San Marcos Sues County Over Landfill
By Ned Randolph, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.
Jan. 30–SAN MARCOS — The City of San Marcos has sued the county, asking a Superior Court judge to enforce a 20-year-old joint powers agreement that specifies areas of responsibility at the old county landfill which lies beneath Bradley Park.
The county and city in 1986 signed the agreement, which states that the county is responsible for landfill-related issues and the city is responsible for those related to the park, which is located on the west side of town along Rancho Santa Fe Boulevard.
“We think it’s pretty straightforward and clear,” City Manager Paul Malone said recently.
The suit, which was filed on Thursday in San Diego, is asking the court to name the county as the responsible party for the landfill, and seeks compensation for water-monitoring performed by the city at the site recently. When the county is served a subpoena in the next day or two, it will have 30 days to reply.
The suit follows a Regional Water Quality Board investigative order that the city develop a comprehensive — and probably costly — monitoring program at the site, where rust-colored water was discovered after heavy rains in 2005.
The regional water board names the city as the responsible party for the landfill, which the city is disputing even as it carries out the water board’s investigative order.
The county operated the Linda Vista landfill from 1945 until it closed in 1968. It later turned the land over to the city to develop Bradley Park.
Despite the city’s assertions that the county is equally responsible for the site, the county says that improvements over the last six years to Bradley Park in the way of soccer fields, an indoor arena, lighted ball fields and buildings have changed the scenario — and affected the landfill beneath it.
“We can’t say discharges are directly linked to those things — but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that would tie them together,” said Jim O’Day, the county’s senior counsel.
“We believe that the proper and ordinary maintenance of a closed landfill facility is to have no structures going into the cover, and you do not irrigate it,” he said. “They irrigate eight ball fields on top of this former waste facility. Only one of those fields has a liner on it, and it’s possible the liner is not even working because that’s where the discharge was.”
The city has received two extensions since it was ordered by the regional water board in May 2006 to develop the monitoring and testing program. The most recent was granted on Jan. 7, which gives the city until May 18 to comply.
In addition to its lawsuit, the city has filed an appeal with the regional water board asking the board to name the county as the reponsible party.
The county has historically assumed responsibility for the landfill. It has continued to file quarterly reports on groundwater data to the water quality board — even after the water board issued a 2000 order that identified the city as the responsible party for the site.
O’Day said the county’s department of public works has landfill expertise, so it continues to report data from its groundwater monitoring wells at the site.
“It’s something we’ve been doing for many years, and we will continue to do that,” he said. “At the present time, there are no plans on the part of the county to discontinue them.”
Because the city never appealed the 2000 order, the county says the city missed its chance.
“The city now seeks, six years after failing to exercise its right to appeal that decision, to get a second chance to bite the apple it left on the table in 2000,” the county states in a legal brief filed in response to the appeal to the water board.
“It’s a slow turning of the worm,” said City Attorney Helen Holmes Peak. “They have continued to file quarterly monitoring reports. I guess they’re just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. It doesn’t make sense.”
The latest investigative order by the regional water board is also similar to a work program suggested by county consultants to the regional water board in 2004 after contaminates were discovered.
“Our consultants noticed some potentially higher readings in some areas, and suggested a possible work plan to be proactive with those issues,” said O’Day.
“I don’t believe the consultants suggested who was going to do the work. … It would have been the county’s understanding that the regional board would direct the responsible party — in this case the City of San Marcos,” he said.
The regional water board never responded to the county’s suggested work plan.
Meanwhile, Peak said the city will continue to carry out the order by the regional water board as it seeks relief from the courts.
“We’re not trying to be irresponsible, and we understand the board’s concerns. Although they’re a little belated since the county submitted a plan in 2004. And it’s now 2007.”
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Copyright (c) 2007, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.
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