Local leaders are putting the brakes on a South Bay landfill project that’s been in the works for a decade and a half.
Fifteen years ago, a ballot measure proposing plans for the East Otay Mesa Recycling Collection Center and Landfill passed with 84 percent of the vote.
Now, state Sen. Steve Padilla says voters weren’t well-informed about plans in an area that already faces severe pollution. He’s calling for restrictions, including additional public hearings and assurances that the landfill won’t worsen environmental conditions in nearby communities.
Padilla introduced a bill that would ban the state from issuing a waste discharge permit for a landfill until the local agency that oversees waste facilities has held a public hearing on the project and certified that it won’t harm an environmentally burdened community.
“In our community, a brand-new landfill is currently being planned near the Tijuana River — one of the most polluted waterways in the state and the nation,” Padilla said in a statement to Voice of San Diego. “SB 594 would give communities like ours that already face excessive levels of pollution the opportunity to have their voices heard when a landfill is proposed in their backyard — even when developers have taken steps to avoid local review.”
What are the environmental risks? David Wick, president and CEO of landfill developer National Enterprises, Inc., said Padilla’s proposal is overkill, because his company is already undergoing exhaustive environmental review.
Before the company can start construction, their project must pass muster through the California Environmental Quality Act and National Environmental Policy Act, both of which require public comment. Plus, it needs water, air and waste permits from numerous state and local agencies.
Wick said there’s no evidence trash from the site would pollute the Tijuana River Valley and said the greater risk would be killing his project.
“What’s occurred is the existing three landfills in our county have become mountains of trash,” Wick said. “That is the existing hazard. That is the environmental injustice.”
County supervisor candidate and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, who has long battled the Tijuana River sewage crisis, is backing Padilla’s bill, saying South Bay can’t sustain any potential pollution from the proposed landfill.
“Putting it within the boundaries of the Tijuana watershed and exacerbating the threat that the Tijuana River poses for the entire South Bay is ludicrous right now,” she told me.
She said the landfill would displace sensitive habitat and disputes Wick’s claim that it wouldn’t harm the Tijuana River Valley.
“As long as it’s within the boundaries of the watershed itself it does have the capacity to drain into the river,” Aguirre said.
Does San Diego Need More Space for Trash? Opponents also argue that the new landfill isn’t needed. State environmental laws brought waste disposal down by almost a quarter between 2025 and 2020, the county reported in 2022.
A letter from CalEPA to Padilla last year stated that the region has enough waste disposal capacity for the next 15 years. It estimates that increased conservation, recycling and composting should keep trash under control until 2053.
The landfill could be a dividing issue in the race for San Diego County Supervisor District 1, where Aguirre is competing against Chula Vista Mayor John McCann.
McCann thinks the region needs the new facility. He points out trash collection rates are rising, and the existing Otay Mesa landfill is set to close in 2030.
“As we are seeing major trash rate increases in San Diego, without being able to build a state of the art environmentally safe landfill, located away from neighborhoods, residents will see trash rates skyrocket and the community will lose hundreds of local jobs,” he told me.
This is Padilla’s second stab at restricting the project. Last year he proposed a similar bill, more specifically targeted at the East Otay Mesa project. It would have prohibited a regional water board from issuing a waste discharge permit for a new landfill in the Tijuana River Valley.
That bill failed on the Assembly floor near the end of last year’s legislative session, amid a feud with Assemblymember David Alvarez, who said he wanted the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board to have the final say on the landfill.
Oddly, votes in favor of that bill were more than triple those against it. So how did it fail? Twenty-eight Democrats voted in favor of Padilla’s restrictions, and Alvarez and seven Republicans voted no. The rest of the Assembly didn’t vote, leaving it short of a majority.
This year’s bill passed the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality on April 2. If legislators bother to vote this time and it passes, it would apply to the East Otay Mesa facility and other potential landfills in high pollution areas.
In Other Tijuana River News: The Tijuana River gained a dubious distinction as the second most polluted river in the country, the nonprofit American Rivers announced this week.
“The polluted water in the Tijuana River aerosolizes as sea spray, polluting air quality,” and increasing health problems and emergency room visits among nearby residents, the organization stated.
It’s a political issue as well as a public health problem, the organization wrote in a statement about the list, calling on the Trump administration to declare a federal emergency for the river.
San Diego County Board Chair Wants to Tap Rainy Day Fund
San Diego’s State of the County Address is typically an ode to the county’s accomplishments on issues such as homelessness, housing and mental health. This year’s address by Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer was more like a rally for MAGA resistance.
Our Lisa Halverstadt reported on the speech, held at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. Lawson-Remer threw shade at oligarchs and billionaires, and called for the county to dig into its reserves to make up money lost to drastic federal spending cuts.
She wants to use more than $100 million in reserves to fund a new county public health lab and clean up sewage pollution in South Bay. Any chance at reserve spending will probably depend on the outcome of the District 1 Supervisor race, which will determine which party controls the board.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.