Movin’ It Out : Students Clean Up Tuna Canyon Litter Before Being Told to Scram

Her face streaked with sweat and dirt, seventh-grader Stacey Gilman made no attempt to conceal her frustration with hair care giant John Paul Jones De Joria.

“His motto is ‘We’re as good to the environment as we are to you,’ ” and it’s just not true,” said Gilman, moments after a De Joria representative ejected her and some of her classmates from De Joria-owned land early this week.

De Joria is co-founder of Paul Mitchell Systems, the highly profitable Saugus-based company that aggressively promotes its hair-care products as environmentally friendly.

Gilman was one of 50 seventh-graders from Stephen S. Wise Temple Middle School in Beverly Hills who arrived Monday morning to clean up Malibu’s trash-strewn Tuna Canyon at the request of an outside environmental activist.

But no sooner did some of them cross from the publicly owned roadside onto De Joria’s property than they were met by a De Joria public relations representative who told them, in the politest terms possible, to scram.

“John Paul doesn’t feel it’s fair that volunteers should do what he is supposed to do,” explained Sarah Kirkland, an aide to De Joria. “He feels it’s his responsibility as the property owner.”

Though thwarted from attacking the biggest accumulations of trash on De Joria’s land, the students nonetheless persevered with a two-day cleanup along the road that yielded more than 100 bags of refuse and more than half a ton of scrap metal.

After the encounter with the students, De Joria aides stressed repeatedly that he is doing all he can to clean up the canyon, much of which he owns with a partner, Curt Hendricks.

Rugged and scenic, Tuna Canyon is one of the last remaining undeveloped coastal canyons in Southern California, but it remains a magnet for illegal dumpers and the homeless. It now contains an estimated 25 tons or more of garbage, including old furniture, appliances and abandoned vehicles.

De Joria spokesman Michael Vignieri said he has been in contact with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Malibu City Councilwoman Carolyn Van Horn and others during the past three months to develop a sensible cleanup plan. He said fire and health concerns are paramount, as is finding a way to relocate homeless people living in the canyon in as humane a way as possible.

But the students from Stephen Wise, who have challenged De Joria in the past to clean up his land, were skeptical.

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Several said they thought that De Joria, rather than showing genuine concern for the ailing coastal canyon, was more worried about his image--and how it might be damaged by the spectacle of schoolchildren cleaning up his property for free.

“It’s an advertising thing,” seventh-grader Jubin Shabtai said.

No one blames De Joria for the illegal dumping, but many have suggested that in light of his wealth and his professed environmentalism, he has a special obligation to keep the property reasonably clean.

“If it takes a bunch of seventh-graders to get him to see the need to clean this up, then it’s worth it for us to have our kids here,” said Kathy Reynolds, a teacher at Stephen Wise who participated in the cleanup.

So far, De Joria has responded to negative publicity about his property by mixing sporadic cleanup efforts with promises of a long-term solution. Last June, for example, De Joria hired a crew of youths from South Los Angeles for several days to clean up sections of his property. Despite making some progress, the group never returned.

More recently, again after published criticisms about the state of his land, De Joria ordered “No Littering” signs erected throughout the canyon and the placement of metal gates on some access roads to thwart illegal dumpers.

On Monday, De Joria’s representative, Kirkland, announced yet another plan. She said De Joria wants to pay homeless people affiliated with the St. Joseph’s Center in Venice to maintain the canyon. She later acknowledged that no one had yet contacted the center about the plan.

Meanwhile, De Joria continues to resist a standing offer by California Environmental Project, a statewide nonprofit group dedicated to canyon preservation. The group’s executive director, Scott Mathes, has advocated a thorough one-time cleaning of Tuna Canyon and a regular maintenance program that would cost $10,000 to $15,000 annually.

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Mathes, who maintains a zealous affection for Tuna Canyon and has repeatedly criticized De Joria for its condition, organized this week’s cleanup.

He speculated that the kids were turned away because “he (De Joria) doesn’t want to look like a fool.”

Some in De Joria’s camp counter that Mathes seems intent on embarrassing their boss, regardless of what action De Joria takes.

“We just feel Scott’s trying to make something bad out of something good,” Kirkland said.

“I think they’re full of it,” Mathes responded.

The cleanup resulted in 116 bags of trash, 220 pounds of glass, 1,000 pounds of scrap metal, five abandoned water heaters and 27 tires being removed from alongside Tuna Canyon Road, Mathes said. The children were assisted by about a dozen members of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps.