County to award closed landfill maintenance and repair contracts

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

The County of San Diego will be issuing one or more contracts for maintenance and repair of closed landfills including the Bonsall Landfill and the Fallbrook 1B Burn Site.

A 3-0 San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote Oct. 11, with Jim Desmond absent and one vacant seat, authorized the director of the county’s Department of Purchasing and Contracting to issue a request for statements of qualifications for as-needed engineering, construction management, closed solid waste site maintenance, and repair services and to award up to two contracts after successful negotiation and determination of a fair and reasonable price.

The contracts will have an initial term of one year with four one-year options and an additional six months if needed and will be limited to an annual value of up to $1,500,000 per contract with the total not to exceed $15,000,000 over a five-year period.

The county’s Department of Public Works (DPW) is responsible for maintaining 21 closed landfills and burn sites including the Bonsall Landfill and the Fallbrook 1B Burn Site. DPW monitors and maintains the sites to ensure groundwater, surface water, and air quality through the capture and control of landfill gas.

The county is also responsible for the development and implementation of remediation actions which may include improvements to existing landfill gas and groundwater systems, import and placement of additional cover material, securing sites with fencing, and removal or consolidation of the waste.

The Bonsall Landfill, which is in the 29400 block of Twin Oaks Valley Road, operated from 1968 to 1985 and contains about 1.8 million tons of refuse. The landfill was constructed without a liner or a leachate collection system (leachate is caused by precipitation percolating through the waste in a landfill). The county has been responsible for maintaining the 122-acre landfill site (including 46 acres of the actual landfill footprint) since its closure.

When garbage was being burned in Fallbrook, the County of San Diego was responsible for waste disposal but did not own all of the landfills and burn sites. In some cases, the county had contracts with private property owners who operated the burn sites.

The Fallbrook 1A burn site is off of Mercedes Road and is still privately-owned. The Fallbrook 1B and Fallbrook 1C burn sites are on Stone Post Way approximately 500 yards away from each other; the county owns a portion of the Fallbrook 1B burn site and all of the Fallbrook 1C burn site.

The county purchased the majority of the Fallbrook 1C burn site, which was used as a public landfill from 1955 through 1959, in 2004 and acquired the remainder of that former burn site after receiving a state grant for remediation in 2013; that area is now fenced open space and maintained by the county although no further landfill maintenance activities are necessary.

The services authorized by the Oct. 11 Board of Supervisors action include all work required to maintain and repair landfill gas collection and control systems, groundwater monitoring systems, caps and covers, drainage and stormwater systems, and other related services needed to maintain sites in compliance with regulatory mandates and protect public and environmental health.

One contract will be awarded to the primary contractor, and a second contract will be utilized if the primary contractor is unable to perform the as-needed services.