Yes, for those unfamiliar, the city used to contract to have waste oil sprayed on the unpaved streets to keep the dust down. (Hush Children of Summer, it was the 1960s and 70s, it seemed like a good idea at the time.) In 1972 their contractor sprayed dioxin contaminated oil, possibly unbeknownst to him and the people who paid him to take the waste oil, but he wasn't being all that careful. Again its the 1970s, the EPA was two years old, the Crying Indian ad had just come out, trying to get people to carry a litter bag in their 8mpg car instead of chucking their beer cans and bottles out the window was the big thing. You wouldn't walk barefoot in a park because of all the pull tabs discarded on the ground. Dioxin is not known to cause problems in humans at this point, though animal studies suggest it could be a thing. No one has studied it.

Meanwhile, 10 years pass, the EPA has connected the oil hauler to contamination problems in a number of sites. They take samples at Times Beach and the next day a 500 year flood covers the town. Dioxin is now listed as a human carcinogen, and the towns streets contain 50% of the dioxin contamination in the entire state. The EPA uses the newly passed federal Superfund to buy out all the residents. The town is sealed off from humans, but apparently that river can flood and carry things downstream.

10 more years pass… The EPA decides on incineration, build an incinerated, purify everything with fire. Problems solved. It's now 1997. 25 years from contamination to cleanup.

Bonus Context for Diligent Readers:

Low level dioxin exposure has since been concluded to not be a health hazard. No one in Times Beach showed signs of dioxin poisoning. The decision maker for destroying the town now says with current knowledge he would not have ordered that. There was actually no disaster.