The Fresno Sanitary Landfill in an American cultural context

Public Historian

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 17-35

  Melosi, Martin V ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ETHICS; GOVERNMENT; HISTORY; INDUSTRIAL WASTE; POLITICS; POLLUTION; SANITATION; UNITED STATES;

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION; GOVERNMENT AGENCIES; HISTORIOGRAPHY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 21ST CENTURY; INDUSTRIAL WASTE; POLITICS; SANITATION; UNITED STATES;

EID: 0142151065     PISSN: 02723433     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/tph.2002.24.3.17     Document Type: Review

References (85)

1. Another effort at preservation and documentation of an engineering structure - this time part of the Big Inch pipeline that was used to supply oil to the American military in World War II - also met with public derision. A lobbyist for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America stated, "This is silly. These are buried natural gas pipelines." The reaction of the Bush administration and members of Congress was to exempt many pipelines from historic preservation efforts. See Jeff Bliss, "Historic Status for Pipelines Resisted," Houston Chronicle, 16 August 2001.
2. Denis P. Galvin to Secretary, 27 August 2001, National Park Service Records.
3. In 1980, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), which authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to identify toxic and hazardous waste sites and to develop a National Priority List of the most dangerous of them. It also authorized EPA to take emergency action to control immediate hazards, it stated that anyone who had used the sites was potentially liable for the cost of cleanup, and it established a multibillion-dollar federal trust fund - called Superfund - to pay for emergency measures and to clean up sites where responsible parties could not be identified. See Richard N.L. Andrews, Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 248-49.
4. Geoffrey Mohan and Edmund Sanders, "Denials Fly Over Dump as Landmark," Los Angeles Times, 29 August 2001. www.latimes.com/news.
5. Ben White, "Calif. Debate: Who Made This Dump a Landmark?" Washington Post, 29 August 2001.
6. Paul Rogers, "Leaky Trash Site Chosen as National Treasure," San Jose Mercury News, 28 August 2001.
7. Associated Press, "Fresno Dump, a Superfund Toxic Waste Site, Gets Listing as a National Landmark," SF Gate News, 28 August 2001. www.sfgate.com.
8. See also Peter H. King, "Dump as Landmark Isn't a Waste," Los Angeles Times, 2 September 2001. www.latimes.com.
9. John Balzar, "George W: Garbage In, Garbage Out," Los Angeles Times, 29 August 2001. www.latimes.com.
10. Rogers, "Leaky Trash Site Chosen as National Treasure."
11. Donald E. Coleman, "Garbage In, Garbage Out for Fresno," Fresno Bee, 29 August 2001. www.fresnobee.com.
12. King, "Dump as Landmark Isn't a Waste."
13. "Rubbish Dump Joins Historic Landmark List," Yahoo!News (UK & Ireland), 28 August 2001. uk.news.yahoo.com.
14. See also Coleman, "Garbage In, Garbage Out for Fresno"; Barbara Whitaker, "Its Notorious Past Unearthed, Dump Loses Landmark Status," New York Times, 29 August 2001.
15. "Landfill Dumped from Historic Landmark List," Chicago Tribune, 29 August 2001. www.chicagotribune.com.
16. Geoffrey Mohan, "Dump Made a Landmark, But Will It Pass Sniff Test?" Los Angeles Times, 28 August 2001. www.latimes.com.
17. White, "Calif. Debate: Who Made This Dump a Landmark?" See also Coleman, "Garbage In, Garbage Out for Fresno"; Mohan and Sanders, "Denials Fly Over Dump as Landmark."
18. "Forget Honors: Place is a Dump," Arizona Republic, 29 August 2001;
19. "A Landmark Dump?" Partial transcript from Hannity & Colmes, Fox News Channel, 29 August 2001. www.foxnews.com.
20. S. Allen Chambers, Jr., National Landmarks, America's Treasures: The National Park Foundations Complete Guide to National Historic Landmarks (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), 2.
21. National Landmarks, America's Treasures, 4.
22. Larry S. Luton, The Politics of Garbage: A Community Perspective on Solid Waste Policy Making (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 1.
23. Rudolph Hering and Samuel A. Greeley, Collection and Disposal of Municipal Refuse (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1921), 257;
24. Harry R. Crohurst, "Municipal Wastes: Their Character, Collection, and Disposal," Public Health Service Bulletin 107 (October, 1920): 43-45;
25. H. de B Parsons, The Disposal of Municipal Refuse (New York: John Wiley and Co., 1906), 78-80;
26. D.C. Faber, "Collection and Disposal of Refuse," American Municipalities 30 (February, 1916): 185-86;
27. Robert H. Wild, "Modern Methods of Municipal Refuse Disposal," American City 5 (October, 1911): 207-8.
28. Cited in Martin V. Melosi, "Historic Development of Sanitary Landfills and Subtitle D," Energy Laboratory Newsletter 31 (Spring, 1994), 20.
29. Martin V. Melosi, "Down in the Dumps: Is There a Garbage Crisis in America?" in Martin V. Melosi, Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), 76-78.
30. Melosi, "Historic Development of Sanitary Landfills and Subtitle D," 20-24;
31. U.S. EPA, Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Environmental Fact Sheet (Washington, D.C.: EPA, April, 2000);
32. Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 345-48, 403-06.
33. GeoSyntec Consultants, Final Remedial Action Work Plan: Construction and Operations Activities for Operable Unit 1: Fresno Sanitary Landfill, Fresno, California (Walnut Creek, Calif.: GeoSyntec Consultants, 3 March 1999), 1-1;
34. GeoSyntec Consultants, Design of Source Control Operable Unit: Fresno Sanitary Landfill, Fresno, California, Volume I: Design Report (Walnut Creek, Calif.: GeoSyntec Consultants, 24 March 1997), 1-2;
35. Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., City of Fresno: Fresno Sanitary Landfill: Remedial Investigation Report, Final (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., 20 May 1994), 1-3.
36. Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., City of Fresno: Fresno Sanitary Landfill: Remedial Investigation Report, Final 1-3;
37. Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., Investigation and Feasibility Study for Fresno Sanitary Landfill (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., 1990), 1.
38. For types and amounts of typical materials disposed of by residential and commercial customers in the United States, see Martin V. Melosi, Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880-1980 (College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1981), 23-24, 194;
39. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 398.
40. Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., Final Administrative Order No. 90-24: Sampling and Analysis Plan for Fresno Sanitary Landfill, Fresno, California (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., 12 July 1991), 2-1;
41. Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., Investigation and Feasibility Study for Fresno Sanitary Landfill, 2-3;
42. GeoSyntec Consultants, Final Remedial Action Work Plan, 1-2.
43. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Fresno Sanitary Landfill: Superfund Site, Removal Action No. 1, 3;
44. For a detailed discussion of early landfill practice in New York City, see Steven Hunt Corey, "King Garbage: A History of Solid Waste Management in New York City, 1881-1970" (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1994), 189-238.
45. Melosi, Garbage in the Cities, 168;
46. Melosi, "Historic Development of Sanitary Landfills and Subtitle D," Energy Laboratory Newsletter 31 (1994): 20;
47. Ellis L. Armstrong, Michael C. Robinson, and Suellen M. Hoy, eds., History of Public Works in the United States, 1776-1976 (Chicago: American Public Works Association, 1976), 449-50;
48. "An Interview with Jean Vincenz," Public Works Historical Society Oral History Interview 1 (Chicago: Public Works Historical Society, 1980), 9-10;
49. John J. Casey, "Disposal of Mixed Refuse by Sanitary Fill Method at San Francisco," Civil Engineering 9 (October, 1939): 590-92.
50. See also "A Five-Year Plan on Sanitary Fills," Engineering News-Record 123 (3 August 1939): 159;
51. Craig E. Colten, "Chicago's Waste lands: Refuse Disposal and Urban Growth, 1840-1990," Journal of Historical Geography 20 (1994): 133-34.
52. "An Interview with Jean Vincenz," 1.
53. Jean L. Vincenz, "Sanitary Fill at Fresno," Engineering News-Record 123 (October 26, 1939): 539-40;
54. Vincenz, "The Sanitary Fill Method of Refuse Disposal," Public Works Engineers' Yearbook (1940), 187-201;
55. Vincenz, "Refuse Disposal by the Sanitary Fill Method," Public Works Engineers' Yearbook (1944), 88-96;
56. "The Sanitary Fill as Used in Fresno," American City 55 (February, 1940): 42-43;
57. "Sanitary-Fill Refuse Disposal at San Francisco," Engineering News-Record 116 (27 February 1936): 314-17;
58. "Fill Disposal of Refuse Successful in San Francisco," Engineering News-Record 116 (6 July 1939): 27-28;
59. J. C. Geiger, "Sanitary Fill Method," Civil Engineering 10 (January, 1940): 42;
60. "Sanitary Landfill and the Decline of Recycling as a Solid Waste Management Strategy in American Cities," 22-25;
61. Vincenz, "The Sanitary Fill Method of Refuse Disposal," 199.
62. See also Desmond P. Tynan, "Modern Garbage Disposal," American City 54 (June, 1939): 100-1;
63. Rolf Eliassen and Albert J. Lizee, "Sanitary Land Fills in New York City," Civil Engineering 12 (September, 1942): 483-86.
64. W. Rayner Straus, "Use of Sanitary Fill in Baltimore to Continue After the War," American City 60 (January, 1945): 82-83.
65. Vincenz, "Refuse Disposal by the Sanitary Fill Method," 88-89;
66. See also "Sanitary Fill for Montgomery County," American City 60 (April, 1945): 15.
67. King, "Dump as Landmark Isn't a Waste"; "Case for a Gritty National Landmark," Los Angeles Times, 3 September 2001. www.latimes.com.
68. John A. Kouwenhoven, The Beer Can by the Highway: Essays on What's "American" about America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1961), 217.
69. For more information on American consumerism and disposability of goods, see Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999);
70. Melosi, The Sanitary City, 176-77, 262-63, 339, 398.
71. EPA, Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Environmental Fact Sheet.
72. Michael Thompson, Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 2, 11.
73. See also the splendid overview by Kevin Lynch, Wasting Away: An Exploration of Waste: What It Is, How It Happens, Why We Fear It, How To Do It Well (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990).
74. William Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992), 10.
75. Peter van Mensch, "Towards a Methodology of Museology" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Zagreb, 1992).
76. See www.state.nm.us/MOIFAOnline/RecycledReSeen/americanpage.html.
77. See Eleni Asouti and Astrid Lindenlauf, "Approaches to the Study of Waste and Recycling," www.bham.ac.uk/TAG98/pages/abs/waste.html.
78. See Tina Kelley, "Using New York City's Trash as Text," www.nytimes.com;
79. Charlotte Caseb Dzujna, "Talking Trash," Emagazine 7 (September-October, 1996), www.emagazine.com.
80. Melosi, "Down in the Dumps: Is There a Garbage Crisis in America?" 82.
81. Shelley Bookspan, "Junk It, or Junket?" The Public Historian 23, no. 2 (Spring, 2001): 5-7. Bookspan related a class assignment she had used at UC-Santa Barbara with the Fresno landfill as the subject. She presented the students with a description of a historic resource that was designed by a famous engineer, was more than 70 years old, was the first of its kind, had its integrity intact, and is a recognizable element of its landscape. The initial response was that the resource deserved to be saved-until she later mentioned that it was the FSL. "Now," she said, "they answered no, usually without qualification, as if the very type of resource it was - a contaminated dump - negated all of the significance factors I had recited, negated the significance of the evaluation process."
82. Donald L. Hardesty, "Issues in Preserving Toxic Wastes as Heritage Sites," The Public Historian 23, no. 2 (Spring, 2001): 20.
83. For example, see Michael J. Hogan, "The Enola Gay Controversy: History, Memory, and the Politics of Presentation." In Michael J. Hogan (Ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 200-32;
84. J. Samuel Walker, Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 98-110;
85. Philip Nobile, Judgment at the Smithsonian (New York: Marlowe & Co., 1995).