Nuns Press Concerns Over Landfill : Oxnard: They hire attorney and say county hasn’t adequately addressed complaints. They want to be relocated.

Convinced that their interests have been ignored, a group of Catholic nuns who live in a convent next to the Bailard Landfill in Oxnard have hired an attorney to force the county to pay for their relocation.

The convent, which has housed the Servants of Mary order for 33 years, sits only about 500 feet away from the dump. Earlier this month the Ventura County Planning Commission voted to extend the life of the landfill for three more years.

Although the commission assured the nuns that their concerns would be addressed, the nuns said Tuesday they have had enough of the noise, odor and dust that come from the dump. They want to move and they want the county to pay for it.

The county has offered to buy an air filter for the convent to control the odors and dust, install insulation to muffle the noise, and pay the nuns $20,000.

But this time, instead of going along with the county’s decisions as they have in the past, the nuns say the offer is not acceptable.

“We don’t complain,” said Sister Mary Purificacion. “We haven’t complained for 30 years. But you have to fight for yourselves sometimes.”

The nuns left the decision about renewing the permit up to the commission, saying they trusted the commission’s fairness and integrity. After the commission’s 3-2 vote, however, the nuns decided they made a mistake in not speaking up for themselves.

“It was naive of us to expect someone to look out for our interests,” said Jodi Rupp, an administrator at a convalescent hospital run by the sisters in Newbury Park. “The nuns are being victimized possibly because they’re unsophisticated at this sort of thing. Their role in life is to care for the sick, not read all the literature about the dangers of this dump.”

On a medallion that each of the nuns wears are the Latin words for “Heal the sick.” Women who enter the 140-year-old Catholic order pledge to care for the ill and infirm.

The 22 nuns who live at the Oxnard convent work for free in the homes of people dying of cancer or bedridden at home. In Newbury Park, the Servants of Mary run a convalescent hospital for about 60 elderly Ventura County residents.

The Oxnard convent is special, the nuns say, because it is the only one of the order’s six convents in the United States that trains new nuns, giving them a three-year religious education that provides the foundation for their careers.

“We need a peaceful environment for prayer and contemplation,” said Sister Bernadette, who lives at the convent.

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Sister Bernadette said the smell and noise from the dump have become nearly intolerable as the mountain of trash at the landfill has risen to nearly 120 feet high. Each day the county dumps as much as 1,000 tons of trash at Bailard. The permit to operate the facility was set to expire in December, but with the defeat last June of a proposal to open a new landfill at Weldon Canyon near Ojai, the county extended it, saying it has few other choices.

“There really is no other option outside of trucking the trash to the Simi Valley Landfill or to one near the L. A. County line,” said John Conaway, an administrator with the Ventura Regional Sanitation District.

Conaway said the nuns’ concerns can be addressed adequately without the convent moving.

“I think what’s happening is that they don’t know who to trust,” Conaway said. “They’ve come into this process kind of late, and they’re not sure about our mitigation proposals. What we need to do is sit down and discuss how we can address their concerns. I think they’ll be making a mistake if they move. They’ll never duplicate the environment and beautiful grounds they have there. It won’t be the same, and really there’s no reason for it.”

The nuns argue that while the air filter and sound insulation would protect them indoors, nothing will protect them when they head outside.

“If we can’t go outside, it’s like being in jail,” said Sister Bernadette as she watched some of the younger nuns playing badminton and Frisbee on the grounds of the convent.

“The younger nuns need to be able to go outside and be active,” she added. “You can’t do that if you have to cover your nose all the time.”

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The nuns said they are also concerned about long-term health effects from the dump. Rupp said their concern grew after they read the final environmental report on the extension of the landfill’s permit, which outlined some potential health risks.

“After we read the reports and realized all the potential health concerns, we became very depressed,” Rupp said. “These sisters have a right to health and a clean and safe environment. These sisters give up their families, friends and their independence to take care of everyone they come in contact with. They deserve to be taken care of too.”