The Poisoned Trail to Nowhere?
The subject of trichlorethylene (TCE) contamination along the proposed Trail to Nowhere has been the subject of discussion on this blog. The adjacent factory at 311 South Highland Avenue was the site of TCE spills for years and has been identified as such by the State Department of Toxic Substance Control and the federal EPA. The agencies identified a southerly moving plume off the property and directly under the trail site.
The contamination was included in a lawsuit brought by the Orange County Water District, but has not been remediated.
In previous posts FFFF identified old test wells on property to the west of 311 S. Highland.
It turns out there are new ones, too. Six of them, in fact, that were actually drilled on the trail site strung out along several hundred feet.
There are also new test wells that have been placed very recently even farther south – in the west 100 block of Truslow Avenue.
These test wells have been placed without any notification to the residents of District 5, so they told me when I traversed the area today; but, obviously the City is aware of these installations since encroachment permits are required to do this sort of work on public property.
So the question remains: what is the level of toxicity in the area – and not just on the impact to ground water, but to surface soils that might need to be excavated, treated, and removed. There is no budget to do toxic soils remediation, either in the Trail to Nowhere grant application, or in the City’s budget.
Maybe the soils along the Trail to Nowhere are clean, or at least of a level of toxicity that is not considered hazardous. Maybe not. Maybe it’s time to find out.
It’s time to find out. It’s also time for the City to post activity relating to this testing program. Of course this is in the barrio and nobody cares about that – just so long as we have a trail we won’t use. That Zahra. What a guy sticking up for the underserved Latinos of D5.
Careful, you’re threatening the Special Narrative.
It’s interesting that no one in City Hall seems interested in reporting on this issue.
There are no public records available. They would reveal the Bushala’s tunnels throughout FTT.
Bushala poisoned the well in 1973 to make Ahmad Zahra look bad.
The trail is poisoned … like John R. Hogerhuis’s soul.
That’s not fair. His problem isn’t his soul, it’s his lack of ability to think except in silly liberal generalities, such as “master plan must be good even though it makes no sense.” That sort of thing.
The scope of the bicycle master plan is longer than any one council and has to be. That’s the fundamental stupidity of your argument about some flaw you claim in the master plan. My argument doesn’t fall because of any flaw in a plan which all plans will have. If you are actually an “engineer” you’d understand that. You fix plans like anything else.
But there has to be continuity of governance here. We have to be able to plan and build for longer scopes than the last council election.
The current council majority is acting as if they have no knowledge of any plan. They aren’t saying there’s a flaw in the bicycle master plan to fix.
They are presenting as if they were totally ignorant of its existence.
That’s incompetence or lying. Perhaps both.
Who said I was an engineer?
Some flaw? You mean like showing impossible trail routes? You really are just silly – silly, as in not to be taken seriously.
The current council majority is acting like adults – not spoiled children who demand a shiny object. I’m reminded of the little girl who wants a pony. She has no idea how much it costs, who will feed it, who will board it, who will groom it. But she demands anyway.
You’re just like the little girl. So you have that going for you.
My error… conflated you with the author of the article.
I am not conflating you with someone capable of honest debate. Clearly you didn’t read what I wrote since you didn’t acknowledge the argument I made in any way.
You don’t argue. Unless by arguing you mean saying the same damn thing over and over and over.
No pony for you.
Hoogerbooger must’ve been a firefighter in a former life. He has the same sense of entitlement, lack of accountability and child-like devotion to the bureaucracy.
Angry Elf + Insufferable Twat = John R. Hogeruis
You know what you do when city property is contaminated? Right, you light your hair on fire and knife long planned projects!
No, you sue someone and use the money to clean it up. Or you use proceeds from a prior lawsuit. Or you apply for funds from the state or feds if it’s above city scope. Or you pay for it out of your own funds because you failed to do due diligence before purchase.
That’s the fundamental disinformation here in these articles hoping for contamination along the trail. Contamination happens, it gets cleaned up. What’s the alternative? If found it would be unfortunate because it is a cost. But just like with UP Park, it gets dealt with.
The contamination at 311 S. Highland has been known for decades and there’s been nothing. But if you want to sue you’d better get going. Meantime the grant will have expired anyway. Do you have any idea how long it took to get the UP Park cleaned up? Of course you don’t because facts just get in the way of your weepy-liberal narrative.
Then there’s the issue of the missing information in the grant application.
“Then there’s the issue of the missing information in the grant application.”
The grant was made. The only real problem at present is council’s lack of interest in keeping the city’s promises to residents in the form of the bicycle master plan. In any way at all… there is no evidence that council majority even realizes it exists or that the city has created any kind of expectation of results.
Seems like the kind of dysfunction and incompetence you all claim to want to root out.
Instead you celebrate it as good government by using twisted nonsensical arguments. Which generally boil down to government is bad so any time it’s doing less stuff that’s good. Conservativism… “government inaction and failure is always a good plan B for us”
Promise to residents? You got your plan. It doesn’t make sense.
Par for your course. Be happy.
The plan is the promise. It sets a reasonable expectation of delivery.
No pony for you little girl.
“Or you pay for it out of your own funds because you failed to do due diligence before purchase.”
Yes, the old Fullerton story. Let’s give the same boobs MORE to fix their own fuck-ups.
You really are in a class by yourself. Well, in you’re in the same class with the nattering Kennedy Klan and Zahra’s Kazoos.
The up right of way is purchased. Contamination was found at up park, a judgement won and cleaned up.
That’s life in the big city.
It took many years to get the Up Park cleaned up. There was also a viable culprit legally.
Did you think the Trail to Nowhere® has that sort of shelf life.
Ahaha!
No doubt it took time to clean up. It took time to go through a court case and get a judgement, do planning and do work. But the old right of way are city assets. What is the alternative if it was contaminated? Just leave it to rot as an empty “poisoned” lot?
What a bizarre idea.
That’s been the City’s preferred alternative for 20 years.
That’s not what happened. The UP Park contamination was remediated.
AFTER it was built you moron.
Step 1. Build something
Step 2. Close it down due to contamination
Step 3: Remediate it
Step 4. Pretend like nothing happened
Step 5. Rinse and repeat.
An asset? How funny.
Property the city owns is called an asset.
Not an accountant, are you?
Am I an accountant, no, I’m a software engineer, but I have an MBA and we take accounting classes.
Go ahead though explain how real property isn’t an asset on the balance sheet.
What’s it worth, Mr. Accountant? Looks like a liability to me. Maybe that’s why the “asset” has been sitting there for 20 years.
No pony for you little girl.