In The Campo Indian Landfill War, Dan McGovern explores the timely and controversial topic of "environmental justice" through the story of an Indian tribe's struggle to develop its isolated and impoverished reservation by building a commercial garbage facility to serve the cities of Southern California.

The environmental justice movement was born out of the conviction that the waste industry has targeted minority communities for facilities it can no longer locate in the backyards of those with greater access to political power. The Campo case is thus an anomaly: the tribe...