Trashed: Agencies team up to stop illegal dumping that mars desert beauty

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, June 19, 2001 | 10:44 a.m.

Hotlines Most illegal dumping busts are the result of phone calls by citizens, authorities say.

Here are the numbers to call:

Witnesses may also call local city code officers for dumping on city land.

On the rare occasion when Ranger Ron Crayton steps down from his four-door pick-up truck to issue a ticket for illegal dumping, the red-handed offender often resorts to a familiar philosophical defense.

It's just the desert.

"You hear that so much," Crayton said, spitting tobacco into an old plastic foam cup. " 'It's just the desert.' "

Crayton, one of four Bureau of Land Management rangers who patrol about 3.5 million acres of federal land in Clark and Nye counties, estimates that he catches at most about 5 percent of people dumping trash in the desert.

During a recent drive up Hollywood Boulevard in east Las Vegas and along the saddle of Sunrise Mountain, Crayton documented a shot-up, burned-out stolen car, a pair of abandoned speedboats, a toilet, refrigerators, mattresses and other household goods.

But the vast majority of the trash was commercial waste, most of it from the construction and landscaping businesses.

The scene is much the same around the Las Vegas Valley, from College Drive in Henderson to the foothills of Gas Peak in North Las Vegas -- a ring of trash precedes the push of Spanish-tiled roofs into the desert.

The BLM and three other federal agencies hope to change that by banding together with a private foundation, Outside Las Vegas. The other agencies are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service.

Within 60 days, the group plans to air TV advertisements similar to the environmental campaigns waged by Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson in the 1960s and the "Keep America Beautiful" TV ads aired from 1971 and into the 1980s that showed a Native American crying at the nation's litter.

The foundation applied for and received a $300,000 start-up grant in 2000 from the San Francisco-based Hewlett Foundation. It has since raised $200,000 in cash and in-kind donations.

The agencies also plan to work with the Clark County School District to try to change kids' attitudes toward the desert, Alan O'Neill, executive director of the foundation, said.

"We have incredible assets at our back door. No urban area has a configuration like Las Vegas," O'Neill, who worked 34 years with the national park service before helping start the foundation last year, said. "But people think this is just a place to put nuclear waste. They think it's a wasteland. Unless we love it, and are good stewards, how can we expect other people to love it?"

Within an hour's drive of Strip casinos, Southern Nevadans can hike through deserts or mountain forests, or enjoy a wildlife refuge or bass fishing. But you'd never know about all that nature, O'Neill said, from the glitzy image projected by casinos.

Or from the way people dump their trash.

"The Grand Tetons, the Grand Canyon, those places grab you by the throat," Dick Birger, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said. "But the beauty of the desert is more subtle. It takes a little more interpretation than something as blatant as the Grand Canyon."

Changing attitudes is just one hurdle faced by federal agencies.

Construction companies aren't dropping truckloads of concrete, waste oil and old tires on federal and county lands because they don't appreciate the desert's subtle beauty. They're consciously avoiding dumping fees, officials say.

"With the industrial-strength litter, we're dealing with an economic issue," Birger said.

The Apex landfill, about 15 miles north of Las Vegas, charges about $200 for a trash bin of solid waste. On average, that could weigh slightly more than four tons.

The most effective deterrent to illegal commercial dumping would be stepped-up enforcement, officials say, but they don't expect increased funding any time soon.

As of Oct. 1, however, county and city officials will have new laws, if not new money, to help them combat trash.

Two bills passed by the Legislature, one by state Sen. Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and another by Genie Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, more than double first-time fines for illegal dumping. The new fines can be a maximum of $5,000. In the past, the maximum was $2,000, with a typical first offense being $250.

A second violation within two years could result in a minimum of 14 days in jail. Commercial violators also could forfeit their business licenses.

"The new legislation gives the health district more power to go after violators and it gives them a bigger hammer when they catch them," Titus said.

But even with that added power, law enforcement officers at all levels will be hard-pressed to turn the corner on illegal dumping.

Until lawmakers also budget money for new hires, violators will most often be long gone before rangers or code officers show up to document the waste. Much of that waste will sit for years before volunteer crews such as the Boy Scouts and church groups arrive to clean it up.

Sometimes, Ranger Crayton says, "I feel like a dog chasing its tail."