[CPEO-BIF] Cleanup along Route 66 (Arizona)

[Lenny Siegel]

Beneath Route 66, a model cleanup
Gas-contaminated soil still lurks at many sites

Corinne Purtill
The Arizona Republic
September 3, 2006

The land beneath what was once the nation's most famous thoroughfare is 
tainted with decades-old gasoline, the insidious footprint of filling 
stations as long gone now as Route 66's heyday.

The ghosts of the hundreds of gas stations that used to fill up Fords 
and Chevys cruising between Chicago and Los Angeles haunt America's most 
iconic road and the small towns all along it.

Years ago, tourists poured into those dots on a map, and mom-and-pop 
businesses flourished. When the final stretch of Interstate 40 opened in 
Williams in 1984, bypassing Route 66, the tourists went away.

The distinctive gas stations, built at a time when gasoline storage 
tanks were made of easily corroded steel, closed when the interstate 
opened. Over time, leftover fuel in abandoned tanks leaked into the 
ground, poisoning soil and groundwater. The contamination scared off 
potential developers, who didn't want to assume responsibility for the 
environmental mess underfoot, and hampered growth in the towns along 
Arizona's stretch of the old highway.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0903route66plan0903.html

-- 
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org