Middle Avenue pipe project digs up diesel-soaked soil

[ensho]

http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2011/08/30/middle-avenue-pipe-project-digs-up-diesel-soaked-soil/


The Middle Avenue water main replacement project has run into a potentially explosive problem that is so far costing the city more than $65,000.

Assistant City Engineer John Schneider said work on the project, which involves replacing old 2-, 4- and 10-inch water mains with approximately 5,549 feet of 12-inch and
1,851 feet of 8-inch iron water pipes between Second Street and Oberlin Road, has not stopped. But crews have alerted the city to the discovery of petroleum-contaminated soil that will need to be removed. The city will have to pay a private firm to check the area for more contaminated soil and remove what is found.

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“But I believe over the years there has been four gas stations in that area and we will look into all that had underground storage tanks to see if one of those could be the source,” he said. “The hard part will be proving whose contamination it is.”

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Schneider said the soil posses more of a danger to workers that could breathe in toxic fuels or spark an explosion if the concentration is high enough and a spark ignites.
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money, money, money

[RegieRocker]

1. Drill baby drill.

[BeFree]

2. Tar Sands!

Right in your back yard!! Keep digging America, you are almost to China!!

[MadHound]

3. This is an ongoing, unknown problem in lots of cities

Columbia Missouri had to deal with the same sort of problem about fifteen years ago. They went to revamp a couple of blocks downtown and found the soil was contaminated due to an old asphalt plant/gas station that had gone out of business in the fifties. Taxpayers footed the entire multi-million dollar bill.

Meanwhile, with gas station consolidation and closure, a lot of old gas stations are torn down, paved over, and something new built on the site. The old storage tanks are left where they are, slowly leaking out into the surrounding soil.

[ensho]

4. and into the water

nt