Pollution
There are three main types of pollution
•Land Pollution
•Water Pollution
•Air Pollution
There are laws to protect the citizens of the United States
from each type of pollution
•Superfund
•Clean Water Acts
•Clean Air Act and revisions
Since the end of World War II, productivity in the United States has
increased significantly. One of the side effects of this productivity is a
change in the way products are treated. We have become a throw-away
society.
According to Commoner, B (1971) The Closing Circle; Nature, Man and
Technology; Knopf, New York
From 1946 to 1968 we saw the following increases:
•Non-returnable bottles: 53,000%
•Synthetic Fibers: 5,980%
•Industrial Mercury: 3,930%
•Plastics: 1,960%
•Nitrogen Fertilizer: 1,050%
•Electrical Appliances: 1,040%
•Wood Pulp 313%
•Truck Freight (replacing trains) 222%
Land Pollution
At the beginning of the 20th century, William T. Love imagined a model
community in New York, on the edge of Niagara Falls. He dug a canal
to supply the community with water power.
He never completed the project. In the 1920s, Love’s canal was sold
to Hooker Chemical operated as a landfill.
In 1953, Hooker sold the site to the Niagara Falls Board of Education
for $1, with the disclaimer: “That the premises above described have
been filled…to the present grade level thereof with waste products
resulting from the manufacturing of chemicals…”
The city built an elementary school on the site. The houses came later.
Over the years, the underground containers filled with approximately 21,000
tons of chemical waste corroded. In 1977, a record rainfall caused waste to
begin to leach into people’s homes, backyards and playgrounds. Love Canal has
been officially associated with high rates of birth defects, miscarriages, and
other severe illnesses resulting from land contamination.
When news of the Love Canal tragedy reached the general public, people were
outraged and concerned. What could be lurking in their backyard?
In 1980, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the first U.S. federal law to address
toxic waste dumps.
CERCLA, also known as Superfund, is the emergency fund to clean up toxic
waste dumps when the owners are unknown or unable to pay for the necessary
cleanup.
In Lowell we have the Silresim site.
The following table shows the number of Federal and general sites for each status
and milestone as of February 23, 2011:
Status Non-Federal (General) Federal Total
Proposed Sites 57 5 62
Final Sites 1122 158 1280
Deleted Sites 332 15 347
Milestone Non-Federal (General) Federal Total
Partial Deletions 39 17 56*
Construction Completions 1032 69 1101
Sites that have achieved these milestones are included in one of the three NPL
status categories.
* 69 partial deletions have occurred at these 56 sites.
In September 2004 Love Canal was removed from the National Priorities
List (Superfund)
Silresim’s removal is slated well
into the future.
Water Pollution
YouTube - Cuyahoga River
Pollution Ohio 1967
The Cuyahoga in 1969
The Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure for
regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States
and regulating quality standards for surface waters. The basis of the
CWA was enacted in 1948 and was called the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act, but the Act was significantly reorganized and expanded in
1972. "Clean Water Act" became the Act's common name with
amendments in 1977.
As a testament to the Clean
Water Act, the Cuyahoga River
is today an entirely different
waterway.
An interesting quote from the
New York Times June 2009:
“This didn’t happen because a
bunch of wild-haired hippies
protested down the street,” Mr.
Perrecone said. “This happened
because a lot of citizens up and
down the watershed worked
hard for 40 years to improve the
river.”
I’m pretty sure the Clean Water
Act may have helped too…
Additionally…..
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the main federal law that
ensures the quality of Americans' drinking water.Under SDWA, EPA sets
standards for drinking water quality and oversees the states, localities,
and water suppliers who implement those standards.
Air Pollution
Air Pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or
biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other
living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built
environment, into the atmosphere
The 1948 Donora smog was a historic
air inversion resulting in a wall of
smog that killed 20 people and
sickened 7,000 more in Donora,
Pennsylvania, a mill town on the
Monongahela River, 24 miles
southeast of Pittsburgh.
Sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S.
Steel's Donora Zinc Works and its
American Steel & Wire plant were
frequent occurrences in Donora.
What made the 1948 event more
severe was a temperature inversion,
in which a mass of warm, stagnant
air was trapped in the valley, the
pollutants in the air mixing with fog
to form a thick, yellowish, acrid smog
that hung over Donora for five days.
The Clean Air Act (CAA) ―originally enacted in 1963, but strengthened
in 1970― is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions
from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, this law
authorizes EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards
(NAAQS) to protect public health and public welfare and to regulate
emissions of hazardous air pollutants.
This is one of the more difficult battles to face. We won the battle of
leaded gasoline, but what about mercury?
Mercury Pollution Contaminates Merrimack River
Boston, Massachusetts – Today environmental advocates and
academics released a report detailing the public health and
environmental hazards of mercury pollution from power plants. Locally,
this includes health advisories that strongly warn Massachusetts
residents not to consume white sucker and largemouth bass from the
Merrimack River. More U.S. waterways are closed to fishing because
of mercury contamination than due to any other toxic contaminant.
--Reported by Environment Massachusetts Journal Jan. 26, 2011
In 1984, 30 tons of lethal methyl isocyanate
gas were released into the air in Bhopal,
India. According to the Guardian newspaper,
this Union Carbide accident killed up to
20,000 people within days and affected up to
600,000. Many were blinded instantly.
A year later in West
Virginia, another Union
Carbide released toxic
gas into the atmosphere
sickening hundreds.
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA)
requires companies that handle hazardous waste to furnish complete
disclosure of their annual polluting activities, storage and handling facilities,
any accidental release of hazardous material into the environment in a
quantity above an established safe limit, and all material necessary for local
authorities to respond to an accident involving the hazardous material(s) on
site.
On March 24, 1989 the
Exxon Valdez tanker ran
aground at Bligh Reef
Alaska, spilling 11 million
gallons of oil into the
fragile environment of
Prince William Sound. The
recovery continues even
today.
One response to the Valdez disaster was the passage of the 1990 Oil
Pollution Act, which, among other things, required oil tankers to be
double-hulled, and gave states more say in their spill-prevention
standards.
You have to ask: Are all of these regulations necessary? Are they worth
the lack of productivities for industry?
You might want to ask yourself a couple of things
• Why has industry and manufacturing left the USA and gone
overseas?
• Is it cheap labor or something even more insidious?
Would all of the progress that we have made
really happened without the arm twisting regulations
require?
Something to think about, eh?