ShareThisIn the dusty Nevada desert, about 30 miles east of the playa where Bay Area artists and hipsters gather annually to build a temporary city at the Burning Man festival, a San Francisco garbage company wants to build a dump for Bay Area trash.
But a group of residents in the Winnemucca area, near where Recology seeks to build the 1-square-mile landfill, wants the company to leave the desert alone -- and California to keep its garbage to itself.
"The notion that Nevada is some sort of wasteland because we don't have Ponderosa pines covering it is repugnant," said Jim French, retired wildlife biologist from the Nevada Department of Wildlife and a member of Nevadans Against Garbage, a group opposing the planned dump.
"Can you imagine the reaction in the Bay Area if the people of western Nevada bought some land in Marin County and wanted to ship their garbage there?" French asked.
Recology, formerly NorCal Waste Systems, is seeking approval to build its landfill 28 miles west of Winnemucca. It wants to build the dump as part of its plan for when existing landfills begin to fill in the coming years.
Under its proposal, Recology would haul as much as 4,000 tons of trash a day from the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California by train, five days a week, for 95 years. Workers would spread it across the desert in an ever-growing mound that could eventually grow to 200 feet, critics say.
Recology's proposal has already won support from the Humboldt County Planning Commission, allowing the company to seek permits from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.
But opponents gained momentum -- and attention for their fight -- last week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons urging him to reject the plan and calling it a "threat to Nevada's sovereignty and dignity."
Adam Alberti, a spokesman for Recology, said the firm, which collects trash in 50 communities in California, chose the Winnemucca site because of its proximity to a rail line and because of its distance from residences and businesses.
E-mail reporter Michael Cabanatuan at mcabanatuan(at)sfchronicle.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com.
Must credit the San Francisco Chronicle
