CITY PLACE SANTA CLARA: Addressing vapor intrusion in a massive landfill redevelopment By Lenny Siegel December, 2015 Here in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County, California) developable land is so precious these days that it’s common to build on contaminated land or above sizable plumes of groundwater contamination that contain volatile organic compounds such as trichloroethylene. As a member of the Mountain View City Council, I have reviewed a number of such sites, to ensure that new building occupants will be safe and the groundwater cleanup can continue unimpeded. Nearly all such plumes resulted from leaks in underground storage tanks or buried sewage piping. Characterizing and mitigating such sites are fairly straightforward, though remediation is challenging and is likely to take a very long time. But in nearby Santa Clara a developer is proposing a massive, nine-million-square-foot commercial and residential project called City Place on 240 acres, most of which—183 acres—is a former landfill. The developer appears willing to spend what it takes to build a project that is not vulnerable either to vapor intrusion or land movement, but at least in this region there is no precedent to determine what it actually will take to make City Place safe.
Lenny
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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
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