Earth Day Atonement: 10 Environmental Disasters to Remember

Ten tragic lessons in our nation's environmental history that should never be forgotten.
And one climate destabilization tragedy in the making that needs our urgent help.

* Extinction: Three Species Per Hour

According to a United Nations report released in 2007, our planet is at risk of losing three species per hour. Ahmed Djoghlaf, the head of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, declared: "We are indeed experiencing the greatest wave of extinctions since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Extinction rates are rising by a factor of up to 1,000 above natural rates. Every hour, three species disappear. Every day, up to 150 species are lost. Every year, between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct."

For John J. Audubon, the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, the great American wild pigeon, would have ranked high: "The multitudes of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing," Audubon wrote. "Indeed, after having viewed them so often, and under so many circumstances, I even now feel inclined to pause, and assure myself that what I am going to relate is fact. Yet I have seen it all, and that too in the company of persons who, like myself, were struck with amazement." A victim of hunting and industrial abuses, the last Passenger Pigeon died in an Ohio zoo in 1914.

* Everything in Its Path: Mountaintop Removal:

Imagine a quarter-mile strip of land stretching from Washington, DC until San Francisco: An estimated 800-1000 square miles of mountains and valleys have been eliminated from the American landscape since the launch of mountaintop removal strip mining operations in central Appalachia in 1970. Using explosives and heavy machinery, over 500 mountains in the oldest and one of the most diverse ranges on earth, have been clear cut, blown to bits and then toppled into valleys and streams with their waste since President Jimmy Carter signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act in 1977, which shamefully recognized mountaintop removal as an approved mining technique.

Mountaintop removal has not only destroyed the natural heritage; it has ripped out the roots of the Appalachian culture and depopulated the historic mountain communities in the process.

It continues today as one of the most egregious human rights and environmental violations in the nation.

* Donora Smog: Worst Air Pollution Disaster

With a severe temperature inversion, poisonous gases such as sulfuric acid and nitrogen dioxide were trapped in the stagnant air of the Donora mill town in the Monongahela River Valley in Pennsylvania. Released from various steel works and a zinc plant, whose sulfuric emissions had wiped out most vegetation within a half-mile, 20 people were killed and thousands stricken with respiratory and heart problems by the smog in the fall of 1948.

* Don't Call Them Accidents: The TVA Coal Ash, Martin County Coal Slurry and Buffalo Creek Disasters

When the dike broke at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash pond on December 22, 2008, and over 1.1 billion gallons of toxic sludge eased its way into tributaries and watersheds of the Tennessee River, former MSHA investigator Tony Oppegard had flashbacks to the largely overlooked Martin County, Kentucky coal slurry impoundment that broke on October 11, 2000, and dumped over 306 million gallons of toxic sludge into the tributaries of the Tug Fork River. Both dirty coal incidents and negligent handling wiped out aquatic life and contaminated the drinking water for thousands of residents.

As the worst environmental disasters in the eastern states in modern times, the two incidents didn't rank as "accidents" to Oppegard, a veteran Kentucky mine safety lawyer and investigator. "A spill implies something benign ("I spilled my milk"), and many folks won't read past the headline. It also implies that it was "just an accident" --that is, that it wasn't foreseeable and that gross negligence or criminal conduct didn't occur, which I certainly would not assume at this point. To the contrary, I assume that there was gross negligence in this case."

The TVA disaster came as a wakeup call that nearly half the American population (and their watersheds) live within an hour's drive of a coal ash pond or slurry impoundment. It also reminded the nation that the coal ash pond had yet to be classified or regulated as hazardous waste sites.

Residents in the Buffalo Creek Hollow were not so fortunate. On February 26, 1972, over 132 million gallons of sludge broke past a coal slurry impoundment, flooded 16 townships, and took 125 lives and left thousands of people homeless in Logan County, West Virginia.

* Love Canal: The Origins of the Superfund

In a quiet neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, over 21,000 tons of toxic waste were buried in the 1940s, covered with dirt and a plot of grass. Twenty-five years later, recognizing the extraordinary rates of birth defects, miscarriages, cancer and nervous disorders in the area---along with the construction of a school near the contaminated site--Love Canal resident Lois Gibbs led a campaign to uncover the environmental disaster. According to one survey, 56% of the children born in the 1970s suffered from some form of a birth defect. An EPA study estimated that one out of three residents in the area had undergone chromosomal damage.

Eventually, 800 families were relocated from the area. Their tragedy led to the passing of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, or Superfund Act, which granted federal authorities the funds to clean up contaminated sites and hold polluters accountable.

* Exxon Valdez Oil Spill:

On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef in the Prince William Sound and poured 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. Wiping out the marine life in the area, the oil spill eventually stretched over 11,000 square miles.

Twenty years later, the Exxon disaster is not a story of naval impairment and workplace negligence, or an indicator of the toxic levels of oil. As Meg White writes: "Beyond the environmental massacre precipitated by the spill itself, Exxon is guilty of extreme negligence. Alaskan fishing towns such as Cordova and Valdez are shadows of their former selves due to the environmental, economic, and social repercussions of the spill. Despite corporate promises, the communities torn asunder by the disaster were never made whole again. It's a sad state of affairs when people who have been hurting for two decades are still waiting for the situation they've been trapped in to be resolved. That is, in itself, an important reason to go back to this story on its 20th anniversary."

* Black Mesa: Removing the Liver of the Earth

The site of one of the largest strip mines in the country since 1966, Black Mesa remains like a scar on our nation's conscience for the scandalous machinations of Peabody Energy on the Dine/Navajo and Hopi reservations. As part of a 273-mile slurry line, billions of gallons of water were also siphoned from the Navajo aquifer for decades. As the main water source for the native farmers and ranchers in the area, this caused wells and springs to dry up, groundwater levels to plummet and native vegetation to vanish.

As investigative journalist Judith Nies reported in 1998: "Thirty years after the strip mining for coal began, the cities have the energy they were promised, but the Hopi and Navajo nations are not rich-that part of the plan proved ephemeral. Instead, Black Mesa has suffered human rights abuses and ecological devastation; the Hopi water supply is drying up; thousands of archeological sites have been destroyed; and, unbeknownst to most Americans, twelve thousand Navajos have been removed from their lands-the largest removal of Indians in the United States since the 1880s."

The nightmare of Black Mesa is not over. In an 11th hour ploy, the Bush administration gave the green light for an expansion of strip mining at Black Mesa in December, 2008. "Black Mesa is the female mountain, coal is her liver, water is her lifeblood, and we need to leave it in the ground," says Marie Gladue Dine from Black Mesa. "Taking coal out of the earth is a dirty business, and it's time to move toward a clean energy future that respects indigenous communities and our future generations."

* Hurricane Katrina: A Failure of Initiative

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the third major hurricane of the 2005 season, hit the Gulf Coast of the United States. The Category 4 hurricane took over 1,300 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. It devastated marine habitats over 217 square miles of coastline.

Finding that the levees protecting New Orleans were not built for the most severe hurricanes and lacked a warning system for breaches and repairs to the levees, the Bipartisan Congressional Report concluded: "The failure of local, state, and federal governments to respond more effectively to Katrina -- which had been predicted in theory for many years, and forecast with startling accuracy for five days -- demonstrates that whatever improvements have been made to our capacity to respond to natural or man-made disasters, four and half years after 9/11, we are still not fully prepared."

* The Worst Hard Time: The Making of the Great Dust Bowl

As a combination of over-grazing, over-cultivation, and unwise agricultural practices and abuses that led to massive erosion and destruction of the natural grasslands, extraordinary drought conditions in the 1930s whipped up massive dust storms across 100 million acres of Oklahoma and Texas and parts of the Great Plains.

Author Timothy Egan noted: "There are so many echoes of what happened in the 1930s and Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in the summer of 2005. For starters, there were ample warnings that a large part of the United States could be rendered uninhabitable if people continued to live as they did - in this case, ripping up all the grass that held the earth in place. In one sense, the prairie grass was like the levees around New Orleans; the grass protected the land against ferocious winds, cycles of drought, and storms. Then after the big dusters hit, you had a massive exodus: more than a quarter million people left their homes and fled. Never before or since had so many Americans been on the move because of a single weather event - until Hurricane Katrina."

* Bhopal: How Union Carbide Made the World Flat

It didn't take place in the United States, but it deserves a spot on any list of American-sponsored environmental disasters: On the night of December 3, 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant leak exposed over 500,000 people to toxic methyl isocyanate gases in Bhopal, India. A village awoke to the mayhem of terror and burning lungs; an estimated 8,000 people died, though the numbers have never been confirmed and are assumed to be much greater. Union Carbide had disregarded warnings about potential leaks and improper safety conditions for years.

* The Future Earth Day is Now: Kivalina Vs. ExxonMobil

The native Inupiat villagers in Kivalina and Shishmaref, along a six-mile barrier island between the Chukchi Sea and the Kivalina River on the Northwest Arctic coast, are on the frontlines of climate change. With the sea ice melting, their coastline community has experienced massive erosion and devastation. The villagers have sued ExxonMobil and a host of oil companies, power companies and one coal company for the destruction of their way of life from unchecked CO2 emissions.

For more information, see: http://www.shishmarefrelocation.com/

Jeff Biggers is the author of The United States of Appalachia, and the forthcoming memoir, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The Nation/Basic Books).

Comments

[Profyz]

There is some hope for the earth after all. Extinction of human race will be helpful.

[Cindy Letchworth - Huffpost Blogger]

Great article, Jeff. The mountaintop removal is such a serious threat, and most people aren't even aware it is going on.

The animal extinctions are always a hot button for me. The newest threat is to the wolves in Idaho and neighboring states thanks to Ken Salazar's recent decision to agree with the Bush administration, and delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act. By doing so, the wolves are in grave danger and the hunting will begin May 4th unless the ruling can be stopped. The projected kill will eliminate nearly 2/3 of the population. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that total demise of the wolves is the real agenda.

[writerroz]

We had eight years of greedy Republicans, eight years of too many Republicans in the House & Senate and twelve years of Reagon/Bush reign to stall the process of cleaning up and saving our environment. When I attended a LIBERAL ARTS Catholic College in the eighties, we were having Symposiums to save our earth as well as having knowledgable speakers for Earth Day, telling us how to save our earth. So what happened in our government and media? The Republicans.

[daddysboy]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. These are the ongoing results of intentional grabs for resources without any ethical or moral considerations of any kind. Just like the economic insiders that steal every last penny from anyone they can despite the economy, these energy and mineral companies pull it right out of our earth and be damned the residents living on it. Environmental protection is and should be a government issue because the reach of these companies is much larger and stronger than any one person or group. It is SHAMEFUL that we have had a federal government in this country that ever worked against our long-term interests of residency, let alone against sustaining the natural world that is a part of that long-term survival. Greed will always be at least a part of the driving factor of business in America if we continue to operate with similar models to the ones we have in the past. As an antidote to that greed and a necessary part of sustaining our future, grabs for resources have to be controlled and kept in VERY serious check by powerful government forces or these incidents will only increase.

[Donald Wolberg]

Mr. Biggers' perspectives are interesting but in many ways silly. One assumes his reference to the biggest extinction wave since the end otof the dinosaurs (65,000,000 years ago)is either meant to overstate a concern or amuse. Approximately 1.2 million species of organisms (from bacteria to trees to insects and fishes have been named. It is generally estimated that this number is anywhere from 5% to 10% of the actual number of different living things--12,000,000 to 24,000,000 different species exist. Most named species are insects (75%) and then there is the rest. It is generally thought by people to study these things that in the last 3.5 billion years (thats 3,500 million years), billions of species have existed (that's thousands of millions). It is also thought that somewhere between 99.5% and 99.9% of all these are extinct! All species go extinct. The U.N., not an intellectual hotbed of ideas, has no real data that 1, 2, 3, or 300 species die every hour--which ones Jim? Most species loss seems to be by habitat loss in South America, China and elsewhere in Asia, not Cleveland, Ohio. And by the way, dinosaurs did not go extinct...we still have birds.

[MAH1952]

Again the problem is culture, culture, culture. Today I read about off-roaders complaining about being blamed for dust storms in the West. Wah, Wah, Wah, I want to do what I want to do and no one can tell me not to. The selfishness that we all indulge in has reached the point where it is threatening the continued existence of humankind and people still can't see beyond the end of their nose. My hope is that humankind does destruct soon so that the millions of other lifeforms on this planet can get back to living.

[Car84]

Some more American self-flagellation. Keep in mind that the USSR did plenty of atrocious things to the environment, with their mining techniques. I'm sure China has some whoppers in there, too. The U.S. has been far more responsible with the environment (including vast improvements over the past decades) than any major country, and certainly most developing countries.

As far as Bhopal goes, I don't think it belongs on the list. As deadly as it was, I don't know how or whether it had much of a lasting effect on the environment. If it did, the author should have mentioned these things. It just looks like a gratuitous swipe at Union Carbide.

[speakingout]

It's NOT OK to pollute our planet through the corrupt justification to rape Mother Earth for the sake of our energy needs. Snap out of it America. When the animals start disappearing, don't you think we will be next? We've had electric car technology since the late 1800's!!!!!!! Why are we not driving electric cars? Because the big oil & gas and coal industries want us to continue to CONSUME their dirty goods. Demand freedom from consumption of dirty fuels. And end the dam wars! Who do you think is the biggest consumer of oil? The military! One scratches the others back and the politicians get paid on the side. It's disgusting! The ONLY way we will have a clean environment is to DEMAND the change and stop buying those big ole gas hogs! When you get in your stupid SUV- that you really don't need- think of the tens of thousands of innocent animals that have perished from the destruction of this industry, plus the millions of people that have suffered for our "national interests" wars. The only national interests the politicians care about is the money their oil & gas and military manufacturing lobbyists pay them. I say we pass a new law that makes it illegal for any politician to accept money from ANY corporation. Corporations can't vote, why are they taking money from them? This is where the corruption starts and must end. More exposure of these tragedies to bring the perpetrators to justice, starting with

[mtflyer]

Living in West Virginia,m­ountaintop destruction is a daily reminder that my state is still living in a feudal system controlled by big utilities with no concern for the environment or the people. The worst offender is Massey Energy, that spends a lot on commercials to fool people into believing that they care for anything except their corporate income. The collusion between big coal and the state government if obvious to anyone living here . Unfortunately the state legislature is more concerned with ATV legislation and finding ways to generate revenue through casino gambling instead of finding ways to end the state's dependence on coal.

[WeMadeAmistake]

How about ending Al Gore's use of 213,000 kwH of electricity at his Tennessee mansion each month. That is enough energy to power 232 average size U.S. homes each month. While your at it, you might ask him to stop polluting a nearby river from his copper mine.

[dianhow]

Forget going GREEN for a bit.
Mr Cheney is now sending a dangerous message to the world

ATTACK US- WE ARE WEAK !

No Obama is NOT weak - but many will still believe it and act accordingly.

[dianhow]

I have one unrelated post for today.
Dick Cheney is now A SECURITY RISK.
HE IS TRYING TO TAKE DOWN THE PRESIDENCY AND THE USA WITH IT.
In trying to cover his own ass- he is putting us at huge risk..
He is saying to the world: ATTACK US we are weak.
what a piece of....

[WeMadeAmistake]

It isn't Cheney to worry about as far as bringing down the USA. It's Obama and his irresponsible Congressional cronies who are spending $1 Billion per hour. We are bankrupt. Obama has tripled our deficit in just 11 weeks. $11 Trillion national debt and $55 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. That means there is NO money in the Social Security Trust Fund. Just IOU's. Don't think so? .....The Chinese are getting out of U.S. bonds and are moving to copper. ...and hyper-inflation, the kind that was seen in 1923 in Germany is around the corner. Get ready for a loaf of bread that costs $9.....while you are drinking that Obama kool-aid.

[speakingout]

Blame the idiots that sat by while Bush did nothing to help lower spending. HE was the one to cause the economy to collapse,, because he failed to appoint the 5 board member to the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to oversee the companies. HE was the one with his side-kick Cheney that was involved in Enron. HE was the one that got us bogged down in endless war. HE was the one that allowed the polluting corporations to continue down the path of no return. He was the one that sat and did nothing when the oil speculators drove the price over $4/gallon. HE was the one that "forgot" about Bin Laden because he was more interested in getting an oil contract in Iraq. Don't EVEN try to blame Obama for any of this mess! It's just like a cowardly republican that refuses to take responsibility for their actions. We are all sick of the whiny rhetoric. Where were all you whiners when Bush was spending over a Trillion on the war?

[jcheadsup]

Fool me once shame on you

Fool me twice shame on me

Can’t you see the fools are we

Still pray to gods we’ll never see

Can’t you see what fools we be

Inherit greed and bigotry


Fool me once shame on you

Fool me twice shame on me

Can’t you see the fools are we

Still can’t define democracy

Can’t you see what fools we be

Choose anarchy or slavery


Fool me once shame on you

Fool me twice shame on me

Can’t you see the fools are we

Still spoil every place we be

Can’t you see what fools we be

The cancer is humanity


Well let me tell you my friends

If we don’t make amends

We’ll be but fools to the end

Please tell me

Why can’t we live honestly

[mtflyer]

DOUBLE AMEN TO THIS!

[cayuse]

Man is the most toxic contribution known to earth and the universe.

We in the name of green our currently filling the open space of Easteren Wasington with Windmills that will produce 10% of our electric needs. An area with no National Disaster and instead of people we are creating more electricity so more people can immigrate to the US condemming the earth even further. Simply to keep housing price high in areas unfit for man kind.

This is not working toward a Green Environment, but the almight GREEN Dollar for the rich and famous and Euro Wealth that is producing this without any American or Local say in it all.

Green in name is not the way forward. We need to slow down and smell the flowers not distroy the flowers for Green Money

[daddysboy]

What does Paramhansa Yogananda have to do with administrating green industry? In any case, we have to take steps toward new models of business and industry and not all of them are a solution in the short-term. In the short-term, convincing individuals in America that we can operate WITHOUT non-renewable resources is paramount to actually eliminating the use of non-renewable resources. When the minds and hearts are there, the people will follow. Right now, most dirty industries have the ear of individual Americans because they have bought the rights to that platform (we have ALL seen the shell commercials). Remember that "drill, baby, drill" had resonance because that is what many people believe at this moment. Despite what every American SHOULD do, they are not going to get out of their combustion vehicle and walk away en-masse any time soon. When less ignorance prevails, we just might.

[TEPK]

How come none of the Greenies and Tree Huggers have EVER noticed (nor made an issue of) the open pit phosphate mines in Florida ??? Destroying wetlands; eliminating native plants and animals; endangering central west coast drinking water supplies; and leaving some of the ugliest and most toxic "waste" anyone has ever seen - - along with "restoration" that's a bad joke! (AND - all the damned phosphate goes to China!)

One of these gigantic toxic waste (impermeable clay, chemical sludge, acidified water, and radioactive materials) piles of sludge and water failed a couple of years ago - and the gook was pumped into Tampa Bay and a bunch shipped out into the Gulf and dumped - and not a peep out of the national environmentalists and conservati­onists(???­) And - much of this mining takes place just a very short drive from tourist paradises on the west coast - and within shouting distance of significant watercourses that provide drinking water to several highly-populated coastal counties. And - NOT A PEEP from the Earth Day crowd.

And - the state, affected counties and the Army Corps of Engineers keep OKaying these hellish activities on the basis of "job creation" (very few and low-paying jobs) and as "necessary for agriculture" (except its not for Florida or American agriculture - it's for Chinese agriculture!).

[missouriwatcher]

Some, like my wife who likes to describe herself as a TR republican, have noticed. Unfortunately, it is the news media that fail to grasp this story. Florida, at it now is, is fast on its way to becoming one of arid states like Arizona or California. Water is already an issue, and is most assuredly going to become the one great story in the state. My wife likes to say "Florida is no place for humans"; but humans have made it that way.

[Whatshop]

This is the same Florida legislature that in honor of Earth Day has introduced a bill (HB 1219) that will allow drilling for oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico from the water's edge to 10 miles. That's right. They cannot drill past 10 miles because that is Federal Waters, so they are passing a bill that will allow them to drill right along the shoreline. AND this bill says that if an energy company applies for a permit to drill it is the burden of the State of Florida to proove that it woudl have negative consequenses in order to deny the permit. All other States have laws that say it is the burden of the oil company seeking the permit to prove that their drilling would not have a negative impact. It passed the panel along party lines 17 R yes and 7 D no.
The GOP won't be happy till they ruin every coastal town, and beach and waterway in this country. True patriots!

[devildog21]

Interesting. I lived in Brandon, FL for three years and didn't know anything about a phosphate mine nearby.

[WeMadeAmistake]

I live in Tampa and may I point out that that the phosphate minng industry here is tightly regulated, provides thousands of jobs (not the Bill Clinton hamburger flipper type paying jobs), and most eventually get reclamated. As far as China is concerned, the phosphate industry ships all over the world, including the U.S. Next time you wash your clothes, be thankful that you aren't using crushed tea leaves to clean them. More than likely, you are using phosphate derivative. Speaking of toxic waste, I would take a look at the copper mine that Al Gore owns that has been polluting a nearby river for years.....not to mention his Tennessee mansion use of 213,000 kwH of electricity each month. That is enough enegy to power 232 average size U.lS. homes every month.

[writerroz]

We DO have Phosphate-free detergents now. It is about public choice. Which do you choose? Bush/Cheney supporters should stop listening to their gods: Limbaugh and Hanity if the TRUELY like truth.

[writerroz]

Time to wake up, TEPK. Remember, we've just ended eight years of the Bush/Cheney criminals and, by the way, Isn't it the Republicans who govern Florida? It Was the last time I took a look.

[Joseph Alton]

According to a United Nations report released in 2007, our planet is at risk of losing three species per hour...

[123andy]

The problem with this story is that while it is full of passion it is short on integrity about facts. It is really good at pulling on the chain.

[devildog21]

That's a cop out post. Tell us what the inaccuracies are or don't post.

[MAH1952]

Common complaint. No one has 'proved' global warming. Well the only proof will come when mankind is gone and the average tempreture on earth is 500 degrees. Then that will satisfy the doubters. It like all those stupid people who thought Katrina would hit NO. Look how wrong they are!