Steven Cuevas
April 17, 2008
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One week before the big Coachella Music Festival, another tuneful extravaganza is rocking the desert. This one's for a cause. KPCC's Steve Cuevas has more on the two-day "Rockin' for Joshua Tree" festival.
Steven Cuevas: It's a benefit for activists trying to block the Eagle Mountain landfill. The proposed facility would take in mountains of garbage every day, and would bury it on the south flank of Joshua Tree National Park. The Kaiser Corporation won approval for the venture 16 years ago. Environmentalists have helped to tie it up in the courts ever since.
Donna Charpied: It's totally ludicrous to truck and train 20,000 tons of garbage every day from Los Angeles to the arms of Joshua Tree National Park, which is over 200 miles away.
Cuevas: Donna Charpied and her husband Larry run a jojoba farm near the proposed site. They're not lawyers. That didn't stop them from filing the first lawsuit to stop Eagle Mountain more than a decade ago.
Charpied: We could not find a lawyer who would take the case. So we actually bought a "how to" book. And, at that time, I didn't even have a computer. I just had an old, old electric typewriter, and typed up our briefs on that typewriter, and we argued in the Superior Court of California, and won!
Cuevas: Opponents worry that the landfill would pollute a nearby aquifer, harm endangered species, and spoil the area's natural beauty. But Kaiser maintains that the landfill would be safe. The company would double-seal it to prevent leakage. Kaiser's offered other environmental concessions too, and it's promised to locate lots of jobs in the area. But the court sided with the environmentalists. The case is on appeal.
[Music: Shawn Mafia]
Cuevas: The benefit concert, featuring regional acts like Shawn Mafia, will help offset legal expenses landfill opponents racked up after the years of legal wrangling. The Charpieds eventually found an attorney who would take the case. Donna Charpied won't say how much they owe him. Let's just say he's a pretty understanding guy.
Charpied: But still those invoices really add up, and we haven't paid him in a really long time. He's been really patient, and so we just wanna show him that we haven't forgot that we owe him money, and we're just gonna raise the funds and raise the roof, and have a great old time at Pappy and Harriet's while we're doing it.
Cuevas: Sixties rock icon and longtime desert resident Eric Burden headlined the first "Rockin' For Joshua Tree" concert eight years ago. The benefit was all his idea. Burden can't make it this year, but about two dozen other rock, folk, and Zydeco bands can. The weekend of music starts at "Pappy and Harriet's" saloon in Pioneertown and it'll probably wind down sometime early Sunday morning.
