So Love Canal was a neighborhood in New York that was built on top of a hazardous waste disposal facility. Most of which were chemical byproducts from Hooker (now Occidental) Chemicals. They threw some clay and soil on top and thought they were good to go. Built tons of houses and an elementary school.
Around 1978, there was a lot of rain, and chemicals started leaching and moved to the surface. i.e. kids were playing in pools of things like benzene. Wowza, I can't even imagine it. Apparently lots of sick people and birth defects. Eventually the federal govt had to help relocate everyone.
This was the start of "Superfund" sites, i.e. the EPA program to address abandoned disposal sites.
Find out more here:
This topic came up while I was talking at work about how I'm essentially going to be living over the old airport. Lucky for me, my employer is the TCEQ so I was able to find out about remediation. Mueller was part of the Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) and they excavated 10,000 cubic yards (!) of soil, mostly due to jet fuel, plane maintenance areas, etc. So hopefully we will avoid being a future Superfund locale.
Yikes.
1 comment:
This reminds me of a neighborhood a couple miles from where I live. It was apparently a practice bombing range for Navy pilots during WWII. A couple years ago people started accidentally digging up live shells in their gardens. Oops.
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