California Coastal Commission decides to seek federal consistency review of proposed Gregory Canyon Landfill

PALA – The Pala Band of Mission Indians, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the rest of the Save Gregory Canyon Coalition applaud the California Coastal Commission (CCC) for its decision to seek federal consistency review of the proposed Gregory Canyon Landfill project.

“We applaud and are grateful to the California Coastal Commission for exercising its appropriate authority to review the critically harmful impacts that the proposed landfill will incur,” said Robert Smith, Chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians. “Putting a dump on the San Luis Rey River, which flows into the coastal zone, threatens the plants, animals, and people who depend on its waters. The decision by the CCC is important because it provides additional transparency and opportunity for public input.”

The CCC has the right to review any federal permit where there are potential harmful impacts from the project on coastal resources, regardless of whether the project is in the coastal zone or not. When a project is outside of the coastal zone, as the landfill is, the CCC must ask the Office for Coastal Management (OCM), which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to authorize the review.

The CCC is attempting to assert jurisdiction because of the following potential impacts to coastal resources:

• Potential contamination from leachate leaks that may flow downriver to the ocean.
• Potential impacts to steelhead that migrate from the ocean upriver to spawn. The San Luis Rey River has been identified as a potential river for steelhead reintroduction.

• Potential impacts to coastal species such as endangered birds and migratory mammals who use the river as a corridor to travel inland to the ocean.

In a letter released by the CCC, the commission states, “Commission staff is concerned that the disposal of more than 30 million tons of waste next to the river would threaten both surface water in the river and groundwater in the Pala, Bonsall, and Mission underground aquifers that underlie the river from the site to the ocean.”

Gregory Canyon is located on the banks of the San Luis Rey River, home to multiple endangered species, on top of an aquifer that supplies water to thousands of homes and on a known earthquake fault.

The Pala Band of Mission Indians, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the City of Oceanside, RiverWatch, and other groups have strongly opposed the proposed landfill for more than 20 years because it would not only threaten water quality in the San Luis Rey River and adjacent drinking water aquifers, but it would desecrate a mountain sacred to Native Americans.

“For decades, it's been evident that this dump does not make environmental or cultural sense,” said Damon Nagami, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s clear that there will be major impacts to coastal water quality, endangered species and wildlife corridors. California communities and wildlife simply can't afford this big of a blow to their health."

For more information, visit www.savegregorycanyon.org.