March 13, 2025
by Greg Moran
Some 376,000 voters live in San Diego County’s District 1, where an election to fill an empty seat will determine which political party holds the majority of the Board of Supervisors.
Last year Sen. Steve Padilla, whose sprawling district includes San Diego’s South County, proposed a bill that would have effectively prohibited any new landfill from being permitted in the Tijuana River watershed.
The bill failed on the floor of the state Assembly, following strong opposition from Assemblymember David Alvarez of San Diego.
But the now defunct bill and the proposed project it targeted provide a glimpse into the most prominent candidates competing in the primary for the District 1 county Board of Supervisors race. Those four — Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, Chula Vista City Councilmember Carolina Chavez, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann and San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno — took differing positions on the bill.
Padilla’s bill concerned the East Otay Mesa landfill and recycling facility, a long-running, largely under the radar controversy in South County. It would be located on a 450-acre plot east of the Siempre Viva Road exit off state Route 905 and a quarter mile north of the international border.
For decades South County has seen more than its share of environmental problems — pollutants from maritime industries along the southern reaches of San Diego Bay, poor air quality from thousands of people waiting in lines in cars to cross the international border, and the increasingly toxic brew stemming from cross-border sewage into the Tijuana River and local beaches.
“How many more adverse poisonous bad land uses are we gonna stick and dump on the South Bay,” Padilla said in an interview. The South County native has endorsed Aguirre for the seat.
“Whether it’s rendering plants or dumps or peaker plants powered by gas fired engines — you name the polluting industrial use, they always dumped it on South County.”
His bill aimed to halt that. It would have prohibited the state Regional Water Quality Board from issuing a permit for any landfill in the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research or reserve, or any area that’s a tributary of the river, with two limited exceptions.
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The proposed landfill has been an issue since 2010, when voters approved a proposition that amended land use regulations so that the landfill would not require a major use permit from county officials, and need only state and federal approvals.
Legislative records show that the bill attracted wide support from numerous elected officials in South County as well as environmental groups. It was opposed by National Enterprises Inc, the project developer and the California Building Association.
Moreno laid out her opposition to the bill in a letter to Padilla in April.
She said the bill “would interfere in the permitting process for a new landfill in Otay Mesa that has been ongoing for over a decade.” She also wrote she was concerned the bill was moving forward before an environmental impact report was completed. The draft report is still being worked on.
She also echoed concerns from proponents that two of the three landfills currently in operation — Otay Mesa Landfill in Chula Vista and Miramar Landfill in the city of San Diego — are set to close by 2030. If that were to happen without a new landfill being built “our region could be forced to truck its waste, which would be both harmful to the environment and costly to solid waste consumers,” Moreno said.
Estimates of how much landfill capacity is left varies. A 2022 study by the county concluded that there is enough capacity in county landfills to last until 2053. But David Wick, the president of National Enterprises, told the Chula Vista City Council in a discussion on the bill last April that projection would require the Otay Mesa Landfill to increase in height by 20 to 30 feet.
Padilla’s bill was later amended to say that if the state Secretary of Environmental Protection issued written findings that the landfill “would not harm or otherwise adversely effect” the Tijuana River area, and the regional water board makes findings that the landfill meets water quality objectives and protects “beneficial uses,” then a permit could be issued.
Records show that in subsequent hearings Moreno was not listed as opposing the bill.
Her current position is not known. She and her campaign did not respond to several requests for an interview on the topic.
Campaign contribution records show that Wick and his wife have contributed the maximum amount of $2,200 each to Moreno’s campaign.
At that April meeting in Chula Vista, the council took up a resolution calling for support of SB 1208. Chavez said she had been contacted by residents, advocates and nonprofit organizations about the landfill.
“It just worries me that when you have 25 calls of people concerned with these issues for me to say, “OK, we’re going with another landfill…I cannot in good faith support right now at this moment another landfill.”
Records show she voted in support of the bill. She also voted to support a suggested amendment, clarifying that the bill would not impede the long-planned restoration of an abandoned sand and gravel quarry in the estuarine reserve.
Chavez also voted against the amendment that would allow the permit if the regional water quality board found that the landfill would not affect water quality.
Chavez also did not respond to requests for an interview.
Also at the meeting McCann voted against supporting the bill and the amendments. He said that it was too early in the legislative process and the bill could change.
“This bill hasn’t even gone through committee so I think it’s almost too early to vote on something that hasn’t even gone into committee,” he told his colleagues. “You’re going to vote on something that is probably going to morph multiple times.”
He also said he hears often from residents near the existing landfill who have long wanted it closed. “Voting not to open a new one and to keep the current one open for longer I think should be looked at very, very seriously,” he said.
McCann also did not respond to requests for an interview on the landfill. The Wicks have also contributed $1,100 each to his campaign, records show.
Aguirre was listed as a supporter of the bill when it was introduced. In an interview she echoed objections from Padilla and others about South County as a dumping ground for the county’s unwanted land uses.
“Look, we have historically been in many ways a dumping site in South County,” she said. “And putting another landfill that actually has, or runs the risk rather, of leaking into the watershed into the river and contributing and exacerbating the contamination caused by the Tijuana River is unacceptable.
“We need to increase our quality of life. We need to tackle the, not just environmental, but social challenges that District1 is facing. And I just don’t see the benefit of adding another landfill in South County. Let’s look at other areas. Why does it have to be the community south of the 8?”
A total of seven candidates are running to replace Nora Vargas, who resigned in December after easily winning re-election the month prior. Though the Board of Supervisors is officially nonpartisan, the outcome of the election will determine which party holds board majority.