SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Back in 2010, voters in San Diego County approved an idea to build a landfill in privately held land just north of the border in Otay Mesa.
Almost 14 years later, the project is still undergoing environmental impact reviews, and developers are also going through the permit process.
“It will be a recycling hub for San Diego County,” said David Wick, president and CEO of the developer, National Enterprises, Inc.
Wick said if constructed, his recycling and landfill property would be 390 acres with another 110 acres of open space around it.
“Our three landfills in San Diego County, all have exceeded their capacity, the only reason they’re still in operation today is that our politicians have allowed them to increase their height so they are no longer landfills but a mountain of trash, that’s the environmental hazard that exists today,” he said. “Our recycling facility is the solution.”
The area where a proposed landfill would be built just north of the border, about 20 miles southeast of downtown San Diego. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
But the Sierra Club and others disagree with a need for a new facility saying when voters approved the measure, they were misled into thinking San Diego County was running out of landfill space.
“This is a bad project in the worst possible site,” said Lisa Ross, chairperson for the Sierra Club in San Diego. “At the Sierra Club we are big proponents of zero waste management and so is the county of San Diego, so as we decrease our need for a landfill because of better practices at home, that need (for landfills) is going to be even less and less.”
Ross said that aside from not being needed, the proposed landfill will devastate the environment in the Otay Mountain Wildlife Refuge.
“It impacts wildlife, it impacts air pollution, it impacts the watershed and secondly, it’s not needed, the county has capacity all the way up to 2053,” said Ross. “It’s also going to affect the people who live on the other side of the border.
But Wick argued that the landfill will be state of the art and lined according to regulations to prevent seepage, and it will be built “well above water tables and aquifers.”
“Our project is environmentally safe if permitted by the State of California in full compliance with all their environmental regulations.”
Wick said his company is still working on environmental impact reports for the project. He said they hope to break ground at some point in 2025.
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