PAUMA VALLEY -- The San Luis Rey Watershed Council declined Monday to endorse a local tribe's efforts to stop the hotly contested Gregory Canyon landfill.

Council members in attendance disagreed over whether to revisit past council discussion on the proposed landfill and take a stance on the matter.

The council, a group of 21 voting representatives from local agencies, organizations and tribes with an interest in the San Luis Rey Watershed, addressed the issue in a March 23 letter to San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn. The letter included a statement that said "proponents of the Gregory Canyon landfill must fully comply with all permitting requirements." But it did not go as far as stating opposition to the project.

Horn, whose district includes Gregory Canyon, was out of the area and unavailable for comment Monday.

"I would hope that we will take a position (on the landfill), but I don't know for sure," council member George Wilkins said after the meeting. "Because there's such a diversity of opinions, we do want to move forward rather than fragment apart, and with issues like Gregory Canyon, that can get difficult."

The $60 million landfill is proposed for 1,770 acres of land two miles west of the Pala Indian Reservation and about three miles east of the Highway 76-Interstate 15 interchange.

The Pala Band of Mission Indians is backing a ballot measure that would repeal Proposition C, a decade-old amendment to the county's general land-use plan that allowed the site to be zoned for the dump, approved by 68 percent of county voters in 1994.

Though the San Luis Rey Watershed Council did not put the landfill on its next agenda, Oceanside Mayor Terry Johnson is scheduled to speak about Gregory Canyon at its next meeting on June 16.

Some of the 20 people in attendance at the council meeting expressed a desire to take a stronger stance on the landfill, while others pressed the group to drop the issue.

"We've taken our position," watershed council member Paul Campo said at the meeting. "Let's leave it, let it go."

"I read the technical documents … and my opinion, it's a bad idea for this watershed," Wilkins said at the meeting. "It's probably a poor place for a landfill."

Among the Pala tribe's objections to the dump are desecration of sacred tribal lands and possible contamination of the San Luis Rey River, the tribe's sole source of drinking water.

The project is opposed by a number of local political and environmental groups, including the cities of Encinitas and Oceanside, RiverWatch and the San Diego chapter of the Sierra Club.

The Fallbrook Public Utility District passed a resolution opposing the dump at its meeting Monday following a presentation to the board from the Pala tribe members.

Tribal officials who made the presentation in Fallbrook expressed optimism after that meeting that the watershed council also will ultimately oppose the landfill.

"We're hopeful that the council will consider taking a position on the matter in the future," said Lenore Volturno, environmental director for the Pala tribe. "Opposing the landfill benefits the entire watershed, including the San Luis Rey council, and we're just happy that they're able to consider it."

The tribe is using paid signature gatherers in its quest to get 66,000 signatures by Aug. 6 to get the measure on the November ballot.

"It's going well so far," water technician John McPhee said. "We're just trying to gather support and to get the word out."

Gregory Canyon consultant Jim Simmons said landfill developers anticipate having a solid waste permit by early June, and expressed confidence that voters would support the landfill a second time.

"If, in fact, the voters understand the truth, I think they will vote the same way they did in 1994; it's just how far off the truth the Pala group is willing to go," Simmons said. "We will do our best to make sure that people understand the issues like they did back then."

Contact staff writer Anne Riley-Katz at (760) 731-5799 or ariley-katz@nctimes.com.