Green Options

With the help of a high tech underground steam cleaning technology developed at UCal-Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a creosote-soaked Superfund site in Visalia, California has been cleaned up more than 100 years ahead of schedule, saving millions of dollars and pointing the way toward a more efficient and sustainable means of dealing with polluted sites.

The site, which was just officially removed from the Superfund list, is known as Southern California Edison’s Pole Yard.  For 80 years utility poles were treated there with the wood preservatives creosote and pentacholorphenol.  By the 1970’s the site was saturated with contaminants up to 100 feet deep, and it won the dubious honor of making the original Superfund list when the program first started.  Almost miraculously, the Livermore cleanup has restored groundwater at the Pole Yard to drinking water quality.

Detroit tops the list of most miserable cities in the U.S., according to a new compilation by Forbes. The conclusions are based on traffic, Superfund-site data, crime, weather, income tax rates and unemployment. The list also includes Stockton, California; Flint, Michigan; New York City; and Philadelphia.

Photo courtesy of Gyre via Wikimedia Commons.