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 In “Toxic Gold”, it's the year 2025 and we listen as a grandfather and grandson have breakfast at a coffee shop in Corcoran, California. They describe a San Joaquin Valley
that has captured the market for prisons and dumps not wanted by the coastal areas of the state out of economic desperation and short term thinking. The economic development strategy ‘worked’, but the
region also paid a price.
CORCORAN, CALIFORNIA (2025)
A GOOD IDEA?
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,”
said Arthur as he cut into his short stack of buttermilk pancakes
at a Corcoran coffee shop. “Taking in the wastes of the Bay
Area and Los Angeles. The pay was good, and it provided employment.
The so-called experts said we needed to ‘diversify our economy.’
‘Relying on agriculture alone’ would make us vulnerable.
“But, let me tell you something”, the
old man continued while pointing a fork with a piece of bacon stuck
between its tines, “Dumps and prisons are not all that diverse.
Waste is waste. Just try ‘adding value’ to sludge. Might
as well try to rehabilitate a serial rapist.”
 “The thing
was, we had the space and they didn’t. So when the landfills
in Southern California topped out and they started looking around
for new sites, our backyards looked a lot emptier than theirs. And
God knows we needed the money. We actually fought over who would
be ‘lucky’ enough to store hazardous wastes.”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining
about Granddad, it worked”, responded Ned, Arthur’s
28-year old grandson, while rolling his eyes. “We wanted the
state tax dollars to build schools and housing and hospitals for
our sick folks. It all made a lot of sense.”
“Well, it seemed to make sense—if you
went back to the last century when the prison industry started to
boom out here in the valley. ‘Bring us your criminals,’
we said to the cities on the coast. ‘We will house them. We’ll
keep them away from your daughters and your cars and your cash.
We will look after them, and we will gain tax revenues and jobs
and business for our cement factories in the process.’
“So we built big prisons in Madera, Corcoran,
Delano, Avenal and Wasco, not to speak of Stockton, Tracy, Atwater,
and Coalinga. And once we saw what a good business that was, it
seemed to make sense to leap on the bid that Intel put out for storing
its toxic wastes.”
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
Ned finally interrupted his grandfather’s
lecture, “Wait a minute Grandpa, Kings County got that contract
and 250 jobs in the bargain. Then Lawrence Livermore Labs got approval
for a federal grant for a spent plutonium facility, and after that,
Intel sweetened its offer with a pledge to fund a research campus
near UC Merced. That kicked off its own little building boom: more
houses, more jobs, all in the service of building a ‘center
of excellence’ around waste management and recycling.”
Arthur shook his head and smiled sadly.
“Yeah, well . . . the words sounded nice-much
nicer than the stuff they were actually talking about. But ‘recycling’
and ‘sustainability’ were words that my generation was
learning from kids like you. You brought them home from school,
and got us to sort our whiskey bottles and beer cans from the rest
of the garbage.”
“Hey, what’s the big deal. This is
the just the Valley. Everywhere can’t be pretty like Monterey,
you know,” said Ned as he sipped his coffee. “Anyway,
if recycling could work for aluminum cans, why not for ex-cons and
toxic waste?”
“Let me ask you something College Boy. How
many of your friends do you know that grow up wanting to be prison
guards? Where’s the career ladder? ‘Stay around here,
sonny, and, if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll end up as
the top dog, the warden.’ What a joke. Same thing with hazardous
waste. Devote your life to taking care of them and sooner or later
the rot leaks into your soul.”
“But we did grow souls with all that money,”
Ned replied. “We built schools and colleges and hospitals
with the money that came from the prisons and the waste dumps and
all the jobs and housing that went around them. Those prison guards
got a damn fine income once their lobby went to work in Sacramento.”
“But then some of those dumps started leaking.”
Art replied. We noticed peculiar pockets of cancer. People started
joking that the Valley might glow in the dark, but it was the glow
of money.”
“Right,” said Ned. “That’s
what I mean. Unemployment was way down from what it had been. There
was money in dumps, and there was even more money in clean-ups from
the mistakes.”
“Sure. Lawyers got rich on class action suits.
Plaintiffs got rich when they won the suits. But what are you going
to do with the money when your friends are dying and your real estate
values are dropping and your kids are leaving home because they
can’t stand the stench?”
“Waste management isn’t what it used
to be, Granddad. It’s a lot cleaner now, more scientific.
We really can recycle minerals by mining and refining the landfills.
This is what I’ve been learning about over at UC Merced.”
“GET OUT, KID”
“Get out, kid. Garbage is a dirty business,
no matter how green the money. No wonder organized crime cornered
the East Coast on garbage back in the 1950s. Ashes to ashes, dust
to dust, and garbage to garbage. I don’t care how clean and
scientific they make it sound over at that ‘center of excellence’
at the university. Major in managing a dump, for human or hazardous
wastes, and all you’ll be is a high-class garbage man. And
it will rot your soul. Take your education and your degree and get
out of this place. There may be work here. But it’s not a
good life.”
“Granddad, I like the Valley. It may not
be pretty but it pays OK. So I think you’re going to have
a hard time getting me to leave.”
“Well then find some better way to make a
living. They say there’s money in cows, in dairy farming.”
“So you want to see me shoveling cow pies
instead of toxic wastes?”
“I’ve heard that the warehousing business
is doing just fine up north—warehousing and trucking.”
“And what are we going to do with all the
traffic and the truck exhaust?” asked Ned.
“Well, you can figure that one out over at
that fancy-schmancy ‘center of excellence’ of yours,
the one where they’re teaching you how to handle toxins and
poisons and all that stuff.”
“Storing toxic wastes may sound like a dirty
job to you, but somebody’s got to do it. To me it sounds more
like it’s cleaning up the dirt. And the money makes for a
lot better life than what I could support in LA, besides,”
Ned smirked, “who’s going to stay around to recycle
you and your crusty old bones?”
“Nice one,” Art snorted.
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