Environment
After the closure of the Denver Ordnance Plant, the GSA and other agencies disposed of miscellaneous wastes, including chemicals, contaminated material, and building and road demolition debris. The waste was disposed in multiple sites throughout the Denver Federal Center, primarily in the Southwest and Northwest landfills, and the former United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Sites CO6470000039 and CO1680090031. As a consequence of the materials disposal, the EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) have considered these areas to be significantly contaminated by hazardous waste. Excessive levels of chemicals were found in the debris, soil, ground water and surface water. Asbestos-containing materials were found as well.
During the 1980s, a chlorinated solvent leak emanated from an underground storage tank near Building 52. At the time, the hazardous material was managed by the United States Department of Transportation. The storage tank contained 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA), used to dissolve asphalt samples for testing. The leak caused a large groundwater solvent plume to spread beyond the DFC's eastern boundary and contaminate neighboring wells. To mitigate groundwater contamination by the chlorinated solvents, in 1996 the U.S. Geological Survey served as an advisor to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the construction of in-ground permeable reactive barriers. The permeable reactive barriers neutralize the solvents in the ground water. The groundwater is chemically altered as it passes through the barriers made with zero-valence iron. TCE and dichlorethene are found in concentrations of higher than 200 parts per billion as they enter the barriers and measure less than one part per billion as the groundwater exits the barriers.
In 2006 the USGS notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of a leak from a water storage tank containing radioactive water and equipment. The impacted tank is used for equipment storage and not reactor operations. An estimated 575 gallons of water leaked into the ground, although USGS officials claimed there was no evidence of contamination measured at a nearby groundwater monitoring well at that time. The USGS has operated the non-power nuclear reactor since 1969.
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Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking to crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach.”
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)
“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)