A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.
Times Beach is a ghost town in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States, 17 miles (27 km) southwest of St. Louis and 2 miles (3 km) east of Eureka. Once home to more than two thousand people, the town was completely evacuated early in 1983 due to TCDD—also known as dioxin—contamination. It was the largest civilian exposure to the compound in the history of the United States.
In 1985, the State of Missouri officially disincorporated the city of Times Beach. The site of Times Beach now houses a 419-acre (170 ha) state park commemorating U.S. Route 66—the famous highway that stretched from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, and passed by the community on its southern end—as well as the history of the Times Beach area. The park opened in 1999. In 2001, the EPA removed Times Beach from its Superfund list.