The Smoldering, Noxious Waste Dump Next Door

Five years ago, Elizabeth Jeffords stood at the top of a pretty, tree-lined street in Castaic, California, admiring the house she and her husband just bought. She loved how the two-story house, about 50 miles north of Los Angeles, looked out onto the Sierra Pelona Mountains. She loved how it sat at the top of a mile-long hill she could use as a personal track. She imagined filling its spacious rooms with the laughter of loved ones and the children she hoped to have.

But soon after moving in, the former track runner, now 46, began to feel fatigued, dizzy, disoriented and winded. Jeffords grew up with asthma but never had an attack until she moved to Castaic, a small town with a large Latino population. She started getting migraines and vomiting out of the blue. She noticed odd bumps on her face and body and couldn’t quench her thirst no matter how much water she drank. Over the next two years, her symptoms gradually worsened, until she regularly woke up with nosebleeds, gasping for air, worried she might die in her sleep.