DALLAS-LIVING ABOVE THE WATER

Notice the story in today's Dallas Morning News about fishing in Mountain Creek Lake; and the news that dioxins and PCBs are a bit lower in some fish inhabiting the lake, but, of course, not nearly low enough to eat.
I loved the citizen comments - especially the one that asked why the Navy can clean up contaminated groundwater in Puerto Rico but not here!
Two things: We would never to do our friends and allies what we do to our own homeland to save a buck-or two billion-the cost of thorough clean up of MCL/Dallas NWIRP. And...if the military is going to continue using the facility for war-related industry and the city is going to drill the shore for gas, how long would clean up last anyway?
Sometimes a city or country just needs worthless, throw-away land on which to do its dirty deeds and we just better get used to it-and STAY AWAY FROM IT!
DO YOU LIKE MY NEW ATTITUDE? Didn't think so.

This week, I haven't posted until now, but my mind has been active-absorbed with the big picture of pollution in old Oak Cliff and the Trinity River bottom. I am the very last person ever expected to care about the industrial history of Dallas, yet it continues to fascinate and concern me. The paper and plastic plants, the mining at Chalk Hill, steel stored and traded at the damp river bottom, the plating business on W Davis somewhat near my childhood home...Many of us know about the toxic history of these places and that clean up has likely happened - to some extent.
However, it has dawned on me that because we use city water in our homes, we may not think about toxic groundwater-plumes that have possibly formed underneath these places and migrated-lengthening and widening beneath homes.
When a toxic site is remediated, soil can be easily and fairly cheaply dug up and exchanged for new, but groundwater tells the toxic tale. Instead of getting better, chemical plumes get worse with time if the source of contamination is still present, and can only be found with monitoring wells that the average person or neighborhood could never put into place. Certainly an old industrial city like Dallas needs aggressive, competent environmental scientists and regulators. Pro active ones!
I am thinking every industrial site of days gone by where soil was saturated with chemicals or impacted by lead and metals needs to be tested for toxic underground plumes.
Dallas is basically in a river bed-an alluvial region-and groundwater is near the surface; vapor from contaminated groundwater is not something we want as part of our urban lifestyle.
Think about it. I certainly am...