Feds Poised to Close Desert Shantytown

Federal prosecutors are moving to shut down a haphazard Mojave Desert community of battered trailers on grounds that its untreated drinking water, open sewage lagoons, defective wiring and unregulated businesses threaten the health and safety of about 4,000 migrant farm workers who live there.

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said prosecutors expect to seek a preliminary injunction Thursday at U.S. District Court in Riverside against the mobile home park’s owner, Harvey Duro, a member of the Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians, and against operators of an adjacent toxic dump.

Because the trailer park is on sovereign Indian land, about 140 miles southeast of Los Angeles, it is beyond the reach of state and local laws.

As a result, federal prosecutors are attempting to use their powers to dismantle the makeshift village. If the federal government is successful, the injunction will require that Duro order all tenants to vacate the community they call “Duroville” within 30 days. Any rent collected during that time could be used only to maintain electrical and water services and to erect fences around its sewage lagoons.

As it stands, “Hazardous, jerry-rigged power distribution systems present the risk of electrocution and fire,” according to court documents compiled by federal investigators. “Narrow alleys serving a high-density and large number of trailers, together with waste fuel and oil that are being dumped by the on-site junkyard, create a potential for a catastrophic event where many lives could be lost, particularly if a fire occurs” when the wind is high, as it frequently is in the area.

Duro declined to comment. But the husky tribal council member who favors Rams football jerseys, shorts and running shoes has previously expressed hopes of doubling the size of the operation, which includes an unlicensed Laundromat, a restaurant, a liquor store, a beauty shop, a junkyard and several used-car lots.

In an interview in May, Duro appeared pleased with his trailer park, saying, “It’s become like a big family.”

Riverside County officials, meanwhile, have said they are caught in a bind. They are concerned about the living conditions on the property, but also that suddenly closing the 40-acre complex would saddle them with the burden of finding -- and possibly paying for -- alternative housing for Duroville’s displaced residents.

“The federal government must be prepared for the consequences of its actions,” said Leticia de Lara, legislative assistant to Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson.

“If the trailer park remains in the shape it exists today, we will have failed ourselves and the community,” she said. “On the other hand, the worst thing that could happen is for these families to be left to fend for themselves.”

Mrozek said federal prosecutors also hope to close the nearby waste disposal business. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigators recently banned trash burning there after discovering high levels of cancer-causing dioxins in its mounds of ash. That property, north of the Salton Sea near the Coachella Valley town of Mecca, also is considered tribal land. Because the nearest fire hydrant is six miles away, the Riverside County Fire Department had for years simply allowed trash fires at the dump to burn themselves out. However, EPA officials are now concerned that the fires -- which smoldered for days -- coupled with persistent winds, routinely covered the trailer park with carcinogenic smoke, ash and dust.

Several trailers are within 300 feet of the waste disposal site and 30 feet from open sewage lagoons, raising the possibility of respiratory ailments and disease, prosecutors said.

Beyond that, “children, free to play at the edge of the lagoon, are in danger of falling into the lagoon and drowning,” according to court documents.

Still, a growing number of county officials, as well as Torres-Martinez authorities, are calling for more time to seek alternative low-income housing for Duroville’s residents.

“In addition to looking at the immediate problem of shutting down the trailer park,” said Leah Rodriguez, a development specialist with the county’s economic development agency, “the federal agencies involved need to deal with the large number of homeless families that would result from such action.”

With federal prosecutors preparing to take the matter to court, the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, which is dedicated to creating low-income housing in the area, secured a $2-million long-term, low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to buy new manufactured homes for at least 50 of Duroville’s families.

“The county is being placed in the uncomfortable position of possibly having to relocate 500 families -- an overwhelming task,” said John Mealey, executive director of the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition. “That’s a lot of people who’ll need homes in an area where there’s not a lot of places to go.”

The dusty enclave began to take shape in 2001, shortly after Riverside County began enforcing health and safety codes in 500 trailer parks scattered across the Coachella Valley. The crackdown forced some of the area’s poorest residents to seek shelter anywhere they could: in shacks, backyards, chicken coops and Duro’s allotted reservation land off California 195.

Before long, hundreds of families were dragging condemned trailers onto the reservation land. But the operation’s growth exceeded Duro’s ability to provide its tenants with reliable basic services. In March, the Bureau of Indian Affairs ordered Duro to shut the community down. A few months later, the EPA warned tribal owners of the landfill next door that they would face large fines if they continued to burn wastes, which included household refuse, wall board, plastic and tires.