The Love Canal is known to be the tenth out of the twenty-five biggest man made environmental disasters in history The Love Canal is known as “one of the grimmest discoveries of the modern era”, by President Carter. The Love Canal was designed to be the “Model City” by William T. Love. Soon the “Model City” turned out to be the worst environmental disaster of the decade. The Love Canal affected the health of hundreds of residents as well as the generations after them. During the 1890s, an entrepreneur named William T. Love, imagined a canal connecting the Niagara River to Lake Ontario. He wanted a community of parks and residences on the banks of Lake Ontario. William T. Lobe began digging the canal and created a few streets and homes. But …show more content…
Most of the residents of Niagara Falls knew what had happened to the land previous to when they moved in but they didn’t seem to fear the consequences that would come later on. The chemicals affected the residents sooner than expected. Residents started to smell strange odors and substances in their basements. Children at school were burned by toxic waste. Local officials were alerted, but somehow decided not take any action. In 1976, water from heavy rainfall and blizzards cause the chemical waste to move to the surface of the ground. The chemical waste moved into the neighborhoods and schools causing chaos. During the next few years, high rates of stillborn births and miscarriages were very common. Those babies who survived eventually were born with birth defects. Scientists started to study the Love Canal afraid of greater consequences such as death. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry noticed more than 400 types of chemicals were in the water, air, and …show more content…
This law collects taxes from chemical and gas corporations and uses the money to clean up sites like the Love Canal. Since many of the residents of the Love Canal were born with birth defects or diagnosed with cancer the genetics were passed on to the next generation. Sadly those who were pregnant with the next generation had multiple miscarriages. As new generations were born, they were diagnosed with the same birth defects as the generation before. The birth rate went down and what was supposed to be the perfect neighborhood turned out to be harmful to those who lived there. The Love Canal is still remembered today as one of the biggest environmental disasters in history. Certain cleanup goals were finally met in 2004. But, much of the canal is fenced as a memorial of the Love Canal. I think the Love Canal was a good lesson so that America can take more caution when it comes to where its citizens are living. The Love Canal was a terrible disaster but a good lesson to learn for the
The Erie Canal was a man made water way that stretched to be three hundred sixty three miles long. The canal started construction in1817, and took nine years to completely finish the building process. People during this time had many positive, and negative opinions about the fact that this expensive canal was being built. The idea of the Erie Canal originates with Jesse Hawley, the idea was to connect the great lakes to the Atlantic ocean making an easy path to the west from the east without having to pass Niagara Falls. The canal was mostly built by Irish immigrants who were hated, or disliked, by most people. People had ideas and predictions about what would come of this canal. Let's just see which of the predictions were more accurate to
Saukko , Linnea.“How to Poison the Earth.”The Brief Bedford Reader. Bedford/St.Martin’s Boston: 9th edition ,2006.246-247.
Drago, Harry Sinclair. Canal Days in America: The History and Romance of Old Towpaths and Waterways. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1972. page 48.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was one of the largest disasters in American history. Practically overnight the great city of Chicago was destroyed. Before the fire there was a large drought causing everything to be dry and flammable, then a fire broke out in the O’Leary’s barn and spread throughout the city. Many attempts were made to put out the fire but there were too many errors and problems in the beginning. After the fire many people were left homeless and had to help build their city again (Murphy, 39)
McCullough explains how Johnstown became an example of ‘The Gilded Age’ industrialization prior to the 1889 disaster. The canal made Johnstown the busiest place in Cambria County in the 1820s. By the 1850s the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Company began, and the population increased. There were about 30,000 people in the area before the flood. The Western Reservoir was built in the 1840s, but became generally known as the South Fork dam. It was designed to supply extra water for the Main Line canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh. By saving the spring floods, water could be released during the dry summers. When the dam was completed in 1852, the Pennsylvania Railroad completed the track from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the canal business began its decline. The state offered to sell the canal, the railroad company bought it for the right of ways yet had no need to maintain the dam, which due to neglect, broke for the first time in 1862. McCullough stresses that man was responsible for the...
Americans had knowledge of the events taking place during the war, but Carson shed a light on the ripple effects that the environment was experiencing. Silent Spring brings the focus to different threats that had arisen because of the war. In a way, Carson places the blame for the deterioration of the environment on mankind as a whole. In the past, wars had been fought without any use of nuclear weaponry. Carson’s writing really emphasizes the fault of mankind’s decision to hurt the environment. “Along with the possibility of extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm – substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.” (Carson, 181). The writing technique Carson uses in Silent Spring has a way of making the reader feel guilty, especially considering that at the time of publication there was so much environmental destruction occurring. Carson’s writing helped to educate the American population of the harm to the environment caused by the Cold War. Because the war’s dangerous strategies provided such a strong backbone for Carson’s argument, the American public was very receptive of the content and themes presented in Silent
The focus of the investigation is to what extent did the construction and use of the Erie Canal impact the amount of western settlement and expansion in the United States? The study will analyze how economic opportunities that began in 1825 with the completion of the Erie Canal, affected the westward immigration of settlers. The study will look at the various jobs that arose with the completion of the canal and the changes in demographics that came with economic opportunity. An increase in economic potential also led to political changes that occurred between 1817 and 1830 that allowed for an increase of immigration and settlement in the west. Finally, the transition of the view on the west from a rugged and remote terrain to a civilized and developed landscape will be discussed and its impact of settlement will be analyzed.
Building a canal to connect the seas together wasn?t originally Roosevelt?s idea. The idea had been around since Spanish colonial times, but the United States took interest in the subject too as they expanded westward. In 1846 a treaty was signed granting the United States transit rights across the Isthmus of Panama, as long as they guaranteed neutrality in Panama and Columbia. In 1848, Great Britain and the United States had great interest in building the Nicaragua Canal, a route other than across the Isthmus of Panama. The Clayton-Buwler Treaty of 1850, in which Great Britain and the United States promised that any canal in Central America would be politically neutral, ended the rivalry between the two countries. Credit of the idea for building a canal can be given to Cornelius Vanderbilt. H realized he could make quite a profit from the canal. The United States found it imperative that they had control over a canal in Latin America, but did not know whether to build one in Nicaragua or Panama. Later, in 1878, a French company under Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was an ambitious man who built the Suez Canal, was grant...
This amendment stated, “The objective of this Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters. The Administrator shall, after careful investigation, and in cooperation with other Federal agencies, State water pollution control agencies, interstate agencies, and the municipalities and industries involved, prepare or develop comprehensive programs for preventing, reducing, or eliminating the pollution of the navigable waters and ground waters and improving the sanitary condition of surface and underground waters ” (U.S Senate, 2002) Under this amendment, the “Clean Lakes Program.” And “National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.” Were established. This Amendment is where the vast majority of debate is fostered. Section 404 addresses “permits for dredged or fill material” and
People in the northern United States during the early nineteenth century wanted to rapidly industrialize and increase the amount of money they were making. The Erie Canal they believed was a great way to reduce the distance and time of shipping goods to the west. They also realized that the canal would probably increase their markets, which would mean a larger profit. The problem with all of this was how people had to destroy parts of nature in order for this to happen. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a prominent writer during the time, described the canal as “too rapid, unthinking advance of progress.” (57) Hawthorne and his supporters were very upset to see how forests and swamps were being destroyed and ruined in order t...
... line the canal today. The development of the railroad in the 19th century and the automobile in the 20th century sealed the fate of the Erie Canal.
With all the new homes in the area, an elementary school was opened near the corner of the canal in 1955. Soon after the opening, students and teachers began complaining of being burnt, nauseous odors, and black sludge (Gibbs 21). It wasn’t till nearly thirty years later that the government finally decided to investigate the complaints.
Congress enacted legislation now known as the Clean Water Act. During the Truman era, originally called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The bill Congress passed in 1972 was an overhaul of the original act. The Clean Water Act set limits on the amount of pollutants industries and cities could discharge and gave the Environmental Protection Agency the power to sue and penalize polluters that exceeded those limits. Congress banned DDT, reduced emissions and sued major cities.
The current size, inherent values, and economic status of the United States owes greatly to the paramount figures and events that took place during the Early National Period of the country. However, while there is no doubt that such events- and the figures behind them- were of great importance and have molded the country into the pristine product that it is today, the various construction projects of that time have gone largely unnoticed. Canals, being one of the most prominent advances in transportation, are prime examples of forgotten catalysts of the American nation. The construction of canals- particularly the Erie Canal- during the 19th century played a key role in the geographic, economic, and cultural development of the country by
In the first chapter of Silent Spring, Carson describes a town before and after being exposed to chemicals. It is a beautiful place before, with birds in the sky and fish in the water, and everything is very pleasant. However, after being