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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.
What do we have here? An abandoned mining dump truck that has been in this same spot for many years. I suppose it is somewhat of a landmark around here and most likely isn't going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Located just off of Morgan Territory Road in Contra Costa County CA. This was the site of a great deal of mining many years ago. Fortunately for posterity, much of the land was bought up by the state of California and turned into Mt. Diablo State Park.
I spotted these couches one day while J and I were playing disc golf. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with them, and sadly, this is not it. These were just some test shots that I was taking before I set my tripod up. Right as I was getting my tripod out I heard some rustling nearby in the grass. It only took me two steps (in my flip-flops) to see a snake. And not just any snake, no sir, we're talking red on yellow (kill a fellow!). Therefore, these shots will have to do for now. I'm not giving up that easily though... I will return with close toed shoes.
This corner has long been a dumping site, next to the boarded-up shop at the junction of Station Crescent and Clinton Road N15
Apparently Haringey ignores the obvious perverse consequences of clearance without any other effective action. It simply encourages dumpers to throw even more garbage here.
The owner of X353FEW drives across the public pavement to park. Though since there's no charge for parking in these streets, it's puzzling why the kerbside isn't good enough.
An update.
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(Click here to see where this photo was taken. Courtesy of BeeLoop SL.)
The garbage dump is located on the outskirts of the city, but when a fire raged there for 4 days, it might as well have been next door because of the thick smoke which enveloped the entire city.
Official reports said the fire was caused by the heat of the sun on metal lighting up the place. Unofficial sources said it was a politician/ baron burning away the garbage for easy access to the scrap metal to sell to China
i re-visited some trucks that i photographed a couple of years ago in Silverton Colorado . they look pretty much the same as they did then.
Dump Truck Cookies and Cake for Alex's 3rd Birthday, Sweet Kiera Blog Post {{www.sweetkiera.com/?p=3910}}
Waste disposal is a big issue when you only have a limited amount of land, such as in Tuvalu. The northern end of Fongafele (the main island) is a giant garbage dump.
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A massive 60 shot upload to keep you all occupied for the next week or so whilst I nip out and take a few more shots.
Please pace yourself, I don't want any complains of Repetative Shot Syndrome...
I'll be adding individual titles and details of what you are looking at (assuming you are bothering to look) as and when I get time. Although I'm not always sure what I'm looking at as, despite several visits to Skye over the years, this is the first time I've actually managed to see the view!
A partially loaded ballast train heads west through Pointe-Claire. Power is CP 6020 & CP 5874, both with multimarks. At the rear is caboose CP 434957. CP has been doing a lot of trackwork this weekend on the Vaudreuil Sub, causing cancellation of commuter trains on this line.
Centralia, Pennsylvania.
"NO DUMPING"
In May of 1962, a fire was started in the town landfill, next to the Odd Fellows Cemetary in order to clean up the area before a Memorial Day Celebration.
This fire was authorized by the town council, and was ignited by members of the local Volunteer Fire Department. All of the trash was piled up in a corner of the landfill and ignited. After the fire had burned most of the trash, it was extinguished. Oddly, though, it kept re-igniting itself as the weeks passed.
What the members of the town did not realise was that there was an un-sealed abandoned coal mine shaft beneath the pile. The trash fire ignited a coal seam beneath the earth, and continues burning to this day.
Beneath Centralia and surrounding areas lies a rich deposite of anthracite coal; very hard and compact, which burns slowly at a high temperature. Since the initial fire in 1962, the underground mine fires have spread some 400 acres, forcing the evacuation of homes in Centralia.
At its peak, Centralia had more than 2,000 residents. The Borough of Centralia had, at one point, "seven churches, five hotels, twenty-seven saloons, two theaters, a bank, and a post office, fourteen general stores, and a post office".
In 1984, Congress allocated approximately $42 million for relocation of Centralia's residents. Most took the offer and moved to surrounding areas.
According to the 2004 census, there were only 18 people still remaining in Centralia.
All that is left today is a few lone homes, civic buildings, and barren roads which lead into empty feilds.
Here's a link to Wikipedia for more information.
sign, warning sign, old, prohibited, rubbish, dumping, attention, white, rusted, bent, outdoors, announcement
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image by Gryphon Depew
Accessed on Pixabay, pixabay.com/en/sign-warning-sign-old-prohibited-1254811/, September 8, 2016
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