Don’t trash Joshua Tree National Park

by Seth Shteir
High Country News







Which word doesn’t belong with “national park?” Wildflowers, wildlife, hiking, night sky, garbage dump? No doubt you answered “garbage dump,” yet the biggest landfill in the United States may be developed right next to California’s Joshua Tree National Park.

Fortunately, a lawsuit filed by the National Parks Conservation Association and others is trying to halt this misguided proposal. The lawsuit, currently under appeal in the federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, argues that the landfill fails to serve the public interest, that a land exchange making the dump possible was improper, and the environmental impact statement flawed.

"Who would have thought that a federal agency that is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of U.S. citizens would have allowed this ridiculous proposal to come this far?” says Ron Sundergill, Pacific Region director of the National Parks Conservation Association.

The dump would receive 20,000 tons of trash each day from all over southern California, and over its 117-year lifetime, 700 billion pounds of trash would accumulate, towering 1,500 feet high over the rock-studded desert. What’s harder to believe is that the landfill would be surrounded on three sides by Joshua Tree National Park.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a dump this size would destabilize the fragile desert ecosystem. Losers almost certainly would be desert bighorn and the endangered desert tortoise; winners would be predatory ravens benefiting from the new free food. Noise and light pollution from the trucks and machinery would definitely impair the naturalness of the park, and although some will argue that the nation needs more landfills, it’s hard to make the case that this particular project is in the best interest of the public.

The way the deal came about is also questionable. The BLM’s land transfer with Kaiser Ventures was improper because it disregarded the Federal Lands Management Policy Act. The act states that land transfers cannot significantly conflict with management on adjacent federal lands. Yet by trading land to create the nation’s biggest dump, the BLM undermined the Park Service’s management of sensitive lands within Joshua Tree National Park.

It’s not just the ecological ramifications of this battleship-sized landfill that should have people worried. A National Parks Conservation Association report showed that in 2001, the 1.3 million visitors to Joshua tree contributed $46.3 million to the local economy and supported 1,115 jobs. Desert tortoises and bighorn sheep wouldn’t be the only species harmed by the Eagle Mountain Landfill.

The national parks nonprofit and other individuals also say that the land exchange between the BLM and Kaiser Ventures was flawed. When the public land necessary for the exchange was appraised, the BLM identified its value in vague terms -- “holding for speculative investment and future capital appreciation” -- instead of acknowledging that its acquisition by Kaiser Ventures would likely mean it would become a major landfill. This resulted in an undervalued appraisal and taxpayers getting a raw deal. Ultimately, the swap of 3,481 acres of public land brought in a mere $20,100. Kaiser’s non-contiguous parcels that were transferred to the BLM also added little value to public lands. The parcels lie along the Eagle Mountain Rail Line, the very rail line that would haul trash to the landfill.

Although the National Park Service has accepted the environmental impact statement for the Eagle Mountain Landfill, some federal agency representatives say they remain concerned about the impact of the dump. It is the National Parks Conservation Association and other park-lovers who have taken on the job of challenging the EIS because of its narrowly defined statement of purpose. The EIS is, in fact, a facsimile of Kaiser Venture’s business plan, and the effect of its narrow purpose statement led to limited alternatives. For example, there is no mention anywhere in the EIS of investigating other landfill sites on BLM land or increasing the size and use of existing landfills.

Allowing the nation’s largest landfill next to a national park is a little like building a roller coaster next door to an elementary school. It’s simply a poor idea. Let’s hope that the court understands that a national park visited by millions of people each year can’t be neighbors to a noisy, spreading landfill. The tragedy, though, is that a court must make this decision.

Seth Shteir is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is vice president of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society in southern California.

Let land swap stand, former owners urge

Eagle Mountain Landfill










By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise





A land swap struck down by a federal judge two years ago should be overturned, allowing one of the nation's largest landfills to be built in a mine pit near Joshua Tree National Park, an attorney for Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures argued before a federal appellate panel Thursday.

Leonard Feldman said Kaiser's former iron-ore mining operation -- which carved four large pits in the mountainous desert area in Riverside County less than two miles from the park -- already damaged the land. To use another location for a landfill would unnecessarily scar more land, he said.

"Literally, it is an abyss. It's a very scarred and disturbed piece of land. ... It makes sense to put a landfill in there," he told the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena.

At issue in the case is a 1999 land swap in which the U.S. Bureau of Land Management gave Kaiser 3,481 acres of public land around the former Kaiser Steel Co. mining pits to be used for the landfill operation. In return, Kaiser gave the BLM almost 2,500 acres along its 52-mile rail line that heads toward the Salton Sea. To compensate for the 1,000-acre difference, Kaiser paid the BLM $20,100, or essentially $20 an acre.

"It seems like the government got a bad deal," Circuit Judge Richard Paez said.

Environmental groups, including the National Parks Conservation Association, the Glen-Avon based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, and Donna and Larry Charpied, jojoba farmers who live near the mine site, have argued that the land swap was improper.

They won much of their case in 2005 when U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin, then based in Riverside, ruled that the BLM gave away the public land below market value and failed to fully consider all of the potential environmental consequences of the landfill.

Kaiser sold the landfill property in 2000 to the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County for $41 million, pending the outcome of legal matters. It would be designed to take as much as 20,000 tons of garbage each day, hauled by train.

Environmental groups argued that the BLM didn't consider that the landfill would be a profit-making business when it did the swap, thus selling the land too cheaply.

Tamara Rountree, a U.S. Justice Department appellate attorney, said the BLM "expressly and exhaustively considered the landfill as a use."

Noah Long, a Stanford law student representing the National Parks Conservation Association, argued that the lack of market demand for that land did not justify that it be used for a landfill, and suggested the BLM inflated the need for a landfill in granting the swap.

After the hearing, the environmental groups said they were hopeful because a 9th Circuit ruling in 2000 overturned an earlier lower-court ruling that had upheld a similar land swap between the BLM and another company for a landfill in Imperial County.

Attorneys for both sides expected a decision by this panel to take at least six months.

Court deals blow to landfill plans

EAGLE MOUNTAIN:
The judge voids a needed BLM acreage swap. LA County's trash may go elsewhere.




By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise





A federal judge struck down a land exchange needed to allow one of the nation's largest landfills to be built near Joshua Tree National Park and filled by Los Angeles County garbage.

The judge, in a long-awaited ruling issued Tuesday, said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to consider all of the potential environmental consequences of permitting a landfill on the 3,481 acres that the federal agency traded to Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures. The property surrounds Kaiser's closed iron-ore pits, which would be the core of the landfill operation.

The company, in exchange, gave the bureau 2,486 acres of private land scattered throughout the Riverside County desert.

"The court concludes the BLM's record of decision was arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law," U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin said in his 26-page opinion.

Timlin said the bureau failed to fully investigate how a landfill might affect bighorn sheep and the desert ecosystem. He also indicated that the BLM undervalued the land traded to Kaiser.

BLM and Kaiser spokesmen said they are not sure what will happen next.

"We'll make a determination of exactly what that (ruling) means and how we'll proceed from here," said the BLM's Doran Sanchez.

Terry Cook, a Kaiser spokesman, said it could take months to figure out whether the project can survive without the land swap. A company subsidiary, Mine Reclamation Corp. of Palm Desert, is the landfill developer.

"Frankly, we're taken aback by the decision," Cook said. But he added, "This project has faced legal and other challenges over the years and has always ultimately come out ahead."

Although Los Angeles County bought the landfill from Kaiser for $41 million, the final sale was contingent on the resolution of legal challenges and the money continues to be held in escrow, said John Gulledge, head of the LA County sanitation districts' solid-waste-management department.

"I can't see how the project can move ahead at this time and place," he said. "They (Kaiser) have to deliver a project with no court challenges and all the permits."

Cook said he fears Timlin's ruling could endanger several landfill-related permits issued by county, state and federal agencies.

The land swap needed to develop the open-pit mines into a landfill was challenged in two lawsuits filed five years ago by the National Parks and Conservation Association and two jojoba farmers who live near the site. The judge merged them into one case.

Donna Charpied, one of the plaintiffs, said she was elated by the ruling. She has fought the project since it was first proposed in 1988. The Kaiser property is less than two miles from wilderness areas in the national park and not far from Charpied's jojoba farm.

"This project is wrong," Charpied said, "and there's just not a right way to do a wrong thing."

She said she hoped Riverside County, which approved the landfill, would take another look at the project. County Supervisor Roy Wilson, who represents the desert district, said he had not seen the ruling yet and couldn't comment.

The landfill would take as much as 20,000 tons of garbage each day, hauled by train from Los Angeles County through San Bernardino and Riverside counties to the former mine north of Interstate 10 near Desert Center.

Riverside County would earn as much as $5 for each ton of garbage hauled across the county line and $1 per ton to buy wildlife habitat as part of the Coachella Valley's growth plan, Wilson has said.

The judge said the BLM fully analyzed the effects on desert tortoises, air quality and groundwater but failed in other environmental considerations.

Timlin said the bureau, in violation of federal law, failed to "take a hard look at the consequences" of the landfill on bighorn sheep, the surrounding ecosystem and the potential for increases in the populations of coyotes and ravens, which prey on the federally protected desert tortoise.

The judge also found the BLM had failed to consider the potential value of the public land it traded to Kaiser.

"The court concludes that BLM's failure to consider an income-producing landfill as a potential highest and best use was an abuse of discretion," he wrote.

Timlin left it up to the BLM to decide whether it would try again to work out the land swap.

Los Angeles County is not waiting for the Eagle Mountain dispute to be resolved. The county wants to develop the Mesquite landfill in Imperial County because one of its major landfills, near Whittier, is nearing capacity, Gulledge said.

"That's our No. 1 task now," he said. "We are moving forward to have a functional waste-by-rail program by January of 2010."

Eagle Mountain landfill History

• 1988-89: Eagle Mountain landfill is proposed at a former iron-ore mine. Kaiser Ventures applies to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for a land exchange necessary for landfill operations.
  
• 1994: A Superior Court rules that an environmental report from Riverside County and the BLM is deficient.
  
• 1997: BLM approves a revised environmental report. The land exchange is tentatively approved.
  
• 1999-2000: Two lawsuits are filed in federal court to stop the landfill.
  
• 2005: U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin strikes down the land swap.