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Health & Fitness

Palomar Airport Landfill: The PAAC is Wrong, Blog #26

Hidden Agendas

 

Does a hidden Palomar Airport agenda explain the County’s failure to analyze safety issues at the Palomar Airport landfill?   And when will the County Counsel explain the law to County managers?

The April 2013 PAAC Meeting

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At the April 2013 PAAC meeting, the PAAC and County management advised: The County’s Landfill Enforcement Agency, not Palomar Airport, is responsible for assessing Palomar Landfill safety. [In other words “pass the buck.”  See Blog #25.]

What’s Wrong with the County Statement?

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Issue Avoidance.  Notice what the County didn’t say.  A true leader might have said: “Thank you for bringing this issue to us.   The County’s Landfill Enforcement Agency [LEA] resolves landfill problems.  We will ask LEA to investigate and report back to us.  We will consult with the County Counsel. LEA and Airport staff will report at the next PAAC meeting.”   Not difficult.  Management 101 and Public Relations 101. 

Legally wrong.  Worse, the County response was legally wrong.  That is why the County Counsel needs to speak up.

Why?  Suppose you break a hip shopping at Von’s.  You slip on a child’s pacifier plopped by a now not-so-cute baby.  It is not the store’s pacifier.  Nor did the store put the pacifier on the premises.   Will you be dancing soon at the Ritz Carlton with a new hip and hip friends courtesy of Von’s?

Yes, but only if Von’s had a reasonable chance to discover the dangerous condition created by the baby. 

In short, the Airports Division can’t escape liability by scape goating LEA.

The County could incur tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from a plane crashing into the Palomar methane-emitting landfill.  Landfill contaminated with aviation fuel will be hugely expensive to clean up.  The Airporrts Division is legally responsible because the dangerous condition was on airport property even if not created by Airports.  Moreover, Airports (not the LEA) invited the planes.

Would the County LEA also be legally responsible?  Quite possibly.  It could have objected to the added risk unless mitigation measures were first carried out. Should we taxpayers care who pays?  Of course.  Palomar Airport pays from user charges. LEA pays from taxpayer funds. 

Should County Management and the PAAC Know Better?

In June 2000 the Airportd Division and the Inactive Waste Site Management Section [later renamed LEA], signed a Memorandum of Understanding.  Palomar Airport agreed to pay 55% of the cost of remediating certain Palomar Landfill Units 1 & 2 problems.  IWSM paid the remaining 45%.  

Remediation was necessary because the Regional Water Quality Control Board had cited the County for violations. In other words, Palomar Airport management and PAAC members knew or should have known at the April 2013 PAAC meeting that both the Airport Division and LEA bear responsibility for Palomar landfill problems.

It does not matter whether the PAAC meeting info was purposely wrong.  It was wrong.  We expect better of the County.  

What’s the Hidden Agenda?

The County wants the landfill problem to disappear.  Airport management does not want to incur remediation costs to make the landfill safe for larger planes [C-III planes at the Palomar B-II airport] that may crash on the landfill. 

Nor does the LEA want to pay for problems it sees as arising from using Palomar as an expanded commercial airport rather than the basic transport general aviation airport that Carlsbad allowed by Carlsbad Conditional Use Permit [CUP] 172.

How does the County avoid the dispute?  Shhh.  No need for anyone to speak up.   Just expand the airport use without remediation.  No one will have to pay.

It’s hard being County Counsel.  Why stick your neck out to explain to Palomar Airport and LEA management what the issues are?  You may anger one or both.

Meanwhile, how about protecting public safety and avoiding hazardous material landfill contamination?

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