by Cary Chapman
Are you sick and tired of your beach vacation being so freakin’ pristine? Do travel slogans like “a glimpse of paradise” and “taste of heaven” send shivers of cold fury wriggling down your spine? On your last trip, did you find yourself thinking, “You know what this place needs? More sludge.” If you said yes to one or more of these questions, you may be part of a growing niche market that the tourism industry has dubbed “Brownfield Travel.” And you are in luck, my friend, for we present to you the first ever travel guide to America’s most notoriously contaminated places. Known as Superfund Sites, these wastelands are catalogued by the EPA and divided into ten regions. I have included one representative place from each region. All quotes are taken from the EPA’s website. Happy travels!
Region 1: Yaworski Waste Lagoon, CT
Everyone likes lagoons, am I right, folks? This one is pretty special—it was the dumping site for “textile dyes, solvents, resins, acids, caustics, stillbottom sludges, and solvent-soaked rags” until 1973 and the burning of flammable liquid waste until 1965. Pack your most stylish hazmat suit and come on down for a refreshing departure from the cleanliness and sanity of your daily grind, complete with lagoon-side dining featuring Yaworski’s famous catch of the day. Best of all, you’ll get a picturesque view of the Quinebaug River, which, along with some sparkling groundwater supplies, winds right by the lagoon.
Region 2: Carroll and Dubies Sewage Disposal, NY
For those of you who enjoy treating yourselves to a spa retreat and makeover, this is the place for you. Home to two different cosmetic manufacturers in the seventies, Carroll and Dubies is swimming with volatile organic compounds and ripe for you and your girlfriends to lean back and unwind. Pack plenty of cucumbers—your eyelids will need them! And thanks to cofounder John Dubies, you’ll never have to go far to find a bathroom. Septic waste was an important component of Dubies’ toxic vision all those years ago, and his legacy lives on in the site’s pungent aroma.
Region 3: Spelter Smelter, WV
Country roads, take me home to Spelter. As you can see from the literally smoldering waste pile, this is one of America’s most apocalyptic Superfund Sites. And with a name like Spelter Smelter, this place is straight out of a Dr. Seuss book—like the place in The Lorax after total destruction has wreaked havoc on the land. Formerly home to a zinc smelting plant, Spelter is a small rural town nestled in the hills of West Virginia. As a result of years of dumping of zinc tailings (a residue of the smelting process), the site is filled with “zinc tailing piles of up to 100 feet high covering about 50 acres, with high concentrations of lead, cadmium, and arsenic. Residential areas are located immediately north, northeast and east and some homes are within 50 yards of the zinc tailing piles.” With so many friendly neighbors nearby, your children will have plenty of playmates. In fact, we hear that “children continue to ride dirt-bikes over the zinc tailings piles and along a bike trail adjacent to the piles.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I have never heard of a Superfund Site with a bike trail. What a unique opportunity, folks: grab your kids and hit the road—you’ve got one hell of a place waiting for you.
Region 4: Cape Fear Wood Preserving, NC
Don’t worry! This alligator used to give Cape Fear it’s intimidating name, but thanks to the wood preserving plant’s legacy, namely “copper, chromium, arsenic, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” alligators are being threatened. It won’t be long before they’re all gone, opening this undiscovered gem for all to marvel at, terror-free. With residential, industrial, commercial, and agricultural land bordering the site, you’ll have everything you need at your fingertips. Hurry before city officials change the name to “Cape Rainbows and Unicorns” and the masses start flocking in. You want to be able to say, “I was there before it was warm and fuzzy,” don’t you? Then what are you waiting for?!
Region 5: Pagel’s Pit, IL
Just look at all those people down by the pit! Likely they came from brunch at nearby Pagel’s Bagels, which sources tell us is about to offer a new special called Overfilled Landfill. It’s an everything bagel, spread with a thick layer of cream cheese and plastic fragments, soaked in sour milk and left to decay for two to three weeks. The hard hats are a little perplexing, but who knows? Maybe they’re needed to protect against diving attackers streaking down from the mottled-grey sky: all the flying creatures that have ever been wronged by the smelly backside of human progress. But please, don’t let that get in the way of a wonderful rendezvous. Construction site yellow is incredibly ugly to birds, anyway.
Region 6: Tar Creek, OK
Ah, glorious Tar Creek, with its flowing crimson fluid! It’s not blood, I promise. Honestly though, is that water so far off (in chemical composition as well as appearance) from red Kool Aid? Home to a tri-state mining district, Tar Creek gets its name from lead and zinc tailings that accumulated in 200-foot piles as byproducts of extracting the ore. It sits directly above an aquifer and is chock full of nooks and crannies (abandoned mines and mine shafts) to explore. Bring your wading boots and sandcastle molds—the creek awaits! Maybe your sediment creation will contain enough heavy metals to win a prize in Tar Creek’s annual Castles in the Sludge Tournament.
Region 7: Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant, NE
You don’t want to mess with a cornhusker, let alone a whole army of them. But as long as your name’s not Zea Mays, you should be safe. This Nebraska destination is for those of you who can’t resist a good tour. You won’t want to miss the three-hour stroll through the former site of a World War Two-era operation of “five main components: five major production areas where munitions were loaded, assembled, and packed; a fertilizer manufacturer; two major storage facilities; sanitary landfills; and burning grounds where materials contaminated with explosives were ignited.” Munitions! Explosives! What more could you want in a getaway?
Region 8: Smuggler Mountain, CO
Taken circa 1900, this photo of Smuggler Mine shows that if what you want is a rich sense of history, look no further. A silver and lead mine from 1879 to 1920, Smuggler is nestled within Aspen, Colorado, a popular tourist destination in its own right. And the place is true to its name: the lead and cadmium in the soil are so discreet you won’t know it’s there (until you develop cancer at age fifty). Fall in love with the area? Go ahead and make the move; the entire infrastructure for a modern athletic family is already in place. “The site is largely developed, containing large and small condominiums, mobile home parks, a tennis club and numerous single family residences.”
Region 9: Purity Oil Sales, Inc., CA
Just because your vacation is chock full of petroleum waste product doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice purity. This site has the purist toxic waste around, guaranteed. Operated as an oil reprocessing facility from 1934 to 1974, Purity Oil is a great place to start that juice cleanse you’ve been dying to try. From waste oil sludge to asbestos-covered tanks, this place has got the full range of amenities you’re looking for. So grab yourself a few heads of kale, some chia seeds, and an inhaler and come find your bliss in the closest thing America has to a promised land: California.
Region 10: Boomsnub-AIRCO, WA
Home of loud music and rude people, Boomsnub is the place for those who don’t feel comfortable with the mainstream tourist trap scene. Located in Vancouver, Washington, the former chrome plating facility is currently home to a fully operational gas plant. Because the “hexavalent chromium and volatile organic compounds mingled in a contamination plume in the groundwater” from Boomsnub’s chrome plating days just weren’t enough pollution. To make sure that each guest gets the full boom for his or her snub, included in the stay is a free breakfast buffet complete with our very own chromium-fused water.
Image via, via, via, via, via, via, via, via, via, via, and via.
