Case Studys

• Aral Sea, Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan (former Soviet Union), and Mono Leke,

  California:

  A large inland sea that is drying up; its salinity is rising as a result of water diversion for irrigating crops.
• 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 methyl mercury, bioaccumulation 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; and 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 the 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 leaked
• Bhopal, India;

  • On December 2, 1984, poisonous methyl isocyanate gas was released accidentally by a Union Carbide pesticide plant killing about 5,000 people and causing serious health effects for 50,000-60,000.
• Chornobyl, Ukraine:

  • On April 26, 1986, an unauthorized safety test led to a fire and explosion at a nuclear power plant- -as a result. millions of people in Europe are exposed to unsafe levels of radiation. The area around Chornobyl remains contaminated today.
• Valdez, Alaska:

  • On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef in

  Prince William Sound spilled 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 condemned 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 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, making it 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, the Hanford site is recognized as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States, and it contains 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 the 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.