South Orange County residents came out on Thursday night to a park above the Talega Swim and Athletic Club to talk about the big, smelly problem just over the hill – the Prima Deshecha landfill, which many say is already showering their neighborhoods in dust alongside noise and traffic.
“It’s horrific, I’m tired of hearing my husband complain every time he cleans our pool,” said Ellen Vinck, former head of the Rancho San Juan Homeowners Association board, which backs up to the landfill. “We go through filters like potato chips.”
“Prima opens for operations at seven in the morning. What do we start listening to at six in the morning? Beep. Beep. Beep,” she continued. “Imagine what will happen to this and the compounding of this if they’re allowed to double the capacity.”
Now, county staff are talking about doubling the amount of trash that goes to the landfill every day.
The plan is to increase the ceiling from 4,000 to 8,000 tons, as officials look toward shutting down one of the county’s two other landfills, sitting on 565-acres in Brea’s Olinda neighborhood, near Carbon Canyon Regional Park and Chino Hills State Park.
Read: Thousands of South OC Residents Question County Plans to Expand Prima Deshecha Landfill
The shutdown at the Olinda Alpha Landfill could bring thousands of additional tons of trash per day to Prima Deshecha, with its already expanded footprint stretching out across La Pata Road, near San Juan Hills High School and Ortega Highway.
“The current plan the county administrators have planned on…is that of the 6,600 (tons) in Brea, 5,300 tons is coming here,” said Cameron Cosgrove, another one of the residents who helped lead Thursday’s Town Hall.
“That’s why the county wants to increase the operational intensity.”
It’s a move that’s facing strong opposition from residents, along with school, city, county and state leaders.
Tracy Sutherland, one of the activists who helped organize the town hall opposing the landfill, encouraged residents to get involved, pointing out how they were looking to start a legal fund opposing the landfill’s expansion.
“We don’t want to double this tonnage cause it’ll crush this city,” Sutherland said to the crowd.
Lisa Davis, president of the Capistrano Valley Unified School District school board, pointed to nearby kids playing in the park during her remarks to the town hall saying residents need to take action.
“Now that we’re all aware of it, we have to do our part to help make these changes,” Davis said. “Our current supervisor will be here in a few minutes and she voted for that, so you can talk to her about that. That’s where this is coming from.”
County Supervisor Katrina Foley, who showed up about an hour after the town hall started, coming from a campaign fundraiser in Irvine, is facing tough questions over whether she failed to get ahead of the county bureaucracy’s expansion plans or help residents organize against it.
Read: Despite Denials, County Supervisor Was Told Tons of Trash Routed to South OC
After arriving at Thursday’s town hall, Foley publicly disputed Davis’ statements, saying she opposed the expansion and was trying to push the rest of her colleagues to take it off the table.
“Let me correct the record – I did not vote on expanding the landfill. I exposed the expansion that’s being proposed,” Foley said. “I will continue to advocate against expanding the landfill.”
Read: Expansion of County Landfill Turns Into Hot Button Campaign Issue
She also noted she wanted to fix up current operations to help residents.
“We heard about dust, we’ve heard about odor,” Foley said. “Current operations need to be addressed, and that’s something we’ll work on over the summer.”
But when asked about the issue after the town hall, Foley said she didn’t have a plan yet for where the trash would go if Prima Deshecha was off the table.
“We’re not in a hurry,” Foley said. “We should do it right.”
Assemblywoman Diane Dixon, who’s currently running against Foley for supervisor, showed up at the start of the town hall and stayed for about an hour, reading from a letter signed by six members of Orange County’s state delegation pledging to fight the proposal to bring tons of trash to South OC.
Signers included State Senators Steven Choi and Tony Strickland alongside Assembly members Dixon, Kate Sanchez, Tri Ta and Laurie Davies, who represents the area around the dump.
“We stand with Orange County constituents in opposition to the proposed doubling of the capacity of the Prima Deschecha Landfill,” they wrote. “The details of this plan are troubling. The location is not suitable for significant growth.”
“Wherever it’s necessary for the state to intervene, we will be there for you,” Dixon added during her remarks to the crowd.
Dixon declined to comment on what she would do about the issue as a county supervisor when asked about it by Voice of OC, saying she didn’t want to “politicize the event.”
Multiple San Clemente City Council members also spoke out at the town hall, with Councilman Victor Cabral helping lead the discussion and sharing concerns over the possible damage from the dumping of lithium batteries in the landfill soil near the city.
“When the original environmental impact report was prepared 40-50 years ago, there weren’t such things as lithium batteries,” Cabral said. “If it’s not a crisis right now, we know at some point in time it will be.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.