[CPEO-BIF] Carson, California's Carousel neighborhood

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Toxic soil lurks beneath Carson neighborhood
The discovery of methane gas and benzene has transformed a 50-acre 
neighborhood into an environmental case study — a reminder of Southern 
California’s history as a center of the oil industry.

By Jeff Gottlieb
Los Angeles Times
April 27, 2010

When Ron and Belinda Oglesby moved into Carson's Carousel neighborhood 
in 2003, they saw a solid, middle-class area where homeowners set down 
roots and lived for decades, where Santa Claus paraded through the 
streets on a firetruck and children returned to buy their own homes.

This, they told themselves, was the perfect place to raise their three kids.

Six years later, they noticed workmen drilling holes and leaving cryptic 
white marks on the streets.

By last summer, they had discovered what the sudden activity meant: 
Preliminary tests under the direction of the Los Angeles Regional Water 
Quality Control Board had found dangerous levels of potentially 
explosive methane gas and benzene under the 285 homes of the Carousel 
tract. In some spots, tests found benzene at concentrations seldom seen, 
levels that could significantly increase cancer risks for residents.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-carousel-shell-20100427,0,5583212.story


--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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