In my Urban Ecology course we have read segments from the book Rubbish! by William Rathje and Cullen Murphy. The book reminded me that landfills can be a major source of groundwater and river contamination. Landfills secrete a toxic cocktail called leachate, that is soaked up into the ground and can potentially leak into groundwater. The authors point out that newer landfills are strategically located far from drinking water sources, and lined with plastic and clay to prevent leachate sepage. Unfortunately, most old landfills do not have leachate controls protection, therefore the risk remains.
On the brighter side, their study found that many toxics do not move very far within the landfill matrix. After digging through garbage dumps around the country, including my home town of Sunnyvale California, the authors found that heavy metals such as lead and mercury are unlikely to spread within the dump. This is good news.
Still, the risk of leachate contamination reinforces a watershed analysis of the Llobregat river. As I prepare to conduct my dissertation research, I am still unsure what scale I should use: regional scale (Forman), watershed scale, a river bank, or the scale an experimental project. The scalar choice is an important one, and will define the level of detail I can measure certain variables.
This summer, I hope to beging Field Research in the Llobregat with support from the Tinker Foundation and the Center for Latin American Studies at UIUC. As I move forward, I'll be keeping in mind the potential impact of landfills, and mapping where they are located within the Llobregat watershed.
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