[CPEO-MEF] Bay Area (CA) landfills

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Landfills at risk of leaking
Rising water levels could cause toxins to seep from trash piles

By Julia Scott
Inside Bay Area/San Mateo Times (CA)
June 1, 2007

BRISBANE - In 1967, a landfill containing sewage, household trash and 
toxic shipyard waste was capped with dirt and left to sit by San 
Francisco Bay. Highway 101 was left to act as a dike between the trash 
and the water's edge.

Now Brisbane residents worry that plans to develop the former landfill, 
currently known as the Baylands, overlook a major threat no one was 
thinking about 50 years ago: Rising water levels due to climate change, 
and the risk that the buried toxins could seep out if the ground becomes 
saturated.

It's a problem Brisbane local Dana Dillworth has worried about for some 
time. As chairperson of Brisbane Baylands Community Advisory Group, she 
would like to see the 364-acre landfill de-contaminated responsibly 
before the landowner redevelops it into a complex of hotels, retail 
shops and office space. "We're worried they want to put 40 feet of fill 
on top of everything and pretend the toxins aren't there," said 
Dillworth. "What we're afraid will happen is that... all the toxins that 
are in the fill will migrate to the surface as ground water levels rise."

The Baylands aren't alone. The Bay Area has a legacy of landfills at sea 
(or Bay) water level, many of them toxic dumps created by former 
military bases, such as the naval shipyard at Hunters Point. Many 
landfills rise less than a dozen feet higher than the water, and most 
have been capped with nothing but dirt. That leaves them vulnerable, say 
experts.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_6036347?source=email

--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 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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