Journalist
Ruxandra is a radio, print, and multimedia journalist. She has reported from the Caribbean, South and Central America, as well as the U.S.-Mexico border region. Currently, she’s an independent multimedia producer. Before that, she was a reporter with KPBS in San Diego and Fronteras, a public radio collaboration along the U.S.-Mexico border, focusing on border and immigration issues for both local and national audiences.
The landfill in Salton City will go from being an 8-acre municipal site, to a 320-acre private one. But contamination from trash juice isn't the real concern: it's the threat of increased diesel truck traffic. There is a long-running scientific link between traffic air pollution and health problems.
In the first of a three-part series on what happens to our trash, KPCC's Ruxandra Guidi takes us to the Lawson Dump, located on tribal land in the small town of Mecca in the Eastern Coachella Valley.
<p>About 150 miles east of Los Angeles, the the Lawson Dump is home to 40 acres of garbage that rises two stories high — a toxic collection of electronic waste, household chemicals and construction debris.</p>
<p>Just two hours east from my home in urban San Diego, the Anza-Borrego mountains give way to open skies and desert, followed by miles upon miles of bright green crop land. The semi-rural Imperial County is home to almost 200,000 people, most of them Latino, spread out over 4,000 square miles into small but tight-knit communities. Life here is strikingly different from the bustle of the coastal cities; one of the reasons why I love reporting in this part of Southern California.</p>
