Professor Shin
Geography 168
After reading the Los Angeles Times article, Feinstein, Boxer Call for Delay on Plans to Expand Central Valley Landfill, I found myself echoing Magdalena Romero in asking the question, “And why did it take so long for an investigation?” I concluded that although it is a simple question, its answer is far more philosophical in nature. I realized that the difficulty in the resolving landfill and birth defect issue lies neither in finding the problem or solution, the struggle is in acquiring a universal acknowledgement that there exists a problem in need of a solution and thus necessitates a mobility of action.
An example, taken from the article elaborates this concept, “During a recent tour of the facility, a reporter pointed out that a toxic waste pond was missing nearly all of the aluminum foil streamers that were installed over its surface to ward of waterfowl. A Waste Management crew replaced the streamers within 20 minutes.” It is clear that problems with landfills, indeed, exist because a reporter was able to recognize an issue during a tour and a solution is available and tangible because all it took was a single Waste Management employee and 20 minutes time. Even if the creation of a landfill site may not be the direct cause of birth defects, the necessity of its maintenance must surely not be neglected. Not only does the landfill site need to be maintained by its employees, its employees require a sort of looking after as well. Citizens bestow the responsibility involving the preservation of health, safety, and security on the government. Therefore, such issues must be regarded as a top priority for the government and the best way to achieve such regard is the use of GIS.
By using the ArcGIS software in completing the assigned two “Suitability Analysis” tutorials, a defined area of land can be analyzed in terms such as slopes and distance and thus can be ranked in landfill suitability. This means that GIS serves as a great medium in visualizing and, therefore, appropriately analyzing the pros and cons of various potential landfill locations. The second tutorial walked me through the process that is entailed when conducting a landfill suitability analysis, which resulted in 6 different maps (see Figure 2). A landfill suitability analysis provides many maps detailing the various consequences that the project will have upon the natural environment; the amount of data regarding the project’s anthropogenic impact clearly demonstrates both its risk and the perpetual resources required for its maintenance.
While the second tutorial dealt more on the analysis the first one focused more so on generation of data projected on individual maps. Examples of such focus include the establishment of stream buffers, the calculation of landfill distances, the construction of slope elevation maps, the reclassification of each map layers etc--all of which are part of the final preparation for a detailed and thorough analysis. The tutorial stresses the significance in reclassification of individual map layers. Reclassification in GIS is a process of analysis that few people experience yet most people should know in regards of environmental risk of landfill site proposals. The tutorial brings up influential factors involved in the decision making process of applying the proper distance to open landfills such as public input and scientific or economic data. It also notes that that the value of distance is viewed subjectively, “We don’t want landfills right on top of each other, but we don’t want them too far away, as this could cause management and maintenance headaches.”
The last half of this statement answered my initial question. The location of the landfill was caused by a poor judgment of landfill placement that certainly did not involve any geographic analysis tools like ArcGIS. Regardless of what answer is true to that question, I must remind myself that although GIS is capable of finding that solution it is also capable of transferring a greater message to the public, the judicial system and the private companies that earth is far more fragile and easily swayed by anthropogenic influences. If we manipulate the environment and do so with mindful of this characteristic the earth possesses we can transcend humanity in our simultaneous maintenance of a healthy and safe surrounding while advancing the fields of engineering and architecture.
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