Hidden No More

If you look at a map of Tucson, chances are there’s a blank space
right under Morris K. Udall Regional Park on the eastside of town. This
large area stretches from the southern boundary of Udall down to
Speedway Boulevard, from Pantano Wash on the west to Van Horne
Elementary School on the east.

Almost 100 acres, this land is a hidden mystery to most
Tucsonans.

All of that is about to change in the spring of 2011, when work
begins to extend Sabino Canyon Road south to connect with Kolb Road,
just north of the Lowe’s shopping center. (Incidentally, Kolb and
Sabino Canyon will intersect twice, with about three miles between the
two intersections.) An expensive bridge will be built across the
Pantano Wash, and the work promises to disrupt a very peaceful
neighborhood for years to come.

Anyone who regularly drives south on Sabino Canyon knows that
traffic comes to an abrupt halt when it reaches Tanque Verde Road.
Drivers now have to turn right or left, because straight ahead is a
cul-de-sac. At the same time, vehicles back up on Tanque Verde waiting
to make a left-hand turn onto Sabino Canyon. It’s like a game of Sim
City gone terribly awry.

So planners included the extension of Sabino Canyon Road in the $2.1
billion Regional Transportation Authority that voters approved in May
2006. The federal government is kicking in $11.9 million of the
estimated $21.9 million for the project, so it’s fully funded. Although
many details are yet to be decided, the four-lane highway and the
bridge will span a forgotten part of Tucson.

For the first time, passing motorists will cruise through the
nefarious Vincent Mullins Landfill, and get a clear view of the
green-minded Speedway Recycling and Landfill Facility. They’ll get to
see spikes of blue flame piercing the night, burning off excess methane
from grassy meadows covering buried trash.

Over the years, the two landfills have merged into one vague
landfill in most people’s minds, but they couldn’t be more different.
Mullins Landfill is closed, while Speedway Recycling is a thriving
business which operates under the radar of most Tucsonans. Are these
neighborhood dumps ready for their close-up?

City planners held the first public meeting on the Sabino Canyon
extension on Sept. 10 at Udall Park, and a standing-room-only crowd
showed up.

The city has known that Sabino Canyon Road was a problem long before
2006. The extension was approved in the 1986 Pima County bond election,
but was scrapped when the funds ran out. In 1989, all the rights of way
were secured, but the funds were not.

Now, planners feel a sense of urgency.

“The reach of Tanque Verde between the Kolb-Tanque Verde
intersection and Sabino Canyon is the highest traffic volume on a
segment of roadway within the city limits,” said Jim Glock, the city’s
director of transportation. “This project gives us another bridge
across the Pantano Wash. We are seeing an erosion of public safety, in
response times, to this quadrant of the community. This bridge is going
to allow us to bring those response times back into the desired
timeframes.”

Planners admit that they don’t know exactly how they’re going to
build across the Vincent Mullins Landfill. Thankfully, they only have
to navigate the northwest corner of the dump’s 30 acres. The city
landfill operated for 11 years, from 1976 to 1987—and managed to
become a major embarrassment: Mullins Landfill was unlined and soon
polluted the groundwater. Cleanup and capping ended just two years
ago.

No one considers the landfill to be toxic these days, and it looks
like a bucolic meadow, surrounded by scattered vents and methane
burners. A dozen years ago, plans were afoot to turn this peaceful
acreage into a park with youth-sports fields, but the environmental
studies did not bode well.

In a city newsletter, Cristina Polsgrove, public information officer
for environmental services, had this to say about Vincent Mullins:
“This closed landfill was capped, and storm-water and methane-control
systems were installed. ES will monitor the site for the next 30 years
to ensure there are no impacts to the groundwater. In July 2008, ES
performed a feasibility study to determine if city landfills, including
Mullins, are potential gas-to-energy sites. Due to the size of Mullins
Landfill, the methane produced is sufficient enough to support a
gas-to-energy system.”

So maybe there is a greener day in the landfill’s future, when its
flammable gases will heat the pool at Udall Park. A new road and
increased attention could bring that day closer.

The speakers at the Sept. 10 meeting did furnish some specifics. The
intersection at Kolb and Sabino Canyon will sport a signal light, and
the project will feature bike lanes, sidewalks, landscaping, artwork
and flashing crosswalks leading to Udall Park. Speaker after speaker
stressed how open they were to suggestions and local involvement.

Placating the residents who live around Udall Park is a good idea,
because they’ve gone to the mats before in battles with the two
landfills. They lobbied to get Mullins Landfill closed 25 years ago. A
dozen years ago, they persuaded Speedway Recycling to erect berms and
water their fields frequently to cut down on dust.

If Vincent Mullins is your father’s dump, Speedway Recycling and
Landfill is the dump of the future. They accept mostly construction
debris and green waste, and they aim to recycle most of it into
products such as mulch, compost, pipe bedding and decorative rock.
Owned by the Fairfax Companies, Speedway is a private landfill with 54
acres, which opened to the public in 1990.

CEO Jason Ashley Tankersley was at the Sept. 10 meeting and plans to
serve on the citizens’ oversight committee. The project will run right
by the Fairfax Companies’ headquarters at 1360 N. Kolb Road. “I’m not
too crazy about having the traffic backed up in front of my office,”
said Tankersley, “but I think it should alleviate a lot of
problems.”

He welcomes the roadway skirting his property to the north. “We’re
adding several different businesses onto the landfill. On those berms
we built on the northeast side along the park and the school, we’re
going to put a nursery. … We’re trying to create a very sustainable
business model, where everything gets processed and reused.”

Future maps of Sabino Canyon Road will look a lot different, and the
mapmakers might as well draw in the landfills—because everyone
will see them soon.

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.