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Modesto Bee Wednesday, July 10, 2002  See Also: 7/10/02 Modesto Bee Editorial 7/9/02 Modesto, CA: Stanislaus County Residents & Greenaction Press Conference in Modesto Challenges Giant Dump Proposal: read the Press Release and Background Info in Fight Against Proposed Giant Garbage and Sewage Sludge Dump 7/9/02 Modesto Bee Press Coverage
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West Side landfill growth bid protested By MELANIE TURNER Enedina Chavez, who suffers from asthma, moved from the Silicon Valley to Patterson to retire three years ago, thinking she'd escape the smog in a cleaner city. She found out the air is not that clean in the valley, and now she's worried that a proposal to expand a landfill on Fink Road south of Patterson will make it an even less desirable place to live. 'We're afraid of the contamination of the air, the soil, the water,' she said. Stanislaus County wants to expand the landfill from its current 219 acres to 831 acres over a period of 55 years. It would occupy more than a square mile and stand 650 feet high after the expansion. County officials have said they don't necessarily plan to build the entire expansion at once, but having a permit for the full area would give them options. Chavez was among about 30 people, mostly from the West Side, who marched outside Tenth Street Place on Tuesday. They carried signs reading: 'We don't want to be the country's mega garbage dump' and 'Imported garbage = more traffic = more asthma attacks.' John Mataka of Grayson said more traffic on West Side roads would aggravate people's asthma and other lung problems. Juana Hernandez of Westley said she fears that an enormous dump would smell bad. Greenaction, a nonprofit group that fought the county's plan to burn medical waste from around the state at the garbage-to-energy plant near Crows Landing two years ago, joined the Grayson Neighborhood Council at Tuesday's protest in vowing to defeat the proposed landfill expansion. The Board of Supervisors is expected to consider certifying the project's draft environmental report in the next month and a half. Greenaction executive director Bradley Angel said he's concerned the county would eventually sell the mega-landfill to a private company and then have no control over what is dumped there. 'One would have thought that the county would have learned (its) lesson,' Angel said. |