Word: casmalia
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Conversation is the only regular public entertainment in Casmalia. The town is a few dusty blocks set in the middle of spectacular golden foothills. The bright, bright sunlight is not flattering to Point Sal Road, the main street. Just off Point Sal stands a TV satellite dish nearly as big as its owners' trailer home. On the lot next door, a slack-bellied black horse eats greens. Early on a weekday afternoon, Casmalia is quiet but not silent: somewhere chickens crow, a toddler yelps, and Linda Ronstadt sings. "A lot of people don't like a town like this," says...
...Because Casmalia is unincorporated, the school is the only government outpost in town, which is one reason it has become the rallying point for antidump % activity. Another reason is Kenneth McCalip, the school's principal, who has become the town's toxic-waste spokesman and organizer. Last fall, says McCalip, "it would get really yucky in the lunchroom." Nauseated children were being sent home early. One day in November he evacuated the whole school, all 21 students. "The wind died down, and the odors got so darn bad. The fumes started rolling into our classrooms, more than we'd ever...
Tests to reckon whether the people of Casmalia are endangered have proved inconclusive. In 1984 a county consultant found some chemical pollutants in water from Casmalia's town well, and concentrations of arsenic and lead were detected in a sample of private well water taken in town last spring. Traces of benzene, 1,4-dioxane and other chemicals were found in air samples taken around Casmalia last December, but all were at levels below those the EPA considers dangerous...
Nonetheless, people in Casmalia say they feel unwell. Many children seem to have developed bronchitis. McCalip discovered he had high blood pressure late last fall, as did the Vaniters. "I just been so dizzy," says Phyllis. "And our chests hurt." Paulette Postiff has kidney disease, she and her son get sore throats, and her husband has headaches and eye irritation. "Everybody in Casmalia has a runny nose," says Ruthanne Tompkins. "Dave and I are not very health conscious, but if my husband gets cancer because somebody was nasty . . ." The talk almost always turns to carcinomas...
...didn't tell you all the deaths, did I?" asks McCalip late one day. "In the past six years," he says, "there have been four or five lung- cancer deaths in Casmalia. The young woman who used to teach here with me was ! in perfect health when she came, and she died of leukemia two years later." Not until last month, after well-to-do neighborhoods in Santa Maria got a strong chemical whiff one day, did the county government finally admit the dump was a problem. People in Casmalia are sure they have the official reluctance figured: revenues from...