Chapter 6: Environmental Welfare discusses heavily upon a new chemical called Dioxin. When first introduced it wasn't clearly discussed what it was so I looked it up. Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants. They are found throughout the world in the environment and accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. It is the most toxic chemical known to science. Dioxins are produced through a variety of incineration processes, including improper waste incineration and burning of trash, and can be released into the air during natural processes, such as forest fires and volcanoes. Dioxin was found at the Diamond Alkali pesticide plant in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood in Newark, NJ. Present, were levels so high that the test couldn't properly measure it. 15% of the nations output was produced at this one site. Dioxin from this site would spread and contaminate the ocean contaminating tons of seafood with the most toxic synthetic substance known to humans. It can cause birth defects, mental issues, cancer and interact with other carcinogens to increase cancer severity.
Since the levels of toxin were too high to be measured, a sample was sent to the most reliable dioxin analytical laboratory run by Christopher Rappe at the University of Umea in Sweden. The sample was so highly contaminated with dioxin that it contaminated the entire laboratory which had to be shut down for a month to clean up all the residual background traces of the sample. It held one of the highest ambient levels of doxin ever recorded. The area had to be quickly cleaned, but still to this day there are laws that remain in effect because of the long lasting chemical. The sale and consumption of all fish, shellfish, and crustaceans from the Passaic River and Newark Bay is prohibited. Companies dumped chemicals and waste into the oceans just destroying the wildlife, not thinking about the consequences to the marine biology and how that will come back. Basically karma for their "out of sight, out of mind" thoughts. For years pollutant dredged sediments of the inner harbor were transported offshore and into the pathways of major fisheries. I don't even think it can be know exactly how far it traveled. The fish become contaminated and they migrate throughout the oceans - do they then pass the chemicals on to their off spring? Is it just one cycle of contaminated sea life? It took until 1988 for the government to pass an Ocean Dumping Ban Act. The lives of humans have to be directly in danger and that was seen when medical waste with vials of blood and syringes washed up on beaches in New Jersey and Long Island during the summer of 1988. However, the Mud Dump wasn't officially closed as a disposal until 1997. It is insane just how long they let things continue, even when decades of studies say that it is unsafe.
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Gabriella Brycea Junior at Seton Hall University studying Elementary and Special education with Environmental Studies. Archives
April 2018
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