Politics Report: South County Trash Fight Goes to Sacramento

State senators had some questions for one of their former colleagues, Ben Hueso, when he appeared before them April 24. He was advocating against a bill from state Sen. Steve Padilla that would prohibit the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board from handing out waste discharge permits for any landfill in the Tijuana River watershed.

He’s aiming the bill right at Hueso’s client: National Enterprises. The company is trying to get permits for a more than 300-acre landfill and recycling center on the far eastern edge of Otay Mesa.

We need a landfill there, Hueso says, because the existing landfills in San Diego are reaching capacity, taxpayers had to build them to old, dirty standards and the state is falling behind on its waste diversion and recycling goals. Fortunately, someone has stepped up to help.

“We have an investor taking an enormous amount of risk siting this landfill,” Hueso told me.  

That investor is National Enterprises but Hueso said he didn’t know where the actual money came from. National has been connected to South Bay mogul and serial political candidate Roque de la Fuente (yes, the guy that ran for president with Kanye West) but Hueso said “I’ve been told he is not involved.”

David Wick, the CEO of National Enterprises confirmed that. Roque de la Fuente is not involved but his three oldest children and Wick own the company.  

Back to the hearing: The Senate Environmental Quality Committee was considering Padilla’s bill, SB 1208. Senators asked Hueso why he opposed it. After all, many years ago when he was a senator, he supported a very similar bill aimed at stopping a landfill in North County’s Gregory Canyon.

The Pala Band of Mission Indians had been fiercely fighting the landfill and Hueso supported a bill that would kill it.

“We have to value our environment and cultural resources mor e than the demand for a landfill,” Hueso said at the time.

Senators asked him what had changed.

“The difference is that this will be one of the most advanced facilities in our county’s and state’s history and it will be the best way to handle recycling and waste for San Diego County. It’s time for San Diego to modernize,” Hueso said.

Hueso and Wick have something trash entrepreneurs can only dream of already done, though. In 2010, San Diego County voters approved by a wide margin a ballot measure that changed the zoning of the land to allow for a dump. It still needs permits, it still needs to go through a difficult environmental impact report process. But San Diego County was left out of the decision about whether it should go there or not.

Padilla and a bevy of environmental groups and Republic Services, which manages landfills, wants the project dead before it gets any more traction. Padilla said contrary to Hueso’s claims, local landfills have capacity for decades to come. He got the Yana Garcia, the CalEPA secretary of environmental protection to send a letter confirming it.

“Does San Diego County have sufficient landfill capacity to meet the region’s anticipated needs through at least 2053?” Padilla asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “The County’s disposal capacity projections through 2053 are expected to be supported by reduced landfill disposal rates in the region through increased conservation and recycling activities (for both traditional and organic waste diversion), expansion of compost and construction and demolition (C&D) recycling facilities, and implementation of mandatory recycling ordinances, including edible food recovery.”

He said it was particularly aggravating to suggest a landfill should go anywhere near the already severely polluted Tijuana River watershed. The river already suffers from industrial and biological pollution from poor infrastructure and regulatory inadequacies south of the border.

“We can’t take anymore. To try to site a landfill in the river watershed is insane,” Padilla told me. The Senate Committee briefly considered amending his bill to allow a landfill if it could prove it would never let pollutants into the river watershed but that amendment failed. The Chula Vista City Council voted 3-2 to support that amendment but also 4-1 to support banning the landfill altogether, with Mayor John McCann opposed.

Hueso says none of this means more than voters support. And voters overwhelmingly supported Proposition A in 2010, which explicitly asked for approval to put the East Otay landfill on the site. It had broad support. The Union-Tribune endorsed the measure with a dire warning.

“The state projects that there is a real possibility that in the next 20 years the San Diego region could run out of local landfill space. If that happens, local governments and ultimately the residents and businesses they serve, will face financial shocks as trash will have to hauled to landfills outside the region at great cost,” the paper wrote in 2010.

Fourteen years later, however, the capacity issues are not nearly as severe. But Hueso says the vote still matters.

“This bill is an effort to overturn the will of the voters,” he said.

The Latest on Gloria’s Mega Shelter Push

This week, our Lisa Halverstadt profiled Douglas Hamm, the real estate and hospitality guru who pitched a Middletown warehouse he now owns as a potential city shelter. Halverstadt revealed how Hamm’s light bulb moment led to an informal cold email and eventually became a major 1,000 bed shelter plan pushed by Mayor Todd Gloria. Hamm, who faced backlash over an initial city deal many real estate and City Hall insiders felt was too favorable to him (he disagrees), said this week he’s talking to the city about potential revisions.

“I can’t take a complete bath on it just because I want to see it happen from a human perspective but I’m stretching to try to get it done,” Hamm said.

Gloria spokesperson Rachel Laing and Steve Cushman, a special assistant to Gloria and city housing commissioner, said late this week that talks with Hamm are continuing. Both say the city is focused on nailing a palatable lease deal for the property at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street following blowback on the initial proposal.

“Our priority is Kettner and Vine and we continue to work on that,” said Cushman, who noted that the City Council ordered city staff back to the negotiating table. “Everybody is working in very good faith.”

But Laing acknowledged Gloria’s team isn’t closed to other options.

“We’ll keep looking for suitable properties should we be unable to reach a deal on the Kettner property that the City Council recognizes is a good one,” Laing wrote in a text message. “The bottom line is that we do intend to add 1,000 beds this coming fiscal year.”

Indeed, Gloria pledged in his January State of the City address that he wants to deliver at least 1,000 additional homeless shelter beds by early 2025.

If you have any ideas or feedback for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org.

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