Rejection of Fuel Station Signals New Direction for National City

For generations, National City has simultaneously prospered and suffered as the industrial heart of San Diego County. 

The small, diverse, mostly lower-income city is home to key sections of San Diego’s naval operations, the region’s largest ocean freight terminal and block after block of small manufacturers, auto repair facilities and trucking operations. 

The prevalence of heavy industry has been a source of jobs and revenue. But it also has choked the city with air pollution and blocked residents’ access to San Diego Bay. 

On Tuesday, City Councilmembers took a decisive step away from what they said has been the city’s longtime role as San Diego’s industrial dumping ground. 

The Council voted unanimously to reject a controversial rail transfer station that would have made the city a major hub for biofuels shipping in the San Diego region. 

Councilmembers said the transfer station, which would have brought 13,800 barrels of biofuels per day to a rail depot on the city’s west side for transfer to local delivery trucks, would have added even more air pollution and truck traffic to an industrial neighborhood already overburdened by both. 

“As much as I agree biofuels is a good thing and is needed in our region, I don’t think National City should take on all the regional burdens for all the other cities,” said Mayor Ron Morrison shortly before voting against the transfer station. “We have been stuck with a lot of things.” 

Morrison and other councilmembers agreed that voting down the transfer station should be the start, not the end, of a process of cleaning up the city’s worst environmental problems and moving in a new economic direction. 

“We need to double down and clean up this neighborhood,” said Councilmember Marcus Bush. “I don’t want this conversation to end here.” 

Representatives for USD Clean Fuels, the Texas-based petroleum logistics company that sought to build the transfer station, exited the Council chamber immediately following the vote and were unavailable for comment. 

A spokesperson said in a statement emailed on Wednesday that company officials were disappointed by the Council’s vote and “would follow all applicable state and local processes as we meet with project stakeholders and evaluate next steps.” 

Opponents of the project packed the City Council chambers and overflowed into a lobby and an adjacent hearing room. They erupted in cheers after the Council vote and said they hoped the vote signaled a change from the city’s longtime reliance on heavy industry. 

“This is a major shift,” said National City resident Cindy Quiñonez, who serves on the city’s traffic commission. “We’ve had a lot of lip service for environmental justice, for providing housing and bringing new businesses for the city…The talk is there but the walk has never happened till tonight.” 

Councilmembers echoed Quiñonez’s statement. Luz Molina, whose west side district would have included the project, said the city already struggles to regulate existing industrial businesses and needs to pivot toward a cleaner economy. 

In an interview following the vote, Molina said she and other councilmembers are pinning their hopes on a planned transformation of part of the city’s waterfront. Plans call for a visitor-friendly district incorporating an expanded bayfront park, an aquatic center, a marina, restaurants and several new hotels. 

“This is the portion [of the waterfront] that we have the greatest ability to do actual true economic development and drive revenues for the city,” Molina said. “This sliver…is on momentum for revitalization.” 

Councilmember Marcus Bush urged residents and environmental advocates who attended Tuesday’s meeting to extend the passion they had shown for defeating the fuel transfer station to an ongoing effort to take on other polluters, including Port of San Diego-bound truck traffic on Interstate 5 and cargo operations at the port’s National City Marine Terminal. 

Bush said next on the city’s agenda should be pushing the port to finalize a long-sought land use plan that would expand the city’s waterfront access and enable more economic development near San Diego Bay. 

Bush said he expected the plan, called the National City Balanced Plan, to appear before the California Coastal Commission later this year. 

If the plan gains Commission approval, its final regulatory hurdle, “We can become more attractive as a destination and build hotels and generate more revenue,” Bush said. “I need to see more of the people who came [to oppose the transfer station] fighting for that.” 

A port spokesperson said port officials share National City’s desire to rebalance waterfront land uses and have worked hard to secure necessary permits and ensure both city residents and port tenants benefit from planned changes. 

“The port’s dedication to seeing this plan through has never changed,” the spokesperson said in a statement. 

Tuesday’s City Council vote came as city leaders have begun looking ahead to next year’s mayoral race, in which Morrison is widely expected to square off for re-election against Councilmember Jose Rodriguez. 

Rodriguez declared his candidacy earlier this year. Morrison said in an interview this week he is still weighing whether to run. Political observers expect a major theme of the campaign to be the city’s economic future as it wrestles with a budget deficit and seeks to turn the page on its industrial past. 

At Tuesday’s Council meeting, Rodriguez and Morrison were in rare agreement that National City’s days as what Rodriguez called an environmental “sacrificial lamb” were over. 

“We had leadership in the past that didn’t think about the long-term consequences” of heavy industry, Rodriguez said. “It doesn’t make sense for our community to take the hit again.” 

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