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Looking
east down Loma Alta Creek from just west of I-5 where the creek starts
running on the south side of the railroad tracks and Oceanside Boulevard.
BILL WECHTER Staff Photographer
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Complaints
spur cleanup effort at Oceanside
industrial park
By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer
OCEANSIDE ---- Spurred
on by a relentless neighborhood activist, the city has warned several businesses on and around Industry Street
that they need to clean up their
operations, especially those that could threaten nearby Loma Alta
Creek, or face
citations.
A Dec. 8 memo from the manager of the Code Enforcement Division, David
Manley, to the Oceanside City Council states that six businesses, and the
North County Transit District, must perform a range of activities in order
to make their properties on Industry Street and Oceanside Boulevard more
tidy and less harmful to nearby Loma Alta Creek, which meets the Pacific at
Buccaneer Beach.
"Most of them were housekeeping issues,"
Manley said last week. "I think the businesses will be able to get
most of them taken care of pretty quickly."
The industrial area along Oceanside Boulevard between Crouch Street
and El Camino Real has been under neighborhood scrutiny due to the recent
approval of a concrete plant to be built on a creek-side lot on Industry Street.
Some business owners in the area said they think that protests against
business are connected to
opposition to the plant. The city
set a deadline of Friday for most businesses to comply with warnings that
included better dust control,
litter removal and better landscaping maintenance.
Mo Lahsaie, coordinator of the
city's clean water program, also inspected
businesses on Industry Street
after receiving neighborhood complaints and wrote letters to two businesses
about changes that must be made to keep runoff from entering Loma Alta Creek,
one of the city's dirtiest waterways.
"The people that made the complaints have legitimacy, and that
is why we are responding," Lahsaie said. At Vulcan Materials Co., a plant that
mixes concrete at Industrial
Street, Lahsaie
ordered that dust controls be
installed throughout the plant
as well as improvements to a containment area at the plant's southwest
corner "to avoid any potential discharge of runoff into the
creek." A Vulcan representative
said Friday that the company has voluntarily addressed
all of the city's concerns.
A second letter went to the North County Transit
District, stating that the contractor building the east-west Sprinter
light-rail line had left trash and debris along the creek at Crouch Street
and at El Camino Real, and that a concrete washout area at College Boulevard
was built incorrectly, increasing the possibility that runoff might enter
the creek. "We highly recommend
that your contractor follow all the requirements for the project very
closely and step up their site inspections more frequently," the
letter states.
Tom Kelleher, a spokesman for the district, said Friday
that one employee is assigned
full time to make sure that Sprinter contractors follow all regulations on
water quality. He said the district has tried
to respond to every complaint from the city. Kelleher said that it is
difficult at times for one employee to keep an eye on every construction
project along the Sprinter's 22 miles.
"It's impossible to stay up on it when, on any given day,
everything is changing in so many different locations," Kelleher said.
Neighborhood activist steps forward
Nadine Scott, an outspoken activist who lives just north
of the industrial area, said last week that she decided
late in November that it was time for the city to clean up the industrial
park. She described how she and
another neighborhood resident drove through the area nearly every day,
photographing conditions and some businesses that she thought were
violating city codes and stormwater regulations. "I realized
the city has entirely ignored
the industrial corridor," Scott said. "There were so many visible
violations, I was stunned. And
we wonder why Buccaneer
Beach (at the mouth
of the creek) was closed 100
days last year."
The reaction from businesses to Scott's continual
complaints about the park to city officials, including presentations during
the comment period during at least one council meeting, has been mixed. Glenn
Castro, owner of HyperSports, a motorcycle shop
on Oceanside Boulevard,
called Scott's continual trips
through the neighborhood "Gestapo tactics." He said that his business was continually
reported to the city for a fuel
spill that originated on a neighboring
property and had nothing to do with his business.
"Despite being told twice that it wasn't our spill,
they took pictures with our sign in the background and presented them to the City Council," Castro said.
"We have been here for 18 years. We get inspected
all the time by the city and the county, and we have never had one
problem."
The city singled
out another business, Gorilla Rentals on Oceanside Boulevard, for its lack of
erosion control and for storing some items that are not permitted by city code.
Manager Neil Dixon said last week that the business has worked hard to meet the city's deadline for
compliance. "We will do
whatever we have to do to comply," Dixon said, adding that new
"waddles" to control erosion are already in place and that other
items have been fixed. He said that he has no problem with the
city wanting to improve the look of the industrial park, but he added that the area will never be a tidy strip
mall. "It's an industrial park,
and that's what we do down here," he said, adding that the city could
take steps, such as repaving Industry Street, to make the area more
appealing to the neighborhood. Castro
said he believes there's a hidden agenda in Scott's complaints. He noted that many Loma Alta residents, including
Scott, have vocally opposed the
concrete plant that was recently approved
by the Oceanside Planning Commission; it will be built soon on Industry Street. "They don't
want that concrete plant to get built, and so they are trying to make the
whole area look bad in order to pass their agenda," Castro said.
Scott said she does oppose the concrete plant, but only
because she is not satisfied
that the city's Planning Department required
an adequate environmental study to make sure that it will not generate dust
or water runoff that will get to Loma Alta Creek. "I would like the city staff to
re-evaluate this project, and require an (environmental study) that is
subject to public review," Scott said.
Jerry Hittleman, interim director of the Oceanside
Planning Department, said last week that he does not believe more
environmental studies are warranted.
He said the concrete plant, to be built by Robertson's Ready Mix of Corona,
will be much different than most. He said the plaint will be entirely
contained within a building and
that all the dust will be kept inside. Likewise, he said, the city's stormwater regulations will permit no water discharge
from the property into Loma
Alta Creek. "Since it was not your typical
old-style concrete plant, that's why we felt it wasn't necessary,"
Hittleman said, adding that Robertsons was required to do air and water quality and traffic
studies that are on file at the Planning Department.
Scott said she's not convinced
that the concrete plant would be clean, noting that it will result in
dozens of additional diesel-burning concrete trucks on the road in her
neighborhood every day. "Tell
me how you improve air quality when you're adding trucks to the roads every
day?" Scott said.
Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.
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