Toxic Underground Fires Are Spreading at California Landfills

Three years ago environmental regulators discovered garbage burning deep inside California's Chiquita Canyon Landfill, reports the Los Angeles Times. [Alternate URL here.] "Few imagined the calamity that would follow. "Somehow the landfill's pollution control system introduced oxygen below, causing decades-old waste to rapidly decompose, generating intense heat and eventually widespread smoldering, federal and state environmental agencies say." The broiling temperatures released toxic gases and hazardous liquid waste that bubbled up to the surface. Residents living in the nearby communities of Val Verde and Castaic have phoned in thousands of complaints about stench and lived with nausea, dizziness and trouble breathing. The underground...

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