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Oracle and
democracy at work
Good evening. My name is Web Parton. I'm here tonight to tell you a story about people and democracy, a story of our little town of Oracle, Arizona and its long journey over the past 23 years in dealing with a radioactive/toxic waste dump called the Page-Trowbridge Ranch Landfill. Seeing this gathering here tonight I'm reminded of other rooms and other evenings. This process started for me with a small collection of people, outraged and incensed by elected representatives who had abandoned us, their constituents. These representatives bartered the essence of democracy, which is to represent the people. Instead, they violated this sacred trust and traded it to those who would give them money. I want to talk to you tonight about
a small town called Oracle, and my personal journey in this process.
What I've learned is that democracy is people filling rooms and working
together for a common good. Some of the rooms that I've been in have
had half a dozen people, some 50, some 100..... participants engaged in
the democratic process. Tonight, I
Later it attracted the likes of Edward Abbey, who claimed Oracle as his adopted home. ....And in 1923, it brought
a man named Joseph Page, a newly retired street car conductor from Kansas
City, Missouri, who had spent his life with a dream. His dream was to help
people around the world learn how to feed themselves using dry land farming
methods. In 1923, he and his wife, Sarah, garnered their meager savings
and purchased a half section of cattle-destroyed range land on the flats
to the west of town and there began the process of learning how to help
the land heal itself. There, they toiled for 17 years with the aid
of nothing more than hand tools, harvesting all available rain water. Ultimately,
they
Joseph Page joined his wife in death before the searing birth of the atomic age brought World War II to a close. They were spared witnessing our planet's loss of innocence, but, sadly, their legacy was not. The research labs at Arizona's
three state universities, NAU, ASU and the UA, entered into
the cold war's mania of attempting to harness radiation for the betterment
of mankind. When they looked around for a place where they could dispose
of the waste generated by these experiments, they remembered they held
the deed for a small piece of
Pinal County: a rural, backcountry
kind of place, full of people without much political clout to cause them
any trouble. In those days, they didn't worry about telling the locals
or asking permission. And so it is that Joseph and Sara Page's legacy,
their testament to nature's power to heal land ravaged by man, became home
to the Page-Trowbridge
waste, a total of 592 tons. However, a review of records obtained through the public records request process reveals that records for the dumping of chemical wastes were only kept for the last 8 years of operation. Therefore, an extrapolation based on the records that were kept indicates that the total amount of waste dumped at the site may actually be closer to 1,000 tons. In their releases to the press,
the University of Arizona also omits describing the way these poisonous
materials were dumped into the earth. They refer to lined pits; however,
plastic liners were only used the last two years of operation. For 18 of
the 20 years that they admit to dumping at the site, they poured around
a thousand tons of radioactive waste, toxic chemical waste, and commingled
radioactive toxic chemical waste into unlined dirt holes in the ground.
A thousand tons equals two million pounds.
All of these facts are particularly important to the people of Oracle because Oracle's sole domestic water well is 3.3 miles down gradient from this identified radioactive/toxic waste dump site. A promise was made to the Oracle
citizenry by the President of the University of Arizona at the time the
dump was finally closed. This promise was that the UA would
dig up and move out of the dump whatever it could dig up and move.
The University of Arizona broke that promise and continues to date to fail
to adequately address the safety, health, and welfare of the people who
have to use this pool of water as their
The people of Oracle have fought this fight for 23 years. We have been lied to, deceived, dismissed, and denied. The process of government has failed us on every level: federal, state, and county. However, let me tell you the one branch of government that has made a difference, where it hasn't failed. It didn't fail with the people. Through this process, I have learned a lesson in democracy. The people of Oracle banded together and finally forced an end to the dumping in 1986. For this, they were nominated for a Citizens Clearinghouse For Hazardous Waste Distinguished Achievement Award and invited to Washington, D.C. When the state went forward with a suspect landfill capping scheme in 1997, the people of Oracle banded together once again and challenged them. When the media in Tucson would not cover this issue for fear of engendering the wrath of the University of Arizona, Oracle created its own newspaper, The Oracle. Each month's edition is sent to all the bureaucrats who least want to receive it. After years of water and soil quality
tests performed by the UA indicating that contamination was leaking from
the toxic waste cells...after years of these test results being explained
away by the University as simply being lab error, collection contamination,
or in
Finally, the people of Oracle have
organized with like-minded citizens across Pinal County to protect others
before they too are lured into the state's radioactive/toxic waste nightmare.
Within the past 25 months, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors has approved
3 large developments in the area. All will draw their water from the aquifer
underneath the site.
Oracle, in league with other Pinal citizens, has qualified three county-wide referendums, to challenge each of these rezonings, in the last 25 months. This is a monumental accomplishment and a living example of democracy in action. We have gone to endless meetings with the county, the state, the university, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, and the EPA. We have written letters to the editor and spoken with reporters. We have sacrificed time, money, energy, and stood outside for weeks at a time in three-digit temperatures to effect a change in decisions made which do not represent the best interests of the people. These corrupted rezoning approvals have been put on hold, and the decisions will now go to Pinal county voters in the November 2002 general election. However, our work is not done. We need your help tonight. If you haven't already signed our citizen petition requesting that the EPA bring this site back under federal control and use superfund monies to finance a clean up, please do. Our table is located in the back and we have citizens there with pens and petitions. Democracy is expensive. We would also appreciate any donations you can make to Pinal Citizens for Sustainable Communities, to help us continue this struggle. The dump needs to be cleaned up, and our water needs to be protected. The story of Oracle is a story of democracy rising and taking action. It is a story of people actively engaged, participating in the business of government, and forcing change. This is a story of people standing up and being counted. To quote Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world." Thank you. |
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