APES: Well Known Case Studies, Environmental Laws & International Treaties

Aral Sea, Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan

A large inland sea that is drying up; its salinity is rising as a result
of water diversion (from the two main rivers that fed water into it) for irrigating crops (cotton)

Mono Lake, California

A large inland sea that is drying up; its salinity is rising as a result
of water diversion to meet growing water demands in LA

Ogallala Aquifer

• The world's largest aquifer; under parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.

• It holds enough water to cover the United States with 1.5 feet of water.

• It is being depleted for agricultural and urban use.

Minamata, Japan

• Mental impairments, birth defects, and deaths caused by mercury dumped in Minamata Bay by a factory.

• The mercury was converted to methylmercury, bioaccumulated in fish, and biomagnified through food chains. Mercury entered humans who ate a traditional fish-based diet.

Aswan High Dam, Egypt

• The silt that made the Nile region fertile fills the
  reservoir

• Lack of irrigation controls causes waterlogging and salinization

• The parasitic disease schistosomiasis thrives in the stagnant water of the reservoir

Chesapeake Bay, Maryland/Virginia

• The largest estuary in the United States (lies off the Atlantic Ocean between Maryland and Virginia)

• was declared as a dead zone in the 1970s due to hypoxic conditions created from nutrient loading by fertilizers, which caused cultural eutrophication

Love Canal Housing Development, Niagara Falls, NY

• Hazardous chemicals buried in an old canal leaked into homes and school yards

• Led to the passage of the Comprehensive Environment Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund Act

Three-Mile Island, Pennsylvania

• On March 29, 1979, the emergency cooling system of a nuclear reactor was shut down erroneously by an operator

• This led to a partial core meltdown

• The containment structure worked well to retain all radioactive materials, but eventually some radioactive gas was purposely released to reduce pressure in the containment structure and avoid a
  more serious accident

Bhopal, India

• On December 2, 1984, poisonous methyl isocyanate gas was released accidentally by a Union Carbide pesticide plant

• It killed about 5,000 people and causing serious health effects for 50,000-60,000 people

Chernobyl, Ukraine

• On April 26, 1986, an unauthorized safety test led to a fire and explosion at a nuclear power plant

• Millions of people in Europe are exposed to unsafe levels of radiation

• The area around hernobyl remains contaminated today

Valdez, Alaska

• On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound spilling 260,000 barrels of oil

• It was the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters until the spring of 2010

Yucca Mountain, Nevada

• The proposed site for permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste, 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

• Critics are concerned about the safety of transporting high-level radioactive waste to the site and the proximity of the site to a volcano and earthquake faults

Three Gorges Dam, China

• The world's largest dam on Yangtze River

• It submerged ecosystems, cities, archeological sites, displaced two million people, and fragmented the river habitat

Clinch River, Tennessee

• The Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant near Knoxville had a wall breached in a retention pond holding sludge from the coal burning power plant

• This released up to 1 billion gallons of mercury and arsenic-containing sludge into the nearby Clinch River watershed.

Fukushima, Japan

• A major earthquake in 2011 caused a 15-meter tsunami to hit the coast of Japan

• It disabled the power supply and the cooling of three of the reactors. This resulted in a high release of radioactivity between days 4 and 6 after the event

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Gulf of Mexico

• An explosion decimated the BP-operated oil platform in the spring of 2010, resulting in a spill of 4.9 million barrels of oil

• The largest oil spill to date

• Extensive damage to wetlands, habitat, wildlife, and the tourism industry resulted from this spill

Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Washington

• A mostly decommissioned nuclear production facility

• It is recognized as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States, containing approximately 2/3 of the nation's high-level radioactive waste

Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

• Caused by nutrient runoff from lawns, sewage treatment plants, farms, and other sources along the Mississippi River

• This hypoxic area is predicted to reach the size of New Jersey

• This "dead zone" has both environmental and economic effects with the Gulf providing 40% of the nation's seafood

Endangered Species Act

Identifies threatened and endangered species in the United States, and puts their protection ahead of economic considerations

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)

International treaty that lists species that cannot be hunted or commercially traded as live specimens or wildlife products

Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act

Places the Food and Drug Administration in charge of regulating the safety of foods, drugs, and cosmetics; includes the controversial Delaney Clause that prevented the use of any chemical known to cause cancer in man or animal in food.

Safe Drinking Water Act

Sets maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for pollutants that may have adverse effects on human health

• includes groundwater

Clean Water Act

• Sets maximum permissible amounts of water pollutants that can be discharged into waterways, focusing primarily on point-source pollution.

• Main goals are to reduce surface water pollution into lakes, rivers, and streams

Clean Air Act and Amendments

• Sets emission standards for cars, addresses requirements for reducing ozone depletion and acid deposition

• It also established the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for the six criteria air pollutants: carbon monoxide, lead, ground-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide.

• Amendments made emission standards stricter, added cap and trade program for sulfur dioxide emissions, increased focus on urban air pollution

Kyoto Protocol

International agreement (not ratified by the United States) intended to control global warming by setting greenhouse gas emissions targets for developed countries

Montreal Protocol

International agreement that phases out ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs).

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

• Controls hazardous waste with cradle-to-grave system requirements

• This has the additional benefit of groundwater protection

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA):

• Identifies Superfund sites

  • sites where hazardous waste is dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed

  • includes manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills, mining sites

• designed to identify and clean up abandoned hazardous waste dump sites

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

• Requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision-making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions

• requires agencies to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement detailing impact to the surrounding environment

Marine Mammal Protection Act

Protects all marine mammals by prohibiting, with certain exceptions, the taking of marine mammals in U.S. waters and by U.S. citizens on the high seas, and the importation of marine mammals and marine mammal products into the United States

Lacey Act

Prohibits interstate transport of wild animals, dead or alive, without federal permit

Paris Climate Accord

International agreement addressing the mitigation of global climate change by reducing the production of greenhouse gases (the United States has currently withdrawn from this agreement).