Copy of Cabot-Koppers Superfund

Cabot-Koppers Superfund

Develop a stronger attitude toward the betterment of others, opening spaces for others to articulate their stories and to empower themselves. Use your attitude to see the beauty in the overseen dimensions of everyday life and point out these to those who refuse to see.

The Cabot-Koppers Superfund Site is located near the intersection of Northwest 23rd Avenue and North Main Street in the heart of Gainesville, Florida, and covers approximately 170 acres.

King of Swords

A wood treatment plant operated on the Koppers portion of the site from 1912 until 2010.  In the first part of the 20th  century, creosote was used to treat utility poles and timber.  In the final decades of operation, creosote was replaced by chromated copper arsenate (CCA). Nearly a century of wood treatment activity and illegal dumping are responsible for contaminated ground water and soil.  Burning of contaminated waste has resulted in additional contamination.

Final Outcome: The Nine of Pentacles is a simpler and happier card. Prompt fulfillment of what is presaged by neighboring cards. The world is yours, and you have grown it through hard work. You may have sacrificed relationships, or pleasure, in order to work in her "world." And, thus, to continue to have this world, work hard toward the well-being of individuals and community. One's well-being also means sacrifice, but in the long run you will create a greater sense of your EPS (Existential Position Sense).

With Swords, communication raises the idea of conflict. A further theme of Two is balance, and here many people will seek balance by avoiding communication. And even as communication channels open, conflict will emerge. This is how Cabot-Koppers has been handled, and that avoidance or blindness will increase with the current communication habits. Different approaches need to emerge though if the Gainesville community is to understand what needs to be done with the Superfund site.

What does Cabot-Koppers teach us?

We need Strength to give up our outer success and turn inward toward self-discovery and surrender. And we find Strength in others. Success isn’t defined by what material possessions one owns, rather how not only one develops the strength to see oneself succeed, but more importantly how one contributes to others' success.

So, where does Cabot-Koppers come from?

Everyday beauty. As destructive and bleak life can be, life also offers beautiful moments (sometimes found in those dark times), which often emerge in the mundane activities. Furthermore, those dark experiences can facilitate opportunities for novel ways of rethinking decisions, experiences, relationships, and life. Develop relationships with people who appreciate the everyday beauties of other people, and contribute.

Two of Swords

We live within many worlds, some directly accessible to us and others not. Furthermore, we not only live within our immediate temporal-spatial moment, but are affected, exist, and affect other temporal-spatial moments. Although Gainesville is a semi-transit town (nearly half of its “residents” are college students who are only here for four years and then move elsewhere to start their careers), consider how this "accident" at Cabot-Koppers Superfund does/will connect to how you live and develop community, as well as how communities will have to deal with the contamination. Thus,

Queen of Pentacles

The Fool is the flow in life, the force that runs through life, the dynamics within our world. Without such flow, life becomes stagnant and nonexistent. Nikola Tesla perceived the earth as a conductor of acoustical resonance. Attune yourself to these acoustics.

Nine of Pentacles

The Fool

The Cabot-Koppers acreage was declared a Superfund Site by the US EPA in 1983 and added to the National Priorities List for clean-up in 1984.  In 1984 there were just a few dozen sites on the list:  Cabot-Koppers became the 37th.  Hundreds of sites across the nation have been cleaned up since then, but not Gainesville’s.

The charioteer has not really resolved all the troublesome issues with problems and contradictions in life. The Charioteer represents will, which focuses energy to a purpose and unites the qualities and lessons of the previous cards.

One never decides alone; one never thinks alone; one never acts alone; one never exists alone; Traces, memories, relationships, and engagements circulate. They constitute the dynamics of moments within this ecology. They are movements that enable us to produce meaning, to create well-being. To think is not to be. To think is not to become. One contributes, for better or worse or both or neither, to others. To contribute is to become.

we draw a Tarot card and ask Avatar what special message does Cabot-Koppers bring me?

Wheel of Fortune

Konsult Avatar

Ace of Pentacles

How does Cabot-Koppers and the world work?

The Chariot

Because it follows the Ace of Pentacles, the Wheel of Fortune underscores the limitations we humans have in understanding the consequences of our activities. Yes, many (potential) ramifications can be identified, and we humans can try to take the necessary steps to prevent such disasters, but to be human means to have a feeling of limit, that limit being knowledge of consequences. Although Cabot-Koppers emerges from past and present consumptions that both each person and other people had/have, continue to move forward in understanding the Cabot-Koppers, your desires and the world.

Contribute

Where are these acoustics, and how do we attune ourselves?

The Ace of Pentacles shows us that reality at times simply is. Although most of reality is socially constructed, reality also is what it is, regardless of humans’ activity to manipulate, create, and shape it. We humans are not powerful enough to control nature; rather, nature has its own agency, often times much more overpowering than any individual or collective human efforts to master it. Simply put, we humans experience our limit of knowledge, agency, control, and desires.

Strength

What else will be needed in addressing Cabot-Koppers Superfund?

In 2003 test results indicated that the Floridan Aquifer, the source of drinking water for 90% of the State of Florida, is being contaminated with toxins from Cabot-Koppers.

The Lovers

The multinational, multibillion corporation, Beazer East is responsible for the Koppers clean-up.  Beazer East and Koppers are the same entity.

Lovers: Our love of various tastes has contributed to the Cabot-Koppers intoxication. Our pleasure and consumption of products has propelled us into creating the Superfund site. And, thus, we have choices to make with how to deal with Cabot-Koppers: continue to argue who is responsible for the accident, continue to claim that Beazer East is responsible, or all take responsibility for the accident and invest the resources to resolve the intoxication before the problem gets to be much worse. We can’t only rationalize who is responsible, but must identify our own desires that have far-reaching implications.

What should we do with our attitudes (Einstellungs)?

The primary contaminants are dioxins, creosote compounds, benzene, naphthalene, and chromated copper arsenate.

What should we expect in discussing Cabot-Koppers?

Test results from 2010 and 2011 confirmed extremely high and alarming levels of dioxins in homes within a two mile radius from the Cabot-Koppers Superfund Site at an average of 400 to over 1,000 times above US EPA’s own “safe” level standard.

Gainesville residents have been protesting, testifying of their families’ illnesses and deaths, and demanding environmental justice and permanent relocation for over fifty years.  Residents have retained a team of class action attorneys headed by The Calwell Practice.

What is the next step?

For additional information call (352)328 -5792 

or visitkoppersgainesville.com