Dump Opponents Resort to History and Psychic Ritual

Opposition to the proposed Elsmere Canyon dump is taking on many forms, from the historic to the psychic.

Two Santa Clarita Valley organizations have petitioned the state Historical Resources Commission to designate a rock in the canyon as historic.

Meanwhile, another group has trekked onto the landfill site with a psychic who evoked Indian spirits to protect the area.

The rock in question is a stone formation called La Puerta del Camino Viejo, used as a landmark by explorers, pioneers and entrepreneurs as they trudged over the rugged San Gabriel Mountains. It was a sign to the travelers that the most difficult part of their journey was nearly over, said Jerry Reynolds, curator for the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce.

The long, narrow wall of sandstone forms both a gateway to the Santa Clarita Valley and a barrier that was used to corral cattle in the 1800s, said Reynolds, author of the application received by the state on Monday.

Reynolds is seeking the special status for the rock mainly because he said he believes that it is a significant historic site. But he has been joined by the Santa Clarita Valley Canyons Preservation Committee, which is primarily interested in using the rock as a reason for blocking the proposed dump.

“We feel that a landfill, covering all of the history of California’s richest historical artifacts, is not right,” said Marsha McLean, president of the preservation committee. “It’s not just the best use of that canyon.”

Hundreds of hopeful miners streamed north through the area from Mexico after the 1842 discovery of gold in nearby Placerita Canyon, Reynolds said. Later, cattle were driven to Northern California markets for miners and prospectors during the Gold Rush. In the 1870s, out-of-work Chinese laborers made a home near La Puerta while mining for gold of their own.

“Once you saw La Puerta, you knew that the worst was behind you and you could go down the canyon and down a few belts of whiskey,” said Reynolds.

Getting the state to designate “The Door of the Old Road” historic is just the first step. In the long run, Reynolds and other preservationists want to have the site recognized by the National Registry of Historic Places as part of an historic trail called El Camino Viejo between Southern California and the north. Reynolds says the trail is the only public access to La Puerta.

The goal of the canyon group is to block a proposed land swap between the Forest Service, which owns the land on which El Camino Viejo lies, and BKK Corp., which owns La Puerta. The land exchange is key to BKK’s plans to building a landfill in Elsmere Canyon.

“I hope they aren’t holding their breath,” BKK President Kenneth B. Kazarian said of the effort.

For one thing, he said, the proposed landfill wouldn’t affect La Puerta, which Kazarian said sits on 1,800 acres of “buffer space” between the dump itself and the rest of the community.

“A historic designation of La Puerta isn’t going to have any effect on our project whatsoever. According to all the maps that we’ve seen, it doesn’t impact our project,” Kazarian said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Kazarian, however, wouldn’t endorse the plan to designate the site a state landmark, saying he would wait to see the specifics of such a request.

Officials at the state Office of Historic Preservation said the criteria for designating a historic landmark requires that “it must be the first, last, only or most significant of its kind in a large geographical region, and of historic significance statewide.” It is unclear when hearings would be held on the issue of La Puerta.

On the psychic front, anti-dump forces on Sunday and Monday ventured onto privately held parts of the landfill site to hold rituals in an effort to “pull up the spirits that were dormant there.”

In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, a local psychic who uses the professional name Allison led four landfill opponents to an east-facing cave on a cliff in Elsmere Canyon to bless and protect the plants, animals, water and rock of the ravine, said Pat Saletore, one of the participants.

Early Monday, Saletore and another anti-dump activist escorted Allison to bury a quartz crystal under a pile of rocks in an Indian ritual.

“It sounds like lunacy,” Saletore said, “but I don’t think it could harm anything and if this helps the fight against Elsmere, I’ll go with it.”

City Councilwoman Jill Klajic, an ardent dump detractor who participated in Sunday’s ceremonies, said opponents will “leave no stone unturned” in opposing the dump.

But she admitted that she was skeptical about the use of psychic powers.

“I’ve never even read my astrology,” Klajic said. “I don’t even know what sign I am.”