying and deal with current and future dump needs

The North County trash crisis reached a new peak in civic chaos last week when the San Marcos City Council voted unanimously to rescind permission for the county to expand its landfill there. The city’s frustration with a county government that produced a flawed environmental study on the project and lacks the will to make tough choices on a new dump site is understandable, perhaps even inevitable.

But it’s far too late for San Marcos to simply walk away in a huff. Indeed, such a move could ultimately backfire on the city if the county secures emergency powers from Gov. Wilson allowing it to pack more trash into the overflowing dump regardless of the environmental consequences.

That can’t be allowed to happen. And there are ways to ensure that it doesn’t.

First, the county must address San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell’s concerns about its environmental impact report on the project. The judge agrees with a local landowner that the current EIR is inadequate. That, in turn, led to the San Marcos rebellion and a threat by three North County cities to form their own trash-collection agency.

So far, the county seems intent on tinkering with the report in hopes that relatively minor changes will satisfy the judge. That’s fine if nothing more is necessary to address legitimate environmental concerns. But if the judge decides that the county must start over and produce a more comprehensive report, so be it.

Such action could delay the expansion for six to eight months, well past Oct. 1, when the San Marcos dump is expected to reach capacity. That isn’t a pleasant prospect. But the Board of Supervisors brought this crisis on itself by refusing for years to site a new North County landfill. That inaction is no excuse for environmental shortcuts now.

If a new EIR is necessary, the county should seek permission to temporarily truck North County trash to its Sycamore dump near Santee. That would require the cooperation of the city of San Diego, where the dump’s entrance is located. The transfer should only be necessary for a few months, just long enough to complete and certify the new EIR.

Certainly, the city of San Diego is under no obligation to bail the county out on this one. But the trash crisis is a regional problem, so the city should be flexible.

Once the environmental concerns are addressed, San Marcos will have no legitimate reason to back out of the expansion project. And there will be no need for the county to follow through on threats to seek emergency powers from the state to keep the dump open against the city’s will.

But even if all this falls into place, another problem looms: continued procrastination by the supervisors. The expansion will extend the landfill’s life by roughly seven years. The board shouldn’t use that time to dally on this critical issue. Even if a new site is selected tomorrow, it will take at least three to four years to open a new dump. And that schedule assumes that no one files a lawsuit, which would be a first in the decade-old North County trash saga.

There was at least one welcome sign of progress this week: Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen removed the solid-waste division from the Public Works Department and assigned it to a top official in his office.

That higher level of attention is welcome. The board must be prepared to push ahead at full speed to find a new dump site even after the expansion in San Marcos is completed.