Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Dump

Alkali Lake Chemical Waste Dump is a hazardous waste disposal site near the southwest edge of Alkali Lake, a seasonally dry playa in Lake County, Oregon. It is in the Summer Lake watershed. The site has been the focus of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) efforts to remediate a complex mix of toxic chemicals. Problems were initially caused by the dumping of hazardous waste near the lakebed between 1969 and 1971.

Beginning in February 1969, Chemical Waste Storage and Disposition, a Beaverton company, stored roughly 25,000 55-gallon drums of chemical waste near the shore of the playa with a permit from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The drums contained pesticides including 2,4-D and MCPA herbicide residue containing chlorophenols, polymeric chlorophenoxyphenols and dioxins/furans (including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin); metallic chloride waste, and paints and paint solvent. Chemical Waste Storage was contracted for waste disposal by the Chipman division of Rhodia, a Portland herbicide manufacturer, and by Oregon Metallurgical Corporation, a titanium producer. Further shipments were prohibited in 1971, due to improper waste handling practices. The State of Oregon took over the site in 1974, after losing legal actions against Chemical Waste Storage to force their compliance with new hazardous waste laws. First the Circuit Court and then the Court of Appeals determined that the company was financially unable to comply with the new regulations and that the State was to some extent complicit. In 1976, at a cost of $84,000, the state used bulldozers to push, crush and compact the leaking barrels into a dozen shallow, unlined, 400' long trenches, then covered them with soil.

...
Wikipedia