Wednesday, March 22, 2006 | 7:11 a.m.
A pile of dirt and two dead guinea pigs were all it took for the Clark County Health District to fine Las Vegan Judy Long $1,400 for desert dumping.
No witnesses came forward at a March 15 hearing before a Health District hearing officer to say they saw her dump the debris butting up against her back wall, which borders on the Flamingo Wash.
Long, an unemployed single mother of two who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, says she did not create the pile and can neither afford the penalty nor an attorney to appeal the decision to District Court.
"Why would I do it? I have trash pickups every Tuesday and Friday," said Long, who worked for the Health District for eight years as a restaurant inspector. "It is less of an effort to put dirt and dead animals out with the trash than to toss them over my six-foot wall.
"This is not the same thing as when those large construction businesses get fined thousands of dollars for dumping debris in the desert after a witness testifies they saw them do it. No one saw me dumping because I didn't do it."
Long has more than 60 guinea pigs penned in the back yard of her home near Tropicana Avenue and Jones Boulevard. County ordinances do not limit the number of guinea pigs a person can have.
She says the debris, which included two milk crates, more likely was put there by kids who wanted to step up and look at her animals.
She said the dead animals likely were victims of stray cats who got into an open-air pen and dragged them from her yard.
The circumstantial evidence, however, of the dead guinea pigs apparently gave the hearing master enough to render a decision against her.
But that happens a lot at solid waste management hearings that are held monthly at the Health District's Shadow Lane office.
Between January 2005 and last January, 129 individuals and 95 businesses came before one of the district's two contracted hearing masters, and just one individual was found not in violation, according to hearing results posted on the district's Web site.
The fines ranged from $500 to $8,000.
That, Health District spokesman David Tonelli says, indicates how serious it is about going after desert dumpers.
"You should not single out one case, but rather look at the entire picture and just how serious a problem desert dumping is," Tonelli said.
"Some of the instances are big and others are not so big, but any incident is a problem - and it is a violation of the law. We have cases of sewage spills and improper disposal of motor oil and other potential hazards to our health."
In Long's case, a county worker who cleans debris out of the wash testified that he saw the pile at her wall and reported it to the district.
Tonelli said the worker took notice of the area "by the odor. It smelled like a barnyard."
Health officials alleged there was "fecal matter" near the pile, but presented no evidence of that at the hearing.
Long said that was ridiculous. She removed the offensive materials from the county-owned property within days of being informed that she had been cited, but that was not enough to get the matter dropped.
At a Feb. 23 meeting, Health District Environmental Health Manager Dennis Campbell offered to settle Long's case for $750, according to a memorandum, but she decided to take a shot at being cleared at the hearing.
After the brief hearing, Hearing Master Henry Melton found Long in violation of desert dumping, but reduced the district's suggested $1,800 fine by $400.
Long said her battle with the Health District also demonstrates that there are inconsistencies in the way Clark County government agencies mete out justice.
Long said when she let her front yard get messy in January she got a warning letter from the Clark County Public Response Office of Code Compliance that she faced a fine because of that debris.
"I cleaned my yard up before the Feb. 8 deadline, so they didn't put me through a hearing or fine me," Long said. "The Health District gave me no such warning and no compassion, just a hearing and a fine.
"This is a case of government out of control."
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