Toxic Waste FromT 2 Former Military Bases Here In Mesa?

Bombs in Your Backyard

by Lena Groeger, Ryann Grochowski Jones & Abrahm Lustgarten, 30 Nov 2017

The military spends more than a billion dollars a year to clean up sites its operations have contaminated with toxic waste and explosives. These sites exist in every state in the country. Some are located near schools, residential neighborhoods, rivers and lakes.

A full map of these sites has never been made public – until now. Enter your address to see the hazardous sites near you, or select a state

Link > Projects/ProPublica

 

The State of Arizona has 29: How States Compare Riskiest

Some of these sites are probably near you and you may not even know it.

> Many of these sites have extensive groundwater and soil pollution, or present a risk of exploding bombs and munitions, even if they are open to the public. Some have been converted to parks and wildlife reserves and even housing developments.
> Many sites were part of old defense facilities that have long since shut down, and may not be known locally, even though a risk of exposure to contaminants may still be present.
> Even sites where the DOD says it has already completed its response can present an ongoing threat or risk to the public.
> While the data pinpoints a precise location, contamination from that location may well affect a much larger area, including public and private lands

and the water supplies beneath them.










TAKE THE TIME TO  TAKE A LOOK AT THE MILLION$ OF DOLLARS SPENT BY THE CITY OF MESA FOR WATER AND WASTEWATER TREATMENTS - $190,000,000

You may want to investigate environmental concerns in an area surrounding a defense site for connections to the pollution there.





Note: The risk level of a site refers to a relative risk assessment made by the DOD to prioritize the cleanup of sites.
Data: All data comes from the Defense Environmental Restoration Program and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and will be released soon at the ProPublica Data Store.
Read our methodology »
Additional design and development by Al Shaw and Mike Tigas

The number of military installations with ongoing “high” and “medium risk” hazardous sites, by state

Calif. 131
Fla. 66
Alaska 65
Texas 62
Hawaii 43
N.Y. 32
Ariz. 29
N.M. 25
Va. 25
Kan. 24
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For the past year, ProPublica has been documenting the state of toxic pollution left behind by the military across the U.S. As part of this investigation, we acquired a dataset of all facilities that the Department of Defense considers contaminated.
Today we used the data to publish an interactive news application called Bombs in Your Backyard. Here’s how you can use it to find hazardous sites near you — and what, if anything, is being done to remedy the pollution.
The data, which has never been released before, comes from the Defense Environmental Restoration Program, which the DOD administers to measure and document cleanup efforts at current and former military locations.
There are a lot of great local investigative stories waiting to be done with the data. This reporting recipe is meant to help you find and report ones near you.