Silicon Valley is One of the Most Polluted Places in the Country (theatlantic.com) 71
Before Silicon Valley became the idea center of the internet, it was a group of factory towns, the blinking heart of "clean" manufacturing, the hallmark of the Information Age. A report adds: Silicon Valley was a major industrial center for much of the 20th century. Semiconductors and microprocessors rolled out of factories scattered all over the area (known on maps as Santa Clara County) from the 1950s to the early 1990s -- AMD, Apple, Atari, Fairchild, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Xerox, to name just a few. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, Santa Clara County added 203,000 manufacturing jobs, 85 percent of them in tech. Beginning in the 1980s, as government contracts disappeared, Silicon Valley companies moved toward creating software, and beginning in the 1990s, companies there largely focused on internet-based applications. Now the area trades mostly in the rarefied and intangible realm of apps and software. It's hard to see that now, when glass-walled office buildings, corporate campuses, and strip malls along highways that bloom into concrete clovers dominate the landscape of this former industrial area. But all of that industrial history left something behind.
The Google Quad Campus looks way too nice to be contaminated with toxic waste: There are matching bikes, a pool with primary-colored umbrellas, and a contained universe that looks more like a college or a park than a satellite campus of one of the biggest companies in the world. But it turns out that this idyllic garden of corporate harmony sits on land that since 1989 has been a Superfund site, a designation the EPA gives some of the most contaminated or polluted land in the country. And while thousands of tons of contaminants have since been removed, it is still being cleaned up. For a few weeks at the end of 2012 and into 2013, toxic vapors got into two campus buildings, possibly exposing the office workers there to levels of chemicals above the legal limit set by the EPA. Santa Clara County has 23 active Superfund sites, more than any other county in the United States. All of them were designated as such in the mid to late 1980s, and most were contaminated by toxic chemicals involved in making computer parts. Completely cleaning up these chemicals may be impossible.
The Google Quad Campus looks way too nice to be contaminated with toxic waste: There are matching bikes, a pool with primary-colored umbrellas, and a contained universe that looks more like a college or a park than a satellite campus of one of the biggest companies in the world. But it turns out that this idyllic garden of corporate harmony sits on land that since 1989 has been a Superfund site, a designation the EPA gives some of the most contaminated or polluted land in the country. And while thousands of tons of contaminants have since been removed, it is still being cleaned up. For a few weeks at the end of 2012 and into 2013, toxic vapors got into two campus buildings, possibly exposing the office workers there to levels of chemicals above the legal limit set by the EPA. Santa Clara County has 23 active Superfund sites, more than any other county in the United States. All of them were designated as such in the mid to late 1980s, and most were contaminated by toxic chemicals involved in making computer parts. Completely cleaning up these chemicals may be impossible.
Not just industrial waste (Score:5, Funny)
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue a notice [reuters.com] in less than a week to the city of San Francisco over its homelessness problem and attendant pollution.
California wants to throw federal tax dollars at a problem that California created and refuses to fix.
Why do you think Apple's new Mac Pro to be made in Texas [cnbc.com] and not California?
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If i was homeless I think i would definitely make my way to San Fran...
it's way too expensive otherwise.
And I like it when i don't freeze to death in my sleep.
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New York has a law that all people have a shelter.
"The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco."
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"The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco."
Bullshit. Putting it in quotes as if it's some meaningful or witty insight doesn't change that.
Re:Not just industrial waste (Score:4, Funny)
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People from the US Midwest and East Coast, not even the South, are used to hot, humid summers. They come to San Francisco and immediately look for winter coats. It's not that cold, really, but the difference can be astounding (highs in the 50s F (also the lows) with a stiff breeze does get to you if you're not used to it, which you might not be if just off the plane. If you *are* used to it, a hoodie with your shorts and T-shirt is fine. Perhaps that partly explains the SF bro dress code? Also, if you don't
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"The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco."
I had a strong suspicion i would see this quote after making this post.
Many may know this quote from Mark.
I know it from "48 hours" the movie , Nick Nolte , Eddie Mrrphy... classic
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Not a good place to be homeless, it's cold even in summer. Head to LA where they have several times more homeless (not just stereotypical skid row, but all over now including people living in their cars).
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Not a good place to be homeless, it's cold even in summer. Head to LA where they have several times more homeless (not just stereotypical skid row, but all over now including people living in their cars).
When you say "cold" what do you mean by that?
Note to self : Install shower in car
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Above freezing usually but you would need to have a coat if you're sleeping outside.
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That would explain the smell around times square.
Fox "News" anti-city meme (Score:2, Insightful)
Hold on, Tex, put away the Fox Bong. It's not any more polluted per given human density than any other place in the US. It's just easier to find such pollution because it is more densely populated.
If you walk around in the woods in rural areas you'll find pockets of needles and other nasty waste, but it's spread out because the population is spread out.
If you have clear-cut human-to-exposed-waste ratio s
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Oh, well if you has an experience, clearly it applies to all things.
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Without reliable studies, all both "sides" really have is anecdotes. Unless you have the cash to pay for a solid study, let people give their personal observations.
It's common sense that if there is 100 people per square mile you'd expect roughly 100 times more trash than if there is 1 person per square mile.
Re: Fox "News" anti-city meme (Score:2)
Re: Fox "News" anti-city meme (Score:2)
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How many cities have a dedicated poop patrol?
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That's not a good poop-per-person metric. If the poop is too spread out, a poop-patrol won't be economical, and perhaps nobody would care. If the average nearest poop is 5 miles away in a rural area, you may never even notice. This should be obvious, I don't know why I have to explain it.
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If the poop is too spread out, a poop-patrol won't be economical
It's not economical as is. They're 6 figure salaries to pick up less poop in a day than is shat out by the homeless and crazies.
Economical would be locking the loonies up in prison. The state is paying to clothe them, feed them, and give them syringes and a same space (TM) do inject heroine anyway. Might as put that money toward a prison cell and keep the streets clean, businesses open, and people safe instead.
Re: Fox "News" anti-city meme (Score:2)
A prison cell costs around $80k per year all-in, and you have to put a real criminal back on the streets to make space.
Next brilliant idea?
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Shouldn't it be a good thing that a city wants to have a poop patrol? Beware the cities that don't have the poop patrols.
SF gets the notice mostly because it's the only really dense urban core in Northern California. Even LA is too spread out to be "dense" except for a tiny pocket. But I bet if you head up to Minneapolis you're going to find poop somewhere on the streets or alleys.
Re: Fox "News" anti-city meme (Score:1)
Hell, in the US countryside even normal people with money throw their trash in their front yards.
Drive down the country roads in France and itâ(TM)s trimmed hedges and picket fences everywhere. People give a damn. In the US itâ(TM)s spent diapers and rusty rear axles.
Re: Fox "News" anti-city meme (Score:2)
Live in downtown SF for a few years, then tell us again how it's not really a problem.
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Addendum: Go look around the rural bars after 3am; you'll see nasty stuff in nearby fields and bushes.
Well, there's a surprise! (Score:2)
'Clean Manufacturing'. What a crock.
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I grew up less than a mile from a Motorola plant that 'leaked' TCE into the groundwater for decades, resulting in a stain of TCE across multiple aquifers
When the civil case got to court, the judge dismissed it claiming that there was no evidence that TCE caused harm
Expect the same sort of crock 'o shit response this time, because MONEY
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You miss the real cost Google faces here. Many of those Google employees are really quite intelligent, the kind of intelligent that dwells upon things, like health, food, identity and things can niggle at their minds like a 'CANCER', my god they work in CANCER COUNTRY, they are the Malboro man https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com], inhaling those industrial pollutants wafting up through the ground, smooth clean taste, lot of pretty flowers to hide the cancer sucked in with every breath.
The googlites are going
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Whatever you just took, it was either too much or too few....
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At my first job we all cleaned 16mm movie projector parts using gallons of TCE. Now I can blame my mediocre college grades, relationship difficulties, and job-hopping on that! Sweet!
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While TCE may have low direct toxicity to humans, it can break down to Toluene over time, which can slice n dice DNA
Re: Trump will fix this (Score:2)
In the long long ago (Score:2)
Before the computer manufacturing companies, the area was mostly orchards. Fruit trees everywhere.
There were still some orchards when I moved there in the early 80s.
It has changed a lot.
(shake fist at clouds, mumble about kids and lawns...)
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I read "On the Edge" about the history of Commodore Computers, Inc. Some of the interviewees admitted that in the early days they'd just dump chip-making chemicals and waste in the back lot of the office building after the sun went down. They were small startups who found any way to cut corners they could to survive. I'm not condoning it, only reporting it. (They were often startups later purchased by Commodore.)
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I worked 5 years from 2000 in a place on land that used to be a part of the original Fairchild. There were strange towers in the parking lot that I originally assumed were just some weird cellular access points or sewer access or something like that. Turns out they were pumping on toxic chemicals and oh so gradually releasing in the atmosphere to disperse at safe levels. Ie, we were stationed on top of a superfund site from dumping chemicals used to make early chips.
However, we never learned this from th
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There was also a huge mercury mine to the east, it really helped facilitate the gold rush. It's probably the reason the local newspaper (haha remember those) is named "The Mercury News"
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Actually, it was in the southern part of San Jose. Look up "New Almaden" sometime. It was the mercury mine that made the Gold Rush possible.
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We should put farms in there (Score:1)
The plants will leach the stuff out of the soil, and we will grow more acclimated to eating poison. Win-win, no?
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We already are. Or do you grow yer own?
Per capita or in total? (Score:1)
Because it is also one of the post populated places in the country, is it not?
And a business hot spot. Meaning separating it from the surrounding commute area skews the numbers.
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No, I believe New York City has the highest population density.
But there's no real surprise because the early days of Silicon Valley, well, the cutting edge of transistor and IC manufacture is pretty toxic. I'm sure there's plenty of runoff from all the arsenic and other chemicals that were the byproducts of chip manufacturing. Plus
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Yup, that's one big reason. It was not even densely populated, even today the population in Silicon Valley is not really denser than any other major city. Some of the worst polluted areas are even in low density areas, consider Hinkley in San Bernardino county with a very tiny population whose groundwater was polluted by PG&E with hexavalent chromium (the basis of the Erin Brockovich movie).
So in Silicon Valley chemicals mostly from chip makers dumping it into the ground or wastewater. But also we ha
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The Navy at least is paying something for the Moffatt Field cleanup. In spots, though, it's not entirely clear whose crap is whose - it all kind of mixes together.
Re: Per capita or in total? (Score:2)
Literally (Score:1)
Smug level are record high (Score:1)
Indeed. The smug levels are at a planet threatening high.
track down the money (Score:1)
Re:track down the money (Score:5, Insightful)
If companies made money from destroying the environment, track that money down and make it pay for remediation until things are as pristine as they were. And if that can't be done, throw the people responsible in prison forever. Anything less is insufficient. The sacrosanct Earth is far more precious than shareholder value, corporate profits, or even money itself.
Most of the folks "responsible" are likely in their 90's now if they are even alive, so forever in Jail might just be a few months. It's like the superfund site around the former Pitcher OK where lead was mined for half a century around WWI.
So, I get your idea, but it's not very practical in most cases. It's hard to punish folks for doing something that was 100% lawful when they did it. You *might* get a civil action to force money to change hands, but you are going to need to prove they did something they should have known was going to hurt folks and if it wasn't illegal, that's a bit of a hill to climb 50 years later.
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There was a time when business didn't care, make money, make money was the thing. However, these days we have largely made the whole scale sacrifice of the environment unacceptable both in law and in polite society. You just don't do stuff like this anymore. If you do, the EPA comes calling and when the news gets out your customers depart, and in both cases profit evaporates faster than the dew in death valley.
So we ARE holding folks responsible, we are sending folks to jail, we are taking money from c
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We don't have this stuff happening any more?
I never made that statement. I said:
we ARE holding folks responsible, we are sending folks to jail, we are taking money from companies who get caught doing things like this. We ARE being successful too.
That is exactly the OPPSITE of you are arguing I said. Could you be having issues with reading comprehension?
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You act as if the EPA has been rendered toothless.. Far from it. You act as if the civil courts are no longer available to those injured? Again not true.
So, given the obvious improvements we've seen in the last 50 years here in the USA, where we've addressed things like acid rain, air quality and pollution standards for everything from food service, auto body shops and even airplanes. We've eliminated lead in our gasoline, started using catalytic converters, mandated diesel exhaust standards, required c
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Much of this happened before there were any regulations or laws, before the EPA existed. Many of the people involved are dead and companies defunct. Some of the biggest offenders were also the US government on military bases or laboratories.
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If companies made money from destroying the environment, track that money down and make it pay for remediation until things are as pristine as they were. And if that can't be done, throw the people responsible in prison forever. Anything less is insufficient. The sacrosanct Earth is far more precious than shareholder value, corporate profits, or even money itself.
It might be possible to do this in some countries.
IANAL, but in general, the US Constitution prohibits this sort of thing for many transgressions, because they have occurred so far back in the past when no laws explicitly barred this (No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. - Article 1 Section 9 (refers to Congress) and No state shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law ..., Article 1 Section 10).
One might be able to make a case to the effect that future land-owners or socie
Google Quad Campus (Score:2)
toxic vapors got into two campus buildings
Just some hipsters vaping upwind of the building entrances.
Mirror mirror on the wall (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a hypocrite at all (Score:2)
Californians are environmentally conscious partially because of this long history with basically what can be described as a series of man-made disasters. If you're implying that it's hypocritical for California to impose regulations above and beyond what the federal government has when California has so many problems. Remember that those regulations are specifically targeted to California itself and no one else. We're all very aware that we have mercury in the lakes, contaminated soil in the playgrounds, an
capitalism & the environment (Score:2)
The jobs leave.
The prosperity dies.
The pollution remains.
Google quad? (Score:1)
Didn't google - google superfund sites and see if they were going to be building on a super fund toxic waste dump?
Someone screwed up.