An addendum to Cushing's and Lead blog

The following information is from another website blog and relates to my previous post.

http://www.olyblog.com/f/06/HiddenCostsF06192006.shtml

Ground Contamination False Creek - published March 2006

page 228- LeverageOlympicMomentum.com ...
Here is what we do know regarding ground contamination in Vancouver as of early April 2006; the soil where the Olympic Village is to be built has been extensively tested. According to Jody Andrews, Project Manager for the Southeast False Creek project, they drilled hundreds of core samples throughout the site. The samples revealed a wide variety of contaminants spread in a variety of areas on the property, like hydrocarbons (derivative of petroleum), waste from a smelter, by-products from a wood mill, and other miscellaneous industrial waste. The contamination reaches down in some places to a depth of nine meters, almost three stories deep. The land was used industrially from the early 1800's, so you can image what has been dumped there over the last 100 years before environmental regulations were in place, plus from unscrupulous companies that made midnight runs to the deserted property in order to illegally empty their tanker trucks of poisons like lead, arsenic, or who knows what else. It happens every night in all big cities and this area is an easy target. Over the last 100 years there have been "sawmills, foundries, shipbuilding, metalworking, salt distribution, warehousing, and a municipal public works yard" on the land at different times. In order to build out the Olympic Village area, approximately fifty acres, nine meters deep has to be excavated, and either treated onsite, or hauled to another location for safe disposal. Would you want to live on this land? In Sydney when they undertook a similar soil remediation task in the Homebush Bay Olympic site area, costs escalated out of control, plus, it created untold health problems for people living and working in the vicinity. Digging up fifty acres of contaminated soil three stories deep puts an incredible amount of dust in the air. Plus, the property borders the Pacific Ocean, which means not only is there an impact to air quality, but to water too. Residents in the Homebush Bay area complained of increased asthma, bronchitis and skin rashes, plus there was evidence of chromosomal damage. Health care costs increased proportionately, which meant another hidden cost. The city did not take the concerns of residents seriously until international media started reporting the information. Andrews freely admitted we would not know what lies in the ground until the entire site is excavated. Quite literally, it is anybody's guess what it will cost to make the site safe for residents. This particular piece of land also has a very unique microclimate, which contributes to the dispersal of air contaminants. Prevailing winds in the summer are from the west, off the ocean. During the day as the air over the land heats up it rises and the cooler ocean air moves in to displace it. When this happens the contaminants in the air are pushed up and into the valley. In the evening the cycle is reversed, but to a considerably lesser extent. Basically, the microclimate sets up an ebb and flow system that will spread the contaminated dust among millions of residents. Homebush Bay had a very similar challenge. During a public forum, when I asked Andrews if he knew about Homebush Bay, he looked puzzled and said, "No. Never heard of it." (cv1;cf1)