Southern Piss-ific? Does The Railroad Have Something To Do With A Toxic Dump Near Vail? By Jeff Smith EVEN WHEN TUCSON and its environs were still in the sleepy southwestern village demographic stratum, it had its air pollution problems...not unlike Phoenix to the north and Los Angeles to the west. It was worse in winter when temperature inversion trapped rising clouds of visible pollutants--particulate matter mostly--under a cap of heavy, cold air. In that era of comparatively few motor vehicles on a comparatively high percentage of unpaved roads, the problem was more one of dust roiling into the air from the wheels of pickup trucks and farm tractors, than smog spewing out of tailpipes. Anyway dust-abatement was a big deal, and it made us feel right green and patriotic to pour old black oil on our driveways to keep the dust down. In addition to which it shed water and made roads passable that otherwise would have been quagmires of mud. Then somebody smart--the professional environmentalists take credit for it, but I heard it first from a retired farmer who spent his afternoons rocking on the front porch and watching the neighbors drive by--observed that the dust raised by passing traffic on dirt roads generally settled within a few yards of the road and within about 45 seconds. Then somebody else smart--and this time I think the professional greenies can indeed share the credit--noticed that petroleum products and other indigestible chemicals dumped in the dirt, either for dust-abatement or just plain wildcat disposal, rendered the soil sterile or toxic, and ultimately leached down into the groundwater, poisoning it too. I include the foregoing by way of illustrating how well-intentioned people can become unintentional villains in the struggle to save our planet. Surely America's railroads, as beneficiaries of perhaps the greatest largesse in the history of American public policy, would never intentionally do anything to bite the hands that feed them. Therefore I must conclude the existence of a small-scale toxic waste dump alongside the Southern Pacific line passing through the village of Vail is the result either of misunderstanding or misguided environmentalism. What I found out there--within a few yards of the main road through Vail and an actual stone's throw from a public potable water well--is a bermed excavation about 1-by-30 feet, full of old oil and grease buckets, used oil filters, spray cans of paint, brake cleaners and other toxic solvents--all empty or mostly. But all toxic and all illegal, according to the county and state departments of environmental quality. Just a few yards down the tracks was an old battery, another legal no-no, and spots where something of the old dinosaur family--diesel fuel, probably, was spilled. Mike Jablonski, who tipped me to the situation and guided me to the dump, lives in the hills to the northeast of the place and roots around a lot in the desert, either afoot or in his van. He heats his house with wood in the winter and said he usually would have glommed onto the stack of old pallets that covered most of the oil and solvent cans, but finding them--in an obviously recent excavation hidden on three sides from the passing road and nearby Shrine of the Santa Ritas--set him to thinking. His kids go to school in Vail. They drink water from the well that pulls its water from the ground under this pile of steadily leaking toxic waste. I suppose it's possible somebody unconnected with Southern Pacific brought a backhoe out there next to the railroad tracks and dug this trench and piled up the dirt so the junk wouldn't be seen from passing cars. But I doubt it. I suppose it's possible Southern Pacific is unaware that petroleum products such as the diesel fuel that powers their every enterprise and the solvents used to clean and maintain their machinery are toxic, potentially lethal, and not a real good idea to mix with drinking water and food crops. But I doubt it. I called the county and state departments of environmental quality and learned no complaint about this particular wildcat dump had been filed as of the end of last week. I called Southern Pacific, got a voice-mail menu that directed me to corporate communications, hit that button and got a recording of a guy name of Mike who referred me to another number. Dialed that number and got an actual person who told me instead of corporate communications I need to talk to public relations. Called public relations and got the same recording of the same guy named Mike. Quit. Anyway, there was a meeting last Saturday of the concerned citizens of Vail to discuss this threat to their drinking water, so you can bet that by now local officialdom is aware of the problem. The drill goes like this: The county sends an inspector out and he looks it over, tries to find the culprit--a no-brainer in this case--and he notifies them to clean it up. If they don't respond, they get fined one large. That ought to drive SP to the brink of ruin. But I'm inclined to believe that in this case some serious soil remediation is in order--and a public apology from the railroad, which after all was given all this land all along its rights of-way all across America. And if Mike Jablonski wants his ass kissed at high noon on Friday in front of the main library, I think SP ought to take care of that too.

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