Profits vs. Toxics : Indian Land Opening to City Wastes

At first, the townspeople were curious. Then they were alarmed.

Large diesel rigs hauling canvas-covered trailers were rumbling through this small community with disturbing regularity. They were headed for a landfill on the outskirts of town that only years earlier had been a desert plateau distinguished by little more than sagebrush and dust devils.

In what had become a daily routine, the trucks plied their way across the Mojave Desert from Southern California to deposit about 100 tons of industrial waste--some of it considered hazardous by California standards--just a mile from the Colorado River.

Huge Mounds of Material

Bulldozers at the landfill lumbered over huge mounds of shredded automobile interiors laced with lead, zinc, cadmium, copper and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are highly toxic and slow to decompose. Contaminated soil saturated with gasoline and other chemicals from leaking underground tanks in Southern California holds down dust on temporary roads that crisscross the 160-acre site.

Little of this has set well with the people of Parker.

“We don’t like it but there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it,” drawled Sam Davis, mayor of this community of 2,000 people.

Indeed, the landfill is on sovereign Indian territory. Owned by the Colorado River Indian Tribes, it is beyond the jurisdiction of the city, the state of Arizona and even the U.S. government.

Water Not Contaminated

While no one believes that either the Colorado River or local wells have been contaminated by the landfill, there is increasing concern among Indians and non-Indians alike that what has happened here may be indicative of a growing phenomenon--the opening up of Indian country to waste generated in distant urban centers.

From the Hopi, Mohave, Chemehuevi and Navajo of the Colorado River Valley to the Cherokees in North Carolina, Indian tribes are being wooed by some of the nation’s largest waste management corporations intent on building new landfills, waste-to-energy incinerators and other facilities to meet the growing needs of a throwaway society.

Indian country is particularly attractive. Besides being virtually free of government regulation, costs are low. And environmental objections are sometimes muted by a desperate need for money in tribal economies plagued by unemployment and poverty.

“Non-Indian entities are using cash and poverty politics on the reservations to make us once again a dumping grounds,” said Suzan Harjo, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington.

“I am very sorry for those tribal leaders who have accepted such expedient currency--we have an obligation to our children as yet unborn.”

Others argue that tribal waste facilities, if properly designed, can be both safe and economically beneficial by providing revenue and employment.

Whatever the case, a new land rush seems to be on.

- Six months ago, the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona was approached by the world’s largest waste disposal firm, Waste Management Inc. of Oak Brook, Ill. The company wanted to build a 640-acre landfill; in return, it promised the Indians $10 million a year. The tribe turned the company down. But it is now investigating other proposals for a large waste incinerator to generate electricity--much like Los Angeles’ proposed LANCER incinerator that was abandoned after it became a political and environmental controversy.

- Orange County Steel Salvage Inc. of Fullerton is actively pursuing a tribe in San Diego County to arrange for depositing 50,000 tons of PCB-contaminated waste. Owner George Adams, who declined to name the tribe, said: “It is my last resort. . . . The state is talking about cleaning up my site for $25 million, which would put me in bankruptcy. . . . These Indians will make $500,000.”

- Several tons of cheese manufacturing waste has been dumped at the Torres-Martinez Indian Reservation near the Salton Sea. The tribe now wants to expand the dump, despite fears by local water agencies about groundwater contamination and complaints from neighbors about the foul odor.

“That stink is the smell of money,” said Vincent Ibanez, the Indian entrepreneur who started the business. Only after protesting local agencies were informed by the Environmental Protection Agency to back off did the Bureau of Indian Affairs issue a cease and desist order last April pending a belated official investigation. The investigation is still pending.

- The Cabazon Indian Tribe near Palm Springs, in a joint venture with a Canadian firm, plans to build a $70-million, 45-megawatt waste-to-energy incinerator on its reservation for agricultural wastes.

- Here in Parker, the tribes declared a moratorium on accepting waste from Southern California on Sept. 12, after inquiries by The Times. Tribal leaders said that they wanted to undertake an environmental and financial review.

Tribal attorney Pam Williams conceded that the site, which was designed solely as a municipal landfill, “was never evaluated for any other kinds of wastes.” But she did not rule out the possibility that the wastes would be welcomed back in the future.

Federal authorities said it is all but impossible to know exactly how many of the nation’s 300 Indian reservations are entertaining proposals to have waste disposal facilities built on their land. They said quiet negotiations are conducted directly between the tribes and the private waste companies, outside the scrutiny of government.

Stringfellow Figure

One of those who has been involved in such discussions is Rita Lavelle, the former EPA official who was convicted of lying to Congress in connection with the Stringfellow acid pits near Riverside. Lavelle now works as a consultant in the San Diego area, helping companies comply with government regulations on toxic wastes. She reported that more than 20 tribes from across the nation have asked her to review waste facility proposals. Thus far, Lavelle has recommended turning down almost all of the proposals on the grounds that the plans seemed to use bad technologies.

As existing landfills on non-Indian lands either fill up or are being phased out because of more restrictive environmental laws, even some of those in the waste business are advising the Indians to be careful with their land.

“Indian tribes need to be cautioned against individuals looking for that fast buck,” said John Schofield, senior vice president of International Technology Corp. of Torrance, a major hazardous waste disposal firm that has been approached by four tribes from four different states hoping to build waste-to-energy facilities.

“Quite frankly,” Schofield said, “there have been a lot of people in this business who have not acted honorably. There are good guys, but there are an awful lot of bad guys around.”

Resistance From Some Tribes

To be sure, not every tribe is leaping at offers to bury waste on tribal lands.

The Fort Mohave Indian Tribe reservation, for example, a barren range land that straddles parts of California, Nevada and Arizona, was approached in 1981 by Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. of Houston, which sought to build a hazardous waste landfill. The firm’s proposal followed an unsuccessful overture to the Cherokees in North Carolina.

One Indian leader told how the Houston company--one of the nation’s largest waste management corporations--flew members of her tribe to Texas.

“They flew some of us out on a (private) jet, took us to their private country club . . . put us up in the best hotels,” recalled Nora Garcia, tribal chairwoman. “We were told it would provide a lot of jobs and good revenues for the tribe.

“Then they showed us what we’d be involved in. It was devastating to stand on the edge of huge holes in the ground five football fields wide with . . . chemicals and oils.”

Flown to Chicago

William T. Talbow, director of the Gila River Indian Community’s physical resources department, recounted how tribal leaders were flown six months ago to Chicago by Waste Management Inc. The firm wanted to open a sanitary landfill on the community’s 372,000 acres. The Indians were promised annual revenues of $10 million--a staggering sum for the hard-pressed tribes.

“I would say that probably is the most difficult decision that this council had when they looked at the proposition,” Talbow said. “And that’s why they wanted to take a very hard look at it, because this community is really hurting for income potential.”

In this case, Talbow said, the Indians’ closeness to the land and a desire to keep it pristine for future generations won out.

Prospect of Wealth

Still, for people who have lived in poverty on desolate lands, the prospect of unexpected wealth, investment opportunities, jobs and independence from federal grants can make such offers especially attractive.

“Our fear is that for small impoverished tribes with little or no scientific capabilities it could become an overwhelming temptation,” said David Lester, executive director of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, an economic development agency with a membership of 43 tribes.

All sides agree that a regulation gap also is contributing to the movement of wastes onto tribal land.

Indian lands are all but islands unto themselves. The Reagan Administration deals with the tribes on “a government-to-government” basis, bypassing the states when it comes to carrying out certain environmental laws.

States’ Responsibility

While states are given the primary responsibility by the federal Resource Recovery and Conservation Act for enforcing the nation’s solid and hazardous waste disposal laws, states have no authority over Indian lands. Indeed, the EPA successfully fought an attempt two years ago by the state of Washington to regulate wastes on Indian land near Tacoma.

At the same time, however, in a South Dakota court case involving the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the EPA argued that it had no duty to implement solid waste management regulations on the reservation. The federal agency said the law did not authorize or require the EPA to implement such regulations and that it had no authority to enforce a prohibition against substandard dumps on Indian lands.

At EPA Western regional headquarters in San Francisco, Judy Cook said that when it comes to sanitary landfills, the EPA can do little more than inspect and offer recommendations.

Inspections Neglected

The Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs say the same thing. In fact, the health service, after designing and building the Parker landfill and deeding it to the tribes, has failed to perform annual inspections required by its own regulations.

“We haven’t been, I guess, as diligent in meeting that responsibility as perhaps we should have been,” said Dean Jackson of the health service’s Phoenix-area environmental health services branch, which covers Arizona, Nevada and parts of Utah and California. Still, he said, the health service’s role is strictly advisory: “We have no badge. We have no regulatory authority.”

“The grayness in the law makes it hard to regulate on Indian lands,” said Laura Fuji, Indian affairs coordinator at the EPA’s San Francisco office. “It is true across all of our reservations. It is a gray area where everyone is having problems in terms of solid waste management.”

The regulatory gap has also frustrated some state authorities.

“The (Arizona) attorney general’s office feels very hog-tied,” said staff attorney Daniel Horgan. “We have no authority on Indian lands, which are outside of the reach of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.”

It is into that regulatory vacuum that waste haulers and others are moving.

For Local Use

The Parker landfill opened in 1979 to serve nearby communities and the needs of the 268,700-acre reservation of 3,000 people. Then, about 2 1/2 years ago, a Southern California waste hauler persuaded the tribes to accept wastes that would be considered hazardous in California but non-hazardous under the less stringent federal rules used on the Indian reservation. Thus, one state’s hazardous waste became another’s simple garbage.

“There’s no red tape there,” waste hauler Roger Bejarano said shortly before the tribes imposed the moratorium. Bejarano is a partner in Dick’s Salvage of Whittier, which has a “gentleman’s agreement” with the Colorado River Indian Tribes for the exclusive right to haul all waste originating in Southern California. “It’s so much easier to start an operation on these lands,” he said.

It was apparently paying off. The Parker landfill charged just $75 for a truck loaded with 20 tons of automobile shredder waste. For the same size load, hazardous waste landfills in California charge $1,600 and more. The tribe has profited to the tune of $127,000 annually, tribal public service director Robert Krosky said.

Loss of Income

Krosky left no doubt that he was unhappy about the moratorium and complained about the loss of income. “We stopped taking it last week,” he said. “The lawyers said it was potentially dangerous or something.”

Dick Agajanian, owner of the salvage firm that hauls to Parker, said customers had difficulty turning down his unbeatable offer--cut-rate costs, little or no red tape and everything on the up-and-up.

His latest clients include the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Transportation, which generate soil contaminated with petroleum products, and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve joined the list last month when it began sending to Parker 20 tons of shredded currency that had been going to the Kettleman Hills hazardous waste landfill in the San Joaquin Valley.

“It is the difference between spending $100,000 a year and spending $500,000 a year on disposal,” said Douglas Shaw, vice president and counsel for the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco.

“They (Dick’s Salvage) came to us with this idea. I would not have known there was such a place as Colorado River Indian reservation,” Shaw said. “I mean, it’s not the kind of place that jumps up on any executive calendar.”

Analyzing the Waste

All potential customers at Parker first agreed to have samples of their waste analyzed by an accredited laboratory, Indian officials said. At the same time, the Indians analyzed their own samples of the waste. If the tests confirmed that concentrations of toxic chemicals were within ranges deemed acceptable by federal standards, then the company went to Dick’s Salvage to have it hauled.

The Indians say they trusted the hauling company not to sneak in dangerous loads.

“We could make a killing by taking a mess up there and not telling the Indians, but we’re not going to do it,” Bejarano said before the moratorium was imposed.

“It seems to operate under an honor system at a time when there are tremendous incentives to be dishonest,” said Barry Groveman, former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who specialized in prosecuting cases involving hazardous wastes.

One-Man Monitor

As it stands, the burden of monitoring what goes into the landfill at Parker lies with one man, Conner M. Byestewa Jr., environmental protection officer for the Colorado River Indian Tribes.

“We’re the first to be concerned about a problem,” said Byestewa, a soft-spoken man who on more than one occasion has made unannounced inspections at the dump to dig through piles of trash for laboratory samples. There have been times when Byestewa has overruled the landfill’s managers and ordered them not to accept certain wastes because they had not been tested.

In addition, the desert offers natural protections against water contamination. Rainfall in the area, which is less than four inches a year, and evaporation in the hot desert sun virtually preclude any of the waste ever seeping into the groundwater, tribal leaders and federal Indian Health Service officials maintain.

The tribes say they accept no liquid wastes beyond sewer effluent and that toxic chemical concentrations in the solid wastes they do accept are within federal guidelines.

But even with such precautions, Byestewa admits, “You never have real security.”

“The Indian is more trusting than the non-Indian,” he said. “We just have to hope that our negotiations and business deals are good ones.”

Some Problems Noted

Despite the safeguards, there have been problems. Two months after the landfill began accepting industrial waste from California, a fire broke out in the auto shredder waste, sending a plume of thick smoke over the town that residents said smelled like burning plastic. An EPA report said it was unknown whether the ash might be hazardous and added, “If the waste contained PCBs, then dioxins would be left as residue.” Dioxins are among the most hazardous chemicals known.

There was more cause for alarm early last year. Two trucks surreptitiously entered the landfill before it opened and dumped 40 tons of auto shredder waste that the Indians fear may have had extremely high levels of PCBs. To this day, the exact location of the material is a mystery.

“If mistakes are made, if advantages are taken of the tribes, it’s not from our lack of commitment,” tribal attorney Williams said.

But, with a lawyer’s caution, she added, “I agree the tribe has to be vigilant, and probably has to be paranoid.”