LOS ANGELES — The Antelope Valley’s vast desert landscape — where quail, rattlesnakes and mule deer thrive among poppy blooms and Joshua Trees — has always attracted residents like Jackie Livingstone.

“People might just think, ‘Oh, it’s just dirt.’” Livingstone said. “It’s not just dirt.”

She’s lived in the area for almost 40 years, enjoying the natural habitat alongside fellow residents Wendy Walker and Erika Schwerdt, who have all become focused on a growing problem in the Antelope Valley — illegal dumping on vacant plots of land that has turned beautiful desert areas into makeshift landfills.

“Initially, we were thinking it was household [trash],” Schwerdt said during a recent visit with Spectrum News to multiple illegal dump sites. “But we soon found out it is way deeper than that.”

She also works for a nonprofit called “Strength Based Community Change,” an equity and social-justice group that has focused on this issue in recent years.

Schwerdt, Walker and Livingstone said they’ve documented over 20 sites where waste haulers brazenly dump tons of trash in rural unincorporated communities throughout north Los Angeles County.

Spectrum News has reviewed public records, lawsuits, and legal notices and talked to community members, law enforcement, and county officials, all of which point to large-scale illegal dumping in the Antelope Valley carried out by some of the biggest waste haulers in Southern California.

“So, you have piles of what is green waste, it is mulch, but then you see piles of construction [material], ground-up concrete, glass, you’ll see plastics, these are all chemical tubes and oils,” said Schwerdt, while visiting a large dump site a half-block from an elementary school in the rural community of Lake LA.

While it’s legal to spread mulch only a few inches high on farmland and agricultural land, which is common in the area, Schwerdt claims waste companies will mix trash with mulch to disguise the actual contents of their hauls.

Schwerdt, Walker and Livingstone are especially concerned about the potential environmental impacts of this dumping, including air quality and groundwater. Many people in the Antelope Valley use wells for drinking water.

“There is no culpability for this. There is no oversight. People are coming out here. They are dumping this. It’s a mess,” said Walker, a naturalist and photographer who often recreates in the rural areas.

The large piles of trash can also spontaneously combust — which is exactly what happened on September 10, 2024, when the 800-acre Apollo Fire burned down a home, killing several dogs inside.

The LA County Fire Department said they’ve responded to over 70 trash and mulch-related fires between 2020 and 2024, costing more than $1.6 million.

Environmental lawyer Chris Nidel of Nidel & Nace has filed two civil lawsuits and is preparing a federal citizen’s lawsuit on behalf of several other people who live in the area against 14 waste haulers, trucking companies, and recyclers.

The lawsuit accuses them of transporting and illegally dumping trash on a large scale at a dozen sites in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Kern Counties.

One company accused in the forthcoming lawsuit is Athens Services, which provides trash service to 49 neighborhoods in Southern California, according to Nidel. It has several multi-million-dollar contracts with the City of LA — including a $687 million contract over five years to process residential organic waste.

“It’s all about finding the cheapest way to get rid of something rather than complying with the law,” Nidel said.

Nidel alleged some landowners will accept waste for a fee that undercuts the landfills and processing centers permitted by the county.

“This was something I had never seen where they are taking demolition debris, recycling waste, compost waste that should be composted under the right conditions and just piling it in 20, 30-foot piles for acres and acres,” Nidel said.

Nidel has served a 90-day notice of intent to sue under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which sets standards for properly disposing of hazardous waste. Under the act, if the companies continue dumping illegally after 90 days, Nidel can sue.

In one example, Spectrum News reviewed public records released by San Bernardino County, which show that last May, the county's Land Use Services Department ordered a composting facility owned by Athens Services to stop dumping thousands of tons of mulch, green waste, and solid waste at a rural 50-acre site.

According to Jannelle Needham, a spokesperson for San Bernardino County, the property’s owner stopped accepting new waste and is working with the county to either remove the materials or obtain proper permits.

Other records obtained by Nidel’s law firm show that last year, LA County officials issued a violation notice to an Antelope Valley landowner for stockpiling contaminated organic waste from the same composting facility in San Bernardino County, run by American Organics, a subsidiary of Athens Services.

Athens Services responded to these claims, saying in part:

“Athens does not engage in illegal dumping as alleged. Athens’ organic material goes through a comprehensive process at our advanced compost facilities. The material is routinely tested for compliance with CalRecycle’s standards, and our processing facilities are regularly inspected for adherence with state regulations. Many properties and property owners accept material from multiple processors. To the extent there are any instances of non-compliant material, we are confident the evidence will demonstrate that it came from another source.”

Spectrum News reached out to all 14 companies and landowners named in Nidel’s intent to sue notice.

While most didn’t respond, a spokesperson for Republic Waste Services of California, who has a $900 million contract with the City of LA for recycling services, said in part, “We are a responsible company, recognized as one of the world’s most ethical and sustainable businesses, and we operate with care for our communities and the environment.”

The spokesperson also disputed claims in the forthcoming lawsuit, saying they didn’t dump waste at one location named in it and acquired another site 19 days before the notice was filed.

“We have not disposed of any material at this site, prior to-or after-our acquisition,” the statement said.

Heather Johnson, a spokesperson for LA Sanitation & Environment, said, “[t]he City takes illegal dumping seriously,” when asked about the City of LA’s contracts with companies accused of illegal dumping, which also includes a 10-year contract with Universal Waste Systems worth more than $345 million.

“We are aware of this matter but cannot comment as it involves active litigation,” Johnson said. “We will continue to work with our vendors to ensure compliance as it pertains to the City’s contractual agreements.”

A lawyer for one landowner named in the intent to sue notice told Spectrum News his clients are “passive landowners” and are “victims to this horrible situation” who didn’t realize the scope of dumping happening on their property without their permission.

Spectrum News reviewed all the addresses named in the forthcoming lawsuit; none are currently permitted to operate as a landfill.

Chuck Bostwick is a senior field deputy for LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes the Antelope Valley. He’s followed illegal dumping for years, documenting and investigating residents’ concerns as part of his work on the Antelope Valley Illegal Dumping Task Force.

“We had the small-scale stuff. The people who were not paying for trash. The guys who would clean out the foreclosed-on house and threw the trash out in the desert,” he said. “But now, we have this large-scale dumping and disposal.”

Bostwick said illegal dumping has increased over the past four years, and he believes it’s a result of increased landfill fees and an unintended consequence of Senate Bill 1383 — a state law passed in 2022 that diverts organic waste from landfills, curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The law calls for organic waste to be composted, processed and tested at an approved facility before its spread across land or properly destroyed at a facility.

“The change in state law has made these great quantities of mulch now available,” Bostwick said. “But there is no market for it.”

“There is not suddenly 10 million extra households to put mulch on their front yard or to have a garden in the backyard,” he said. “There is no demand for it, and so it is ending up out here.”

The county also has major concerns about contaminants and toxins that can seek into the ground and the risk of fires from spontaneously combusting debris piles, Bostwick said.

“Stuff that is being deposited out on open land in the Antelope Valley is eventually going to affect the water table,” Bostwick said. “A lot of people have their own wells.”

Barger recently asked the county to do more to curb illegal dumping in the desert, authoring a motion last fall to prevent illegal dumping and mulch fires, which the LA County Board of Supervisors adopted. Some current efforts include setting up cameras and license plate readers in rural areas to try to catch people dumping, using satellite imagery to detect and monitor unregulated dumping and mulching activities, and suggesting changes to state law.

Even with these efforts, it can be tough to catch people dumping illegally, said LA County Sheriff’s Deputy Gilberto Borruel, who has patrolled the Antelope Valley for 13 years. He covers the community of Lake LA, which is roughly 100-square miles, alongside a handful of other deputies.

“These are semi-trucks, 53-foot trailers, semi-tractor and trailer that are filled to the top with just waste,” he said of suspected illegal dumpers he’s seen in the area.

“You literally have to see them doing it,” Borruel said for deputies to cite dumpers, adding that haulers he’s followed will often pull off the road and wait until he has to respond to a more urgent call or leave the area and come back later.

“It is very difficult to catch them in the act,” he said. “A lot of the dumping, believe or not, will happen late at night.”

Since illegal dumpers are hard to catch and cite, prosecutions are rare. The Environmental Crimes Division of the LA County District Attorney’s Office works on these cases. They had 15 of them in 2019. Last year, they had zero.

Borruel said he has investigated truck drivers who haul trash from the San Fernando Valley and Sun Valley areas and dump it in the Antelope Valley, adding that heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, will compact the waste to make space for more.

“They push it up into the hillside and just keep pushing,” he said, standing at an illegal dump site in Lake LA. “This is consistent with what would happen at a regular landfill.”

The county’s costs to cleanup illegal dumping have also increased. According to the LA County Department of Public Works, the county spent $2.3 million in fiscal year 2019-2020 and $6.8 million in fiscal year 2023-2024.

According to a public works report, the department anticipates a 15% increase in reported illegal dumping cases in 2024 to over 15,800. There were 14,500 reported cases in 2023.

As Schwerdt, Walker and Livingstone looked over a large field covered in piles of mulch mixed with plastic, glass and other debris, the group said they’re focused on telling as many people about this problem, especially officials.

They recently took representatives from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, also known as CalRecycle, on a tour of over 20 dump sites. In response, CalRecycle recently passed emergency regulations that would create more oversight of these types of unpermitted landfills and the haulers of the waste material. The regulations include more testing and record-keeping of dumped material.

While the problem is massive, Schwerdt said her fight is personal.

“When your kids are telling you, like, ‘Oh, why is it so dirty at home but when we go on vacation, this isn’t around. This isn’t prevalent.’ That was really a big switch for me,” she said.