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In fact, the earth seems to be reclaiming this abused chunk for its own purposes. The maples and sycamores look healthy, grasses and wild flowers are thick and high. Grasshoppers hiss. A flock of wild turkeys has moved in, as well as a pack of coyotes and some deer. "It's amazing," says the former mayor, "all these yellow flowers! They were never here before." The wild growth, however, poses a problem: vandals, looters and arsonists can hide from the security patrols more easily. But that may be remedied. "I believe the state of Missouri," says Leistner, "is looking into defoliating."
Holbrook, Mass.:
Waiting for Results
Every town ought to have a place like the Pastures. For as long as anyone in Holbrook can recall ("For ages and ages," one mother says), the children of this Boston suburb have used the expanse of vacant land as their exclusive preserve, a wild place, slightly apart. It is all-purpose terrain, perfect for many kinds of serendipity, a place where kids can build a secret fort, practice daredevil bike riding over hillocks called the Camel Humps, share the painful silences of adolescent romance or even read a book alone.
Until a couple of years ago the Pastures also offered some singular special effects. Sometimes there was a strange gelatinous gunk--"green slime" or "moon glob"--that could be picked up and hurled in lieu of snowballs. There were also acres of empty metal drums, industrial barrels just sitting around; it was hard for any self-respecting young thrill seeker to resist climbing inside and tumbling downhill. Parents seldom ventured into the area. So the town fathers and mothers did not know enough to fear that the moon glob and the barrels might have come from the Baird & McGuire factory, the plant at the Pastures' edge that produced pesticides and insecticides. Then in ( 1982 the EPA ranked the land near the top on its national list of high- priority hazardous-waste sites. The following year the town government forced the plant to close. "Two years ago I thought it was over," says Leah Abbott, one of the homemakers in Holbrook (pop. 11,140) who has found herself transformed into an environmental activist. "But it's not."
No. Every few months, it seems, there is another frightening bulletin. First the EPA found the soil and water around the factory laced with arsenic, DDT and chlordane, among other contaminants. The most pressing concern was the danger to drinking water. Three town wells had been adjacent to Baird & McGuire; the last one was closed only in 1982. Running by the factory is the Cochato River, which for years flowed to Holbrook's water supply. But in 1983 the river was sluiced away from drinking water, and the most intensely contaminated ground near the factory covered with a clay cap. The wastes were contained. Holbrook could relax.
But no. Earlier this year chemicals were found to be oozing into adjacent wetlands and into the Cochato--and leaching Lord knows where else, say the minority of townspeople who are upset. A water main that runs right under the site still supplies a thousand homes. Last spring the Cochato's sediment was found to include arsenic and naphthalene. Then last summer even the EPA seemed jolted: high concentrations of dioxin were discovered at Baird & McGuire.