Talk:Alkali Lake
At a recent meeting of the Friends of Alkali Lake many things were discussed.
There is a brief rundown of the History of the site on Wikipedia.
There was some confusion about who owns the site. The dumpsite is currently surrounded by barbed wire and owned by Bayer CropScience, the successor to Rhodia who originally prodused the waste.[1]
The dumpsite is 10.3 acres (4.2 ha) and contains 50 monitoring wells. There are an estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million gallons of toxic waste at the site, and is called one of Oregon's worst toxic-waste dumps by the project manager at the DEQ. [2]
Oregon has paid over $2 million for monitoring and to acquire land surrounding the dump[2] which comes from the regular budget for DEQ.
Some wanted an independent study to see if the DEQ is telling the truth but the DEQ reports tell us enough if people will read them.
According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, "The DEQ has determined that the contaminated plume is spreading from east to west, away from Hutton Spring and thus does not currently constitute a threat to the water quality in Hutton Spring".[3] The plume can threaten the western snowy plovers.
The people are worried about themselves and the plume is not the primary threat for the people. It is the contaminates that are pushed to the surface by hydraulic pressure attach themselves to dust particles and become airborne. People can breath in this dust bringing contaminates into their blood stream like Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin(TCDD).
"Because trespassers on the site for an extended time could be exposed to unsafe levels of contaminants, DEQ has fenced the Chemical Waste Disposal Area, and posted warning signs."[4] But the studies show that high levels of contaminates have left the fenced area.
"Bob Schwarz, (Jan 17, 2008) A risk assessment completed in 2005 concludes that risk to offsite residents and workers is well below safe levels. Risk to trespassers on the site is also at or below safe levels.
Original studied showed level extremely high outside the fence but exposure levels have been presumed low because few people visit the area, not because levels are not high.
DEQ links for Alkali Lake
DEQ Alkali Lake Disposal Site Summary Information
Alkali Lake Risk Assessment (July 2005).pdf Eco/HH Risk Assessments 4.6071 7/26/2005 12/21/2017 213 pages
[Fact Sheet-AlkaliLake-Aug-2015.pdf Fact Sheets ]0.1900 8/1/2015 6/27/2016
Remediation Alt Rpt 8-15-06.pdf Reports 1.9536 3/10/2009, 13 pages
May 2011 Groundwater Report-Alkali Lake.pdf Reports 1.0728 9/7/2011 8/24/2015
September 2013 groundwater sampling report.pdf Reports 1.7122 8/18/2015 1/6/2017
2016 monitoring and maintenance rpt-complete.pdf Reports 4.1987 10/25/2016 1/6/2017
2007-04-25-Record of Decision-Alkali Lake.pdf RODs/Staff Reports
- ↑ Schwarz, Bob (May 2007). "Fact Sheet: Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Disposal Site, May 2007 " (PDF). Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Larabee, Mark (2004-12-29). "Toxic wastes at Alkali Lake pose headache for state". The Oregonian.
- ↑ "Species Fact Sheet: Hutton tui chub". U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Oregon Field Office Website. October 30, 2009. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
- ↑ DEQ Alkali Lake Disposal Site Summary Information