In Saint Louis County, Missouri, lies a 419 square acer park commemorating Route 66. Within that parks visitor center hides a small plaque referring to a disincorporated town known as Times Beach. In 1983 the town was completely evacuated, due to massive amounts of Dioxin poisoning. Long story short (involving shady bureaucracy and multi corporational ethics) on January 7, 1983 the then president Ronald Reagan created the Times Beach Dioxin Task-force. (TBDT) to determine how to best handle the situation. It was ultimately decided that the town, and it's soil, was to be bulldozed and placed into a massive landfill, and later incinerated. Clean up was finally complete in 1997 and in total cost the US government $233 million, and the state $3.7 million. (For clean up and a federal buy-out of the town.)
by Invad3rBron7 November 24, 2019