Some asked about hazardous waste sites in DE (Dover, Cheswold: work, hospitals)

[rockky]

Delaware Hazardous Waste Sites (broken link)

This was in the News Journal today. The mechanics of the map don't work too well. Hope it answers some of the questions from a few months ago.

I think this is a lead story, and the rest will be in tomorrow's edition.

[elizamary]

Good Lord roccky...............I didnt' realize there were so many. How does this compare with othere states.

[Charley]

I checked the Superfund site from the EPA this morning when I saw this. Delaware has 62 Superfund sites. New York has 489. Of course, New York is much larger. I continued to sort through the database and filtered for those sites that contain materials considered carginogens and/or radioactive. New York has 14. Delaware has 0.

I'm not sure how to interpret the data. I'm also not sure exactly whether a hazardous waste site is a problem on it's own. For example, the oil that comes from a car during an oil change is hazardous waste. It gets stored or processed somewhere. If the processing is done correctly, is that a hazard at the hazardous waste site? I don't know.

Also, if you ever noticed, hospitals have a few different colors of waste bags. Red waste bags are hazardous materials. In hospital labs, when you have your blood drawn and the nurse uses an alcohol pad to clean your draw site, the pad is considered hazardous waste.

So yes, the map looks scary ... but I'm not exactly sure about the real impact. I'd like to hear other opinions.

Thanks.

Charley

[JulieF]

Some people may want to check out the location of chemical plants before moving. We live in northwest Dover, and the little town of Cheswold is just a couple miles away, as the crow flies. Last year, leakage of some sort at the Reichold Chemical Co. there (very near the Delaware Tech campus) caused the air to become toxic near the plant, and was foul smelling even in our neighborhood. On the good side, we received an automated warning by phone.

I know someone who taught for years at Del Tech who says that there were often smells so noxious, it was almost impossible to take a breath near campus, especially after evening classes. Never any warnings back then. I'm guessing there should have been, but that no system was in place.

All right, I'm going to leave you with some good news, because there ARE some good things about this area, and more to come I'm sure. We hear that they're going to put the Dover Public Library where the post office is now. Move the PO, obviously. Truly good, because they can't expand further where Dover's pleasant but too small library is located now.

Also, yesterday and today the weather is gorgeous! Sunny, cool, no humidity. We'll have more heat and humidity before autumnal weather arrives to stay, but I'm enjoying the present conditions!

Lori-sister-of-JulieF

[rockky]

Lori - I guess we were just outside of that chemical leak area. We never got any warning to stay inside.

My daughter called from PA to make sure we were OK. She knew about it 120 miles away. We didn't know anything.

Wow!! Good news about the Library. I hope that will provide more parking. I wonder where they are going to move the post office.

[elizamary]

Originally Posted by CMTAD

I checked the Superfund site from the EPA this morning when I saw this. Delaware has 62 Superfund sites. New York has 489. Of course, New York is much larger. I continued to sort through the database and filtered for those sites that contain materials considered carginogens and/or radioactive. New York has 14. Delaware has 0.

I'm not sure how to interpret the data. I'm also not sure exactly whether a hazardous waste site is a problem on it's own. For example, the oil that comes from a car during an oil change is hazardous waste. It gets stored or processed somewhere. If the processing is done correctly, is that a hazard at the hazardous waste site? I don't know.

Also, if you ever noticed, hospitals have a few different colors of waste bags. Red waste bags are hazardous materials. In hospital labs, when you have your blood drawn and the nurse uses an alcohol pad to clean your draw site, the pad is considered hazardous waste.

So yes, the map looks scary ... but I'm not exactly sure about the real impact. I'd like to hear other opinions.

Thanks.

Charley

Thanks for the information Charley.