Mission Bay Landfill, San Diego, California

March 4: Prerelease Rehearsal

Donna Frye, Tristan Shone, Andy Balendy, Jill Nephew, Robert Twomey, others from Councilewoman Frye's Office and the Press were present to test the dogs onsite at Mission Bay in a prerelease trial. Tristan Shone talked with Donna Fry to explain the dogs' modifications and the specifics of this particular site. A landfill activist was on-hand to explain his take on the issues plaguing this particular landfill site. The San Diego Tribune sent a photographer to capture the events and people.

Wed March 5: Release

Fox News. Students of UCSD Class Vis147b W. Xdesign Lab Members, San Diego Electric Flyers club, Distinguished guests from MIT, the O'Reilly Emerging Tech Conference, representatives from Donna Frye's office, and San Diego Department of Public Safety with VOC chemical sensors and chemical source were all present for the dog release. A writer and photographer from the San Diego Tribune were also present.

Wind conditions were too blustery to get readings on VOC sources and chemical levels. The San Diego Department of Environmental Health test equipment had no better luck, even with the VOC source, than did the robot dogs. The dogs exhibited basic movement and some tracking behavior, particularly the dog upgraded by Tyler Alexander and Candice Storey, which did successfully locate the VOC source.

The Mission Bay landfill has been an unregulated industrial dumping site for 50+ years of military industry in San Diego, and is currently undergoing environmental evaluation with an eye towards redevelopment. High levels of industrial byproduct chemicals in the soil make the site a very likely source of airborne VOC chemicals.

The dogs will investigate.

Volatile Organics

Councilwoman Frye's office:
http://genesis.sannet.gov/infospc/templates/cd6/index.jsp

San Diego Baykeeper: www.sdbaykeeper.org (changing name to Coast Watch) "Putting advocacy into action to protect and restore our waters"

Hiram Sarabia - Binational Water Quality Monitoring NB Pollution Hotline: 1-877-4CACOAST

UCSD SuperFund Site - http://superfund.ucsd.edu
Bob Tukey - http://pharmacology.ucsd.edu/Research_Faculty/rhtukey.asp