Update: The hearing has been postponed until July 9. 

By Karen Pearlman

June 13, 2025 (Rancho San Diego) – Technical difficulties with audiovisual needs postponed the San Diego County Planning Commission meeting today, delaying for at least a month an agenda item about a controversial sand mine being planned for East County.

The 9 a.m. meeting at the county’s Operations Center on Overland Avenue had three items on the agenda, including the sand mine proposed for part of the Cottonwood Golf Course in Rancho San Diego.

The County’s Planning & Development Services department, which analyzed the project with plans, zoning ordinances and other regulations, including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), is recommending denial of the project.

The group wrote in a report that they found the project “to have a harmful effect on desirable neighborhood character and that the site would not be suitable for the proposed type of development.”

East County News Service

February 28, 2017 (Descanso) – Duncan McFetridge with Cleveland National Forest Foundation  sent in this photo in Descanso Valley of the rain-swollen Sweetwater River, the major source of water in the Sweetwater Authority. 

"The river has been dry for about two years," he says. "The fall rains recharged the river to about three feet wide. Currently, it's about 70 feet across!"