Hewlett-Packard Building 15. From 1965 to 1973, they made small electronic transformers. Circuit boards from ’65 to ’87. The building blocks of the tech revolution, made right here.
Acids. Metals. Solvents. All part of the process. They stored the chemicals in a shed until ’73, then upgraded to a “bunker” from ’74 to ’87. Because calling it a bunker makes it sound safer, I guess.
The site, now re-addressed as 3181 Porter Drive, like a new number will make people forget, is part of the Hillview Porter regional plume. That’s the polite term. What it means is: the groundwater is fucked. The whole Stanford Research Park area. Poisoned.
The Department of Toxic Substances Control oversees it now. Ongoing operation and maintenance activities. Translation: they’re still pumping and treating groundwater contaminated with tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, and their “associated daughter products.” Chlorinated volatile organic compounds. The kind of stuff that doesn’t go away on its own.
This is what innovation looks like from the ground up. Literally. The stuff they don’t put in the press releases.
Hewlett-Packard made transformers and circuit boards. The chemicals they used to make them are still there, decades later, seeping through the soil.
Progress has a price. Someone always pays it.