Times Beach is a town that used to be in Missouri. A dangerous chemical called dioxin was found in the soil throughout the town, in 1982. This caused all of the people to all have to leave their homes to get away from the radiation. The dioxin was one of the most dangerous chemicals on Earth. In December of 1982, the EPA found high levels of dioxin in Times Beach, forcing the locals to leave their town. “Dioxin used to be considered one of the most dangerous chemicals on the planet, but it is now under debate because of the differences between high and low-level contamination” (Chemical Conundrum). It came into the news and became one of the first superfund sites, like the Love Canal. The CDC decided that it should have “one part per billion dioxin, but levels in Times Beach were almost 100 times that high. …show more content…
In May of 2014, EPA scientists said that their refusal to changing it is linked to cancer risk. In Europe, they decided that a certain dioxin level is safe, and it is much higher than EPA standards. Times Beach was created in 1925, originally planned to be a summer resort. After World War II, gas was being rationed, so Times Beach became a lower to middle class city. It flooded often, so some of the first buildings stood on stilts. In the 1970’s, the town could not pave the dirt roads, so they hired a crew to pour gasoline on the roads, causing dioxin to infect their
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality Engineering took ground water samples that showed volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) in the supply well. This well was formerly used for drinking water for the community. The results indicated that the ground water beneath the property was contaminated with radioactive material and VOCs. A sphagnum bog on the grounds had evidence of radioactive contamination. The soil, sediment, surface water, and ground water on the site had high levels of depleted uranium. On some of the soil and sediments, Poly Chlorinated Bi-phenyls were recorded. The buildings and structures on the grounds were as well contaminated with depleted uranium and other hazardous substances.
Dioxin and The Times Beach Evacuation The Jingle Bells of 1982 did not bring in a merry Christmas for the residents of Times Beach, Missouri, a small town of some 1400 people. During the annual town Christmas dinner, the residents finally received the news that they had hoped would never come. The residents of Times Beach were to be relocated and the town were to be bought out by the federal government. This was the first time such a thing was done since the founding of the nation. The buyout of Times Beach and some 50 other sites in Missouri by the government beginning in 1983 was prompted by the largest civilian exposure to dioxin in the United States.
Another instance of the government neglecting us and our complaints over our health concerns by these chemicals was when it came to nuclear and atomic testing in Utah and Nevada in the 1950s. Terry Tempest Williams wrote the passage “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” and explained how the government was funding these tests to be had in the desert and did not once think about the consequences that the explosions would have on nearby residents and wildlife. The Nuclear testing in Nevada brought with it cancers upon residents who were affected by the contamination brought by winds and fallout, but at this time in history the country was very patriotic in self defence as the Korean War and the Cold War were happening in different parts of the world
Three Mile Island was a three month old nuclear power plant located in southeast Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979, a series of mechanical and human errors led to above-normal levels of radioactive gas being released into the air. Subsequently 400,000 gallons of water from a holding tank containing xenon-133 and xenon-135 was released into the Susquehanna River. (Davis 313) By the end of Thursday, March 29, detectable levels of increased radiation were measured over a four-county area. Plant officials estimated that 180 to 300 of the 36,000 fuel rods in the reactor had melted. (Davis 313) The governor advised that pregnant women and small children evacuate and stay at least five miles away from the facility. They did this for good reason because almost 80% of the gas escaped the morning of the accident (Davis 313). After the accident people filed more than 2,200 law suits. But only 280 claims have been settled for $14 million (Freiham 290). Deaths from thyroid cancer have been monitored in Middletown, but no link to
A Civil Action portrays a fictional account of the real legal case pertaining to the hazardous waste site in Woburn, Mass. The waste site affected its surroundings, and in particular, Woburn, Mass. The waste site contaminated the river in which the community of Woburn used to drink from. Due to the water contamination, the children in Woburn have been dying of Leukemia. Although we are still ignorant of the exact cause of Leukemia, the contaminated water did affect people.
Wartime England was a bad time for a holiday visit to the beaches. Most were heavily mined and cordoned off with barbed wire to prevent invasion forces from landing. However, North Devon was around the corner from the vulnerable English Channel and we were allowed on the vast sands of Westward Ho!
In 1988, vast amounts of medical debris had been dumped in the North Atlantic Ocean, causing it to stray onto beaches in New Jersey and New York; this accident became known as The Syringe Tide. The Syringe Tide was an event where substantial amounts of medical waste started drifting up onto beach shores on the Atlantic Coast, forcing those shores to be temporarily shut down for cleaning. It affected the shops that relied on visitors coming to the beaches the most. The estimated cost of the lost revenue in the tourism industry that summer was over $1 billion. The waste was eventually traced back to the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island. Because of this event, there was the creation of an extremely successful act known as the Short-Term Floatables Action Plan.
The largest environmental disaster in U.S. history occurred on December 22nd, 2008 when a 84-acre pit containing toxic coal combustion residue at the Tennessee Valley Authority Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tennessee gave way. According to a report by AECOM, the firm hired to perform the root cause report, a “combination of the high water content of the wet ash, the increasing height of ash, the construction of the sloping dikes over the wet ash, and the existence of an unusual bottom layer of ash and silt were among the long-evolving conditions that caused the ash spill at Kingston Fossil Plant” (TVA, 2010). The resulting slide sent a wave of over a billion gallons of sludge out on the 300 acres of land surrounding the Fossil plant, instantly covering it with a 4 foot layering of sludge. The toxic coal combustion residue wave destroyed 15 homes, damaged 43 more homes, took down power lines, ruptured a major gas line, potentially poisoned drinking water supplies, and devastated the local fish population. The resulting spill was over 100 times larger then the Exxon-Valdez oil spill (CNN, 2008). The sludge contaminated both the Emory River and the Clinch River, both tributaries of the Tennessee River. While no lives were lost during the actual event, the environmental and public health implications will continue to haunt Tennessee for a very long time to come. The true extent of the damage won’t become known for many generations.
One is called the North Pond and the other is the South Pond, both making an accumulated area of 77 acres which is about 370,000 square yards! According to The Sierra Club of Canada, “The “Sydney Tar Ponds” are actually not ponds at all, they are a Tidal Estuary” (pg.1) secondly, the Sydney Steel Corporation and Coke Ovens was the primary cause of this massacre. The area that used to be called Muggah Creek, was later called “The Sydney Tar Ponds” due to the chemical byproducts simply being dumped directly into the nearest main water source, which was the Muggah Creek. The ponds contain 700,000 tons of toxic sludge, therefore the drinking water from the ponds contain very high levels of toxins and is a serious health hazard that needed to be addressed. Children had been drinking tap water had been seriously poisoned. Parents too, that were drinking tap water had begun to notice a detrimental change to their overall health. After all of this, the Federal Ministers Government Officials took action and began to notice prevalent changes, such as: an increase in cancer rates, many miscarriages among local woman, and for those who were able to maintain pregnancy, an increase in birth anomalies. Wow! Not only did the humans experience overall changes in their health, but a species called the Mummichog including sea crabs were drastically affected by the toxicity of the ponds. This completely changed everyone’s view of the Tar Ponds considering the fact that no one at first thought about the animals in the ponds or if there were animals even alive in the ponds. Biologists found in one Female Mummichog (The only one they found, that had survived): missing fin membrane, shortened body, missing bones, bent bones and other deformities. One biologist named Martha had a simple equation that if the deformities in the mummichogs disappear or fade overtime, then the cleanup is
Then the documentary tackles Puget Sound. The Duwamish River is the largest hot spot in the nation. In 2001, the Duwamish River was classified as a “Super Fund” site. This is given to a site that will receive federal assistance for clean up. But yet, it may be too late. Puget Sound in contaminated with PCP, lead and mercury. The threat comes from the giant industrial polluters of old and from chemicals in consumers’ face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, eventually into America’s waterways and drinking water.
The island was left abandoned by some people, the merchant said, “men built a museum, a chapel, and a swimming pool on the island. The work was completed, and then abandoned,” (Casares 10). People were working at this island, it was going to be a place for people to stay or even visit but whatever the island held, it made the people run away and abandon it. They left all the hard work they put on to become a home. The merchant even says that even the Chinese pirates and the white ship of the Rockefeller Institute never goes to the island, they try to stay away from it. So, if the most smartest and the most criminal people try to stay away from it and not use it for their own benefit, there must be something wrong with the island. The merchant also states that the island “is known to be the focal point of a mysterious disease, a fatal disease that attacks the outside of the body and then works inward. The nails drop off the fingers and toes, the hair falls out,” (Casares 10). This shows signs of some type of radiation going on with the island. This can easily be a cancer growing in the body. Cancer is division of abnormal cells that spread throughout the body, it brings death and destruction. In Peter Jacob and Daniel O. Stram article, Late Health Effects of Radiation Exposure, it states “on radiation exposure in relation to risk of breast, thyroid cancer, and leukemia, cardiopulmonary events, and other late effects,” (Jacob and Stram
... environmental quality leading health indicators are air quality index exceeding 100 and children of ages 3 to 11 exposed to secondhand smoke. Poor water quality can lead to gastrointestinal illness, neurological problems and cancer. Poor air quality can cause cardiovascular disease, cancers, and asthma. Certain chemicals found in homes and workplaces can contribute to severe poisonings and other toxic serious effects.
Hooker admits to burying about 21,800 tons of various chemicals in the canal. There are at least twelve known carcinogens in the canal including benzene which is well-known for causing leukemia in people (Gibbs 22). The air, soil, and water tests have found chemical migration throughout a ten block residential area. The extent of the chemical migration is still unknown.
Described as an “environmental time bomb gone off”, Love Canal is evidence of the ignorance, lack of vision, and appropriate laws of past decades, those of which allowed the haphazard disposal of toxic materials. In the spring of 1978, the State Departments of Health and Environmental Conservation launched a thorough air, soil, and groundwater sampling and analysis program following subjective identification of several organic compounds in the basements of eleven homes next to the Love Canal. The fresh data collected by the two agencies not only confirmed the presence of a diversity of compounds, but it also determined exact levels for many of the chemical components. This data revealed that the problem was not limited to a few homes, but that a possible health hazard existed due to long term exposure to the chemicals. On April 25, 1978, the Niagara County health commissioner was ordered to immediately commence corrective actions to remove any noticeable chemicals, limit access to the site, and begin health and engineering studies. As more data rolled in, it became obvious that intolerable levels of toxic fumes connected to more than eighty compounds were coming from the basements of numerous homes within the first ring right next to the Love Canal (Health,
The beach was created along the seafront shortly after WW II. Good sand for the beach is trucked in. The sections of the beach are separated by three concrete jetties. Stretching along the beach are restaurants, bars and bistros. To find your preferred place on the beach you have to arrive early during the peak summer season. This is a public beach and since prices are pretty steep for a sun bed and umbrella you should bring your own. This is a family-friendly beach but you must be careful of jellyfish so look for the flag flying from the lifeguard stand when they’re present. You can book jet skis and banana boat rides. For more action there is windsurfing, parasailing, a roller blade and skateboard area. For the little ones there is a toddler playground. Everything you could want to do or see is within walking distance from the