Environmental Cleanup Of Tampa Raytheon Plant Will Take 78 Years, Homeowners Learn

[hatrack]

ST. PETERSBURG - Homeowners surrounding the now-shuttered Raytheon defense plant may not live long enough to see their neighborhood rid of the industrial pollution that's been creeping under parks, playgrounds and homes for decades. In a new report, Raytheon's environmental consultant Arcadis says it will take as long as 78 years to cleanup the last of an underground mess that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has known about since 1991.

Neighbors were already angry when the company said last year it would take more than 25 years to clean up the toxic waste plume that has polluted dozes of irrigation wells in their neighborhood. "Some people are so frightened and disgusted they've literally walked away from their homes and their mortgages," said Dominic Griesi, president of the Azalea Homeowners Association.

Griesi is one of the litigants in a federal class action lawsuit filed against Raytheon. "I don't think any of us are going to be around in 78 years," he said. "The whole basis for the lawsuit is the loss of value of our homes and our property and they're virtually impossible to sell right now."

"It's incredibly frustrating," said state Sen. Charlie Justice whose district includes the now-vacant Raytheon plant and surrounding residential neighborhoods. I think that DEP and we all need to sit down and make sure this happens a lot faster than 78 years," Justice said. "People have waited long enough already." One of the sore spots for residents is that no one bothered to tell most of them until after News Channel 8 revealed the spreading pollution in March 2008.

EDIT

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/mar/01/raytheon-estimates-78-years-pollution-cleanup/

[JBoy]

1. Maybe fining Raytheon a billion dollars will make it go faster.

[tom_paine]

2. 78 years. Whioch means "never". This country will be an Uber-RW NaziBushie Paradise by then.

At best, it will be a controlled Corporate Neofeudalism and Inverted Totalitarianism. Much like today only a LOT poorer.

Neither state will allow for environmental cleanup or even recognize science anymore that does not serve The State.

Poor bastards. But that's what our Empire is, a nation of Aristocrats and Poor Bastards.

Not much in between. And what is in between is sinking faster than the coherency of our National Dialog.

[NNadir]

3. Well, here's the fun side of this story. If you dig around a bit you learn the contaminant is TCE.

TCE is trichloroethylene.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article463739.ece

I wonder what form of "green energy" is mostly involved with TCE use?

I'll give everyone a hint: It involves silicon chemistry.

It's time to ship this "green" industry to um, China, where no one can file a lawsuit.

Raytheon bought this site from, um, E-systems.

The city of San Jose California has TCE in much of its ground water because in the 1970's it decided the semi-conductor industry would be a great "green" industry to replace heavy industry.

[LARED]

4. I worked on the front end of a similar project a few years ago

If I'm reading this right they are implementing a pump and treat process. You install wells into a underground pollution plume and pump out the contaminated water, letting fresh underground water replace what you pull out. The technology simply takes a long time to clean up a large area.