What's the interpretation of comparing a contaminant level in a monitoring well (in the soil?) with a standard meant for drinking water?<p>The "total reading" statistic is a bit useless. 5 ug/L here, 10 ug/L there, does NOT make 15 ug/L total.
The CA map is interesting too, because it has the cleanup sites with some information on them:
<a href="http://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/map/default.asp?global_id=&senate=&assembly=&x=-122.13380809170839&y=37.433736657802115&zl=15&ms=640,480&mt=roadmap&geotracker_luft=true&geotracker_slic=true&geotracker_landfill=true&geotracker_dod=false&wdr=false&geotracker_ust=false&dtsc_cleanup=false&dtsc_permit=false&showdist=false&searchdist=1000&searchaddr=500%20california%20ave,%20palo%20alto,%20ca" rel="nofollow">http://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/map/default.asp?global_...</a><p>It seems like gas stations typically leak a lot of gasoline into the ground. Is the burden always on the taxpayer to clean up?
So how close to one of these indicators do I have to be for it to be hazardous? There's two hot spots very close to my apartment complex (<1000 feet). Now I'm paranoid since I've been living here for 2 years and drinking tap water.<p>Edit:
Zooming out on the south bay it looks like the whole area has issues. I thought the TCE issue was contained to the Moffet Field area. It will be interesting to see the whole bay area when you add other counties. It's amazing to me that these hazardous conditions don't affect home prices.
The presentation of data here seems misleading. The red-green glow around each point seems like it's showing some sort of range of toxicity or something, that anything in the glow is affected somehow. But it's actually just a highlight around the icon. If you zoom in, the glow stays the same relative to the icon, but the range on the map is greatly reduced. If you zoom all the way out, it looks like the whole place in in a red zone, but it's not that way if you zoom in.
Is the data just for Santa Clara County (and really, those specific areas), or are they really that concentrated? Seems hard to believe there are no sites in the rest of the Bay Area.