Today's Date
Dear Secretary Salazar,
I am writing to you today regarding the proposed Eagle Mountain dump located in Eastern Riverside County, California in the arms of Joshua Tree National Park. Citizens and environmental organizations have successfully litigated the project in Federal District Court and successfully defended the lower Court's ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (opinion dated November 10, 2009). This project has demanded the time of the Department of the Interior since 1987.
When environmentalists won in District Court September 21, 2005 the Department of the Interior appealed along with Kaiser Ventures, the private company seeking to profit from the landfill development. I understand that the DOI and Kaiser are considering appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals en banc. I ask you to direct the Bureau of Land Management to accept the second ruling in a row against this ill-conceived dump, direct the Department of Justice not to file an appeal, and cease and desist on any further movement for this project. I feel that the DOI has been overwhelmed with public lands issues with the current trend of developing renewable resources on desert Public Lands. It is time to move on with bigger and better issues facing our Public Lands, and put the Eagle Mountain dump to rest.
The proposed Eagle Mountain dump would be the repository for Los Angeles' garbage for the next 117 years. It is simply a bad idea to build the nation's largest garbage dump on 3,481 acres of federal land that is surrounded on three sides by the congressionally designated wilderness of one of America's premier environmental resources, Joshua Tree National Park. If Eagle Mountain dump ever went forward, this part of California's fragile desert ecosystem would become a receptacle for massive amounts of waste, largely from Los Angeles County. Joshua Tree Wilderness areas are located to the north, west, and south, forming an amphitheater around the proposed dump, with a buffer of a mere 2500 yards to the Park's boundary. It is in the heart of an area that "offers the most refuge for the greatest number of species from human impacts of any area in southern California" (Ernest Quintana, former Joshua Tree National Park Superintendent, and current Midwest Regional Director for the National Park Service).
While the threats the landfill poses to resources in Joshua Tree are reasons enough to oppose the Eagle Mountain project, this dump is not even needed to meet the trash management needs of Los Angeles County. If the County's recycling diversion rates are increased beyond 50 percent--which is already being achieved elsewhere in California and across the nation--the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County can expect a surplus of waste disposal capacity. Such action would ensure that Joshua Tree National Park's unique resources remain unspoiled and available for future generations to enjoy as we do today.
Please, Secretary Salazar, pull the plug on this unnecessary environmental threat to Joshua Tree National Park.
Sincerely,
Your name
Your address
Email: Secretary Salazar
Secretary Salazar
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
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Updated November 18, 2009.