Twenty-seven years ago, Chip Ward and his wife,
Linda, left the East Coast to explore the West. Impressed with the
desert’s stark beauty, the Wards decided to settle permanently in
rural Utah. Little did they know that Grantsville, the sleepy town
they chose to call home, sits right in the middle of one of the
country’s worst toxic dumping grounds. In his new book, Canaries on
the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, Ward recounts his slow
awakening to the environmental hazards at his back
door.
Two toxic waste incinerators, a hazardous
waste landfill, a radioactive waste landfill, a bombing range and a
magnesium refinery are all within blowing distance of Grantsville.
The essay-style chapters in Canaries tell how these under-regulated
industries and the military take advantage of isolated and
job-hungry communities on the rim of the Great
Basin.
Ward writes of workers at Dugway Proving
Ground, the Army’s chemical weapons testing site, who routinely
encountered nerve gas, and of the testing mishaps that exposed
surrounding residents to unknown quantities of the
agent.
A health survey conducted by Ward and his
neighbors revealed strikingly high rates of cancer, birth defects
and respiratory disease in Grantsville.
Canaries
also tells how citizens are fighting back. Local groups recently
stopped a new incinerator, and forced testing and emissions
improvements at Magcorp’s dioxin-laden facility. Ward’s Canaries is
a powerful and hopeful warning for us all: “If we burn and bury to
avoid the implications of our behavior altogether, then the
consequences will eventually be on your doorstep as well as mine.”
Chip Ward will be on tour to discuss his book on
the following dates: In Colorado, Feb. 15, 7:30 pm, Tattered Cover,
Denver; Feb. 16, 7:30 pm, Boulder Bookstore, Boulder; Feb. 17 in
Pueblo, (Sierra Club), 719/501-3117; Feb. 19 at Books by the Bridge
in Pueblo; and Feb. 21 at Page One Books in Albuquerque, N.M.
*Ali Macalady
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Canaries in the Utah desert.
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