Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic what's in YOUR back yard?

there's this toxic waste site a couple miles from my house. i decided to look it up in the EPA records to see what was there. i wasn't sure which side of the town line it was on, so when i searched the database to find the site, i told it to show all listings in my county. imagine my surprise when i discovered no less than 68 hits.

some of them had really fun things, too. here are a few samples.

so, having found all this lovely stuff happening in my area, i thought i'd take the time to let the rest of you know. the epa's index search page can be found here and an a-z listing of FAQs about most of the substances listed in the reports can be found here.

note that drinking water is carefully filtered, treated, and tested. i just went to my town library to check the water testing results (conducted by various independant labs), and they look good.

otoh, if you plant veggies in your back yard or if your house is on well water, you should definitely look into what's going on in your area.

Paul

Mmmmm Paul... that all sounds lovely!

Helga
(Who spent a large part of her formative years living close to this...

And don't forget all the old underground storage tanks that are leaking gasoline Service stations that stayed in business have probably updated theirs, but the stations that just closed and are still sitting there probably have leaky USTs.

Just to add to the general cheer of the thread

Helga, that looked like a nuclear plant...? I grew up near one, too (not quite as near as in that picture, tho!) -- you may recognize the name: Three Mile Island. That's the one that had a problem in the late seventies -- there for a while they were afraid it would melt down. My family evacuated -- that's actually one of my clearest childhood memories <g>

On the whole, though, I still think nuclear power is the cleanest way we have for generating substantial amounts of energy.

PJ
who lives fairly close to the Sharon Harris nuclear plant

Around my neck of the woods, we have peach trees(we're known as the Peach Capital of the World, if fact). The only real contamination we might get is from the pesticides used to spray the trees. In that aspect, I guess I'm fortunate. I would have hated to get up every morning and look out on that, Helga. I guess that's the price we pay for technology.

SQD (who encourages others to tell about what's in their backyards)

Wow! I look out my window into my backyard and all I see is trees - as far as the eye can see. And hiding between those trees are bears and deer and skunks and porcupines and chipmunks and beavers and about a million rabbits.

And although I really hate it when the bears eat my berries or when a skunk or porcupine has an encounter with my dog (who is free to wander every inch of my land) or when the beavers decide to dam up my creek, I'll take my trees over what the rest of you seem to have to look at on a daily basis.

Every so often, someone offers to pay me to cut down my trees or to buy my land. But if I have any say in it, those trees will still be standing on the day of my death (well, except for the ones I cut down to burn for heat).

ML (who will now go outside to look into a star filled sky - unhindered by any light pollution - and thank the maker for allowing her to live in the wilderness )

Wow, I have such a boring backyard compared to you guys (or at least when I'm home at my folks house to *have* a backyard). I look out the window, and I see a house. It's this mustardy yellow color...looks like they never really painted it. It's where the country club estates start. (We don't play golf or tennis, hence we see no reason to join the country club.)

Jen

I'm in Illinois. We have corn. Lots and lots of corn. And soybeans. Ugh. Can't ya just feel my joy?

My backyard has a shed, and a flowerbed I need to weed, and an arbor I need to fix, and a yard I need to mow... maybe I ought to do that stuff... nah.

I found a few places around my area with landfills, but couldn't find the descriptions like you did, Paul.

Illinois also has.. er, it has.. um. Never mind. Unless you're in Southern Illinois, then you can hang out at the Garden of the Gods and Hole-in-Rock. Where are you, Caroline?

About 40-ish miles outside of Chicago. Joliet area. LOL so its not *that* much corn. We have more than one grocery store so I guess it's not a hick town. Right???

LOL. Well, since you're that close to Chicago, I wouldn't call it a hick town. If you were further away, then there might be a chance!

Caroline, that's the area my mom grew up!

I have no backyard... I live in an apartment. But my (fairly large) balcony illustrates two theories I have: you can never have too many plants (hanging, sitting along all the walls, in windowboxes...); and you can never have too many windchimes! As far as larger "backyards" go, I live about 10 miles from the Pacific. I'll take that over just about any other view, anyday.

I'd settle for my own room, let alone a back yard.

The is rest just lots and lots of restaurants, clothing and souvenir shops, and other residential buildings.

Horse manure but we actually pick it up and put it in a pile and then neighbors come in their pickups and scoop it up and take it away so its in THEIR backyards

Oh, gosh, don't even get me started about what's in *my* backyard. Okay, I am pretty sure that it isn't pollution, but who knows. Everyone that knows the stories that I tell about my dad and his crazy ideas on IRC will understand this.

Okay, I live in a fairly large city, the largest suburb of Cleveland, Ohio (and Cleveland is very industrial -- so polluted that the Cuyahoga River was on fire years ago.) But I digressed. My house is in a delopement that surrounds some of the only green space in the city that isn't a park (it's a very small forrest that is about 2 blocks long) and my parents purposely bought a house whose backyard faces on the woodland. We have a creek in our back yard and often see deer and other cute animals that make my dog go crazy in our back yard.

When my parents first moved into this house before I was born, the back yard was a complete forrest. But then sequentially through the years my dad had "visions" of what he should change our backyard into. Oh and don't be mistaken, we don't have acres of land -- we have a 50 foot lot with a creek and a woods behind.

So when I was about 7 my dad started cuttnig down trees to build his first deck. Yes I said first deck. So he cleared the area close to my house and built this massive deck that is just outside the addition/sun room that they put on the house. But one massive deck just wasn't good enough for him so then he put up a shed.

And that was sort of sufficient for him for a few years... until... he retired 3 years ago. And then he became "Mr. Crazy Gardener." So he decided to turn our woods into a "woodland garden." One thing to remember about my dad is that he never plans anything in advance, he just goes to the plant store (never go with him if he meantions the dirt store, hertz nursery, or the rock store... and yes, these places do exist... believe me). Okay, back to the story. My dad just goes and buys these... plants... luckily now he is working exclusively in the back yard and not the front yard any more (oh that's a different story entirely... my sister and I hated this one plant he had so much that we would purposely try to run it over with our cars, pick at it when we went out to walk the dog or get the mail, and finally to kill it we poured a combination of bug spray, turpentine, and wall paper remover on it). But I digress.

Now obviously in order to plant his plants around the trees, he needs drainage ditches. Why? We still aren't entirely sure. I guess, even though he builds downward sloping mounds of dirt (that he buys from the dirt store), he still needs to drain the water to the creek after it rains. Okay, fine, I guess if he wants to do that it's fine. But who do you think he made dig all the ditches? That's right. Me. And then he put this drain pipe in the ditches and covered them with rocks from the rock store. The funny thing is... the ditches don't work.

Now, our back yard has about 20 mounds of dirt with his "beautiful gardens" consisting of plants that don't even come close to matching... I wish I had a picture because it's hillarious... surrounded by drainage ditches that don't work. Yes, *each* garden mound of dirt is surrounded by a drainage ditch. So, you may ask, why did he have to go out and buy dirt when he was digging big holes right around the area he wanted to plant? That question remains unanswered to this day.

And now we've covered his "gardens." Now, I must address his "decks." Yes I said deck*s* plural. His massive deck right outside the door (which for some strange reason he has removed the step from and my mom can't even step out the door any more because of her arthritis) has been joined by another deck a little farther down the hill. Oh, yes, I must add that the drainage ditches are again pointless because we live on a large hill that slopes DOWN TO THE CREEK... the obvious path for water. But God forbid we tell him that . Anway, there is now another deck a bit further down the hill wiht steps that lead down to the creek. Okay, why are there steps leading down to the creek? Are we going to jump in for a swim or something? Yeah right.

So what is the project for this year? We thought that the yard was complete. Of course it isn't... not for my dad. He decided that we need another deck. Obviously. So he dug a big hole in the area just to the left of the second deck. Only this deck isn't going to be made of wood. It's going to be made of bricks. Does he have a plan? Nope. Does he have an idea of what he wants to do? Nope. Does he come in every day after hours of working in the yard and complain about it -- and how my dog likes to do his business on the new deck (because it used to be his run around area and now it is deck... poor Maxie is confused) and how he can't cut the wood to make the steps? Of course he does.

Oh and the fountins. I can't believe I forgot about his precious fountins. Right in the middle of the first deck, he bought this weird-looking fountain. Originally it was going to have flowers in it, but now he's given up on that idea. He just likes to see the water flowing. But there's a problem my dog likes to drink that water when he is outside and the animals from the woods always come out and drink it... so he can't understand why there is never any water in the fountain. Yes, he does put on a humerous show talking about the fountains. So what did he do when he thought the fountain wasn't working? He bought another one... obviously. So now we have 2 fountains in our back yard... and he has to re-fill both of them every day. And he wonders why the water bill is so high in the summertime. Obviously.

It is also very funny because my dad always screams and my sister and me that we never come outside. Well, I don't like bugs, I'm allergic to just about everything, and I hate nature. So why would I like to look at his garden wonderland? And my sister is even worse than I am! And my mom is sick. So the only person that ever goes outside to "enjoy" the "beautiful backyard" is my crazy father. And that's when he dreams up his new plans. And we run and hide.
Oh no, speaking of the back yard, I just realized that I left my poor puppy out there and it is pourning rain. Usually, he barks for me to let him in after a few minutes. Whoops.

- Alicia
now I'm smart and changed back to Alicia from Andrus

alicia!

Paul, fighting to type straight while laughing

Alica! I think your dad should meet my parents (latest project: building a marsh using the rain water run off from the roof... )

To be honest, when I said close to I meant within 20 miles, but I think that's close enough...

Yes Pam, that is a nuclear power station, Sellafield to be exact. I could go on for hours about it, but I'll spare you all the details, just type the name into a search engine and enjoy!

It's located on the edge of the Lake District, one of our National Parks, so most of the time we got to look at something like this...



However, climb any one of those mountains, and admire the view of the hills, the lakes, the sea, the Isle of Man on a good day, oh yes and the itsy-bitsy nuclear power station. Lovely!

Helga
(Probably more scarred by the tourists than the radiation... )

Well, I know that there was a lot of dumping going on in Pompton Lakes, NJ by the DuPont plant that closed (I lived one town over in Oakland and my father-in-law used to work for DuPont years ago).

Now, we live in beautiful, rustic Sussex County. We live in a condo, so we don't really have a back yard, just a tiny little garden that we're not allowed to plant. Part of our monthly maintenaince goes to a landscaper that does very little but mow and snow removal. We have bent the rules a little and planted tulips on occasion, but they never seem to bloom after that first year. My hubby and I were both born with purple thumbs...

Most of Sussex County looks just like ML's description...and that's the way we like it!

Dirt, bricks, tiles and mini-hill. Over the hill you see another house, with a nice backyard, typical suburbia.