Posted on 05/30/2003 5:22:30 PM PDT by Lorianne
In a sprawling shantytown between the Salton Sea and a toxic dump site, children play barefoot on dirt roads, running beside leaking sewer lines and piles of rotting garbage thick with flies.
Beneath their feet is broken glass; nearby, rusting machinery and wire. When the wind kicks up, they breathe dust and ash from an adjacent dump that contains elevated levels of cancer-causing dioxins.
Their families are mostly farm workers who live in hundreds of hot and dilapidated trailers, many of them missing windows and siding. When the water pressure dropped a week ago, some residents collected the few drips they could from their faucets. A year ago, their big problem was electrical fires caused by faulty wiring.
They call it "Duroville," a haphazard village of roughly 4,000 people and dozens of unregulated businesses that has sprouted from the desert scrub in just two years. It was named for its founder, Harvey Duro, a husky member of the Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians, who said he just may double the size of the place.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
(steely)
not...
And why is it I suspect that "the Torres-Martinez band of Cahuilla Indians" achieved their "sovereignty" during the Clinton administration...
Nursing the youngest of her seven young children in front of a massive, rusty swamp cooler installed beside her small, red kitchen table, Beatrice Lara said, "It's terrible living here."
"I'd give anything to get out of here," added her husband, a construction worker who pays $330 a month rent. "But we can't move to Mecca or Thermal because we don't have proper immigration documents."
I must go now. It's time for the evenng ritual of mopping up the blood that falls from my bleeding heart. Farewell!
So? I'd call it the Unintended Consequences of the Nanny State
The community started to take shape in early 2001 shortly after Riverside County began enforcing health and safety codes at 500 trailer parks scattered across the Coachella Valley.
In a region where regulated low-income housing is hard to find, the crackdown forced some of the state's poorest residents to seek shelter anywhere they could: in shacks, backyards, even chicken coops, county officials said.
You're sooo witty. Except a libertarian would never be caught dead in commune of this sort.
Are you an idiot by trade, or is this a pastime?
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