| ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE -- Beginning in February, 2002 and continuing until citizens stopped the Corps in June (see Hansen Dam Lakes Coalition), many thousands of cubic yards of tainted dredgings comprised mostly of garbage (shopping carts, tires, hoses, plastic trash, tires, diapers, car parts…) & "arundo donax" (invasive non-native plant) were removed from the affluent Sepulveda Basin area as well as the very polluted Whittier Narrows, then trucked many miles (passing legal landfills along the way) to be dumped into the smaller of the Hansen Dam lakes. In other words – pollutants were removed from one Los Angeles River tributary only to be dumped into another Los Angeles River tributary. In April 2003, after nearly a full year of citizen outcry, the Corps announced it would remove the (Little Lake) debris… but as of August 2003, at least 96% of the debris is still there. * * (Note – removal of the "the pimple" made no significant impact on the situation – see below). |
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| Corps escalates dumping in Feb 2002 |
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June 5, 2003 At the June 5 Hansen Dam Advisory meeting, the Corps' spokesman referred to the little lake's north bank as "sand" when it is, in fact, a solid mass of illegally imported arundo and garbage. Why the change in semantics...? Could it be because the Corps never said they'd remove "sand"...? See photos below - click to enlarge. |
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"The Pimple" The Pimple's Chronology: April 2003 – Army Corps announced it would remove "arundo" debris from Little Lake (see news stories). May 2003 -- Contract workers scraped together a modest pile at the tip-most top of the debris cliff. Community named this small mound "the pimple." July 29, 2003 – The Corps removed the tiny mound, which citizens estimate to be less than 2% of the foreign material that the Corps dumped in Hansen Dam’s little lake in 2002, and less than 4% of the debris that exists above the water line. Right: The pimple is gone, but remaining behind is a 40-foot tall cliff of above-the-water-line, garbage-infused, oil and other contaminant-laden, foreign imported debris. Removing "the pimple" was a start, but citizens would like to know: When will the other 96% of the above-water-line debris be removed…? |
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| "Pop" goes the the Pimple... |
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| But what about the other 6000 tons? |
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...And so the Sad Saga of the Little Lake continues... |
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