Slater-Price Recognizes Wetlands Defender

Editor’s Note: The office of county Supervisor Pam Slater-Price released the following announcement on Feb. 23.

In a presentation filled with goodwill and mutual congratulations, county Supervisor Pam Slater-Price awarded a proclamation to Del Mar resident Jacqueline Winterer, a community activist and staunch defender of the San Dieguito wetlands. 

Nearly two-dozen of Winterer’s friends and supporters filled the City Council’s chambers.

Winterer, a former board member and current advisor to the Friends of the San Dieguito River Valley, played a key role in the issuance this month of a consent decree ordering the 22nd District Agricultural Association (Del Mar Fairgrounds) to comply with the state Coastal Act and to restore portions of the river valley damaged by previous violations.

In oral testimony and in numerous letters, Winterer protested the alleged water pollution caused by the fairgrounds; parking of semi-tractor trailers in the river valley for advertising; posting of unpermitted signs, some of them electronic; use of environmentally-sensitive areas for truck-driver training; absence of specifics in fairgrounds planning documents and paving of tidal lands.

“She doggedly demanded redress, even when her pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears,” Slater-Price said.