Dear HCN,
I read with great interest the
article about Mesa del Sol, “Project mixes suburbs with nature
preserve” (HCN, 2/3/03: Project mixes suburbs with nature
preserve). The article failed to elaborate one aspect of this
“community of 100,000 people, living amid open space and restored
rangeland”: It’s also located next to a Cold War toxic waste
dump. The Mixed Waste Landfill is a 2.6-acre radioactive and
hazardous waste dump located less than a mile from the border of La
Semilla, where the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management will
be constructing its “international headquarters.”
Statements made by DOE that the Mixed Waste Landfill “poses no
short-or long-term environmental concerns to the Mesa del Sol
development” are completely without scientific merit. The landfill
contains over 40 types of radioactive waste products, including
both short and long-lived nuclides such as cobalt, plutonium,
cesium and strontium, and large quantities of toxic metals like
lead and depleted uranium.
As far as the conservative
water use plan that will be implemented by Mesa del Sol,
that’s definitely up for discussion. The estimated 50 gallons
per person per day x 100,000 residents at Mesa del Sol = 5,000,000
gallons per day, which adds up to 1,825,000,000 gallons per year.
This estimate accounts for only the residential water usage at Mesa
del Sol. This is still a lot of water for our fragile high desert
environment in New Mexico when one considers our continuing
drought, growing population, polluted river, and a mayor who has
fought for continued development.
So where is all that
water needed to sustain the Mesa del Sol going to come from? For
starters, from Albuquerque’s severely depleted aquifer,
followed in the not-so-distant future by water from wells drilled
in the same aquifer shared by Mesa del Sol’s neighbor, the
Mixed Waste Landfill. We hope the developer — and Mesa del
Sol’s future residents — are aware of the liabilities
and potential health issues associated with building a community
next to a toxic waste dump.
Sue Dayton
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The writer is director of Citizen
Action, a coalition of nongovernmental groups and neighborhood
associations working for cleanup of the Mixed Waste
Landfill.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A ‘green development’ next to a toxic dump.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
