A controversial plan to build a landfill in rural northern San Diego County has been scrapped, and a key piece of the land has been sold to a Native American tribe that opposed the project.

The deal announced Thursday puts an end to a 25-year fight over the proposed Gregory Canyon landfill that included several lawsuits and two countywide ballot measures. The city of Oceanside, environmental groups and the Pala Band of Mission Indians had all tried to block the project, but it steamed ahead until a few years ago when financing problems forced the property owner into bankruptcy.

A new owner, GCL LLC, stepped in last year and there were signs the dump might finally get off the ground. Instead, the company said Thursday it had sold roughly 700 acres of the 1,700 acre site to the Pala tribe for $13 million, effectively killing the landfill plan.

The agreement includes a pledge that the tribe won’t oppose residential and commercial development on the rest of the property, said Todd Mikles, a principal of GCL.

Pala officials confirmed that promise. They said the land purchase ensures the protection of several sites that are sacred to the tribe and steeped in cultural significance.

“The deal includes all of Gregory Mountain — we already owned the eastern side — and all of Gregory Canyon, so that makes it impossible for there to be any sort of landfill development there,” said Shasta Gaughen, the tribe’s environmental director and historic preservation officer. “This outcome, with the tribe owning one of the most sacred sites we have — I didn't’ see it ending like this and I couldn’t be happier.”

She said the tribe began meeting with GCL in September and that the deed to the 700 acres was recorded at 8 a.m.Thursday.

Landfill opponents like environmental attorney Everett DeLano said they were thrilled by the news.

“I’ve been fighting this thing for so many years,” he said. “It’s amazing it’s finally over. It’s wonderful. Good job Pala.”

The proposed dump had been controversial since initial plans were unveiled in the early 1990s, calling for the project to be built on a sprawling piece of land that straddles state Route 76 roughly three miles east of Interstate 15, not far from the San Luis Rey River. The Pala reservation lies just to the east.

Protecting the river and the underground water supply became the focus of several environmental groups and municipalities that banded together to fight the project. The tribe’s objections to the dump, however, were both pragmatic and spiritual.

Sharing a road with roughly 500 trash trucks a day would have been bad for Pala residents and casino visitors, they acknowledged. But far worse was building a landfill next to Gregory Mountain. They said the prospect was akin to building a trash dump around the walls of a cathedral.

Gregory Mountain is known as Chokla to native people and it is where Takwic, a balancing spirit who can appear in human form or as a ball of fire, sometimes rests, Gaughen said.

“Native ways of knowing and navigating the spiritual and sacred often leave no trace on the land,” she said. “Yet the mark they leave on the cultural lives of the people is indelible.”

The tribe poured millions into fighting the dump proposal.

Still in 1994 county voters approved Proposition C, a measure that amended the county’s general plan and zoning ordinance to allow a landfill without a major-use permit, thereby — at least theoretically — streamlining the project’s approval. Ten years later, the project withstood another major challenge when voters rejected a ballot initiative, funded primarily by the tribe, that would have invalidated Proposition C.

Although the developers won some major permits, several other key ones remained including one from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had a say because of the dump’s proximity to the San Luis Rey River.

Work on the permits ground to a halt in 2014 when the landfill developer struggled to find financing and fell into bankruptcy. Last year, a new company — Sovereign Capital — assumed control of the company, paying off its $200 million debt and buying the 1,770-acre property for $18 million at a foreclosure hearing. The company was then renamed GCL LLC.

Mikles, the company’s principal, said the deal with the Pala tribe developed over the past several months as he and an archaeologist starting meeting with Gaughen.

“I really didn’t have all the knowledge,” Mikles said. “I could totally see what she was saying with all the historic and cultural stuff.”

Meanwhile, the company also started exploring other development opportunities, recognizing the region is in desperate need of more housing.

“We’d like to do a commercial and residential development,” on some of the land, Mikles said. “The tribe would like to see that too. They are excited about that.”

Such a housing and commercial development would require rezoning and an amendment to the county’s General Plan — “no small feat,” Mikles acknowledged. But getting the Palas on board is a great start, he said.

“The tribe is not going to object.” Gaughen said. “In the big scheme of things it’s more important that there not be a big landfill on that property ..”

The need for another dump in San Diego County has been up for debate over the past several years amid a boost in recycling and advances in trash compaction.

The Miramar landfill in San Diego recently estimated its life expectancy has gone up eight years from 2022 to 2030.

Every five years the county is required under state law to determine if the region has at least 15 years of landfill capacity. The most recent analysis, done in 2012, concluded there is enough capacity to last for the next 17 years.

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