The defunct company filed another bankruptcy petition Aug. 30, Pagter said, although he is not handling that case. Former owners Larry Vaughan and Gordon Cooper, meanwhile, are being pursued by Chino Corona creditors in San Diego Superior Court, Pagter said.
So the mountain remains. Small amounts of it are removed from the site from time to time, said Michael McLees, vice president of Terra Farms Inc., the company that took over the lease on the property at the start of the year. But the real work won't begin until Terra Farms can generate money to pay for it.
The company wants to set up another sludge-recycling farm on the property and use outgoing trucks to whittle away at the pile over the next four years. It would be the third sludge farm on the site, joining Pima Gro and HCK Inc., which processes Los Angeles County sludge.
Members Against Sludge wants all shipments stopped immediately, arguing that anything less means further risk to tribe members' health.
But proving a link between sludge piles and tribal illness is elusive.
No increase in health complaints on the reservation has been reported since sludge farming began in 1989, said Allan Beckwith, spokesman for the U.S. Indian Health Services.
And even if such an increase had been noted, pinning down the cause would take an expensive epidemiological study, said Riverside County Health Officer Bradley Gilbert.
"It's very complicated in terms of establishing a relationship between those complaints and whatever potential exposure there was," Gilbert said.
Such studies were conducted after scores of people in Los Angeles and Orange counties complained about illness after aerial spraying of malathion during a 1989-90 infestation of Mediterranean fruit flies. But no firm link between the pesticide and the complaints was ever made.
"How do you put those against what the normal illness quantity would be?" Gilbert asked.
No epidemiological study is planned for the Torres Martinez reservation, Beckwith said.
"There hasn't been one requested," he said. "It would have to be an official request from the tribe."
Further adding to the confusion is the intricate weave of law and tradition on the reservation. Indian lands are supposed to be politically sovereign entities. But federal agencies have jurisdiction over some aspects of
| BLO fecit 20011008 | CONTENTS old version |
COMMENTS, PLEASE ? |
next page | CONTENTS |