Wednesday, March 14, 2007

 

Water cops reject Pendleton landfill plan

By Gig Conaughton
The North County Times

SAN DIEGO, CA - San Diego County's water cops tersely rejected a proposal by Camp Pendleton this week that proposed to fix the base's leaky Las Pulgas landfill by pulling a new $5.5 million liner over the top of the trash that already sits on the $2.3 million landfill's existing, torn liner.

San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board officials said the proposed cleanup "action plan" would put an umbrella over the leaky liner, and prevent rainfall from falling through the landfill to its lowest levels.

But they said it would do nothing to prevent the existing polluted leachate from thousands of gallons of hazardous waste from continuing to leak through the lower liner into groundwater supplies nearby, or to prevent additional trash from increasing the weight and continuing to tear holes in the existing liner.

Camp Pendleton officials, in a written statement, said Marine Corps officials were reviewing the rejection and planned to meet with the control board "at their earliest convenience" to discuss the agency's concerns.

The statement said the base would submit a new corrective action plan, but did not say when.

The control board issued Camp Pendleton a violation notice on the landfill ---- which was expanded in 1999 to hold decades worth of trash ---- in April 2003, saying it was concerned that the landfill was allowing too much erosion and runoff into groundwater areas.

Then, in 2003, after discovering leaks and tears in the landfill's protective liner, base officials voluntarily stopped putting trash into the expanded area.

That didn't fix the problem of the leaking liner. The control board issued a new violation notice to the base in 2004.

The control board is the regional branch of the State Water Resources Control Board and polices water pollution from Laguna Beach in Orange County to the U.S.-Mexico border, and 50 miles inland to the coastal mountain ranges.

Art Coe, the board's assistant executive director, said Wednesday that the board had limited authority over the military and other federal agencies.

Coe said that the board can, and does, issue financial penalties to state and private agencies that violate the law and pollute the waterways. But, he said, the board cannot levy fines against the military or federal agencies.

Coe said the board could take Camp Pendleton to court over the issue if they could not reach a resolution.

Camp Pendleton officials, meanwhile, spent $151,500 last year to have Pasadena-based Tetra Tech, Inc. conduct a seven-month study of how to fix the landfill.

That study outlined three potential solutions: the $5.5 million option that would pull a new liner over top of the existing trash; an $8.8 million to $17.3 million option to build new liners for the expansion; and a $14.4 million "clean closure" option that would swell to $29.4 million if the existing trash needed to be shipped off-site.

Pendleton officials chose the $5.5 million option and submitted it to the control board for consideration in January.

Coe, meanwhile, said the control board was encouraged by the fact that Camp Pendleton wanted to continue talking to try to reach a solution.

"There's a problem here, and we want to see it fixed," Coe said.