The town of Times Beach, in the state of Missouri (USA) was evacuated in 1982 during a flood, but the inhabitants never returned to their homes: the land in the area had in fact been contaminated, over the years, by dioxins mixed with the motor oil that was spread on dirt roads, a common practice in the 1970s to avoid raising dust. Dioxins are a family of toxic compounds, sadly known for causing thousands of victims or serious health problems around the world, especially between the 1970s and 1980s. The major environmental contaminations of this product were mainly caused by industrial accidents, such as those in Seveso in Italy, as well as by the use of the herbicide Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The ghost town of Times Beach: toxic waste diluted in oil
The town of Times Beach was located in a rural area near St. Louis and several streets in the suburb were unpaved: the dust caused by vehicles passing by caused inconvenience to the inhabitants and the administration commissioned a local company to intervene. The company in charge belonged to Robert Bliss, an entrepreneur in the area, and spread used motor oil on the roads, on private estates or on racetracks, to compact the dust: a practice that is inconceivable today, but legal at the time, which the entrepreneur combined with his main business, the collection of industrial waste.
In the same period, the Hoffman-Taff chemical company, in the American city of Verona, Missouri, synthesized 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, part of the production of the defoliant Agent Orange used by the American military in the forested areas of Vietnam. Among the production waste, the most dangerous was certainly 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, a toxic and carcinogenic compound: the Bliss company was in charge of its disposal.
Bliss mixed the sewage from the dioxin-containing tanks with the treated oils and spread this mixture in more than twenty-five locations, including Times Beach and the Shenandoah Stables arena.
The discovery of the contamination and the consequences
Forty horses from the Shenandoah arena were, in 1971, the first victims of this practice, along with several wild and domestic animals; finally, when the daughter of the owner of the area fell ill, the authorities launched an initial investigation. Only in 1974 did the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) manage to link the episodes to the dioxin contained in the soil treated with oil spreading, and to identify the various treated areas.
In 1980, thanks also to the most famous case of Love Canal (in the state of New York), a federal fund was established to finance remediation work in the affected areas: the following years saw more in-depth studies, and in 1982 the inhabitants of Times Beach were warned for the first time of the presence of dioxins in their city.
In the final days of the year, however, the Times Beach affair became complicated. A flood of the nearby Meramec river led to the evacuation of the inhabited areas: the inhabitants left their homes convinced that they could return after a few days, without worrying about taking their belongings with them, but the fear of the spread of dioxins led the authorities to order the definitive eviction of the area.
After the flood, in fact, dioxin levels in some areas exceeded the concentration considered “safe” by up to 300 times: after a few months, the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) announced a property purchase program to encourage the relocation of residents.
Times Beach today
The reclamation works in the area lasted decades, ending in 1996 with the incineration of waste and soil from the city and surrounding sites, a total of 265,354 tons of material of which only 37,000 from Times Beach: the residues of this treatment were buried under a “hill” near the former city.
In 1999 the Times Beach area was transformed into a park, called Route 66 National Park in honor of the historic road that crosses the USA from the Great Lakes of the northeast to the Pacific coast. And since 2001 it has no longer been considered an area at risk for the health of visitors and operators, as also confirmed by the latest analyzes of 2012.
The dangers of dioxin and legislative shortcomings
The danger of dioxins, a family of chlorinated aromatic compounds, was already known in the 1970s: these were the years of the Seveso accident in Italy (1976), where an uncontrolled reaction inside a reactor of the ICMESA factory led to the formation of TetraChloroDibenzoDioxin (TCDD) and the release of vapors into the surrounding town.
The acute effects on the population, i.e. the immediate symptoms due to exposure to high concentrations, had already been observed: these were mainly breathing difficulties, eye and skin irritation (chloracne), as well as possible malformations for exposed fetuses. Long-term consequences, such as lymphoma or problems with the cardiovascular system, will become known over time, especially in areas of Vietnam where the use of the herbicide Agent Orange has been more massive.
Precisely this herbicide, and its production in the United States, linked the fate of the Asian country to the town of Times Beach, a suburb near St. Louis in Missouri. Despite the known danger of these compounds, in the United States the production sites of Agent Orange and related industrial waste were not particularly paid attention to or regulated by the authorities: the manufacturing companies could therefore entrust the collection of waste to small companies, without paying particular attention to their disposal.
The park is today an important green and tourist area, where visitors can get away from the chaos of the city, go horseback riding or fish on the Meramec River: only one building remains of the old city, previously a bar/dance hall called Bridgehead Inn, now transformed into the park’s Visitor Center.
