Still untrashed. Photo by thirteenthbat

Tuesday, Nov. 10 2009 — Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed environmentalists a major victory by ruling that the federal Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) approval of what would have been the world’s largest dump adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park is unlawful. The appellate court turned back an appeal filed by BLM and the project proponent, Kaiser Eagle Mountain, Inc., who challenged a 2005 ruling by Federal District Court Judge Robert Timlin overturning BLM’s approval. Kaiser’s landfill project would have transformed 4,654 acres of canyons south and west of Joshua Tree National Park into the world’s largest landfill, which would have received 20,000 tons of garbage per day, six days a week, for up to 16 hours per day. Kaiser would have received 3,481 acres of public lands in exchange for 2,846 acres of private land and $20,100.

The thousands of acres of undisturbed canyons that would have been covered with trash are habitat for the threatened desert tortoise and sensitive Bighorn sheep, and provide a spectacular visual backdrop for those hiking and camping in Joshua Tree National Park’s remote wilderness areas.

Writing for the majority, Ninth Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson ruled that BLM’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project failed to evaluate a reasonable range of alternatives to the project including other sites, failed to give adequate consideration to the public’s needs and objectives in balancing ecological protection with waste management, and failed to adequately address the dump’s impacts on the desert’s sensitive ecological system. The Court also ruled that BLM undervalued the value of the public lands to be traded. The environmental plaintiffs had pointed out that BLM’s failure to give adequate consideration to the extraordinary resource values that would be sacrificed to accommodate the dump violated several federal environmental laws.

The environmental coalition that filed the first of the two lawsuits that were consolidated in this appeal praised the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. Speaking on behalf of the Desert Protection Society and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, plaintiff Donna Charpied stated that “This proposed dump would have become an ecological nightmare. Not only would more than 2,000 acres of fragile desert habitat be buried under millions of tons of trash, but the desert’s vulnerable ecosystem would have been degraded for miles in all directions by the air, noise, and visual pollution, lowered water tables, incessant rumble of huge dump trucks, and the attraction of thousands of rats, ravens, buzzards, coyotes, and other scavengers who would prey on the threatened desert tortoise and other imperiled wildlife that have no natural defenses against such intruders.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers stressed their appreciation for the Court’s steadfast enforcement of federal environmental laws. “The land trade BLM approved here would literally have trashed a spectacular national park, whose outstanding natural values have earned it designation as a World Biosphere Reserve. Shy of Yosemite Valley, I cannot think of a worse place to dump LA’s trash for the next century than the fragile desert wilderness adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park,” stated Stephan Volker, counsel for Donna and Laurence Charpied, Desert Protection Society, and Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.

[Adapted from a press release sent out by DPC's friends Donna and Larry Charpied:]

Harper Dry Lake, in the western Mojave between Barstow and California City, is not exactly wilderness. The lake is an historic airstrip serving the former town of Lockhart. It is ringed by alfalfa farms, most of them either fallow or abandoned. To the lake’s west is the Luz Solar Electric Generating Station, a 160-megawatt concentrating solar plant comprising the two largest solar fields in the world, covering most of what was Lockhart.

Most of the lake has been dry since the local agricultural economy overdrafted its groundwater, dried up, and blew away, but in its southwest corner the lake still holds marshes fed by runoff from a handful of nearby irrigated fields. Migratory and resident birds take full advantage of the open water, and thus the BLM has designated Harper Dry Lake a Area of Critical Environmental Concern. This designation, made possible by the 1976 Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), is given to southwestern places the BLM has determined are in special need of protection to preserve the irreplaceable and rare habitat or other cultural qualities they possess.

Despite its possible lack of wilderness qualities, then, one might expect a certain respect for the lake and its habitat, given that it is one of a very few places in the western Mojave that has open water nearly year-round, an important resting place for migratory wildlife and a gorgeous, quiet oasis.

Sadly, that doesn’t keep people from riding their ORVs through the marsh.

This isn’t news, nor is it surprising to any of us who live with and love these desert landscapes. And the damage shown here isn’t nearly as dramatic as the damage done to the creosote flats that surround the lake, in northwestern San Bernardino and eastern Kern counties, by essentially unregulated ORV use — though it is ironic that with all the hundreds of miles of deserted roads and tracks in the area, people still come to this wildlife gem to ride. It’s just a reminder of how callously some of us treat these irreplaceable treasures, and a reminder that we have to work to keep this kind of damage from continuing.

For more on ORV abuse, check out ORV Watch Kern County, and keep an eye peeled here for the upcoming El Paisano, with lots of useful information compiled by DPC’s Terry Weiner.

Barbara Boyle at the Sierra Club informs us that the BLM is granting a 45 day extension on public comment on Interior’s Solar Energy Study areas. Those comments had been due by the end of this month. The new comment deadline will be September 14. The notice for the extension will likely appear July 27.

This gives us a month and a half extra to flood the BLM with public opinion regarding what could be the largest giveaway of public land to private industry since the era of the railroad barons.

The Interior Department has thoughtfully provided a webform for your commenting convenience. Spread the word, and bookmark DesertBlog to stay informed as the issue develops.