Supervisors oppose bill to prohibit Gregory Canyon Landfill

In an action focusing more on the process for land use decisions than the merits of the proposed Gregory Canyon Landfill’s location, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to oppose state legislation which would prohibit the Gregory Canyon Landfill.

The supervisors’ 4-1 vote May 10 saw Greg Cox, Dianne Jacob, Ron Roberts, and Bill Horn direct the county’s Chief Administrative Officer to communicate the Board of Supervisors’ opposition to Senate Bill 833 to the county’s state legislators and to draft a letter expressing the supervisors’ opposition which will be provided to the state legislature. Supervisor Pam Slater-Price voted against the motion.

“It’s not about a landfill. It’s about a process,” Roberts said.

State Senator Juan Vargas introduced SB 833, which in its form as of May 10 would prohibit the construction or operation of a solid waste landfill located in San Diego County if that disposal facility is located within 1,000 feet of the San Luis Rey River or an aquifer which is within 1,000 feet of the San Luis Rey River and is within 1,000 feet of a site listed in the California Native American Heritage Commission Sacred Lands Inventory and considered sacred or of spiritual or cultural importance to a tribe. SB 833 also requires the local enforcement agency to enforce any violation by issuing a cease and desist order immediately.

“If the bill passes it would set an ugly precedent,” Roberts said. “By fiat the legislature could at any time overturn that project.”

The zoning for the Gregory Canyon area as a landfill was approved by the county’s voters in November 1994 after proponents qualified a ballot initiative which became Proposition C. “It never got through the county process,” Slater-Price said. “It didn’t get through the Board of Supervisors.”

The original study for a North County landfill ranked the Gregory Canyon site low on the list.

“Initially it wasn’t even minimally qualified as a dump,” said John Embry of Valley Center, who represented Riverwatch in opposition to the supervisors’ action. John MacDonald was the Fifth District supervisor from 1987 through the end of 1994. Some critics of the landfill allege that MacDonald promised seniors near the preferred Escondido-area site that the landfill would not be built near them and accepted a landfill in Pala because “cows don’t vote”. Other critics claim that First District supervisor Brian Bilbray revived the Gregory Canyon site after receiving a campaign contribution from landfill proponents.

Slater-Price recalled the Board of Supervisors’ vote in 1994 to oppose the ballot initiative. MacDonald, Bilbray, Slater-Price, and Jacob voted to oppose Proposition C while Supervisor Leon Williams was absent that day.

“If the landfill were truly an appropriate use for this site, it would have been approved,” Slater-Price said of the siting process.

Jacob noted that her vote in 1994 was due to her opposition to “ballot-box planning”. “That was not in our opinion the way to proceed,” she said.

A rezone due to a ballot initiative does not require California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for the rezone itself, although the project is still subject to environmental review and appropriate permitting. Proposition C passed with 68 percent of the vote.

“I do not believe that the legislature should circumvent what the voters in San Diego County have said,” Jacob said. “That is a very bad precedent for the state legislature to stick its nose into local land use planning.”

The signatories to the ballot arguments against Proposition C included Robert Smith, the chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians. The November 1994 election also saw the re-elections of Governor Pete Wilson and Attorney General Dan Lungren, both of whom resisted the expansion of Indian casinos. A November 1998 statewide ballot measure established the right to certain types of gambling on Indian reservations, and the Pala Band of Mission Indians opened Pala Casino in April 2001. The impacts to Gregory Mountain and Medicine Rock, both of which are considered sacred sites by the Pala tribe, led the Pala reservation to oppose the landfill even before it had the financial resources to challenge Gregory Canyon, Ltd. In 2004 the Pala tribe was able to qualify a ballot measure to repeal the 1994 vote, although that measure failed with 64 percent of the public supporting the retention of the landfill.

“The process here is what concerns me,” Roberts said of SB 833. “This has had two countywide votes. In both cases it passed by over 60 percent.”

Shasta Gaughen, who is now the environmental director for the Pala Band of Mission Indians, told the county supervisors that the sites were considered sacred by Native Americans, and Gaughen also challenged the environmental finding of overriding considerations. She noted that disposal rates in the county have decreased by 25 percent over the past five years, that the 2010 update to the county’s Integrated Waste Management Plan determined that the county has 18 years of capacity in existing landfills based on a 50 percent landfill diversion rate which has been met, and that the remaining capacity would increase to 28 years with a 60 percent diversion rate.

The initial Environmental Impact Report filed in 2003 consisted of approximately 10,000 pages, and a revised EIR issued in 2007 was challenged but was upheld by the California Supreme Court.

“This is an outrageous attempt to circumvent a good system,” said Gregory Canyon, Ltd., project manager Jim Simmons. “It’s an outrageous bill that has been put in place to circumvent a process that has gone on for 15 years.”

Acceptance of the EIR does not equate to various Federal, state, and local permits which must be issued before a landfill can be operated. “We will not get our final permits if we don’t meet the requirements,” said Nancy Chase of Herzog Contracting, who is involved in Gregory Canyon, Ltd.

“This is one of the most regulated industries in the country,” Roberts said.

“I leave it up to the agencies to give us safe, clean water,” Horn said.

The permit process is intended to ensure that the landfill will sufficiently protect various resources, including natural bodies of water, although opponents note that the permit doesn’t guarantee such protections.

“The issue we see is local water security,” said George Courser of the Backcountry Coalition. “We have no local supplies to gamble with.”

Courser noted that the dump liner failure at the Las Pulgas landfill contaminated the Santa Margarita River groundwater which had served Camp Pendleton, making the base dependent upon bottled water. “This could be repeated easily at Gregory Canyon,” he said.

“We are concerned about the possible leakage,” said Oceanside mayor Jim Wood, who opposed the supervisors’ position. “I’m concerned for all the people in North County.”

The City of Oceanside utilizes the San Luis Rey River for groundwater resources. “We’ve never been against the landfill. We’re against the location of the landfill next to our water basin,” Wood said.

“SB 833 does not negate a dump. All it does is put in well-thought out safeguards,” Embry said. “Any opposition to protecting the water sources is not only stupid, it’s criminal.”

When SB 833 was introduced on February 18 it did not specifically target Gregory Canyon but more generally prohibited a solid waste disposal facility within 500 feet of an aquifer which provides a source of drinking water for more than 50,000 people or within 1,000 feet of a site considered to be sacred and of spiritual importance to a Federally-recognized Indian tribe. The bill’s April 25 amendments prohibit the construction or operation of a solid waste landfill in the County of San Diego if any portion of the facility is within 1,000 feet of the San Luis Rey River (which is entirely within San Diego County) or a hydrologically-connected aquifer and is located on or within 1,000 feet of a site considered sacred or of spiritual or cultural importance to a tribe and listed in the California Native American Heritage Commission Sacred Lands Inventory.

“This bill is specifically designed to kill a landfill that has been under development for 17 years,” Chase said. “The legislature should not be getting involved in this process.”

Peter Amaro, who represented the San Diego County Taxpayers Association in support of the Board of Supervisors’ position, noted that CEQA already provides state-directed protections against hazards and impacts to cultural resources. “SB 833 is unnecessary,” he said.

“This bill would make it more difficult to open new facilities in San Diego County,” Amaro said. “SB 833 would actually run contrary to the will of San Diego County voters.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the liner Gregory Canyon, Ltd., plans to use. “We’ve taken that EPA-approved liner and doubled it,” Simmons said.

County Counsel Thomas Montgomery noted that the initiative took control of Gregory Canyon out of the Board of Supervisors’ land use jurisdiction. “The only thing you can decide at this point is whether or not you want to support the legislation,” Montgomery said of SB 833.

“This simply put is not where they should be spending their time,” Roberts said of the state’s involvement.

“Having the state interject themselves in this is a mistake,” Cox said. “I think this is clearly a local land use decision.”

Horn took exception to Vargas’ attempt to delve into issues traditionally under local control. “He can’t run his own state,” Horn said. “They should be doing their job in solving the fiscal crisis

they have.”