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Would you live over a superfund site?

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They're building a lot of condo towers in Toronto on former industrial land. If it's affordable housing and a nice neighbourhood, why not. Though I'd get a little worried if the trees start dying. But that's here in Canada where housing costs an arm and a leg.

As for the States, housing on average is dirt cheap. $200k will get you a pretty decent place in a nice neighbourhood in many suburbs. So given the choice down there, I wouldn't buy on a former toxic waste dump.
 
mmntech said:
They're building a lot of condo towers in Toronto on former industrial land. If it's affordable housing and a nice neighbourhood, why not. Though I'd get a little worried if the trees start dying. But that's here in Canada where housing costs an arm and a leg.

As for the States, housing on average is dirt cheap. $200k will get you a pretty decent place in a nice neighbourhood in many suburbs. So given the choice down there, I wouldn't buy on a former toxic waste dump.
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In the U.S 200,000 in most urban areas will either be like 500 sq feet, or in the slums.
 
Imp said:
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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Everyone knows its foxnews or CNN the finest news source or bust!
 
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Pretty sure the reason we spend such a huge amount of money both fighting and funding superfund sights is because of the immense job that they entail. I can't imagine them being unsafe after it's all said and done.
 
bignateyk said:
Don't they turn in to giant sinkholes as all the stuff decomposes?
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??

Think gas station. This particular gas station has had a leaky diesel tank for 15 years and it has polluted the ground. They come in spend $$$ clean it up, rezone it, and build residential. If anything they haul away soil 50 feet deep.

Think industrial cleaner agent warehouse. Their drainage system was not up to code and chemicals have gotten into the ground. They raze the building, dig up the concrete, and do massive cleaning.
 
BoomerD said:
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.
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I love when someone puts DCal in his place after he spouts off one of his "grab out of thin air" statistics.
 
bignateyk said:
Don't they turn in to giant sinkholes as all the stuff decomposes?
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Not all the shit decomposes at an "acceptable" rate (within a century?). Hydrocarbons are actually the quickest to decompose because they are "natural" and there are a few (at least) known species of bacteria that break them down.

You remediate a site using one of the following (not all methods covered):
1. Excavate and dump off-site
2. Excavate and treat on-site in piles using one of the methods listed below.
3. Treat in-situ using:
(a) Biological treatment on steroids -- you pump nutrients down to promote growth of preferred organisms.
(b) Injected biological treatment -- You pump and feed foreign bacteria that you know will eat the contaminant.
(c) Inject ozone -- shit is a hardcore oxidizer and reacts with practically everything.
(d) "Inject" heat -- cook it out/off, collect the vapors.
(e) Aerate -- pump air down and collect the vapors using wells.
(f) Inject water or some other oxidizer -- wash it out and collect it using wells.
(g) Leave it the hell alone... forever.
(h) Dig trenches -- you let it collect, air out, or something.
(i) Bunch of other ones I forget.

Excavation is very very expensive and very very land intensive, so you can only go so far down.
 
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As an person who works in the environmental field.. I'll consider living on one but it depends on teh contamination and the cleanup performed. So I'd be looking at the reports before doing that.

That said, we (as an agency) approved a plan for million dollar homes close to a beach. However they are now redoing the plan as teh old plan required an active/passive SSDS system and land use controls. Basically you had a house on a beach but you couldnt even dig up the backyard or plant any greenery.. now its back to the drawing board....

I wouldnt hesitiate a PCB/Pesticide contaminated property which has commercial below and residential above. It will meet all CHHSL / risk requirements.
 
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hell no. Too many houses on the market to pick one like that and have to worry about it long-term. I already don't drink the town water because someone who actually tested the water said there was too much nitrate in it. And this is the officially voted "best tasting water in New York State" we have here.
 
An interesting thing about good tasting water is that both arsenic and lead can impart a pleasant taste to water.
 
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