Landfill concept should be dumped

In response to “Governor should veto Vargas’ end run” (Editorial, Sept. 2): When voters last considered putting a dump in Gregory Canyon, they weren’t provided the full picture by the proponents that the canyon is also at the headwaters of the San Luis Rey River, which provides drinking water to tens of thousands of families in San Diego County.

In fact, using the ballot box for complex land-use decisions usually isn’t fair to voters. That’s why we have staff experts at the County of San Diego to delve into the details. When these officials reviewed the project in the early 1990s, they rejected the site as inappropriate. The proposed dump is on a river, in an earthquake zone. Have we learned nothing by other disasters? We should fight against projects that could result in environmental, cultural and health catastrophes.

Seldom do Democrats and Republicans agree on anything in Sacramento. But they voted 70-1 to stop this. If the Gregory Canyon dump is built, we can be assured that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will look back and ask “Who were these fools that let a dump get built right on a river?” Let’s be good ancestors and stop this nonsense. -- State Sen. Juan Vargas, 40th District

Senate Bill 833 recognizes and corrects the injustice that was done by ballot-box planning designed to allow a dump at a site that local agencies continually rejected. The landfill would never have been allowed if not for an end-run by the dump’s backers to get around the local planning process with their misleading 1994 ballot initiative.

Why would anyone ever build a dump next to a river? And why would the Union-Tribune, or anyone else, support such a reckless plan? Signing Senate Bill 833, and supporting what San Diego’s local agencies recommended before the 1994 vote, is the right thing to do. -- Robert Smith, Chairman, Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association