The waste and recycling company EDCO is planning to build an organic green-waste recycling facility near Betsworth Road in Valley Center, leaving some residents anxious about possible odors and increased traffic.

EDCO President Steve South said he plans to listen to those concerns at community meetings, beginning July 22, to help the company design the recycling center.

"We want to be a good neighbor," South said. "We can come up with one idea, but a lot of times the public will come up with great ideas or concerns that we haven't even thought of."

South stressed that the proposed facility is not a landfill, such as the controversial 183-acre dump proposed at Gregory Canyon. It also would be nothing like the county-owned San Elijo solid-waste recycling center that closed in 1995 after operating just a year and half, costing the county millions of dollars.

"This is a green-waste processing facility," he said. "They're very different facilities. That was a huge site. It had huge conveyors and equipment in there. That's nothing like what we're talking about."

Trucks hauled solid waste to the San Elijo center, where bottles, cans and other recyclable material were separated from trash that was dumped in an adjacent landfill. In comparison, South said, the Valley Center facility would take only leaves, grass and other organic material and turn them into useful products, with nothing left over to take to landfills.

EDCO last year bought about 197 acres south of Betsworth Road and west of Frace Lane, where El Modeno Gardens had grown flowers until closing two years ago. South said the company chose the site partly because its large size would buffer the residents from the facility, which would sit on between 35 and 50 acres.

The property is zoned for light agriculture, and the company will need a major use permit from the county to operate there, said South, who added that the operation would be consistent with agricultural use in the area.

Preliminary plans call for about 20 trucks a day to haul about 406 tons of green waste to the site, where about 10 people would work eight or 10 hours a day, six days a week, South said.

South said the company hasn't decided whether to build a covered off-loading area for the trucks.

The material hauled to the site would include brush, lawn clippings and other organic items that otherwise would go to landfills. That green waste would go into covered, computer-monitored composting bins that, working faster than conventional composting, turn it into soil-enhancing products.

The end result, South said, will be less waste in landfills and a product that will help growers operate more efficiently and with less water.

But first, he must convince residents that the facility will be a good fit for Valley Center, and at least one man is going to be a tough sell.

"I'm not interested in talking about the facility, because I just don't want the facility," said Richard Moker, president of the homeowners association at the Ranch, a gated community off of Betsworth Road.

Moker said he will be able to see the facility from his front window, and he is worried that EDCO's arrival will pave the way for more development in the area.

"I bought this lovely house for the view, and now the view will have, for lack of a better word, a dump," he said. "The fact that I can see it from here is an issue, but the real issue is that it's not the right thing for the valley."

Moker is trying to form a group of residents to fight the project, and he is inviting people to contact him at RichardMoker@aol.com.

"If they were going to put houses there, I wouldn't like that, either, but I could certainly live with looking at rooftops instead of huts with rotting vegetation," he said.

Oliver Smith, president of the Valley Center Planning Group, said he has not passed judgment on the project yet.

"At this point, I don't know whether I'm for it or against it," he said. "I don't know enough about it."

Smith said he learned about the proposal about two weeks ago through word of mouth, and also said people are upset because the project seemed to have been under the radar for months. Smith said he called South and told him "the genie's out of the bottle," then invited him to a community meeting.

The first is scheduled for 6 p.m. July 22 at the site on the corner of Betsworth Road and Frace Lane. South said he also will be at the 7 p.m. Aug. 10 meeting Planning Group meeting at the Valley Center Community Hall, 28246 Lilac Road.

The facility would be the first of its kind for EDCO. South said the state Integrated Waste Management Board estimates 96 more are needed in California by 2020 to meet its goal of removing organic material from landfills.

Call staff writer Gary Warth at 760-740-5410.