A River Runs Through It

Meanwhile, Fresno is down in the dumps

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

8/31/01

Charlie examined the trash can next to the mayor’s desk, which had one section of newspaper in it. Hizzoner was supposed to be out of town, but had either gotten back early, or stopped off on the way out to plant little tests to see if Charlie was doing his job. Making a Gallic moue, he shrugged and lifted the can to dump it into his cart, and then paused. It was yesterday’s state capital newpaper front section, and Charlie had missed reading it. Charlie sat down in the mayor’s chair and read in comfort.

Charlie finished his read and got up. He moved from door to door in the large carpeted office, pulled the opened door back from the wall stop and plucked the quarters up from where they had been laying on the carpet, obscured by the door itself. Charlie rarely vacuumed behind the doors, but as long as the quarters were gone in the morning, Hizzoner was happy. The quarters went to feed Charlie’s newspaper habit, and about four times a year, he would repay them by actually running the vacuum attachment over the quartered areas.

As he moved behind the mayor’s chair, dusting the front of the glass-enclosed book shelves that lawyers and politicians just couldn’t live without, movement out the window caught his eye, and he looked up and out into the parking lot. There, he saw Hizzoner’s car pulling up into the electorally privileged parking space, next to Charlie’s old pickup.

No point in hiding the in basement. Hizzoner would know Charlie was there. Pete wasn’t such a bad guy, but his presence meant no booking out early for Charlie. Custodial perks were suspended this night.

Glancing around the office to see what might require his professional attention to justify him being there long enough to find out what brought the Mayor in at midnight, Charlie grabbed an oily cloth and a bottle of wood oil and started massaging a door panel.

Moments later, the door to the receptionist’s office swung open, and Pete strode in, fat manilla folder under one arm, looking flustered.

Charlie knew better than to act surprised by Pete’s "sudden" appearance. "Evening, Mr. Mayor. Burnin’ some midnight oil?"

"Hi, Charlie. How’s the wife?"

Ah. This conversation was informal, first-name. "Doing fine, Pete, thanks for asking. Yours?"

Pete smiled a just-us-guys smile and rolled his eyes. "Not thrilled that I had to come in to work."

Charlie shook his head in the commiseration of night workers. Then a gleam appeared in his eye. "Well, Pete, it’s the old story with city officials. You thought this job was going to be a dream, but instead, you find it’s a night-mayor. Heh, heh, heh."

"Charlie, whatever we’re paying you, I’m sure it’s too much."

Charlie considered. It was important enough that Pete had to come in at midnight on the eve of the Labor Day weekend, but not something bad enough to make Pete remote or pissy.

Ah.

"Still working on the sewer hookup project, Pete?"

Pete nodded. "We just got back from the state capital. I’m hoping we can get funding there, since it doesn’t look like the feds want to do the last forty feet."

Charlie nodded. Like everyone else in town, he was familiar with the situation. The town’s antique, leaky sewer system had been condemned by the EPA for improper waste disposal, and had to be replaced.

Fortunately for the town, which was small and not thriving, federal funding had been found that covered the costs – some $300 million – of replacing the sewers. But the funding didn’t cover the hookups from the lines running down the streets to the homes and businesses, and Pete and the city council faced the unappealing prospect of telling every property owner in the city that they were about to get hit with an unexpected $2,500 hookup fee. Even without considering that such an event would be electoral suicide for Pete and the council, there was the fact that the large majority of homeowners in town simply couldn’t afford it. So the search was on for funding for what, around the office, was called "the last forty feet"–the average distance from the street easement to the home sewer line.

Charlie, at a loss for a comeback, glanced to the side, where his cart was.

He thought about federal help programs, and how to get the feds to support local good causes...

He smiled and got up and retrieved the newspaper from his cart.

"Pete, does a designation of being a National Historic Landmark status bring in any funds?"

"Huh? No. It’s a pain in the ass, mostly. You can’t change anything in a building that has been so designated, only refurbish, and even minor projects involve tons of paperwork and take years to approve–even changing a light switch." Pete eyed Charlie. "Charlie, you haven’t been talking to those people who want to get that status for city hall, have you? It would probably cost you your job if they succeed."

"Nah, nothing like that, Pete. I’m just playing with ideas. I read something interesting in the paper a while ago." With that, Pete shook out the section, and said, "This is from the Washington Post, yesterday, August 30^th, 2001".

Pete waved a hand. "I know what yesterday’s date was."

Charlie coughed. "By Ben White.

"It’s not every day a former garbage dump receives National Historic Landmark status.

"In fact, it hadn’t been any day, until Monday, when Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton announced that the 145-acre Fresno Municipal Sanitary Landfill in Fresno County, California, would be among 15 sites in 11 states and the District to be recognized ‘for their national significance in American history and culture.’"

"The Fresno dump? Charlie, let me see that!"

Pete grabbed the paper and read the article through. "It says here that they have just about finished converting it into a park, using superfund sites. Still, that’s insane. Sure, they were the first to try trench dumping, but it didn’t work out. That’s why it qualified for the toxic clean up fund." Pete grinned and shook his head. "Of course, compared to some parts of Fresno, it probably does look pretty good, even before they started cleaning it up."

"I’ve never been to Fresno."

Pete shrugged. "Like most places, it’s got some nice areas. But it’s flat, it’s hot, it’s smoggy, and it’s mostly just an ugly agricultural town. It’s about the last place on earth where you would expect to find anything significant in American history and culture, let alone the goddammed town dump!" He glared at Charlie, and then his expression slipped into perplexity.

"What’s that got to do with my sewer situation, anyway?"

"Well, what would happen if we got the town listed as a toxic waste site? That sewer’s been leaking for a long time."

Pete barked a laugh. "First, Charlie, they would compel the evacuation of the whole town while they analyzed the soil. You can imagine how that would go over, telling people they get to spend an indefinite amount of time in a motel forty miles from here, starting right now. Then one of two things would happen. Either they would take their own sweet time and finally determine the ground wasn’t bad enough, at which point we would have to cover the six-month motel bills of some 25,000 seriously pissed returning residents, or it would be declared eligible, at which point the first thing they would do is send in the bulldozers and level the whole town."

Charlie gave a one-shoulder shrug. "I guess that means you don’t think it would be such a good idea." Charlie grinned. "OK, how about this: get our sewer system declared a wild and scenic waterway."

"Wh-a-a-a-a-a-t? Charlie, I’ve got work to do. So do you."

"Wait! I’ve been reading about this. The feds will fund efforts to augment water flow in waterways. Isn’t that exactly what you are trying to do? They’ll pay for efforts to keep a sustainable and reliable supply of water to help sustain the indigenous life forms."

"Charlie, a sewer isn’t a river. And I don’t even want to think about the indigenous life forms."

"But it is a waterway. And the act, despite the nickname, doesn’t specify just rivers. It says "waterways".

"What about ‘Wild and Scenic’?"

"Define ‘wild and scenic’. Look, Pete, this administration loves to hang ridiculously inappropriate names on their various schemes. They come up with a tax cut that kills the surplus and causes the economy to tank, and they call it something like ‘The Economic Recovery Act’. A law that allows some bible bangers to get federal funding for their particular nuttery at the expense of the taxpayer is called ‘The Freedom of Religion Act’. If they come up with a law legalizing prostitution, they’ll probably call it ‘The Preservation of Virginity Act.’"

"I’m having second thoughts about having voted Republican."

"A pity you didn’t have first thoughts. But what I’m saying is that the title of a law often doesn’t have anything to do with its applications, and as often as not, it’s the exact opposite of what the title says it is. It’s Congressional nomenclature, Newspeak for Ninnies."

"Charlie, it couldn’t possibly work. Could it?"

Charlie shook his head. "I don’t know either. You’ll have to talk to a lawyer about it. But let’s face it: any administration that says oil drilling in a two million acre area is limited to two thousand acres, but then turns around and says that ground area only counts areas where support pylons actually touch the ground, isn’t going to blink at the idea of calling a municipal sewer system a wild and scenic river."

Pete started at Charlie for a full minute. Then he picked up the Fresno dump article and read it, beginning to end. He put the paper down and looked at Charlie.

"What the hell? Maybe we could call it the Gale Norton Waterway."

"And it would be appropriate, naming a sewer Norton."

"It would." Pete used his forearm to sweep various debris from the desk on to the floor Charlie had just vacuumed. "We’ve got work to do! Charlie?"

"Yes?"

"How are your grant-writing skills?"