"Most people don't pay much attention to the ordinary-looking parking lot at the corner of South 10th Street and East Alma Avenue just south of downtown San Jose. There are plenty of bigger draws nearby: San Jose State University's football stadium, the San Jose Giants' ballpark, Happy Hollow Zoo, and Sharks Ice at San Jose, a popular ice rink where the San Jose Sharks practice."
"By 1987, after decades of contamination, the owner, Ernie Lorentz, was jailed and the Lorentz Barrel and Drum Co. property became a federal Superfund site, included on the list with some of the most toxic sites in the nation. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has overseen cleanups for decades, is proposing a $24 million high-tech project to remove most of the last remnants of his pollution."
A five-acre parking lot near downtown San Jose sits atop a former drum-recycling operation that handled over two million industrial steel drums from 1947 to 1987, often dumping pesticides, solvents, acids and other chemicals into soil and storm drains. The owner, Ernie Lorentz, was jailed and the property became a federal Superfund site. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports about 90% of the contamination has been addressed and proposes a $24 million project using metal probes to heat soil 20 to 30 feet deep, vaporize remaining solvents and volatile compounds, and capture and treat the vapors.
Read at The Mercury News
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