Chapter 5: Environmental Crime is based a lot around politics and how various officials and city/state workers have let down their cities. In Jersey City, industries made deals with city officials to release toxic chemicals known as Chromium into the sewers and to mix it with building fill. These companies did as they pleased while health inspectors and county engineers looked the other way while the toxic waste was poured onto empty lots right beside the places where children play and families live. It doesn't make any sense how at least one person didn't try to stop it and take all this documentation to federal court. The chemicals killed and these officials walked away with extra money in their pockets. Organized crime in New Jersey saw the "reward" in controlling the illegal disposal of hazardous materials, but not the harm in what it could do. Mafia run garbage trucks would pick up regular trash and toxic waste drums to combine them to make it seem like regular trash. Corrupt politicians tried to manage the dispose of the waste signing open service contracts whenever they could which was a big score for people like building inspectors or permit writers who were only making a couple of dollars, but now getting more.
The Chemical Control Corporation hazardous waste storage, treatment, and disposal facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey started out as a legitimate business, but soon a mob-controlled hazardous waste site. Drums would pile high- so high was the pile that when NJDEP inspectors went to visit, they found overflowing pallets placed dangerously close to one another, corrosives stored next to flammables, and acids atop explosives. Eventually an explosion happened - was nobody smart enough to realize that it was a bad idea for this to happen? They were most likely too busy rolling around in their dirty money to realize that their actions were detrimental to the environment and were most likely to go wrong. Either that or they knew, but the money was too much for them to care about the dangers. The explosions sent drums of flaming toxic waste spiraling high into the sky for two days as firefighters from a dozen surrounding communities tried to get close enough to spray down the fire of toxic chemicals without breathing the black smoke that engulfed them. Many were overcome and developed lifelong health problems from exposure to the smoke. The drums shot off life rockets landing in New York and bleeding the toxins into the New York Harbor from the Elizabeth River. The the toxic chromium was mixed into heating oil and sold to the public for home use. A mud concoction was created with the chromium and sold to use a fill in construction, road grading, building foundations, filling for wetlands, and even for use in municipalities like high school tracks, a movie theater, baseball fields, and public park. Not only used for buildings, but when in the ground it leaked into the drinking water too. The unseen hazardous toxins were surrounding the public and little did they know also affecting their health. Corporations knowingly distributed the waste for "beneficial" reasons just to save a few dollars on their budget all while harming the health of the public. People were dying from such high amounts of the toxicity especially those working or leaving near or on the waste. Chromium at its hexavalent state is a powerful oxidant and the most toxic form. It can cause ulcers of the skin and irritation of the nasal mucosa and gastrointestinal tract; it also has adverse effects on the kidneys and liver. Chromium-6 is listed as an inhalation and ingestion carcinogen in humans by the USEPA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It took many years and many lawsuits from various organizations and individuals to begin the process of removing or fixing the sites that were made with the chromium-6. New Jersey Attorney General Peter C. Harvey filed lawsuits naming Honeywell, Occidental Petroleum, and PPG Industries liable for the COPR sites and sought reimbursement for the cleanups. 17 At the time, Harvey said: “Clean water, air and land are a right, not a privilege and . . . for too long, the residents of these communities have lived with the threat of this highly toxic chromate waste. Our lawsuit will compel the responsible companies to clean up the remaining chromium contamination" (95). By 2008 the PPG Industries’ Garfield Avenue facility was still only partially remediated despite the release of studies that the exposure could lead to cancer. The buildings were demolished and the mud piles removed, yet tons of “heaving chromium” still move under the interim cap. Heaving chromium is caused by groundwater interacting with the waste and binding it into hard layers that push upward, breaking the surface layer and possibly breaching the protective cap (96). At the end of the day over half a million people were exposed to carcinogens and millions of dollars spent on remediation all at the hands of some greedy people who wanted to take the "easy way out".
0 Comments
Chapter four is about radiation protection. It discusses various events that happened not only in New Jersey or in America, but also in other countries (like the site of the Chernobyl explosion). It discusses the various proposals and "solutions" carried out by the state and government to fix the radiation issues. Some of which could have been stopped/prevented with common sense and knowledge. For example, from 1917 to 1926 the United stated extracted and purified radium from carnotite ore to produce luminous paints in Orange, which were marketed under the brand name Undark (73). The plant in New Jersey employed over a hundred workers, many of which were immigrant women, to paint these watches. Scientists knew how dangerous it was and carefully avoided exposure to it themselves by using masks and tongs. These women received no training or education about hazardous materials and painted their nails, faces, and teeth with the deadly paint. Eventually these women started to suffer and found their death to moth and throat cancer, lung cancer, and bone cancer, all of which the U.S government tried to deny and cover up. All this time they knew about the deadly material, yet they still used it. But for what? To have orange paint!? Couldn't they have used any other paint made out of something different. What was so special about this paint that it was worth killing these women? This could have been avoided. The government likes to play the victim and claim that there are things they didn't know when they were well aware of the issues that could arise (especially in this case), yet chose to be stubborn and careless.
This radon material created problems for years and one issue led to another. A fire that involved military gear painted with this toxic paint released radiation into the environment. Houses were affected with high radiation readings which was not good for the health of the owners. And once again, trying to preserve and save their mistakes, government officials, specifically NJDEP senior management, thought it was a smart idea to dig up radon-contaminated material and replace it with clean fill instead of tear down the houses. This lead to a new problem of having no place to store the contaminated waste. It seems that they are always looking for a solution to the problem, but not thinking in long term. This "well intended" policy to clean under the houses was surly not well thought out. Chapter 3 focuses on water quality and to my surprise there are so many toxins and carcinogens that can make their way into our drinking water and to some extent it is allowed! As a person who lives in America, I always just assumed that our water quality was fine. Like Thomas Belton, mentioned I basically took clean drinking water for granted. I figured that as a first world country, officials had it all figured out. I didn't consider what was done to the water to make it "safe" and the process the water endures before it reaches my tap.
From what I've learned, potable drinking water can be pulled from rivers, lakes, groundwater aquifers, and even seawater if the technology is available to remove the salt content (54). The water pulled from these sources is not readily available for drinking and must go through a filtration process to make it drinkable. The quality of the water when it is pulled determines how much treatment is needed to remove these water-borne contaminants. Many different contaminants were found in the supply and in their research of the Boonton Reservoir supply in 1982 , found Phthalates which are added to plastics to increase their flexibility and are present in other consumer products such as shampoos and children's toys. They are known to produce negative health effects in animal studies including testicular damage, liver injury, liver cancer, antiandrogenic activity, and terato- genicity (56). They are known to be toxic which is clearly seen through the animal studies. I don't understand why the officials who regulate our water or the FDA didn't remove or regulate their use. Officials try to find the easy way out by saying that a certain amount won't hurt, but how do they know in the long run or the fact that everyone's body is different and for people with a lower immune system, having these present toxins could be detrimental. In 1984, New Jersey amended the state drinking water Act (Amendment 280) adding other compounds and mandated the establishment of maximum contaminant levels for the contaminants in drinking water. Essentially saying that they will remove as many toxins as required which is really messed up. Our water is still contaminated, but only to a certain level. Is that suppose to make it better? NO! Officials used Chlorine to treat the water (again using the easy way out) and that too eventually backfired. The only way to have the cleanest water possible is a multi step filtration system and not just using the cheapest option, but really looking out for the people of America. "The future of water quality will require the multiple barrier method for supplying safe drinking water. This method relies on a multipronged battery of defenses to safeguard potable water, including source water protection, coagulation with sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection. It is highly unlikely that pathogens could get past all four barriers" (65). This is what needs to happen, but the question is will it? - I did some research and it looks like we do use the multi-barrier approach as of mid-early 2000s. It was a federal amendment that states adopted. In terms of my home state, Pennsylvania agreed to it in 2009. Chapter two is "Poisoned Fish". This chapter is a continuation of what he briefly touched on at one point in chapter one: the contamination of fish and how it can destroy our body.
The issue of contamination in our fish is beyond the New Jersey shoreline, but a Federal issue. "These bioaccumulation studies showed significant amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxin in edible fish, both carcinogens that cause cancer and teratogens, which can result in learning disabilities and birth defects in children" (31). You would think that with this information the public would put a halt on fishing or at least take caution, but many feel that if they have consumed the fish for so long and nothing has happened then it should be fine. Which is not valid. PCB based products became a central part of many American industries for its various uses such as in inks, fabric dyes, lubricants, sealants, paint additives, and more. The toxicity of PCBs were known immediately, but companies tried to keep it on the down low because the chemicals were so useful. In the 1930s, employees of Swann Company displayed many health issues, such as acnelike pustules on the face and body and loss of energy, appetite, and libido, which are now considered the classic symptoms of PCB toxicity. This issue was not limited to just one company. Monsanto was sued multiple times for damaging the health of its employees and residents near its Superfund sites in Alabama where the Swann facility was located. With the dangers of the PCBs known and the health affects documented and seen, it would show everyone just how bad the situation is. As a result, PCBs were banned in 1977, but fish in the Atlantic waters were still contaminated with PCBs and when eaten, the toxins enter the body of the eater. It's a cycle that ends with humans at the top of the food chain and harms the body. Fish, especially ones that migrate down the coast create a danger to all people along the coast, but many people refuse to believe. Not only are we in danger because of our food supply, but the water as well. Companies pour toxins into the soil thinking that it would just go away, but it contaminates our water and creates problems for us. That leads us into chapter 3. |
Gabriella Brycea Junior at Seton Hall University studying Elementary and Special education with Environmental Studies. Archives
April 2018
Categories |