Jonetta Motel
West Virginia and Kentucky have been faced with a rise in health-related issues, leading the nation in cancer-related deaths. Many of those cases have been said to be caused from greater exposer to pollution from coal-mining activity, which is said to increase your chances for cancer along with other fatal diseases. The Appalachia area has seen a rise in mortality rates, over 60,000 cases of those being cancer-related deaths directly linked to mountaintop removal practices. Mountaintop removal has been deemed as cleaner and safer than men going below ground to mine for coal, but with Appalachian communities- primarily in West Virginia, Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia seeing a high rise in cancer, cardiovascular disease, and birth defects rates, mountaintop removal has been looked at as one of the main causes.
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Removal of the mountaintops causes environmental impacts from blasting. The blasting has caused rocks to be deposited into valleys on the hillsides, burying almost 2,000 miles of streams which feed the Mississippi River. Slurry, the residue which is used to clean the coal can wash into groundwater and may contain arsenic, lead, manganese, iron, sodium, strontium, and sulfate. A recent research study is beginning to link these environmental impacts to the grave health concerns in the Appalachian communities. During most of the Mountaintop removal mining’s history coal industries have been able to obtain permits easily to operate, but once under the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) those permits now take more time to obtain. The permit process requires all applications to be reviewed before being given out to coal
In the video “Fracking Hell: The Untold Story” by Link TV explains how natural gas has been a huge problem not only for the earth in general but for everyone and everything living in it. The video explains how North East of Pennsylvania is having difficulties to conserve a healthy environment and people. North East of Pennsylvania is the main sources to extract gas and send it throughout the United States for gasoline and so on. However, this action is wonderful for the cost of gas, but has a huge impact on the environment and the people living in Pennsylvania. A lot of people in this state are worried having health issues because everything is not usable is being thrown out to the rivers where they get their fresh water.
Television commercials, print ads, and billboards in the Washington, DC, area are asking residents to connect two things many might find unrelated: lawn care and seafood. In one commercial, a man stuffs a big plateful of grass in his mouth after a voice-over says, “Spring rains carry excess lawn fertilizers through our sewers and rivers and into the Chesapeake Bay, where the blue crab harvest has been extremely low. So skip the fertilizer until fall, because once they’re gone, what’s left to enjoy?”(Environment, p. 7)
Utah is known to have the best snow on earth, we have beautiful scenery, relaxation and recreation all within minutes of our front door. But what about that dirty air that seems to last for months? Utah has four of the nations 100 largest oil fields, which produces 1.2% of the nation’s output, with 3,600 active wells. Utah ranks 11th in the nation of oil production, and we have five refineries in the Salt Lake area that can produce 175,500 barrels of oil per day (House,2012). The major effect of these practices, is the effect of air pollution along the Wasatch Front and the serious health consequences on children, teens and adults.
Potential Health and Environmental Effects of Hydrofracking in the Williston Basin, Montana." Serc.carleton.edu. Carleton College, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
"The Toll from Coal." Catf.us. Clean Air Task Force, Sept. 2010. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
West Virginia has a diverse history and strong record of struggle. From the original settlers to the current citizens, they have always found a way to survive and succeed (Wilson, 1990). The economic struggles of West Virginia have been due to the outsourcing of resources, income, capital, and information for the past 100 years (Cometti, 1966). This has led to reliance on the state and federal government to provide subsidies, and other welfare programs to help the citizens of the area feed, clothe, and shelter their selves (Erickson, 1986). Roughly, since the Kennedy administration’s increase of spending on food stamps and other assistance programs, and the correlated dwindling down of coal mining in the state, the adoption of citizens utilizing assistance programs has increased exponentially (Greenberg. 1969). Historically, democratic representatives display more favor in continuing or increasing these expenditures for assistance programs.
Ever since I was a little kid I loved the performing arts and I never thought that I would eventually fall in love with science . After an intense and challenging year of Chemistry my sophomore year, I was hesitant and nervous in signing up for my junior year science class. Toward the end of my sophomore year my chemistry teacher, Mr. Bowditch, told me he thought I would do well in Advanced Placement Environmental Science. I was in a state of disbelief because I was struggling trying to get a C in Chemistry and I was thinking how was I supposed to take AP Environmental Science class. After a conversation with my parents, they had persuaded me to sign up and we agreed if i didn't like it or it was too hard I would be able to drop the class.
The Chesapeake Bay has faced an excessive amount of pollution over the past century. The water in the bay has become so highly polluted that It is capable of causing harm to humans coming in direct contact with the water. Although algae serves a vital role in the bay’s ecosystem, it also creates a problem that is causing a large amount of the problem.
5). The high mortality rates are related to the environmental exposures of the coal mining along with other factors such as smoking, poverty, education, age, race and sex. “Higher lung cancer incidence and mortality in the Kentucky Appalachia is thought to result from higher smoking rates and correlates of poor socioeconomic conditions which limits the population access to health care” (Hendryx, O'Donnell, & Horn, 2008, p. 2). The population residing in coal mining areas, are exposed to contaminated water and air from the coal mining and there is a concern for respiratory illnesses related to the pollutants. The fumes or toxin released from the coal mine, this places the individual at a risk for respiratory issues such as emphysema, black lung, brown lung and
The environment and the health of the surrounding population go hand in hand. The Environmental Protection Agency takes on this ever so important mission of protecting them both. The mission statement of the EPA states, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Small Business Programs is to support the protection of human health and the environment by advocating and advancing the business, regulatory, and environmental compliance concerns of small and socio-economically disadvantaged businesses, and minority academic institutions (US Enviromental Protection Agency, 2010).” The impact of its mission can be defined clearly as it examines the impact of contamination in the air, the water, and the land on human health.
Although local or state are already protecting more than 20 million people in the United States, the rest of the population still faces an increased risk of cancer, learning disabilities, asthma and behavioral problems linked to exposure to coal-tar sealants. Coal-tar sealants have been widely used on parking lots, playgrounds, streets and residential driveways for many years. However, due to recent research that has proven that coal tar poses significant health risks, many organizations, legislators and concerned citizens have joined forces in their efforts to have coal-tar sealants banned.
One of Kalamazoo’s biggest concerns is the groundwater. While we have plenty of it, we are concerned of the spills and leaks that contaminate it. There are many landfill and power plants that work closely within the community and serve as large threats. For example, there is a landfill on West KL and a paper mill on Patterson street. If you have ever passed this paper mill, then you know how badly the Kalamazoo river smells because of it. In general, within Michigan we are concerned with the nuclear power plants that live so closely to the great lakes, if not right on top of them. We drink the water and sell it to other states, while there have been numerous reports about leaks from the plants. Lastly Michigan used to be a booming industrial
Burning and mining coal for fuel is harmful to the environment, but because of how cheap and easy it is to find, many people are unwilling to give it up as a fuel source. One of the problems with coal is that they are limited and are non-renewable, so once it has been used we won’t be able to use it again. When coal gets burned, they start to release harmful, dangerous toxins such as mercury, lead and arsenic that will then escape into the air. It also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. These emissions increase the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere and lead to global warming.
Personal big data analysis (PDA) as the name implies involves dealing with terabytes of data. The project would be hosted on the cloud on AWS, Google App engine any of the other major cloud infrastructure providers. The heart of the “cloud” is the datacenter. Since the project is a mobile application it would also mean we must take into consideration the impact of wireless telecommunication towers.
The world today is vastly different from what it was before urbanisation and industrialisation had taken its toll on the world. Since the turn of the new millennium the issue of the environment has suddenly evolved into a widespread issue which is greatly discussed throughout the world. No longer are humans living in a world where the environment is serene or stable but much rather becoming unrecognisable and diminishing before our eyes. The plants, trees and flowers are life forms which God has created for us to enjoy its beauty but it is now solely up to us and many other organisations to protect preserve and respect how fragile our environment really is.