Tar Ponds Plan stinks

I concur with Ms. May that the plan to seal and bury the tar ponds was one made solely on budget constraints and not one that actually addresses this issue in the long term. Having spent summers in the area I am familiar with this issue and the stench.

Having worked in bioremediation and actually performing bench scale study's on some tar pond samples I can tell you that there are more effective ways to do this that actually cleans it up and not hide it for another generation.

Putting a concrete cap is a very short term solution. Anyone aho has ever lived in a home with a basement will understand that concrete cracks and leaks. PAH and PCB's in the tar ponds will percolate to the surface no matter what they think. Its called capillary action. Not only that it will get back into the estuary, and groundwater. The absurdity of the announcement that things can be built on this concrete cap is just plain sick. Would you want your children playing in a toxic park? Tree roots will also crack this concrete through the same process by which rock is broken down into soil.

There are better alternatives. I dunno, but the technology the oil sands use sounds like it works.. The dirty water left over can be ultrafiltrated separating the wastewater form the the "tar". The water can be reclaimed. There is also the ability to excavate the soil and remediate it using re-dox reactions. Whereby you add metals and saturate it with water, let is undergo reduction reactions and then let it dry out which then iniates oxidation reactions. Over a period of time this breaks down PAH and PCB. It works everywhere else on the same substrate. There are many companies out there offering proven techniques, they could use a combination of them to get this done properly and quickly.

A short term solution does not lead to the long term health of the people living there. Recommend this Post