Our County Board of Supervisors has already voted to OK the building of a jail in the Banning Pass despite an overwhelming display of disapproval by the citizens of the Coachella Valley.  The Palm Springs Hotel Association as well as the City Council, for instance, have both lodged official their reasons for wanting the jail placed elsewhere.  Their complaints have more to do with tourism and economics but there are also ecological/environmental reasons which should be noted.

1)       A jail, unlike a prison, has far more come-and-go traffic on a daily basis. Lawyers will need to visit frequently, family visits are not as limited and several court visits are necessary during inmates’ incarcerations.  The nearest superior courts are in Riverside, Indio and Blythe.  Travel time, added manpower, costs and fuel emissions have rarely been mentioned during debate.

2)      The air in Riverside County is already deadly.  Won’t trapping even more pollution in such a narrow pass, then blowing it all eastward, make a deteriorating situation even worse for the Coachella Valley?

3)      The plan calls for an open sewage pond;  the sludge can leech contaminants.

4)      The location is within the National Monument, which was created to protect the environment and species within it. This is a very busy wildlife corridor.

5)      The location is a known flood zone, as was seen in the early 1990’s.

6)      The location is in a seriously at-risk fire zone.  (Esperanza and Pioneertown fires, for example.)

7)      The location sits atop earthquake faults (plural) and faces related security problems if a major tremor occurs.

8)      The location is within easy reach of one of the busiest interstates (and deadliest) in the nation.  And the west end of the Valley is TOTALLY a one ingress/egress area.  How many times in the past three years has the I-10 been completely shut down due to weather or accidents?

9)      The location has been heretofore undisturbed AND sits in a high wind area;  while bulldozing the site, long-dormant and potentially deadly spores will become airborne (valley fever, hantavirus, etc.).  We have not been given evidence of any extensive soil tests.

10)   The location also sits atop a recently drained (by Arrowhead) aquifer;  the plant is now slant-drilling into another aquifer.  Where will the water come from for 7,200 inmates and thousands more in staff?  Jails/prisons use far more water/electricity than any other form of housing.

11)   Banning recently rescinded permission to build 1200 family residences because of the negative impact on the environment.  How can the jail be, therefore, justified?

12)   Jail stays are up to and including 364 days;  after that, a greater sentence requires a prison stay.  Oftentimes, they are used as holding areas for “bad guys” and gang members,  just to get them off the streets before arraignment.  (“Gang-bangers” have even been known to get arrested as a cover for things going down on the streets.)

13)    Stays will be comparatively short (between 90 and 120 days) before the inmates are returned to the population, many with institutionally transmitted diseases (HIV, TB, hepatitis, among them)and addictions.  Enclosed communities of 5,000 or more are natural breeding-grounds for such infectious diseases.  Staff is also exposed thus putting the community at large at risk.

14)   The lights will be on 24/7.  Regardless of the promises of “green” illumination, it will nonetheless interfere with natural cycles of native animal species.

15)   The location will interfere with natural migration of said species, already hampered by urban sprawl.

16)   Many question whether all CEQA guidelines have been met since no reports of same have been widely circulated.

17)   The costs of running jails are immense and fall to the taxpayers.  Some estimate it can be as much as $125,000 per inmate.  At a time when services to law-abiding citizens are being severely cut back and state taxes will soon rise, are these expenditures in the face of so many environmental issues justifiable.

18)   And, as mentioned, many worry that the appearance of the jail will not bode well for tourism in the Valley.

Many argue that the building and staffing of a jail will add greatly to local employment.  This stance was widely circulated in Lancaster and Crestview when facilities were being considered there.  What many forget to mention is that, once someone is hired within the state system, that person can apply for a move to a more desirable location.  Or that, once built, it becomes an immovable fixture. 

And not to belabor the point because it is an issue which requires FAR more study, but shouldn’t the United States FINALLY be looking into a failed program and begin looking for alternatives to the prison system itself.  Other countries seem to handle it a lot better than we do, without a tangential rise in crime.

Please google the “American prison system” or “Jails in California” for further information re: these points.

There is a link to a petition against the placement of the jail in the Pass:  http://www.petitiononline.com/psprison/petition.html

Alternatively, there is a link to Board Chair, Supervisor Roy Wilson who will supply the Board’s position on the issue:  district4@rcbos.org

Submitted by Rita Salner  

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, (LADWP), is currently working towards implementing their Green Path North Project.  This is a new 500-kV electrical transmission corridor.  The purpose of this corridor is "to bring electricity generated from renewable resources, such as geothermal, solar and wind, from Imperial County to the LADWP power grid".  The route they have chosen would carve through pristine desert and desert communities creating an 85 mile long path through the Mojave Desert.  To accomplish this the LAWPD is using the federal Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement process to designate energy corridors on federal lands in eleven Western states and by applying through the Bureau of Land Management for approval to place power lines on public lands.  Since LAWPD is a city-owned utility, they do not need to seek approval by the California Public Utilities Commission.    The LADWPD's submission to the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement shows two routes for the energy corridor.  Both routes would start northeast of Palm Springs and travel north through the Big Morongo Canyon Area of Critical Concern to Yucca Valley.  They would then travel through the Pioneertown Mountain Preserve and on across the Mojave Desert and other desert communities.  One route would end in Hesperia and one in Victorville.    The route across the Big Morongo Canyon Area of Critical Environmental Concern would bisect critical wildlife corridors.  Bighorn sheep, mule deer, mountain lions, Pacific kangaroo rats and badgers, species know to be sensitive to habitat loss, require large tracts of land to support viable populations.  These species need their corridors to travel from the San Bernardino National Forest to Joshua Tree National Park.    Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, owned by The Wild lands Conservancy, is also targeted.  The power lines would travel through preserve lands, which were purchased with funds donated by private citizens.   So far, 30 members of Congress have taken a stand against this project.  On October 13th they released a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy.  Their letter asks the Department of Energy to "order an immediate study of cutting-edge alternatives using 21rst Century technology that can be utilized without resorting to the standard answer that building transmission infrastructure is the only solution."  Use of higher conductivity lines would allow the LADWP to use the existing 1-10 energy corridor which travels in a direct line to Los Angeles.    Information from Desert Report, 2007

History of Proposed Eagle Mountain Land Fill
Submitted by Rita Salner

Eagle Mountain, Ca., was founded in 1948 by iron magnate Henry J. Kaiser. The land once owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad and is located on the southeastern corner of Joshua Tree National Park. It, at one time, was southern California’s largest iron mine, supporting a town of 4,000 at its peak... It connected to Southern Pacific via a 51-mile –long railroad branch known as the Eagle Mountain Railroad. The mine closed in 1983.

In 1986, the California Department of Corrections converted the former shopping center in the Town of Eagle Mountain into a privately operated prison for low-risk inmates. Also in 1988 a proposal was made to turn the 1.5 mile long by half-mile wide open pit mine into a massive, high-tech sanitary landfill. Trash would be shipped by train from the Los Angeles area via the Eagle Mountain Rail Line. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved the project in October 1992 with the approval of EPA.

In 1987 Kaiser formed a subsidiary named, Mine Reclamation Corporation. In 1989 Kaiser proposed to swap 3,481 acres of land at the old mine site with the Bureau of Land Management for 2,486 acres split up in 10 non-contiguous parcels plus $20,100 in cash. Kaiser/MRC also requested an easement through the new federal land to operate a rail line. The railway’s purpose was the daily transportation of 20,000 tons of garbage from the Los Angeles Sanitation District to the Eagle Mountain pit.

The dump plan consists of five phases. Permits have been granted for the first four phases, but not the last. The Department of Mines and Geology wants to have access, if needed, to the remaining iron-ore reserves in the pit. Instead of putting garbage in the pit, for the first 76 years of operation, 2,000 areas of wild lands will be spread with LA’s garbage, causing mounds several hundreds of feet high. No biologist will deny that a landfill surrounded on three sides by protected desert wilderness will eventually ruin that wilderness. And, there has never been a land fill that doesn’t leak.

In 1992, Riverside County’s first environmental impact report was filed, and it stated that the landfill would exacerbate air and water pollution in the Coachella and Chuckwalla valleys. The county officials rejected the Eagle Mountain project with a 4-1 vote. Currently, the landfill has been held up by a lawsuit brought by the Desert Protection Society, the Riverside-based Center for Environmental Justice, and Donna and Larry Charpied. The Charpieds quote the original 1952 agreement Kaiser had with the U.S. Government as saying that “if the land is not used for mining for seven consecutive years, it will revert to the public for its highest and best use.” They call this the “Give It Back Campaign. The Eagle Mountain Land Fill is still going through the courts.