Waste
The undeveloped Albany Dump peninsula (also called Fleming Point and "the Bulb") is composed of fragments of the urban landscape dumped into the Bay up until 1984. Chunks of concrete, twisted metal, piles of shingles, and other debris are visible like a sort of geologic stratigraphy on the steep...
This isolated incinerator, visible from the rest area on the eastbound side of the Interstate, burns around 50,000 tons of solvents, paints, old chemicals, contaminated soils, and PCBs every year, which come by truck and rail to the facility from all over the nation. The incinerator, known as the...
A 1,288-acre chemical waste disposal site with a capacity of 2,180,000 cubic yards, operated by Chem-Security Systems, a subsidiary of waste giant WMX Technologies. One of less than 30 commercial chemical waste sites in the country.
The Asarco copper smelter at Ruston, a small coastal town next to Tacoma, closed in 1985, after 80 years of operation. The closure, which included the felling of a landmark 562-foot tall smokestack, was spurred by concerns about toxic emissions of sulfur dioxide, arsenic, and lead. As part of the...
A chemical and radioactive waste dump, and one of the few commercial facilities that can accept certain low-level radioactive and mixed hazardous/PCB wastes. It opened in 1970, as a radioactive waste site, and has over 1 million cubic yard capacity. Famous briefly for lending radioactive machinery...
A "nuclear waste" site, as it was called by its owner, Ed Grothus, a former worker at Los Alamos Lab, who quit bomb work there for ethical reasons in the 1960s, and became a celebrated and entertaining antinuclear activist. The Black Hole is a dense collection of cast off instruments and appliances...
A large, now closed-down smelter for lead and zinc mining operations in the Coeur d'Alene region, called Bunker Hill, which is now one of the nation's largest Superfund toxic clean-up sites. Two large stacks at the smelter, one 715-feet high, were demolished in 1996, and the rest of the operation,...
This 30 acre park, constructed on a landfill between 1988-1992, has several earthworks and land art pieces on it, designed by the park designers, George Hargreaves, Peter Richards, and Michael Oppenheimer. A series of mounds, a series of poles, and other berms and concrete zigzags. Palo Alto meets...
A chemical waste site with a capacity of 3 million cubic yards, operated by Chemical Waste Management, a subsidiary of waste giant WMX Technologies. One of around 30 large, official, commercial chemical waste sites in the country. The Calumet area has a number of waste sites and former industrial...
The tailing's impoundment dam failure, across the road from United Nuclear's uranium mill at Church Rock, on July 16, 1979, is referred to as the largest accidental release of radioactive waste in the USA, and is second only to Chernobyl in the amount of radiation released. While no one was killed...
A $125 million hazardous waste incinerator built by USPCI, a division of Union Pacific railroad, in 1995, and one of the largest in the USA. It was closed and sold and partially disassembled around 2003. Designed to burn up to 130,000 tons of toxic chemical wastes per year, mostly from petroleum...
Though the water is clean, this lake is heavily contaminated. It is popular among the recreational boaters who are no doubt mostly unaware of what lies under them. At the bottom of the 50-square-mile lake is 75 million metric tons of contaminated sediment (contaminated with lead, zinc and cadmium,...
This hazardous waste management site is among the largest and most notorious in the nation. The hazardous chemical incinerator on site burned the contaminated soil from Times Beach, Missouri, as well as PCBs and other chemicals from all over the nation. The Safety-Kleen company, the nations largest...
Controlled Recovery Inc. operates a hazardous waste site in the southeast corner of New Mexico. It serves primarily the oil and gas industry of the region, which extends into the oil fields of the Permian Basin in adjacent Texas. The 284 acre site contains burial pits, remediation facilities, tanks...
The Deer Island waste treatment plant processes Boston's sewage and is the second largest sewage treatment plant in the country (Chicago's is larger). The plant is capable of handling more than a billion gallons of wastewater per day, ejecting treated effluent out giant submerged sprinkler heads at...
One of the largest "waste-to-energy" plants in the country, this one handles 3,300 tons per day. Operated by Covanta Energy, which owns the most waste-to-energy plants in the United States (around 25 plants).
Relying on natural decontamination processes instead of chemical agents, Viet Ngo's "Lemna System" utilizes a variety of floating plants to remove harmful phosphorus, nitrogen and algae in water before it is released into a bay of Devil's Lake. Shaped in the form of a long, windy road or a coiled...
A shut-down Kaiser iron mine, that once provided ore to Kaiser's Fontana steel works. A suburban-looking development, with over 100 houses built to house mine workers and their families, is virtually abandoned, making Eagle Mountain one of the more recently-formed ghost towns. There is also a...
Around 60,000 tons of hazardous material, containing contaminants such as lead, mercury and arsenic, are burned in this incinerator on the Ohio River every year, making it one of the largest of its type in the world. It is operated by VonRoll America Incorporated's Waste Technology Industries, and...
The single permitted commercial hazardous waste dump in Ohio is located across the river from Toledo, in the industrial and farming community of Oregon. The site consists of hundreds of acres of grass covered mounds and waste handling sheds. It is one of the only commercial hazardous waste dump in...
As much as 1,600 tons per day of trash is converted into energy here at this plant, finished in 1994. Billed as the "world's most technologically advanced trash-to-energy plant" by its parent company WMX Technologies, the large waste-handling company. The stack is 386 feet tall.
A chemical waste site with a capacity of 2,800,000 cubic yards, operated by Chemical Waste Management, a subsidiary of waste giant WMX Technologies. One of less than 30 commercial chemical waste sites in the country.
The principal dump for New York City's garbage for over 50 years, Fresh Kills is the largest landfill in the world. 2,200 acres and a few hundred feet high, the dump received 14,000 tons per day, or 5 million tons per year, until it was shut down in 2001. It became the disposal site for the remains...
This General Electric Plant, along with another, one mile downstream at Fort Edward, is the source of the PCBs that line the sediments of the Hudson River, making what some call the "largest Superfund Site in the Nation" (the watershed downstream of Butte, Montana also makes this claim). GE first...
Chemical waste dump with a 2,500,000 cubic yard capacity. Located on a 120-acre site, on a former US Air Force location purchased by Envirosafe in 1981, and later purchased by US Ecology, a division of American Ecology Corporation in 2001. Accepts PCBs and other hazardous industrial chemicals from...
This 640 acre site for hazardous and toxic materials opened in 1982 and employs about 100 people. Laidlaw operated this facility until recently, and it served as a dump site for the toxic ash from Laidlaw's incinerator, 15 miles away at Clive. One of three waste sites Laidlaw acquired when it...
Hanford is one of five major Department of Energy nuclear processing plants and R...
One of the larger "waste-to-energy" plants in the country, this one handles 1,650 tons per day. Operated by the Covanta Corporation, which operates over 25 waste-to-energy plants, more than any other company.
The Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant is the last stop for the liquid wastes flowing out of the City of Los Angeles. From the 4 inch pipes that connect to the homes of the city, to the 30 foot diameter trunk lines that connect to the plant, the city's network of 6,500 miles of buried pipeline...
Nuclear technology lab and test location, and a major radioactive material storage/disposal site. Located on 573,608 acres in southern Idaho, facilities include 52 nuclear reactors, 13 of which are still operable. The Navy's nuclear-powered submarine reactors are disposed of in a pit at INEL, as...