There seems to be a common urban legend that states that <crummy place> is crummy because it was built on top of a landfill. I’ve heard this several times in my life, most recently when I lived on Bolling AFB, which juts out into the Potomac River. I heard this “Bolling was built on a landfill” myth a few times when I was there, often trotted out to explain any half-buried piece of trash.
The notion is, of course, ridiculous, since even 100 years ago I’m sure people had the good sense not to dump trash en masse into a frickin’ river. And of course the obvious answer is that Bolling AFB (like the Washington National Airport across the river) was built on landfill; that is to say, dirt was dumped into the river, declared “dry land,” and built upon. It did explain all the uneven settling in our houses and the fact that nothing would grow in the soil there, but the trash was sadly just because people are slobs.
Today I hear this myth trotted out again in reference to a sinkhole at Charlotte Motor Speedway that is threatening to shut down the track. Only in this case, the myth is apparently true, at least according to the history page for the track’s website. Evidently the property is shared with BFI, and some of the landfill just outside of turn 3 was flattened and turned into a parking area.
I remain somewhat skeptical, since even inactive landfills seem to have massive networks of methane ventilation pipes that require constant monitoring. I also find it hard to believe that the track would have operated for any number of years with a great big heaping pile of stank just outside of turn 3. I mean, this is a spectator sport, for chrissakes.
So I ask the dopers – do people really build on top of trash? How common is this? Any notable examples?
I have heard of parks and golf courses built on top of landfills and then having a neighborhood development border the landfill, but with no housing built on top of it.
The major commercial-residential piece of Mexico City called Santa Fe was built on a landfill. And on certain days during the rainy season, it indeed smells like nasty, old garbage.
How exactly is the OP defining landfill? The entire lower part of Manhattan was extended on every side with all sorts of stuff, including actual garbage. Residents were encouraged to bring all their dumpable stuff to the rivers’ edges for fill. Yes, they had the sense to dump garbage into rivers more than 100 years ago. That’s how cities are made.
The World Trade Center was built inside the Hudson. Construction was possible because they created what was essentially a reverse swimming pool. They dug out an area and built up the walls so that the river water would be held back, and then did the construction in the dry area created. It was so strong that it held during the collapse and contained much of the debris, preventing it from puching through and making the disaster worse.
Areas along the Jersey Shore, Brooklyn, Staten Island and everywhere in the area were also reclaimed this way.
Patrick AFB on the east coast of Fl has had some difficulties with areas of old “disposed of items” in now civilian populated areas. South Patrick Shores area was used as a disposal area in the 40’s and I beleive the 50’s when it was the Banana River Air Station. There was a concern about a cancer cluster in the area late 90’s early 2000’s due to empty containers being found that had contained less than desirable substances. Airplane parts and spent munitions could also be found.
I’d like to know why the skeptisism about things being buried in the not so distant past? I’d venture to say you could still go to many rural ares and find this type of disposal in prictice today.
The Shoreline Amphitheater was built over a former trash landfill. During the first season, there was a fire in the lawn seating when a patrons cigarette ignited the methane leaking from below.
Good question, Exapno. Not being an expert on land reclamation, I’m open to suggestions.
Since my OP was inspired by an actual BFI operated garbage dump, I guess my first distinction would be that the land had to be a planned garbage dump. I think Balthisar’s example fits the bill, since it looks like they were using abandoned aggregate mines as landfills before deciding to re-use the land. I’m not satisfied by the Manhattan example, since the primary purpose wasn’t to get rid of trash. Also, I might be looking at history a bit rosy but I feel like 300 year old trash wasn’t as bad as a modern landfill. In short, I don’t think anyone in Manhattan is worrying about the stench of living on top of garbage. NASCAR spectators, on the other hand, might.
Also I want to note that my example, Bolling AFB, dates from 1918, so when I said 100 years ago I meant it literally. I have no doubt that people were dumping trash into rivers when Manhattan was growing, but I don’t think that DC residents in 1918 would have been OK with an organized effort to dump garbage into their drinking water (I added the words “en masse” to my OP because I wanted to differentiate between illegal dumping and something akin to a BFI operated landfill). And yes, I understand the irony of that statement considering the Blue Plains wastewater management facility that’s adjacent to the military base.
OK, in light of panman’s post, I’d like to further clarify my definition. “Landfill” being a place where dump trucks full of garbage came to drop their stuff, then bulldozers covered it up with dirt, then this process was repeated thousands of times while local municipalities paid good money to private companies for the effort. Landfill, like where my kids’ diapers go.
Thanks for the example, zagloba, that’s pretty disgusting.
Could well be Urban Legend but I’ve heard that Candlestick Park in San Francisco is built on a trash landfill. Supposedly uneven settling of the trash is why ground balls sometimes take odd hops off the infield.
My favorite two examples, Back Bay Boston and lower Manhatten, have already been mentioned. I’ll just add that more than just Back Bay in Boston is built on landfill – there was an entire Mill Pond that filled in (with both garbage and “clean” fill) to make the West End. And a huge amount of Cambridge, across the river, is reclaimed land, as well.
The time that “landfill = crummy” is when the “landfill” was originally a seriously large dump, devoted to being a dump, and probably in recent times. In those cases the waste is much denser than colonial-era landfill (or even 19th century), more concentrated, and more likely laced with toxic stuff. That’s howcum Love Canal in Buffalo was such a disaster – it was the dumping ground for canisters of Hooker Chemical waste. People rightly came to consider it more than “crummy”.
As a counterexample, the building where I had my first post-grad job was built atop a modern “dump” landfill. It was highly desirable property, and the building won architectural awards. Nevertheless, the building didn’t extend to ground level, but had parking space beneath. The reason, I’m told, is that gases from that landfill still percolated up, and a standard basement could completely fill with unhealthy gases, so the building was “raised” to give them a chance to disperse.
The company closed that location and the building was sold. The new owners gutted the structure and rebuilt on the framework, extending the building to ground level. I’ve often wondered if anyone talked to them about the toxic gas issue.
Thing is, today, we distinguish between a “sanitary landfill” that accepts (household and construction) solid waste, and a ‘fill’ area that is clean dirt and rocks. But in 1800 and even 1900, that distinction wasn’t so clear. Lots of areas in New England (particularly around Boston) are fill areas that were filled in with not just rocks and dirt, but also random household and construction waste and anything else available. I’ve pulled railroad spikes and horseshoes out of fill areas, and seen a big box of broken crockery shards pulled from a construction site.
Yes. Causeway Street, known to Boston sports fans, is surrounded by buildings and streets, but was at one point an actual causeway, with water on both sides.
Now that I think of it, I forgot about the obvious example, right across the street from my former office. This was a landfill. Not quite as large as Santa Fe, but it’s now a pretty large but gorgeous complex.
Common? Isn’t this how cities were built for millennia? On top of the garbage and buildings of previous residents? If anything, isn’t it notable that we’ve stopped doing so?
Wasn’t the entire Marina District of San Francisco a landfill created from the enormous volume of residue after the Great Quake and fire? This would of course be more of a sterile fill as opposed to organic garbage but the later tremors did cause much of it too to settle and differentially compact.
