Dumping on Our Desert

DESERT CENTER â€”  California has provided the environmental movement with many famous battlegrounds. Diablo Canyon, Stringfellow, Mono Lake, the Stanislaus--these places became shorthand for struggles over nuclear power, toxic waste, water. I suspect Eagle Mountain will join the list.

Eagle Mountain is short for the Eagle Mountain Landfill and Recycling Center, a mega-dump proposed for an old iron mine near here. The privately owned facility, if approved, would receive 20,000 tons of solid waste from throughout Southern California each day for 115 years. That’s a lot of Pampers. The garbage will be brought in by truck and train. Lots of trucks. Lots of trains.

It would be the largest landfill in the nation--state of the art, the developers promise. Size alone, of course, does not guarantee a project’s induction into the hall of environmental notoriety. It’s a tricky equation, full of intangibles. Certain elements, though, are required, and in these Eagle Mountain is well-stocked.

For example, it’s got:

--Provocative geography. The dump site borders the Joshua Tree National Monument. To be fair, the site is tucked into a canyon on the monument’s backside, away from the main entrances. Also, it is tough to conceive of anything causing more damage to the site than already created by four decades of iron mining. No matter. Proximity to one of California’s most exotic and fragile nature preserves should make Eagle Mountain what one environmentalist termed “a designer issue.�

--Cute critters. An environmental free-for-all requires a threatened species. Snail darters. Kangaroo rats. Something. This project has two. Desert pupfish swim near the facility, and the tracks that carry trains to the dump cut through desert tortoise terrain. The developers, by the way, suggest a novel strategy for protecting the turtles. A biologist will ride ahead of every train, keeping lookout. Should a turtle lumber onto the track, the biologist will stop, scoop up the animal and carry it to safety. Why do I have trouble imagining this part of the operation will remain intact for 115 years?

--Local color. The whole point of sticking a dump in the desert is to outrun city dwellers who oppose landfills in their neighborhood. But the few folks who live here don’t want the dump any more than you would. Many say they are insulted we consider their desert “a toilet.� Expect jojoba farmers to become familiar living room faces, squinting into the desert sun as the newscam pans from Quonset hut to dump site.

--Money issues. The clash between economics and environmental protection is hot stuff these days, and this will be a major theme of the Eagle Mountain fight. Already, proponents talk of creating 1,140 jobs and $2.2 billion in new economic activity. Opponents are exploring just how much the expensive project would add to each garbage customer’s bill.

--And a villain. The people here whisper about the developers, the Mine Reclamation Project and the Browning-Ferris garbage concern. But another villain in the Eagle Mountain matter is an even more satisfying target: metropolitan Los Angeles. Most of the garbage will come from Greater L.A. This fits with L.A.’s lousy image: The city that creates criminals, but won’t tolerate jails; that creates smog, but resists car pools; and now, that generates mountains of garbage, but dumps it elsewhere.

A few ingredients are missing. No celebrities have joined the fight, and even some big environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, have been ambivalent. Part of this has to do with solid waste, not the sexiest of subjects, and part has to do with the desert’s flyblown image. Unlike California’s easy-to-love mountains and beaches, the desert tends to be an acquired taste, and I suspect many Californians consider it a logical place for landfill sites, nuclear waste, prisons and old tires.

Until now, the Eagle Mountain controversy has stayed local. The desert people who oppose it suspect a big city conspiracy. They should be patient. Last week, the Riverside County supervisors voted 3 to 2 in support of Eagle Mountain. Proponents crowed that the vote was a major hurdle crossed, and predicted the trains soon would be rolling. In truth, bureaucrats of every stripe still must pass judgment, and often these battles don’t begin for keeps until the first lawsuit is filed.

“We’re talking years,� a veteran of such struggles assured me.

Which side will prevail is a more dicey prediction. But an important lesson from places like Diablo Canyon is that the fight itself--raising awareness, building momentum--can be as important as the outcome. In the next few years, we’ll learn, and think, a lot about garbage, a process that, hopefully, can lead to more inventive options than burying it in one of the prettiest places on Earth.