200 Protest Proposed County Dump Near Pala : Public Meeting: Citizens voice concerns over environmental impact report and method of

William Worrell of the county’s solid waste division sat quietly as he was berated by silver-haired Jeanne Ray on the evils of a proposed landfill site near Pala.

Ray was one of more than 200 people who packed the Pauma Valley Community Center to protest the development of the site. They sat in folding chairs, lined the walls, stood in front of doorways and outside the building.

The crowd at the meeting hall was just one indication to Ray that the county was not taking the matter seriously.

This was the second of three public meetings held by the Department of Public Works to discuss future North County landfills.

Residents who attended the meeting voiced concerns over everything from the process by which the Gregory Canyon site was chosen to the depth of the environmental impact report to what they perceived as strong-armed politicking, not to mention the adverse effect expected from putting a 33-million-cubic-yard dump in the neighborhood.

“There are issues that can’t be mitigated,” said Worrell, deputy directory of the solid waste division. “And those issues have to be considered by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors when they make their decision.”

The Gregory Canyon site, 2 1/2 miles from Pala, is one of three proposed by the county to replace the nearly full San Marcos landfill, which is expected to reach capacity in five to seven years.

The county’s proposed action is to purchase and operate all three sites as landfills. One of the other sites is near Fallbrook and the other near Warner Springs.

Together, the three sites are projected to provide landfill space for North County for the next 50 years.

On Monday, about 1,000 residents of the Fallbrook area demonstrated their opposition to a proposal to put a landfill on Aspen Road, voicing concerns over noise and air pollution, the traffic from an expected 465 daily dump truck trips, and threats to the county’s water supply.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, residents near the proposed Gregory Canyon site expressed similar concerns, including fear that the nearby Pala Indian Reservation would be hurt.

“Our concerns are water quality, the Indians’ rights, and traffic,” said Virginia Buonarati, vice president of the North County Coalition, a neighborhood group formed specifically to fight the landfill proposal.

“I think that the cities have to take some responsibility for their trash,” Buonarati said, pointing out that large North County communities such as Oceanside, Escondido and Vista produce most of the waste that will go into the landfill. “Why should we take all the trash from the cities? I think they should look at the cities for trash sites.”

The proposed Gregory Canyon site is just south of the San Luis Rey River, and Buonarati said it will threaten the county’s water supply.

“We think the county has done a very poor job in their site selection. For the county to take a chance on endangering a large percentage of the water supply is outrageous,” Buonarati said. “Trash seems to be more important to the county than drinking water.”

The proposed landfill also would be next to Gregory Mountain, a sacred mountain to the Pala Indians, said Ruth Harber of the North County Coalition.

“The wall of the mountain will be part of the wall of the dump,” Harber said. “That sacred mountain is just like our Vatican or our churches. You don’t put a dump next to a religious monument.”

The draft environmental impact report on the landfill sites conceded that development of the landfill “would result in significant odor impacts to the limited population” and that those impacts are “unmitigable.”

Impact to the Pala Indians’ sacred mountain, Medicine Rock, also “could not be mitigated below a level of significance,” said the draft EIR, which was issued in January by the Butler Roach Group, the county’s environmental consultants.