There's no need to foul desert park with dump

[question everything]

There's no need to foul desert park with dump

By Seth Shteir, Guest Columnist
LA Daily News

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The Sanitation District of Los Angeles County first approved the construction of a waste-by-rail system in 1992 in response to the county's burgeoning trash-disposal problem. Under the plan, solid waste from Los Angeles County would be shipped 200 miles via rail to two megadumps in the California desert.

The Mesquite Landfill in Imperial County is scheduled to receive solid waste by 2010. The Eagle Mountain Landfill, which is surrounded on three sides by Joshua Tree National Park, has been halted after U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin overturned the federal land exchange necessary for the dump. The National Parks Conservation Association and other plaintiffs are optimistic that this ruling will hold up under appeal, and that Kaiser's deal with the SDLAC will fall apart.

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However, the Eagle Mountain Landfill isn't only a poorly conceived project because it would despoil a national park. It simply isn't needed. According to the SDLAC's own projections, the creation of the Mesquite Landfill should provide adequate disposal capacity beyond 2018, assuming the county continues a 50 percent diversion rate for solid waste. A diversion rate is the amount of solid waste diverted from a landfill through source reduction or recycling. Moreover, with increased diversion rates, Los Angeles County would have sufficient disposal space for decades to come.

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http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_3321682

Seth Shteir is conservation chairman of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society.