A Turning Point Event for Environmental Science - Cuyahoga River Burning 1969

Cuyahoga River Burning 1969

  

https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/Marking-50-years-since-Cuyahoga/97/i24 

1. Point of View 


After watching the video I would say it was articulated in a timely manner by stating the year the river burned, and at the end of the video explaining the positive solutions done to help the river be what it is today. 


2. Purpose


I think the purpose of this video was educational, and that there is always a solution for everything. The video mentions how before the fire happened at the river there weren't many laws, or precautions being taken to protect the water quality of the environment. The goal was to bring awareness about how things can be fixed if people come together to find a solution. The issue here was that the water was very contaminated and needed to be cleaned asap.


3. Questions at Issue

The main problem was that a fire was started due to railroad bridges and oil. This made the river completely polluted and with a very bad smell. The river looked so bad people didn't think it was going to be able to be fixed. This is when people saw that change needed to happen, and one of the first things was the Federal Pollution Act, Clean Air Act. Both of these laws served to have more regulations when it came to pollutants that could affect the environment.


4. Information

The data shown in the video was the water testing, and water quality of the river. The oil study group which was used to help give out ideas on how to clean up the river. Although throughout the video the people being interviewed mention how at first it was not easy getting ideas out there. In the end however everyone pitching in to help made a huge difference in taking action to clean up the river.

5. Interpretation and inference 

I feel like when this incident happened as mentioned in the video, was before there were strict laws, so it was something that couldn't have been prevent either way. Somethings mentioned in the video is they didn't have the technology that there is now, so they had to learn from scratch how to fix it. Having to brainstorm ideas and do tests must have been difficult, but having different solutions helped.

6. Concepts

One of the models I found interesting in the video was the river damn. They wanted to remove one of the dams built in the 1900s as a hydro plant which blocks river movement. Taking it out would be good for the river because it would flow better and be more cleaner. I believe thats another solution that could be used to notice if the river will flow better, and for it to be 10 times more cleaner.

7. Assumptions

I believe many things taken for granted were definitely the community of Cleveland, and economics. I think the community coming together to try to solve this issue was amazing, because even people from Canada helped. Money also played a role, because none of this would have been possible without providing funds for this big project on cleaning the river that has taken years and is till being worked on.

8. Consequences

The end result of the river being cleaned was definitely having more people visit the river, meaning more tourism. The people being interviewed mention how the river smells cleaner, and there's even restaurants on the edge of the which is something that couldn't be done when the water was polluted. The biggest victory of the river bank was that the river has swimming fish meaning living organisms are able to live there. People fishing, using boats, kayaking, etc, were also a big win in the restoration of the Cuyahoga river.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activity 4.1 - US Environmental History and Major Regulations

Image
  In this week's module I learned about the history of environmental change throughout the US. I think it's important to know our history, especially now that climate change is becoming a more serious issue. I spend a lot of time on social media like Tik Tok, and I see a lot of the things that are going on in the world in terms of news, politics, the environment, etc. When learning about history we as a society should learn what has happened throughout the years to where we are now. I see things on the internet like Antarctica is melting, many wildfires, extreme heat, no potable water, etc. While I was reading the articles for class I learned that back before the internet even existed, people really didn't have to worry about pollution, or waste. The reason due to this, is because back then it wasn't as populated as it is now, and technology didn't exist. In the article it states “When one stand of trees was consumed for housing or fuel, another was nearby; when one
Read more

Activity 4.2 Environmental Policy Frameworks

  The Ohio Antidegradation Case The Drake Chemical Case The Quincy Library Group Case Gain/Loss Frame Views of Nature Frames Economic Framework Basically in 1972 the Clean Water Act required states to define their water quality standards. The Ohio case was a gain/loss frame, because both groups where fighting in court what they wanted the policy to be, yet due to potential loss/gain from both sides they just stopped, and left the case as it is. This was a chemical production company back in the 1940s and early 1980s. The company would dump chemicals into the lagoon and got told by the Department of Environmental regulation that they had to stop doing that. Since the facility didn't want to accept the environmental policy they filed for bankruptcy, and abandoned the facility by stating that “complying with the new regulations  would be prohibitively costly”. This framework is a view of nature, because these individuals working that facility were not perceiving the effects of human i
Read more

Activity 3.3.3 - My Plastic Use

Image
 Short Essay:  In this module I learned more in depth what microplastics are, and their effects to the environment. To begin microplastics come from plastic, and we've been using plastic since the 1950s, so around 65 years. Plastic takes 20-500 years to decompose, but over time that plastic will brake down into smaller pieces to what scientists now call “microplastics”. Microplastics, which are plastic particles, or fibers smaller than 5 millimeters in size, are one of the many are one of the many reasons for the widespread use of microplastics in our society. Due to their miniscule size, microplastics are not able to be removed by wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plants is something I learned in the last module, which was very interesting, because I learned how sewage water gets cleaned to get released back into the environment. However, learning about how microplastics don't just disappear with a wastewater treatment plant made me realize that they are so sma
Read more