Waste Staff Against Bid for San Marcos Dump : Environment: San Diego County officials say recommendation to state agency is a shock.

SAN DIEGO — The staff of the state waste agency whose approval is the last needed to expand the San Marcos landfill opposed the expansion Friday, putting San Diego County back on the brink of a garbage disposal crisis.

“It’s a very big shock,” said Deborah Castillo, spokeswoman for the county’s Department of Public Works, which operates the landfill system.

County officials had believed that they finally were about to win tentative approval Monday for expansion of the landfill, which is expected to be filled to legal capacity by about Oct. 1.

Monday’s meeting is before the three-man permitting and enforcement committee of the Integrated Waste Management Board. The panel’s recommendations go to the full, six-member state agency, which oversees solid waste management plans in California, and whose go-ahead is required before the county can expand its San Marcos garbage dump.

To get to this point, the county already has won a court challenge to the validity of the expansion’s environmental impact report and, just 11 days ago, won the approval of a balking San Marcos City Council to expand the dump.

All that is left is the approval of the Integrated Waste Management Board.

But late Friday afternoon, the state waste board’s staff issued its recommendation on the expansion request--saying it should be rejected because of questions about the design of the expanded dump, board spokesman Tom Estes said in Sacramento.

The staff and its consultants are concerned about the stability of the landfill’s slopes as it grows from 750 feet high to 950 feet, creating a second-story dump to accommodate another seven years of garbage.

The staff also was concerned with the design of a retaining wall at the base of the landfill that would separate the dump from an adjoining recycling center now under construction by North County Resource Recovery Assn.

The state staff said San Diego County’s engineers failed to list “basic geo-technical data” on the ground beneath both the slope and the retaining wall.

The slope’s stability analysis by the county “indicated a factor of safety less than that considered acceptable under standard engineering practice,” wrote Rosslyn Stevens of the state’s review staff.

The county’s design of the retaining wall, she said, was deficient because it failed to consider the landfill’s pressures against the wall “other than minimum active earth pressure.”

In fact, she said, situating the recycling center at the toe of the landfill was “an impractical configuration for such a facility.”

Simply put, the county’s design of the landfill expansion was “inadequate,” she wrote.

Estes said he would not speculate on what weight the staff recommendation will carry with the committee Monday when it meets in Fullerton. “The staff simply makes its recommendation based on what we’re required to do under state waste management law,” he said.

County officials said they learned only Thursday that the state staff and its consultants had concerns with the landfill’s expansion designs, but believed they would be given the staff’s blessing to continue to work on a solution.

County officials said they believed Thursday that the waste board’s staff would recommend that the county be given emergency permission to continue dumping in San Marcos until Nov. 18, by which time it was hoped that the design problems would be resolved and the Integrated Waste Management Board would approve the expansion.

If the state doesn’t allow the expansion by Oct. 1, or give emergency permission this month to allow the dump to grow beyond its legal limits until approval is won, county officials say they would need an emergency declaration from Gov. Pete Wilson to divert North County’s garbage to the Sycamore landfill near Santee.

Castillo said county officials were told only Thursday--when both sides met for the first time to discuss the design--that the retaining wall at the foot of the landfill was unsatisfactory.

“We had been asking since June to meet with the (state’s) staff and consultants, to answer any questions they had on the design or engineering so we could get those problems resolved well ahead of time,” Castillo said.

Thursday’s meeting was “the first time we heard they had concerns about the retaining wall,” Castillo said.

Since the retaining wall has not yet been built, it could be redesigned to the state’s satisfaction, Castillo said. But, since that would take more time, both sides agreed that the landfill expansion request would not go to the full board until Nov. 18--seven weeks after the date when the landfill is expected to be filled to legal capacity.

Castillo said the state staff had said Thursday that it would suggest that emergency approval be given for the county to continue using the landfill beyond the capacity date, until final approval is won.

On Friday, the state’s staff changed its tune.

“What they’re saying now is totally contrary to what they said just the day before,” Castillo said late Friday afternoon. “We’ll still go full-throttle into Monday’s meeting, to try to change their minds.”

Castillo said she didn’t believe there was any problem with slope stability until Friday’s report. “They were happy on Thursday,” she said.

“All this is very surprising.”