Recology, the San Francisco-based parent company of Recology Humboldt County (nee City Garbage Company of Eureka), is facing growing resistance to plans for a massive dump in the middle of the Nevada desert. The proposed Jungo Landfill, which would receive as much as 4,000 tons of garbage daily, is slated to be located in the Black Rock Desert near Winnemucca, in Nevada’s own Humboldt County.
Many residents of our easterly namesake are decidedly reluctant to accept Northern California’s waste. Groups like Nevadans Against Garbage vehemently oppose the Jungo Landfill, saying it would likely contaminate a nearby aquifer, befoul the air and, well, trash their beloved desert landscape.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid has come down on the side of the opposition. “I just decided enough is enough,” he recently told the Wall Street Journal. “Why should Nevada be the place where other states send their garbage?” According to the WSJ story, county commissioners throughout Nevada are worried that the Jungo Landfill fracas could set a precedent; they fear that growing public resistance could jeopardize a major source of income for their rural, low-income jurisdictions. (Humboldt County, Nev., could receive as much as $1 million per year in fees.)
Protesters in San Francisco — who already have beef with Recology on other matters — have joined the fight, as has Burners Without Borders, a group of activist participants in Burning Man, the annual bacchanalia held elsewhere in the same desert (roughly 50 miles west, as the Golden Eagle flies).
Last week, a press release from Recology’s Winnemucca branch announced that the company had hired a new director for the explicit purpose of “advancing understanding and support of the Jungo Road project in the Humboldt County community.”
This article appears in Empire Falters.
Thanks for the great article. Just wanted to add a few things, if I may.
The waste that would come to the proposed Jungo Road Landfill will include sludge, tires and asbestos. All 4000 tons, arriving 5 days a week for 95 years will be UNRECYCLEABLE waste from counties in California. The local landfill only gets about 10,000 tons a year. Less than this landfill would receive in a week.
There has been to environmental impact study. When county commissioners did not vote to renew Recology’s expired conditional use permit (CUP) so they could continue their project, Recology responded by suing not only the county; but the individual commissioners as well. Recology blamed their CUP delay on ‘angry citizens’ speaking up; when, by their own time line, these ‘angry citizens’ didn’t speak up until 2 years into their 3 year cup. Lawsuit results pending.
At the same time, the local county Development Authority accepted money from Recology to help fund their ‘planning’ project, even tho Recology is not a local business. The office space leased by Recology is owned by the Mayor. While neither of these items are illegal, the judgement behind some local government fostering a Recology relationship is not sound given the lawsuits.
In the November election, 70% of the voters voted to limit the amount of waste that could come in from out of town to a percent of what the local landfill would get. That will equate to about 15,000 tons a year compared to the 1,040,000 tons a year Recology would like to bring in.
Ironically, they plan to teach recycling classes to the locals (which I’m sure we could all learn from) as part of their local office while hauling in huge amounts of non-recycleable waste, the likes of which this community will never have.
Given all that’s gone on, they should be leaving; but many of us sense they see Nevada as a wasteland to expand their growing landfill business in.
We need help from California to stop this. Join us:
-Facebook Group; Nevadans Against Garbage
-Website http://www.nevadansagainstgarbage.com
-Follow DesertPlaya on twitter