Posted on 04/26/2010 9:56:15 PM PDT by thecodont
When Ron and Belinda Oglesby moved into Carson's Carousel neighborhood in 2003, they saw a solid, middle-class area where homeowners set down roots and lived for decades, where Santa Claus paraded through the streets on a firetruck and children returned to buy their own homes.
This, they told themselves, was the perfect place to raise their three kids.
Six years later, they noticed workmen drilling holes and leaving cryptic white marks on the streets.
By last summer, they had discovered what the sudden activity meant: Preliminary tests under the direction of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board had found dangerous levels of potentially explosive methane gas and benzene under the 285 homes of the Carousel tract. In some spots, tests found benzene at concentrations seldom seen, levels that could significantly increase cancer risks for residents.
The discovery has transformed a 50-acre neighborhood of palm trees and quiet streets into an environmental case study — a reminder of Southern California's history as a center of the oil industry and the problems of ground pollution that continue to dot the region.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It also seems the developers weren't eager to disclose to potential residents just what was in store for them.
Heh, parts of Carson and Vernon....I’ve always thought they oughta just turn them into a “walk-through” interactive exhibit of the periodic table. I remember well there were a couple of lots the LAUSD tried to assemble for an elementary school. Sombody must have unloaded these useless lots onto the LAUSD and laughed themselves into a fine afterlife. If you stood on those lots and rotated, you’d see, in sequence...battery rebuilder since 1921...tannery since 1893...scrap metals yard since 1912...railroad tracks leading to Carson, Wilmington refineries, tallow processor since 1907, railroad tie creosote yard...I mean it was just ridiculous, the chances of those lots not being Superfund sites was absolutely zero, no phase 1, 2, or 3 testing needed.
*shrug* I live on a superfund site...
More like SuperFUN!!!
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