Sludge Watch ==> Sierra Blancans again debate possible sludge dump

[Steve Smith]

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_6379497

Sierra Blancans again debate possible sludge dump
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
Article Launched: 07/15/2007 12:31:03 AM MDT

# Related article: Activist won't end his fight against 'forces of darkness'

SIERRA BLANCA - That smell - a peculiarly pungent combination of sewage 
chemicals and human waste - might soon be wafting back into Sierra Blanca.

It's the scent of money for some in this tiny, economically frustrated 
border town.

It's the stench of environmental injustice to those fighting to keep 
their desert home from again becoming a dumping ground.

"If someone else doesn't want it, why in the hell would we want it in 
our backyard?" asked Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, a lifelong 
Sierra Blanca resident.

A decade and a half ago, New York-based Merco Joint Ventures started 
hauling treated New York City sewage to scrubland just outside Sierra 
Blanca, spraying tons of it daily on thousands of acres.

The spraying stopped in 2001, and the company went bankrupt.

Now, the state of Texas has bought the land and leased it to a group 
that wants to resume spreading sewage.

The idea
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that the state might make money from the return of a filth they thought 
had finally evaporated has some Sierra Blanca residents and officials 
readying for yet another fight in a years-long battle over environmental 
waste.

"These opportunists - we call them carpetbaggers - they come here to 
make money off us," said Bill Addington, an environmental activist and 
third-generation Sierra Blancan who believes sludge is poison to the 
land, air, water and people in his hometown.

Scientists debate the results of spreading waste on open land. One group 
says it promotes healthy plant growth in dry soil, but others say the 
chemicals sicken people and even kill.

State land officials say sludge would be one way, in addition to a 
mining operation already under way, to stimulate the local economy and 
generate money for Texas schools. "They'll have some viable commercial 
opportunities out there where they have nothing," said Tom Cengle, a 
lawyer for the Texas General Land Office.

Sludge returns?

Texas now owns all the Sierra Blanca land, called Mile High Ranch, that 
from 1992 until 2001 was one of the nation's largest sludge dumps. The 
state's purchase set off whispers and rumors in the community about 
whether the stink would return.

"I can tell you right now the town doesn't want that," Sheriff West 
said. "We already had about (enough) with that stinking stuff."

Documents obtained under the Texas Public Information Act show a series 
of legal settlements and contracts through which Texas Land Commissioner 
Jerry Patterson agreed to buy nearly 100,000 acres from Merco's former 
owners for more than $4.5 million.

Spokesman Jim Sudyam said Patterson was unavailable to comment for this 
story. Sudyam, who agreed to comment only by e-mail, said the land was 
purchased "for its appreciation in value and to develop commercial 
activity on the acreage that will provide a new income stream to the 
Permanent School Fund, which helps pay for the state's share of public 
education in Texas."

At the same time the state bought each chunk of land, it also agreed to 
lease the acreage to the Texas Southwest Range & Wildlife Foundation, a 
group whose members were heavily involved in the project that first 
brought sludge to Sierra Blanca.

The final purchase-lease deal was for the 64,000 acres where New York 
City's sewage came to rest and where a mining company blasted a hole in 
the side of Sierra Blanca Mountain to extract rock.

The lease, signed in late 2005, allows the foundation to seek out 
commercial enterprises to benefit the foundation and the school fund. 
The foundation is dedicated to keeping the huge "ranch" in one piece and 
to conserving its habitat for wildlife.

A mining contract that could net up to $700,000 each year for the state 
in mineral royalties and more than $200,000 a year for the foundation is 
already inked, and operations are set to start this fall.

Sudyam said the land the state bought is also under consideration for 
another sludge project, though one has not yet been identified. 
Foundation lawyer and lobbyist Susan Potts, who also represented Merco, 
said sludge dumping provided jobs for the community and is recycling "in 
its truest form," beneficial for the land and livestock.

"That is something that we plan on doing in the future," Potts said.

Sludge science

Sierra Blancans, and even top scientists, have mixed opinions about 
whether the treated remnants from New York City's toilets, sinks and 
gutters represent an ecological boon or a toxic blow.

Activist Addington can't prove it, but he says he knows that chemicals, 
vapors and fumes from the sludge made his neighbors sick.

"There was a lot of flu, a lot of kids missing school" said Addington, 
his scraggly gray-blond hair swaying under a worn baseball cap as he 
shakes his head and squints beneath the sun blazing down on the desert.

Adolfo Ramirez, who has lived in Sierra Blanca for all but a few of his 
40 years, said his four children got sick more often and stayed sick 
longer during the dumping days.

"The pediatrician (in El Paso) would say it was a viral infection or 
something in the air causing allergic reactions," he said.

Foundation President George Fore, who Merco paid to oversee the sludge 
and ranch operation, is a well-connected former employee of both the 
state land commission and environmental agency. He still lives with his 
wife and two children right across the road from the dump site. He said 
no one in his family had any troubles.

The smell, he said, wasn't even a problem for them. "It never bothered 
us any."

Fore, a white-haired, weathered Texan with ice-blue eyes and a cowboy 
demeanor, said he told Merco owners when they first approached him about 
the operation that they would have to prove that the sludge was not 
hurting the land in Sierra Blanca.

So Merco gave Texas Tech University scientists $2 million to study the 
operation's effects on the desert. Changgui Wan, an associate researcher 
at Texas Tech who lived on the ranch and studied the sludge operation, 
said all the results were positive.

The scientists, he said, found no evidence of air pollution or 
groundwater contamination. And, he said, nitrogen in the sludge helped 
the soil retain water and the plants grow bigger. "There's no adverse 
impact," he said.

The study, Wan said, ended when Merco lost its sludge contract and 
couldn't continue funding the project.

Caroline Snyder, a Harvard-

educated liberal arts professor emeritus at New York's Rochester 
Institute of Technology, has been studying sludge for a decade and 
organized Citizens for Sludge-Free Land in New Hampshire.

Sure, she said, plants grow better for a while when they are fertilized 
with sludge. But in the long term, Snyder said, the chemicals degrade 
the land, and their potential harm to people is frightening. She said 
scientific studies in Pennsylvania, Alabama, Virginia and other states 
show the "toxic stew" sickens communities near sludge dumps, which are 
typically poor, rural and minority.

It's not only the excrement in sludge that is a problem, Snyder said, 
but also the hundreds of chemicals, such as mercury, lead and arsenic, 
that also get tossed down drains.

"There are so many unknowns and so many nasty surprises we're getting 
from use of these materials," Snyder said.

A 2002 study by Environmental Protection Agency scientist David Lewis, 
reported that two boys, ages 11 and 17, living near two different 
Pennsylvania sludge sites, developed fatal staph infections.

Overall, the study found that among 48 people at 10 locations near 
sludge sites, the staph infection rate was 25 times higher than among 
patients at hospitals, where staph is a common risk.

The study concluded: "The nature and timing of symptoms reported by 
residents suggest that steps should also be taken to protect the public 
from exposure to airborne contaminants from (sludge) land application 
areas."

'White Mountain'

The odor is what some of Sierra Blanca's 500 or so residents remember 
most from Merco's sludge operation.

"The stench was unreal," rancher Millie Dodge said. "When it rained, you 
just couldn't hardly stay around here."

Some also remember the jobs.

"I can't help but think it had to have been good for some people," 
Hudspeth County Judge Rebecca Dean Walker said.

Sierra Blanca is fewer than two dozen miles from the Texas-Mexico 
border, in the shadow of its namesake mountain, and nearly two-thirds 
its residents are Hispanic. Mostly boarded-up businesses line the main 
drag. Sun-faded signs swing over deserted sidewalks. Families who live 
in the mobile homes and small, aging houses along the dirt streets earn, 
on average, about $13,000 less each year than the average Texas 
household, which makes about $39,000.

"If a city person were to come to our town, they'd probably say, 'Hey, 
it doesn't look like much,' " Adolfo Ramirez said.

But many who call Sierra Blanca home speak romantically of their 
isolated existence, neighbors they've known all their lives, mountain 
vistas and desert rains.

"I never considered it a place to throw that kind of stuff away," 
Ramirez said, remembering the years from 1992 until 2001 when New York 
sent its sewage to Sierra Blanca. "I don't think our community is a 
trash or a dump."

Dumping in Sierra Blanca started after Merco bought 100,000 acres of 
desert ranch land in 1992.

The company had a $168 million contract with New York City and a green 
light from the state's environmental agency to spray 100 tons of treated 
residential sewage daily on the mesquite, yucca and scrub grasses.

At the time, Sierra Blanca was already embroiled in a controversy over a 
proposal the Legislature had approved to bury nuclear waste near the 
town. Recalled activist Addington, "This little bitty town had the whole 
country talking about waste projects."

Ranch manager Fore said Merco officials came to him looking for help 
smoothing the path into Sierra Blanca. He and Austin lawyer and lobbyist 
Potts helped the company set up in Texas.

In July 1992, after lawsuits by Hudspeth County and then-Texas Attorney 
General Dan Morales failed to prevent the dumping, Merco train cars 
filled with sewage started rolling up to the base of Sierra Blanca Mountain.

The sludge, Fore said as he drove a dusty rusted red Ford Bronco through 
the ranch, did wonders for the natural habitat of the mule deer, 
antelope and cattle he tends.

"There's mind-boggling plant diversity out here," Fore said, pointing to 
Spanish daggers, white-thorn acacia and lote bushes dotting the beige 
landscape.

Until 2001, when Merco lost its contract with New York City, Fore said, 
the ranch employed 46 workers who helped apply the sludge on about 
18,000 acres.

That year, two of the company's original owners, brothers Fred and 
Joseph Scalamandre, pleaded guilty to paying off New York mob bosses to 
influence union officials in New York. Merco filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

Whether the project and the jobs it provided helped or hurt the local 
economy is still up for debate among the locals as they ponder the 
possibility of another olfactory offender in their community. Said 
Ramirez, "I had cousins and family friends who worked there. And they 
would say, 'All I can smell is money.' "

Next round

Potts said the goals of the foundation and of sludge opponents in Sierra 
Blanca are the same: to protect the land and improve the community. The 
foundation, she said, wants to use sludge and mining operations to 
support wildlife and bring jobs to town.

"This is just a rare opportunity to do something which we all believe 
will benefit the state and range and wildlife in the community," she said.

For Commissioner Patterson and the state, sludge, mining and other 
operations in the desert are a chance to make good on a $4.5 million 
investment and bring in millions more for Texas schools.

Some in this poor, rural border town, though, find the prospect of the 
state profiting from big city filth fouling their air and possibly 
harming their children, not just sickening but maddening.

Sierra Blanca, Sheriff West said, just won't tolerate it anymore. "If 
the state is going into the sludge business, then we'll do our part to 
protect the people of this county."

Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom at elpasotimes.com;

(512) 479-6606.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_6379524

Activist won't end his fight against 'forces of darkness'
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
Article Launched: 07/15/2007 04:24:00 PM MDT

Sierra Blanca activist Bill Addington stands in front of his family's 
store which has closed after he used about $350 thousand to fight his 
causes which include the sludge dump at Mile High Ranch just outside the 
town of Sierra Blanca. (Photo by Mark Lambie)
# Related article: Sierra Blancans debate possible dump

SIERRA BLANCA - Bill Addington's obsession with fending off 
environmental threats to his hometown has cost him his family and driven 
him to the brink of financial ruin.

Staring down a court date this week that could end with his house and 
his mother's house on the auction block, Addington vowed to keep on.

"I don't regret the decision," said Addington, a third-generation Sierra 
Blancan, "but it comes at a high cost."

Addington, 50, started battling nuclear and treated sewage dumps and 
mining operations in his desert home more than a decade ago.

Over the years, his wife left with their son, he stirred controversy in 
this tiny desert town, and he drove the family business into the ground.

He now faces tax foreclosure on the houses, store and border farm his 
grandfather built in Sierra Blanca. Yet he is steeling himself to return 
to battle against a new mining operation and the prospect of more sewage 
sludge
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dumping in his hometown.

"I'm not afraid, and I will continue to fight as long as I'm on Earth," 
Addington said.

As Addington stood on the empty street in front of his family's vacant 
grocery store - where broken lights and rotted wood hang in windows 
still decorated with faded beer, milk and soda signs - his chin quivered.

"I spent every penny fighting the forces of darkness," he said.

In 1991, legislators approved a proposal to bury nuclear waste in the 
desert near this small town.

Addington was convinced the project would ruin the groundwater and 
poison his neighbors, and he fought for eight years to keep the plan 
from becoming reality.

As other companies came with proposals to use the vast expanses of 
scrubland in Hudspeth County, Addington opposed them, too.

"They milk everything they can out of us for the love of money," 
Addington said.

He added to his targets a company that in 1991 started spraying New York 
City's treated sewage on ranchland outside Sierra Blanca and a mining 
company that in 1998 began extracting rocks from the town's namesake 
mountain.

"Bill was tireless, as he still is," said Linda Lynch, an 
environmentalist who worked closely with Addington

He helped establish the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund and found 
others like Lynch to fight with him.

It took more than $350,000 of his own and his family's money, though, to 
finance the trips to testify before lawmakers in Austin, Washington, 
D.C., and Mexico City, and to pay the lawyers who helped the cause.

Meanwhile, merchandise on the shelves of the store Addington's 
grandfather, Jose Guerra, built in the 1920s, dwindled and disappeared.

"You could tell that he was hurting," said Adolfo Ramirez, who has known 
Addington since the two were in school. "The store was not the same 
anymore."

His common-law wife, Gina, decided in 1994 she had had enough, Addington 
said. She took their son, Aaron, and left.

"She just couldn't take it," he said. "She wanted a life."

Lynch said love for the pristine desert his family helped settle drives 
Addington's devotion, even in the face of dire personal and financial 
straits.

"When you commit that much time and sacrifice certain things on those 
projects, it's very hard to dust off your hands and walk away," she said.

Addington's wife wasn't the only one who didn't appreciate his obsession.

Some in Sierra Blanca saw nuclear dumping, sludge spraying and mining as 
opportunities for tax money and jobs in the poor community.

The issues tore the town apart.

Bill Love, who was Hudspeth County judge from 1989 until 1995, said he 
especially disliked the fact that Addington and his group brought 
outsiders into the community to lobby against local projects.

"I didn't feel like they were always truthful," Love said.

Merco Joint Ventures, the company that brought sludge to Sierra Blanca, 
disliked Addington's tactics so much that it included him in a $60 
million slander lawsuit.

George Fore, who manages the land where Merco sprayed sludge, said 
Addington and his allies told exaggerated stories about the smell and 
made false claims that it sickened people.

"In truth, there weren't but about five people who raised all the cane 
about this project," he said.

Public bickering over Sierra Blanca's land, though, had mostly subsided 
in the past few years.

In 1998, the state decided against sending nuclear waste to the desert.

Merco stopped spreading sewage in 2001 after the company lost its 
contract with New York City.

The mining ended in 2003, when the state sued the company for mineral 
royalties.

"I just wanted this to be over," Addington said.

By then, the family lumberyard had burned in a fire declared arson, and 
with nothing left to sell on its shelves, the grocery store had been 
shuttered.

Now, Addington said, he owes as much as $120,000 in property taxes he 
has been unable to pay since 2000.

He has a Thursday date in court, where a judge will decide whether to 
sell off the estate Addington's grandfather built.

As Addington prepares for his court date, he is also preparing for a new 
fight.

The state of Texas has purchased all the ranchland where mining and 
sludge dumping happened years ago. A new mining operation will open this 
fall, and the group that leases the property plans to resume spraying 
sludge.

"You lose when you give up," he said. "And you lose when you believe 
you've lost."

Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom at elpasotimes.com;

(512) 479-6606.