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It’s a short ride on a sunny, arid morning down Congress Street in downtown Tucson, Arizona, to the dusty field that’s home to the Rio Nuevo landfills.
Right now, Nearmont, the smallest of three landfills on the site, doesn’t look at all like one. It’s just a bumpy 90-acre stretch of wide-open, dusty land beneath the shadow of downtown’s skyscrapers and against the bone-dry Santa Cruz River.
Drive back about 1,000 feet on the utility road, and you’ll see a chain link fence with an open gate. The chain link surrounds a square plot of land, fifty feet long and wide. On the plot at exact intervals is a nine-point grid of PVC piping penetrating the landfill beneath. A small construction trailer sits against the fence. And across from that, a large utility box, wires running into the ground.
To the untrained eye, it looks to be nothing more than a Tucson city water experiment. Or to the more suspicious in the desert, a covert government project. But this experimental PVC pipe grid - and what it’s doing underneath the landfill - could change the way brownfields sites of tomorrow are remediated.
Past, Future and Present
Behind the chain link fence is the City of Tucson’s bioreactor project. It is the physical beginning of a monumental and aggressive brownfields land remediation and redevelopment project. The landfill will become part of Rio Nuevo - an entire city district in the heart of Tucson’s downtown.
Projected, Rio Nuevo will take at least 20 years and $350 million to complete. The new bioreactor technology on Nearmont is paving the way for the Rio Nuevo of the future: an entire city district that will pay homage to the city’s historic past as one of the oldest settlements in the West.
In fact, archeologists have found that people have lived in the Tucson area as far back as 2,600 years ago. What’s now Nearmont was once part of the land where the San Augustin Mission was established in mid 1700s. The old Mission included a convento - a priest’s residence and trade school - a mission garden, a chapel, a granary and smaller storage buildings, the entire grounds surrounded by a wall. By 1840, the Mission had finally been abandoned.
As the Mission ruins disappeared into the late 1800s and early 1900s, the site became home to a clay pit. That ceased operations for good in the 1940’s, until it became its final incarnation: a 1950’s-era city dump. For twelve years, the site saw the only the city’s trash, until it was closed and forgotten in 1962. Thirty-seven years passed until Rio Nuevo had its rebirth.
In November of 1999, Tucson politicians put Proposition 400 in front of the voters - its purpose to raise $60 million in Arizona state tax money over ten years to help fund the Rio Nuevo project. It passed by a convincing 62% margin.
Among the planned projects at Rio Nuevo are a full-scale recreation of the San Augustin Mission and adjoining Cultural Plaza. Also planned are an Arizona Historical Museum, an American Indian Cultural Center and a Mercado with retail stores. More downtown housing will be added. Future additions include the Sonoran Sea Aquarium, the Tucson Science Center, an IMAX Theatre, an expanded Tucson Convention Center, and a City Visitor’s Center.
But the completed vision of Rio Nuevo is some years away. What Rio Nuevo has now is what’s behind the chain link fence - the experimental bioreactor.
100 Years in 40 Months
Underneath the Nearmont landfills lie decades of Tucson refuse. Between 15 and 50 feet of it.
The problem: the trash beneath the landfill must be degraded and made non-reactive. That, added with the methane gas landfills naturally produce make it too undesirable for building. Otherwise, any construction on the land would be at least century away - the time it would take the garbage in Nearmont to degrade naturally.
Tucson’s Office of Environmental Management (OEM), however, was preparing a solution - the bioreactor. But remediation technology like it had never been used before. If it did work, and proved safe and cost-effective, it would be used to remediate the other landfills.
The process it performs is called enhanced aerobic degradation. Simply, the nine-spot PVC pipe grid - dug under the ground and inside the landfill - naturally accelerates the landfill degradation by pumping controlled amounts of air and water into the refuse itself.
According to the data OEM has collected so far, the bioreactor will break down and settle the refuse, as well as eliminating the landfill’s natural methane production, in about 40 months. The end result: Composted land, ready for development.
Not only that, Tucson’s bioreactor has proven safe and cost-effective. Most importantly, it works. So well, that it's being made into a full-scale system for use on all three landfills.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia. February, 2003. Phnom Penh's huge landfill in the early 2000s smoldered perpetually, which did not stop the gleaners from making a living on top of it. The more agile pickers work right around the bulldozers that stir the surface. Most of them live in villages inside or adjcent to the dump, so they never leave the smoke and stench.
Small concrete company's Chevrolet dump truck parked, with the door left open, on a crumbling asphalt street. Assembled by the company owner from three similar trucks in various states of decay. Original engine, transmission and frame, with cab and dump box replaced. The truck's owner, who was removing driveway pour forms on a hot muggy day, looked a lot like his truck • The deodorizer, shaped like a Christmas tree, is a nice touch.
2015 • Cleveland northeast Ohio USA
iPhone 4s native camera in HDR mode • Photoshop Elements with one filter from Anthropics' Smart Photo Editor plug-in • Gritty is Good
View this potentially sinister late-night vignette Large On Black
"And I found a place it's dark and it's rotted
It's a cool, sweet kinda place where the copters won't spot it
And I destroyed the map that I carefully dotted, however,
Every-day I'm dumping the body
It'd be better for us if you don't understand
It'd be better for us if you don't understand
Better for me if you don't understand..."
- Gord Downie [The Tragically Hip : 'Locked In The Trunk Of A Car']
Dipping back into the images from the late summer trip to London again; for the A Day In Capital City album.
The narrow gauge railway from Ponferrado to Villablino used steam traction into the 1980's. The line is now closed, and the locos are dumped at Ponferrado.
Got together with some DFDubs guys tonight and shot two cars. One being this dumped Corrado and the other being a flat green Jetta. Oh, by the way, both cars are static. Corrado has epic front fitment.
Gripped 5d, 50mm 1.8, 2 B800's
Taken on 10 April 2014 in Namibia near Tsumeb-Uris-Mine (IMG_0414)
freewheely.com: Cycling Africa beyond mountains and deserts until Cape Town
The Dump (87,812 square feet)
801 N Military Highway, Norfolk, VA
This was originally a Kmart, which was built and opened in 1974. It became The Dump on June 28th, 1996.
Awesome old Mack Dump Truck, shot this while picking up an old R model that is going to the pier in N J
On my side of town I often find bikes that have been swiped and then dumped (perhaps after the thief notices some minor problem). This leads to the depressing conclusion that in Ann Arbor it's apparently easier to find another unlocked bike than to fix a flat tire.
For some reason I like this picture better sideways.