Many Americans Residing In Areas With Chronic Levels Of Pollution

We are leaving the earth in far better shape than it was in when we were born, and I imagine our children will leave it in better shape for their children. Pollution is the result of inefficient industrial technologies, and technology is improving by leaps and bounds every day.

Read today that the first big windmill park somewhere near the coast of New Jersey is being opposed by many residents. Maybe they should read the numbers about pollution and make up their mind.

Sadly, the only time anything is done is when the effect is widespread human suffering.

I can fully relate to this article. I live in highly polluted Arizona. Man's greed has been the #1 priority, not the health of the people. The rubberizing here of the lanes on freeways, has caused toxic fumes from the rubber. Especially when our temperatures reach 100 degrees plus for about 5 months straight. Unfortunately I am on oxygen in order to breathe. Thank you for polluting my lungs.

TDR

Nearing, this is off topic but

Glad your back!:)

I have been reading your post and up voting them since I spotted you several days ago.

I don't mean to sound harsh and uncaring - but I read about chronic levels of pollutants that we have in some areas and I can't get that excited any more. I consider myself an environmentalist - but I think I've become jaded (or tired).

I remember as a young man driving by Pittsburgh and hearing the radio warn me away from the city. On smog alert days the radio announcers would ask motorists to avoid coming into the city if they could possibly avoid it. You couldn't see the tops of buildings and the sun shown through a grey/orange haze.

One of my first jobs was with the U.S. EPA - only seven years after it was organized. The messes we had to deal with in the air, in the water and on the land were incredible! Waterways had caught on fire (read about the Cuyahoga, and there were others). The Great Lakes were dead or dying. I recall going to my first Superfund site (before Superfund was passed - I helped develop the legislation from the EPA). I used to wear cowboy boots. I walked across the Seymour Recycling site near Indianapolis. When I put my boots on the next day in my motel room - I pulled my feet right through the soles. Valley of the Drums, Chemical Control Site, Love Canal. I worked at a site in New Jersey where we had to retrieve two U.S. Fish & Wildlife officers who had fallen ill by walking downwind of a 'lake' of toxic materials without respirators. For several years Atlantic City (NJ) was awarded the best-tasting municipal water in the U.S. It got to be so clean because of four banks of carbon contactors on the intake wells. Why do you think those carbon contactors are there?

We've made tremendous strides in improving the quality of our environment. We still have a long way to go in some areas, and I'm glad that folks like you, nearing, are out there pushing. I did my time on Level A and Level B jobs - to the point that I just can't get excited about the levels of pollutants that we now see in general.

I think jameseg makes a great point. Look at some of the pictures of pollution in China. That's what it used to be like here. I did a job in southwest Sardinia where there's a lead smelter with no air pollution controls. Many of the residents were walking around with sores on their arms and faces. The soil is contaminated so badly with lead that the grapes grown there cannot be used to make wine - but the crops are grown, and then thrown away so that the residents can claim subsidies from the government. Cars parked on the street for over an hour or so picked up so much lead dust that you could write your name in it. The local electric plant's air scrubber has produced so much gypsum that there's no place left to store it - so the operators turned it off and now the plant spews sulfuric acid into the air from the high-sulfur coal they burn.

So - that's my rant. I do think that there are places in the U.S. that still need a lot of attention, and where health hazards are unacceptable. I think that people like nearing are needed to push for the right thing. But I can't get excited over general articles reporting about 'chronic' pollutants when there are still areas with 'acute' levels of pollutants. They cause more confusion and anxiety than is needed. Let's focus our energy on specific problems.

Maybe I'm just tired (or jaded). It's a good thing that others are around to pick up the baton.

I'm not exactly proud to be living within driving distance of Tampa. There has been this lingering smell since a major storm a few days ago. One thing they say it isnt, is the oil slick. Why dont i find comfort in that?

Has anyone ever heard of a small town named Picher, Oklahoma? My family is from that area, one of my siblings was born in Picher. I'm so very thankful that my parents were able to get away from the mines.

Pollution?? The Tragedy Of Tar Creek and Complete Devastation In Picher, OK http://sync.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x148121

"But the grimmest legacy of a century of intensive lead and zinc mining are the "lead heads," or "chat rats," as the kids who grew up around here are known. As toddlers, they played in sandboxes of chat — the powdery output of mills after ore is extracted from rock. As preteens, they rode their bikes across the gravel mounds and swam in lime-green sinkholes. Their parents used mine tailings to make driveways and foundations, never thinking that contaminated dust might blow through the heating ducts of their ranch houses. In the past decade, studies have shown that up to 38% of local children have had high levels of lead in their blood — an exposure that can cause permanent neurological damage and learning disabilities. "Our kids hit a brick wall," says Kim Pace, principal of the Picher-Cardin Elementary School. "Their eyes skip and jump. It takes them 100 repetitions to learn a sound."

The following excerpt and more can be found at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24555711/

"Acid waters, land of sinkholes
Today, Tar Creek runs orange with acidic water that flooded the mines. Cave-ins and sinkholes threaten; a mine collapse in 1967 took nine homes.

Bleak, gray mountains of lead-contaminated chat, or mine tailings, loom around town. Some rise 100 feet and look like sand dunes. They have names like Sooner, St. Joe and Golden Rod 8.

For years, before most knew better, the gravel-coated piles doubled as sledding hills for kids, a Lover's Lane for teenagers and a makeshift proving grounds for dirt bikes and the high school's track team.

It will take at least 15 more years to haul the stuff off, for use in highway construction projects, but that's not soon enough.

The polluted dust that blows through every nook of this place has already affected a generation.

In the 1990s, a study found elevated blood lead levels in Tar Creek-area children, and teachers began noticing years ago that students were learning more slowly and couldn't focus."

One would think that with all the information we now have about the dangers of high level pollution that people would embrace going green. I still don't see the levels of recycling I did in the 80's and God Forbid talking to some people about doing there part. I still have hope for the future however because I do see the changes even if they are slow in coming. Wind and solar power are becoming more and more popular. Cars have better fuel economy and less fumes. Where not there yet but at least where headed in the right direction again.

Brain damage...one of the worst problems that you can have. What happens when a TEENAGER is affected with this disorder? Ask Mark. He has this problem, and is not afraid to show it. His attitude is confident, although his morale is brought down by this problem.

Good article.

We waste far to much energy. We could improve our situation signicantly with small changes to lifestyle which may actually be improvements. Yet when I have suggested this in articles I get an incredible amount of resistance to the idea.

Just think you much energy we could save if we turned all the street lights out at midnight.

Hi there nearing how are things?