Plan for Huge Desert Dump Gets a Boost : Environment: Riverside County supervisors approve what could become the nation’s largest landfill. Opponents fear effects on scenic Joshua Tree area.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved plans to build what could become the nation’s largest garbage dump, near the border of a national monument.

Voting 3 to 2, the supervisors cleared the way for the project’s sponsors to seek landfill permits from state water and air quality agencies to construct a landfill located about a mile and a half from scenic Joshua Tree National Monument.

The supervisors’ approval was a critical step toward building the Eagle Mountain Landfill in an abandoned iron ore mine 87 miles east of Palm Springs. If the other permits are obtained, as many as 20,000 tons of trash a day would be dumped at the site, most of it arriving by rail from other Southern California communities.

County officials say the dump could be in operation by late 1994. A county spokesman called the vote the “most major hurdle” the project has passed and arguably the most important step in the entire approval process.

Many environmental activists oppose the landfill, fearing it would further jeopardize endangered species in the desert, pollute the air and threaten water supplies for municipalities and agriculture.

The National Park Service also opposes it, largely because it would increase smog in the desert. The project sponsors have told park authorities that litter would not be blown into the park, nor would lighting or noise interfere with visitor enjoyment.

“The California desert is probably one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and to treat it like a dumping ground is sort of sad,” said Joshua Tree Supt. David Moore, describing the reaction to the supervisors’ vote he has received from park visitors.

But the project’s sponsors say the dump would be an economic boon to the county, creating 1,140 full-time jobs.

Frank Cullen Jr., a director for Mine Reclamation Corp., the sponsor of the proposed landfill, said it could eventually generate as much as $25 million annually in taxes and fees to the county, depending on how much garbage it receives. It is expected to have a lifetime of more than 100 years and cost investors more than $100 million.

Voting in favor of the dump were Supervisors Patricia Larson, Norton Younglove and Walt Abraham. Supervisors Melba Dunlap and Kay Ceniceros voted against it.

Among a myriad of environmental concerns are possible contamination of an aqueduct about two miles from the proposed landfill that supplies drinking water for 15 million Southern California residents.

But the Metropolitan Water District, owner and operator of the aqueduct, remains “neutral to positive” on the project. “Much better there than over a ground-water aquifer in Southern California,” said Richard Balcerzak, assistant general manager of the water district.

Environmental groups fear that the reactivation of an old rail line across threatened desert tortoise habitat could fragment the ecosystem and kill tortoises on the tracks. They contend that the landfill also would attract ravens, which feed on young tortoises.

Equally worrisome to these activists is the possibility that a rail accident could hasten extinction of the endangered desert pupfish, which at times inhabit a tributary that garbage-laden trains would cross.

But the project sponsors say they have received the necessary permit under the federal Endangered Species Act, and will have to meet air and water concerns to obtain their final permits. Cullen said the landfill would have a small deleterious effect on air quality in the desert, but smog in the entire South Coast Basin would be reduced because there would be traffic to several smaller landfills.

He also noted that Riverside County would receive $6 for each ton of garbage unloaded into the dump, and an additional $1 a ton for a trust fund for acquisition and preservation of open space.

As a condition of approval, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to require the landfill operator to pay $1 million into a county-established trust fund to be used to reduce air pollution.

Despite the supervisors’ approval, Assemblyman Steve Clute (D-Riverside) said he still hopes the project eventually will be killed by water quality concerns. “This mega-dump pit is laced with fractures,” he said. “Experts do not believe leaks into our scarce water supplies will be intercepted and stopped.”