TRAIL UNDER TAPO STREET BRIDGE

While the Tapo Street Bridge over the Arroyo Simi has been under construction, the Arroyo Simi multipurpose recreation trail has been blocked off.  Well, the trail under the bridge is now open. 

One of the more interesting things to see when you take that route, i.e., under the bridge, can be observed on the north side of the path just east of the bridge.  Until 1962 a “burn dump” operated south of the old Santa Susana Airport.  Domestic waste was deposited at the dump and was burned.  Essentially, the fires burned continuously.  It must have added a lot of haze to our valley.  The community was small in those days but had begun the massive suburbanization that marked the early 1960s - adding nearly 10,000 people a year between 1962 and 1965.  In 1960 the population of Simi Valley was 8,110 and by 1962 it was estimated to be 15,860.  By 1965 the population of the valley had swollen to an estimated 43,016.

Now, both the airport and the burn dump are only memories.  The airport is memorialized by a street named “Runway” - now part of an industrial park - and the end product of the burning process is exposed in that north bank along the trail.  Ash, bits of broken and fire damaged glass bottles and other non-ephemeral materials are what remain of that by gone era when nearly all communities burned their waste.

When I first observed the debris in the bank, I was a bit horrified.  After all, responsible hikers do their bit to pick up the trash along our trails.  Well, it simply won’t be possible in this case.  Modestly speaking, what you see is just the tip of the iceberg.  I guess that it should best be appreciated as a marker of history.  Who knows what might weather out of the bank?

Mike Kuhn

10-7-99