Millions Of Tons Of Debris, Some Toxic, Piling Up From Paradise Fire; The Problem - Where To Put It?

[hatrack]

The long road to recovery in the town of Paradise starts with removing millions of tons of charred rubble left in the Camp fire’s wake. But the question remains: Where will it all go?

Disaster officials are scrambling to secure a place to sort and process the remnants of nearly 19,000 structures destroyed in the wildfire that began on Nov. 8 and killed 86 people. The mammoth undertaking has been slowed by staunch opposition in nearby communities eyed as potential sites for a temporary scrapyard, which would receive 250 to 400 truckloads of concrete and metal each day. First it was Chico, where in late December residents persuaded the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the California Office of Emergency Services — the agencies responsible for the cleanup — to look elsewhere.

EDIT

It was during the public feedback period in December that Chico residents made a case for why the fire rubble should not be processed next to the Barber Yard neighborhood on the south side of town. Officials ultimately abandoned the proposal after determining that roads in the residential area were not built to withstand the weight of industrial trucks and equipment and that the activity could affect traffic to nearby businesses.

In both Chico and Oroville, environmental concerns have trumped all others, including noise and traffic. Though only non-toxic concrete and metal would be processed at the site — hazardous waste such as car batteries, electronics and asbestos will be sent to designated landfills in California and Nevada — residents worry that toxic dust could blow off the debris and compromise air quality.

EDIT

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-camp-fire-rubble-cleanup-20190107-story.html

[SWBTATTReg]

1. With all of the fires in Calif. and the West in general already, they don't know where to put ...

debris like this yet? These fires have been going on for literally years. Surely you have some idea of what to do w/ this debris.

[GeorgeGist]

3. How many times have entire cities been consumed?

Paradise is a town in Butte County, California, United States in the Sierra Nevada foothills above the northeastern Sacramento Valley. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 26,218. On November 8, 2018, a major wildfire, the Camp Fire, destroyed most of Paradise and the adjacent Concow communities.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise,_California

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Good point. A sad situation all around. And rump is threatening to take away FEMA etc. ...

Pathetic. He did this in TX and Puerto Rico. Who's next? Some so called president, eh?

[NNadir]

2. The reality is that even without fires, all our "stuff" is designed to be dumped.

The dump mentality is the only thing that stands between humanity and sustainability.

Unfortunately, very few people, and nearly all people around the world with power are disinterested, except in ill thought out abstraction, in sustainability.

On the day to day level, almost no one is ashamed to get a bag at a donut shop that will be in the trash in less than 45 seconds, never mind considering what will be come of that ersatz "green" solar cell on their roofs. The mentality is "someday they'll figure it out?"

The "they'll" stripped of resources, may not have enough left to figure out anything.