*The following “Guest Editorial” was published in the September 1, 2010 edition of the Ojai Valley News under a different headline chosen by the paper.

 *THE WELDON CANYON DUMP & THE OJAI VALLEY DEFENSE FUND – WOULD THE DEFENSE FUND HAVE PREVENTED THE WAR?

By Michael Shapiro

 Among the numerous attempts by outside industries and the Ventura County Planning Division bureaucracy to foster large-scale, environmentally ruinous industrial projects in and/or near the Ojai Valley, perhaps none was as egregiously horrid and potentially devastating as the attempt by Waste Management, Inc. to construct a monstrous, mega-landfill (a massive garbage dump!) to be located just a quarter-mile in from the end of the divided section of Highway 33, adjacent to Casitas Springs and the entrance to the Ojai Valley.   I’ve always believed that if the executives at Waste Management and the personnel down at the County Planning Division knew in advance that the citizens of the Ojai Valley possessed a vast, potent, million-dollar environmental defense fund that could bankroll the hiring of attorneys, environmental consultants and effectively organize politically to oppose such projects, that the County and Waste Management would have never progressed as far as they did towards development of such an ill-conceived and environmentally destructive project as the Weldon Canyon dump in the first place.  Unfortunately, Ojai did not have such a fund in place, and we paid dearly in time, energy, stress and the finances it ultimately took for not being prepared in advance.

The Ventura County Planning Division failed miserably in questioning the deeper and broader efficacy and environmental soundness of citing such a landfill at the entrance to the Ojai Valley’s air shed — the area considered to be the gateway to a larger closed-loop system where the sum total of all pollutants on any given 24-hour period are collected and stored – making the Ojai Valley’s air-quality the second worst in all of Ventura County.  They never adequately factored-in that when fully operational, perhaps as many as one-thousand extra diesel polluting garbage trucks per day would make the trip up and down Highway 33 – to and from the 101- spewing their carcinogenic diesel exhaust, much of which would then be carried right up into the Ojai Valley most every day.  Nor did they take into account the myriad of other pollutants, i.e. — tons of dust particles, unsavory and potentially dangerously rotting, toxic, bacteria-laden micro-organisms that are also part of any such land-fill operation and which would also be carried into the Ojai Valley daily by the prevailing winds coming up from the Pacific Ocean.  

Indeed, it was the norm to attempt to cite landfills in areas where the population demographics were often lower on the socio-economic scale and thus thought to be in areas less likely to fund any seriously organized opposition to their projects.   It was thought that “the Avenue” and the various sub-divisions adjacent to it, as well as Casitas Springs and even the Ojai Valley itself, fit into what was conceived as a “safe-bet” for developing such a massive landfill project due to lack of meaningful, organized and/or well-financed opposition.   Unfortunately, no one among the planners at the County or the engineers at Waste Management contemplated that vast numbers of citizens from within the Ojai Valley would rise-up to organize to effectively fight their project.  The Coalition to Stop Weldon Canyon Dump! quickly organized and worked tirelessly and valiantly to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund our legal defense team at the Environmental Defense Center (EDC); long-time Ojai resident (the late) Carl Huntsinger organized the Ojai Citizens for Clean Air (OVACA) to fund an additional $50-thousand environmental study which confirmed the catastrophic effects of the dump upon the Ojai Valley’s air quality; several star-laden Rock concerts, cases of Dump Weldon! Wine, visible support from countless movie stars and more  – all these combined efforts eventually defeated the plans of both Waste Management and the County Planning Division to approve construction of the dump.

Waste Management and the County planners had believed that the people of the Ojai Valley would be a “push-over” and that we lacked the financial and/or organizational/political sophistication to wage any serious opposition to them.   Additionally, the Weldon Canyon dump project was a deeply entrenched, special interest corporate development plan that stood to make hundreds-of-millions of dollars in profits upon winning approval.   Even the Bonsall family that owned the pristine and beautiful Weldon Canyon property was counting on earning millions-of-dollars simply from leasing the property to Waste Management.   The seemingly endless amount of the multi-millions-of-dollars in profits that both Waste Management and the Bonsall family were counting on – together with the huge sums of money that the Ventura County Resources Management Department hoped to earn from Waste Management’s application, permit and “dumping fees” – provided all of them with a huge financial incentive to wage a prolonged effort to develop and open the dump regardless of the fact that it posed seriously grave dangers to the Ojai Valley’s air-quality and the fact that from an overall solid waste perspective, Ventura County had no need whatsoever for such a polluting colossus in the first place. 

It took huge sums of money to defeat the combined forces of wealthy corporate interests and their allies and promoters within the County Planning Division.  Eventually – so effective and successful was the Dump Weldon! Coalition’s efforts in persuading the powers that be about the evidence and proof of the dangers, the folly – and the complete lack of need for such a huge landfill project – that on the eve of the vote by the County Supervisors to grant Waste Management their Conditional Use Permit (CUP), one of the largest corporations in the world withdrew their application knowing they were heading down to defeat.  However, our rejoicing in victory was short-lived: Within a year, Waste Management announced that they were going to make an end-run around the standard legal procedure for developing such massive industrial projects by putting the issue on the ballot as a California State Ballot Initiative.    Suddenly – the Dump Weldon! Coalition, together with Carl Huntsinger’s Ojai Valley Association for Clean Air (OVACA) and our legal team at the EDC – had to morph from an effective environmental coalition force within the County Planning process to an effective political election campaign organization!  Struggling to raise additional finances against the more than one-million-dollars that was thought to be allocated by Waste Management (who organized the typical, industry-backed, cynically-named organization called Citizens for Environmental Solutions) – our campaign message prevailed and though outspent, we nevertheless were able to defeat the Weldon Canyon Landfill project by an almost 3-1 margin in the County-wide, general election.

The lessons of Weldon Canyon are clear:  Unless and until our Ojai Valley citizens permanently fund potential, future environmental battles – thus effectively arming and protecting ourselves – in advance – from any number of ill-conceived, polluting, industrial projects that could spell ruination for our greater Ojai Valley, our traditional way of life, and threaten Ojai’s basic economic vitality – we will always be in potential danger of being overrun by industrial development of one kind or another.   I’m convinced that the existence of an Ojai Valley Defense Fund will serve to protect us from future “Weldon Canyon Dumps” and all other projects that could endanger our Shangri La.   It’s like possessing our own version of a nuclear bomb:  Hopefully we’ll never have to use the financial clout from the Defense Fund because it will always be there – armed and ready – serving as a powerful deterrent.  Indeed – if all those “out there” among the potential industrial developers and Ventura Count planners understand and appreciate that Ojai is now (metaphorically speaking) armed and dangerous – then they’re less likely to attempt developing their projects that negatively impact Ojai in the first place.   And that’s why I’m giving the Ojai Valley Defense Fund my absolute, unconditional support and why I’m urging all who cherish and value the Ojai Valley’s environmental health and economic stability to do the same.  Personally, I’ve been through far too many costly, exhausting, difficult and challenging battles on behalf of protecting the Ojai Valley.  I’m convinced that the Ojai Valley Defense Fund is our ultimate “protective shield” for years to come.

*An independent television and film producer and former corporate business executive, Michael Shapiro has been a resident of Ojai for 20-years.  During that time he has been a founder and Co-Chairperson of the Ojai Playwright’s Foundation; Co-Chair of the Dump Weldon! Coalition; First VP of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy and Co-Chair of the Stop The Trucks! Coalition.

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