Caltrans’ Dirt Mountain Is Nothing but Heap of Trouble for Neighboring Church

The unwanted mountain, crisscrossed by dirt-bike trails and littered with trash and old tires, rises up out of South-Central Los Angeles, sprawling across several hundred empty acres of state-owned land.

It is literally a mountain of dirt. And over the last 15 years or so, it and the open fields around it have become an illegal playground for motorbikes and other off-road vehicle users, as well as a place to dump rubbish.

This land south of Imperial Highway, between Normandie and Western avenues, was cleared for the $2-billion Century Freeway project.

The state got the mountain free because California Department of Transportation engineers thought they were going to need fill dirt on the freeway project. So, when Southwest College was built at Imperial and Western, the state asked for the dirt excavated from the campus building site. They got it, all 150,000 to 200,000 cubic yards.

Now Caltrans has decided it no longer needs the dirt, and the future of the mountain is uncertain, according to Paul In, a Caltrans engineer. At first the state was going to run the freeway right through where the mountain now stands, he said.

“Our original alignment took the dirt out,” In explained. However, Caltrans is now looking for ways to cut costs and leaving the dirt in place may be one way to save money, he said. It could be cheaper to reroute the highway around the mountain.

That news doesn’t make Father David O’Connell happy, not one bit. O’Connell, a normally cheery Irishman, gets angry when he talks about the mountain and its impact on St. Frances X Cabrini Catholic Church and parish school.

The church and school are in the shadow of the mountain and, day in and day out, the motorbikes snarling up and down makeshift trails make it hard to teach the children and conduct Mass, the priest has told state officials. He wants the noise abated by a wall or screen of trees.

In addition, the exploding gopher populations that are migrating from the dirt mountain into the Cabrini baseball diamond have ruined the field, O’Connell said. There are 300 students enrolled in the elementary school, but no ball field to play on.

“We’re trying to have a place for the children to play, but we can’t do it, not with all of this,” O’Connell said as he gestured toward the abandoned field pocked by gopher holes. “And that isn’t all, they use that mountain for a dump,” he added, pointing to refuse, piles of old tires and other debris directly behind the church.

“Another thing that concerns us is that they’ve found hazardous wastes under the mountain,” O’Connell said. He is concerned that toxic waste from an old dump may be kicked up in the dust clouds if and when the mountain is finally hauled away.

As O’Connell talked about his concerns recently, a pickup truck drove up one of the mountain’s muddy, makeshift roads and two young men unloaded a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle. They had come out for a spin.

“I’ve been coming here since I was 9 or 10,” Rocky Baggett, 23, yelled over the roar of the engine. The Carson resident said he comes here often, adding: “It’s a real popular place to ride.” With that he zoomed up the hill and out of sight.

When confronted with the priest’s complaints, Caltrans officials agree only that the mountain belongs to the state. They are reluctant to say that it is causing problems. But they also are looking into O’Connell’s complaints.

“We are studying what to do,” said Caltrans Deputy District Director Conrad Barber. Efforts have been made to chase away the gophers but he conceded they “haven’t been too successful.”

As for the dirt bikes that flock to the area on weekends, Caltrans spokesman In said, “That’s a law enforcement problem. It’s difficult to keep (the dirt bikers) out.”

The area is posted and it’s against the law to trespass or dump refuse in the area, state police officials said. However, they don’t have the manpower or equipment to enforce the law.

The uncertainty over the route and at what level the freeway will be built through the area means that no decisions can be made yet on the dirt mountain, In said. As for the toxic waste, he said the site was an unauthorized dump before Caltrans bought it and does contain “heavy metals.” No decision has been made on how this problem is to be handled, he said.