Coachella Rubbish

The crazy ways of 26 illegal dumps:

"As recently as 18 months ago there was a school project where kids living in and around the reservation filmed the burning in the illegal dumps and were chased off by armed men."

Cesar Rafael, 17, of Thermal was one of those kids.

"They shot a gun into the air," he said. "I was trying to film when it happened."

A virtual Wild West atmosphere prevailed at the AuClair dump. Methamphetamine use was common, deputies said. At least 13 people lived in makeshift shelters. On a recent visit, a man pulled up and warned that two other men were shooting at each other around the corner.

Back in the brush, Tonetta Torro, 50, tended the four wolves she keeps tied up for protection. She has spent four years here in a tent but plans to leave soon.

"I hear gunshots all the time," she said. "Still, I feel sad to go."

The arrival of trailer parks on the reservation in the 1990s heightened a sense of urgency about the dumps.

More than 12,000 people, mostly farmworkers, live in five ramshackle parks. The biggest sits beside the Lawson dump site.

In 2003, the EPA issued an internal memo reporting dioxin levels 20 times the national average at the dump.