Collegian column on Fresno’s “sanitary landfill”

I have determined that it is simply impossible to cease to marvel at our government in action. Only in America would a municipal garbage dump ever be designated as a National Historic Landmark, if even for only a day or two.

Apparently, mayor Alan Autry and the city of Fresno nominated the landfill at Jensen and West avenues to be a National Historic Landmark this year. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton designated the landfill as such, along with 14 other sites across the nation.

Apparently the fact that the dump was a Superfund site slipped past somebody, although it was in all the information the city submitted to the Interior Department. Superfund is a federal program set up to throw money at hazardous waste sites.

Norton revoked the designation the next day.

The dump opened in 1935 and was the first “true sanitary landfill” in the United States, according to the Interior Department. The dump layered trash and dirt in trenches and covered the trash daily to keep the rodents and loose debris at bay, a technique adopted by builders of newer “sanitary landfills.”

This whole situation raises a number of questions in my mind.

First, how could Norton have not been aware that the dump was a Superfund site if the information submitted included that fact? She must not have read up before she approved the idea, which raises questions of what else she does without reading the important details first.

Also, how could our leaders downtown think that having our old dump turned into a National Historic Landmark would help Fresno shed its somewhat trashy reputation? I can just see Fresno State’s recruiting literature including the fact that not only is Fresno the only city within an easy drive of three national parks, the city is also the site of America’s first dump that can be described with an oxymoron, “sanitary landfill.” The site would be completely packed every day with history buffs who realize what a great loss to all of us it would be if a site so significant to American History wasn’t preserved.

I know that when I eventually have a wife and kids, I would take the family on a trip to the nation’s first sanitary dump. If my children learn only one thing, I want it to be that the granddaddy of all clean dumps was right here.

Or—here’s an idea—let’s keep it real. The place was a source of polluted soil and groundwater, methane gas and other toxins. Money from Superfund was used to clean the site up. If money set aside to clean up the most toxic of toxic wastelands went to that dump, then it wasn’t really sanitary, now was it?

In the end, cooler heads have prevailed and the dump was taken off the National Historic Landmark list.

So now the city of Fresno is going to build a large sports complex on the site, which mayor Autry said will have nine soccer fields and six softball fields, as well as a playground and green space. The EPA has said the place is now 100 percent safe.

The ball fields will help the city’s image a lot more than a monument proclaiming that Fresno was a trash pioneer. All this monument scheme will end up doing is giving people more joke ammunition.