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ONE_BORN

                                             September 6, 2013


   I see down by the Bayshore Caltrain
   station, a construction project
   has started up right next to one
   of the few open spaces left on the
   San Francisco Peninsula.

   As I understand it, this is some sort
   of Superfund clean-up site (which I             The clean-up techniques
   would guess has something to do with            are interesting: they
   the massive chemical tanks on the               bulldozed the top-soil
   other side of the train tracks).                into little piles, and
                                                   planted them with
   Bruce Sterling used to call places              Pampas grass.  I guess
   like this "involuntary parks", places           the idea is to expose
   where industrial screw-ups rendered             the toxins in the
   a place temporarily uninhabitable by            subsoil to let them
   human beings (at least legally, if              slowly evaporate, and
   not in actual fact); they become                perhaps break down in
   defacto nature preserves, reclaimed             direct sunlight.  The
   by the wilderness.                              cleaner topsoil is
                                                   restrained in the
       The canonical example: Chernobyl            hillocks by the roots
                                                   of the famously hardy
                                                   pampas grass... or
    It's not clear what this new                   perhaps the pampas
    construction is going to be yet,               grass actually sucks
    but I sincerely hope it turns                  up some of the toxins,
    out to be a massive pile of                    so they can come in and
    godawful condos -- excuse me,                  "harvest" it later?
    a "transit village".

        They should call it
        "Superfund Towers".






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