{"id":11260,"date":"2010-10-24T23:56:16","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T21:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/?p=11260"},"modified":"2010-10-24T23:56:16","modified_gmt":"2010-10-24T21:56:16","slug":"top-13-human-cause-environmental-horrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetsave.com\/articles\/top-13-human-cause-environmental-horrors\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 13 Human-Caused Environmental Horrors"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>[UPDATED: Sept. 27, 2013; see addendum at bottom]<\/strong> In the spirit of both Halloween and Environmental Awareness, I hereby offer thirteen environmental horror stories of anthropogenic origin.<\/p>\n I have chosen to narrow my sample field to the post World War II time period. I have also excluded nuclear weapons tests and chemical weapons usage (such as agent orange use in Vietnam) as these tests\/uses are intentionally meant to cause widespread devastation. This exclusion is not intended to underestimate the severe environmental impacts of these events.<\/p>\n You may disagree with some items on my list, or, perhaps you have suggestions of your own.\u00a0 I welcome your additions and comments.<\/p>\n 13<\/strong>)\u00a0 Love<\/strong> <\/strong>Canal<\/strong>, <\/strong>Niagara Falls<\/strong>, <\/strong>New York<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In 1953, Hooker Chemical Company (now part of Occidental Petroleum), dumped 21,000 tons of toxic waste comprised of a devil’s cocktail of 80 different toxins into the abandoned Love Canal (named for William Love, a 19th Century developer who began but never finished the canal digging), then sealed it with a clay soil cap. In 1954, under pressure form the Niagara Falls School board, Hooker Chemical sold the land to the city for 1.00. The company’s contract warned of the toxic dump beneath and advised precautions for any development. The company believed at the time it was free from liability, having done all it could.<\/p>\n Over the next few years, a housing development and school were built atop the canal zone. In 1957, city engineers accidentally breached the canal wall while digging a gravel bed for sewage pipes. Heavy rains subsequently flooded the dump and forced large quantities of toxic chemicals to leach out into the soil above, just beneath the Love Canal community. Eventually, what was once a leak became a toxic pool of “blue goo” which spread, sometimes filling backyards and basements of residents’ homes. Over the years, community residents “tolerated” their trees and gardens turning black and dying, rocks and clumps of soil that would just suddenly explode, their children returning from play with caustic burns of their hands and faces, and a ceaseless “choking” quality in the air.<\/p>\n Not until 1976, when several local reporters had the community’s sump pumps tested (finding evidence of benzene and dioxin), and a third investigator (Michael Brown) who conducted a door to door survey, was the truth of Love Canal “leaked” out to the world. The survey revealed a high incidence of birth defects, health problems and, especially, miscarriages. The chemical company owners denied that their toxic waste dump had anything to do with the maladies. Love Canal, once ignored for decades, was now a major media event.<\/p>\n Soon after this, the state launched an official investigation, declaring Love Canal an “unprecedented emergency” (it was the first human-caused, federally declared “disaster area”). In 1979, results of a government examination of residents showed elevated white blood cell counts (a precursor condition for leukemia) and widespread chromosomal damage. Some 800 families were relocated and compensated<\/p>\n The Love Canal disaster gave tremendous impetus for the spread of environmentalism into mainstream society. It was also the impetus for Congress passing the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or the ‘Superfund’ Act.<\/p>\n 12) Tennessee River<\/strong> <\/strong>Valley<\/strong> Coal Ash Spill, Kingston, TN<\/strong><\/p>\n (December 24, 2008) The nation’s largest spill of coal ash occurred at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a coal-powered generating plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Located about 40 miles west of Knoxville on the banks of the Emory River, the spill resulted when a retaining wall made of piled-up earth gave way, spewing a six-foot thick, 300 million gallon wave of ‘fly ash’ sludge into the river and along its banks. The river feeds into the Clinch river and then into the Tennessee river. Millions of cubic yards of the toxic sludge-and-water mixture spread into riverine watersheds and onto adjacent lands. Residents of the communities that surrounded the plant had to be relocated (on Christmas eve, no less). Reports of large fish kills downstream of the spill were reported by recreational fisherman. The immediate to long-term effects of the spill are still being studied.<\/p>\n Analysis of coal ash has revealed high concentrations of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, selenium, mercury, chromium, nickel and boron. In high concentrations, these metals can cause cancers and various neurological problems.\u00a0 The long-term, health hazards posed by these sites can last more than a century, as heavy metals take long periods of time to leach out into the soil and then sink into water table.<\/p>\n A 2002 EPA-funded study of our nations 400+ other coal ash “waste ponds” was suppressed under pressure from powerful coal lobbying interests (a partial report was later released in 2007; see my 2008 post on this topic<\/a>).\u00a0 It is estimated that at least half of these dumps are unlined<\/em> dumps, and so their concentrated brews of heavy metals are slowly seeping into the soil and groundwater aquifers. Additional negative health impacts arise when the sludge dries and the ash becomes airborne and breathable.<\/p>\n 11)<\/strong> Toxic Brown Clouds of <\/strong>Central and Eastern Asia<\/strong><\/p>\nTop 13 Human-Caused Environmental Horrors:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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