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Would you live over a superfund site?

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DCal430

Diamond Member
Many of the old Superfund sites (toxic waste dumps, rail yards, and other hazard chemical sites) are being "cleaned" up and homes and business are being built over them.

Would you be willing to purchase a home in these areas, or live in one of these areas? Would you be worried if all of the toxic waste wasn't cleaned up? Do you think this should have much impact on the value of the homes?
 
I think the homes should be cheaper, yes, and I would most definitely get one if I could based on that fact. The superfund is that expensive because they do it right and that for toxic stuff is often extreme pricy.
 
I would probably not. They do an extraordinary job cleaning up the area but there are sometimes still toxins deep underground that could reach the surface over time.
 
Sure. I used to work superfund cleanups. The completed sites are generally the cleanest parcels in town.
 
IronWing said:
Sure. I used to work superfund cleanups. The completed sites are generally the cleanest parcels in town.
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What about the toxic waste that is 3+ feet deep. I think many of them just remove the first 12 inches or so of dirt and add new dirt on top.
 
DCal430 said:
What about the toxic waste that is 3+ feet deep. I think many of them just remove the first 12 inches or so of dirt and add new dirt on top.
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Hell no...not usually, but it also depends on what kinds of contaminants.
I did HAZ-MAT clean-up for a couple of years. On one job in Union City, we went more than 20 feet deep trying to get the contaminants out. The soil contaminated with hydrocarbons was "air cleaned" so that the VOC's would evaporate off...the nastier stuff got trucked to the waste disposal site in Kettleman City. They built $500,000 houses on that site. We referred to it as "Love Canal West."


I did another job near Colma that was contaminated with DDT. that stuff was removed to about 36 inches...then buried and topped with clean dirt. They were building expensive condos on that site when I was there a couple of years later.

NO, I would NOT live over a super-fund site.
 
I would imagine that tens if not hund-

Ahem.

I probably wouldn't. I have no idea about the safety or thoroughness of cleanup but there is plenty of land in the US so why take a risk?
 
I wouldn't. People generally are not very intelligent and I am sure someone fucked up the job somewhere along the way.
 
Not with kids. But if it was just me? Yeah, why not. I'm done breeding, and I have good life insurance. Better life through chemistry, isn't that what they used to say? I've been an advocate and have benefited from all the modern technology around me, it would seem only fitting (karmic, even) that I might be made to suffer from it as well.
 
What is odd is so many of them turn into high end housing, why would someone with money want to live in a place like this.
 
In a few decades would anyone looking to buy property know what the area was used for originally? I doubt they go out of their way to advertise it's past.
 
DCal430 said:
What is odd is so many of them turn into high end housing, why would someone with money want to live in a place like this.
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Location, location, location. Industrial sites used to be located in the center of town and often with water access. Some of the most valuable land is encumbered by pollution. Clean it up and it is desirable again. Look up "brownfields" projects.
 
I probably would if the price is right, I'd just make sure the foundation is sealed very good, including the basement floor, in case toxins happen to leech back up. I'd also plant lot of trees, I'd imagine they would help filter out any toxins too. Nature has a way to deal with these things over time.
 
No way in hell...

Contaminants can go very deep, decontamination methods are not perfect, probably done by the lowest bidder, low permeability soil deposits are hard to clean and continue to leach out contaminants for a very long time. I'd be very concerned about water quality, despite proper treatment, and contaminants getting out of the ground even if they dug up the surface.
 
So telling that humans can sit in front of their glowing screens, sucking in the benefits of a modern lifestyle, but dealing with the downsides, well, that's just somebody else's problem.
 
crashtech said:
The true story of Love Canal, the impetus for Superfund:

http://reason.com/archives/1981/02/01/love-canal
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You’re about to be untricked. If you believe that the guilty party in the Love Canal tragedy is the Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corporation, which the Justice Department is suing, rather than the Niagara Falls Board of Education, which bought the dump from Hooker in 1953; or if you believe that Michael Brown’s famous book that has become the popular authority on the whole mess, Laying Waste: The Poisoning of America by Toxic Chemicals, sets out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Love Canal, then you’ve been snookered.
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Edit: Okay, I mistook the site as a conspiracy website -- nope, just a Libertarian magazine published by the Reason Foundation (largest donors are David H. Koch Charitable Foundation and Sarah Scaife Foundation).
 
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To others who may be mildly intrigued, click the above link for yourself. Reason Magazine is not exactly some whack job site, though it has its own brand of political persuasion just like many others. Treat it as such.
 
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