Council Hears Outcry Against Trash Plant

SAN MARCOS —  Yet another series of public hearings, this one promising to be the longest of them all, has opened in the debate over whether North County Resource Recovery Associates should be allowed to build a trash-burning power plant here.

The Planning Commission approved the plant last month, and the hearing is an appeal to the City Council. Discussion opened Tuesday night at 7:30 and did not conclude until after midnight.

The second night of debate was held Wednesday; more debate is scheduled for tonight and next Tuesday night. The City Council is scheduled to decide on the issue Jan. 17.

If anything is certain in all this discussion, it is that the City Council’s decision will not be the last word.

Opponents of the power-generating trash incinerator and recycling center believe that they have collected enough signatures to force a public vote on the issue. The wording of their initiative drive is sure to be challenged in court by the power plant’s sponsors, because the ballot measure calls for the power plant to be approved by two-thirds of all voters in San Marcos, versus two-thirds of those who vote in the election. The plant’s supporters say such a public test is so demanding as to be illegal.

But, to cover their bets, North County Resource Recovery Associates has begun the process of asking the county’s permission to build the plant in its jurisdiction, 500 feet west of the current proposed site. So if the plant is barred within the City of San Marcos, another series of hearings would have to be held at the county level.

Tuesday night’s debate focused on alternatives to the plant’s construction and the affect the trash processing plant would have on North County’s air quality. Wednesday night’s discussion focused on the handling of hazardous waste, traffic and the compatibility of the plant with the area’s land use and visual aesthetics. Tonight’s hearing will consider ways that Resource Recovery Associates says it can mitigate most of the negative effects of the plant.

The balance of tonight’s hearing, as well as Tuesday’s, will be set aside for individual speakers to argue pro and con; the City Council has reserved next Thursday night for its own discussion, questions and vote.

The Planning Commission approved the plant’s construction last month by a 6-1 vote after attaching more than 100 conditions to the special use permit. The San Diego County Air Quality Control District has also given its blessing to the plant’s construction.

Among those agencies that have opposed the plant are citizens groups in Lake San Marcos, La Costa, Elfin Forest, Del Dios and, most recently, the Carlsbad City Council, which voted, 4-1, Monday night to oppose it.

Virtually the only new wrinkle in the ongoing debate over the plant’s construction was a proposal by the plant’s opponents Tuesday night that instead of burning North County’s trash, the trash should be composted at two smaller facilities --one in an industrial section near San Marcos and Escondido and the other in an industrial section near the tri-city area of Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista. Supporters of that idea point to technology that mixes garbage with sewage sludge, creating compost after six days of biological “cooking.” The end product could then be sold as fertilizer or topsoil, they say.

But Richard Chase, managing director of Resource Recovery Associates, said his company considered such a way of handling trash and decided against it “because there is no market for the end product. You can’t even give it away.”

A four-fifths vote of the City Council is needed to overturn the Planning Commission’s approval.