WHEN THE NAVY LEFT THE DALLAS NAVAL AIR STATION

If you look at MCL with GOOGLE EARTH, you see its impressive size- covering approx. 4 miles-and the operations surrounding it. A runway from the old Dallas Naval Air Station is clearly visible, and on the DNAS property, Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters are manufactured today. A large power plant is, also, in the picture, the old TXU now Excelon Corp. So this is a heavily industrial area with chemicals, industrial waste, air emissions. etc. - all regulated and monitored by the state of Texas. However, in the late 90s, the US Navy moved out of the Dallas Naval Air Station/Hensley Field (property along one side of the lake) and left a devastating mess inside buildings; and some say chemicals were dumped in and around Mountain Creek Lake, particularly in Cottonwood Bay. To understand the contamination problems which exist today and the clean up problems our city and state have had to deal with in the past decade, one must understand what happened. IF YOU ONLY READ ONE ARTICLE ON MCL, read this one: THE BAD TENANT in the Dallas Observer. http://www.dallasobserver.com/2002-09-19/news/the-bad-tenant./ (You can Google this title with "Dallas Observer"- worked for me...)
Note the leaking underground storage tanks, the number of tanks and no map! This is the story that really drew me into a study of the lake's present condition.