Talk:Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Dump

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A fact from Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Dump appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 March 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Dump in Oregon contains 25,000 drums of chemical waste, dumped in 1969 by a predecessor of Bayer CropScience?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/March.

Wikipedia

location[edit]

I added coordinates, but they aren't exact. It'd be nice to have them point exactly to the Chemical Waste Disposal Area found on these maps. tedder (talk) 00:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WoW! Thank u WP Oregon! Duff (talk) 00:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Found better coordinates and added them. BTW, the EPA is COMPLETELY wrong on the location, probably a hundred miles or more off. But this database entry gives the coordinates and they are entirely correct. tedder (talk) 02:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Caps[edit]

Should Chemical Waste Dump really be capitalized? Is it used as a proper name in sources? If not it should probably be moved. Steven Walling 04:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's capitalized here and here; other sources ([1], [2], [3]) are in all-caps, which isn't helpful. tedder (talk) 04:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the government sources are enough for me. Steven Walling 05:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Phenyls?[edit]

From the reference, is the term "phenols" meant, not "phenyls"? Phenyl is not a stable chemical compound. In addition, the actual phenols involved should be stated. Delmlsfan (talk) 01:45, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Delmlsfan! It's nice that someone knows more than we do. I don't know about Duff, but I've never taken a chemistry class. this document is pretty ~~dense~~ in-depth; hopefully it helps out. Most of the sources just call it "pesticide manufacturing waste". Let us know. tedder (talk) 04:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rhodia (company)[edit]

Is Rhodia (company) the same company as the one mentioned in the article? I hesitated to wikify it because I am not sure of the relationship. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had the same head scratcher when I first wrote it...unwikified to investigate further. Duff (talk) 03:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article/reference titled "LEGISLATURE'S 1991 FUND EXCLUDES SOUTHERN OREGON SITE" says the following. Sorry, it's behind a paywall; if someone wants to investigate further, email me. But this (legally posted) snippet should clarify. "To pay for studies and cleanup at Alkali Lake, the DEQ is seeking money from the original makers of the waste. A defunct company, Rhodia, produced most of the herbicides dumped there. It became Rhone-Poulenc Inc. which Aventis CropScience USA acquired in 2000. Aventis became Bayer CropScience in 2002." tedder (talk) 04:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Upper right of this page might have some more details. (for posterity, it's an RFC, titled "Proposed Consent Judgment for Portion of Cleanup Costs at Alkali Lake Facility"). tedder (talk) 04:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Site ownership chain of custody[edit]

How did it get from this: "The State of Oregon took over the site in 1974,..." to this: "The dumpsite is currently surrounded by barbed wire and owned by Bayer CropScience, the successor to Rhodia.[3]"? That detail is significant. Was it ever sold? Ownership transferred in some way or not? What does "took over" mean? What does successor mean? Who are the persons involved in the legal processes at the State's end? Need references. Duff (talk) 05:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably poorly worded. I'm not sure how the ownership changed now. I know that DEQ took over management of the site, but I'm unsure on ownership. Having said that, I'm WP:AGF on myself, because I usually don't invent stuff! Want me to modify it, or do you want to? tedder (talk) 05:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chemicals present[edit]

We need a proper list. What we have is redundant and unlikely. 2,4-D is one of the main components of Agent Orange, phenyls are noted as unstable above and the titanium compound is highly reactive with water alone. Rmhermen (talk) 14:40, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

No time to parse this today, but just came across an interesting document, here http://crag.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Report-to-EPA-March-2011-re-Alkali-Lake-Risks-to-Environmental-Health.pdf, associated with this OPB article http://earthfix.opb.org/land/article/agent-orange-dump-site-is-oregon-deserts-toxic-leg/9 duff 18:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]