15 Worst Man-Made Environmental Disasters in American History
Aftermath of the Camp Fire in Northern California in November 2018
Man-Made Disasters
Man-made disasters will always be with us, and the United States has had its share of them. Many resulted in no injuries or deaths, though others certainly did, with their toll considerable or even impossible to calculate. But all have had a profound effect on the minds of many people regarding environmental issues.
Please note that acts of war or terrorism do not qualify for this list. Those disasters were intentional, not accidental.
So, let’s begin the countdown!
15. Hazardous Oil Wells in California and Other States
In Southern California, about 35,000 oil wells have been abandoned by the companies that produced them because they’ve sucked the oil dry or simply abandoned them because the price of oil in recent times has made their operation unprofitable; therefore, many employees of these companies have been laid off.
These wells are considered toxic waste sites because the hydrocarbons left in them may contaminate groundwater, and the toxic and flammable fumes leaking from them can waft into businesses, homes, or schools. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, also leaks from many of these wells, exacerbating climate change.
If enough money is available to clean up these abandoned wells, this would rectify the situation somewhat. Unfortunately, scores of the aforementioned oil or gas companies have gone out of business and/or haven’t provided enough money for the remediation of these deep holes—three to five feet in diameter—many of which have not been plugged, presenting a hazard to people or animals that might fall into them.
It costs the state of California between $40,000 and $152,000 to decommission each of these derelict oil or gas wells, a total cost of about $6 billion, much of which will have to be paid by taxpayers!
Many other states in the US, particularly Texas, have abandoned oil and gas wells, perhaps as many as three million in total, two million of which are unplugged, according to EPA estimates. Unplugged oil wells are particularly bad because they can leak millions of metric tons of methane into the atmosphere every year. (A potent greenhouse gas, methane is 84 times worse than carbon dioxide.)
Part of the proposed Green New Deal could provide an allocation of funds for capping these unplugged wells, thereby putting thousands of laid-off oil workers back to work as well.
"The Poisoning of Michigan," a book written by Joyce Egginton
14. Cattlegate PBB Contamination
In the state of Michigan in 1973, instead of a nutritional supplement, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) was accidentally fed to 1.5 million chickens, 30,000 cattle, and other livestock. PBB is an industrial chemical frequently used as a flame retardant for plastics used in the manufacture of electrical appliances, textiles, televisions, computers, and plastic foams.
Studies show that exposure to PBB in humans can cause serious health problems, including skin disorders, nervous and immune system effects, as well as deleterious effects on the liver, kidney, and thyroid gland; it may also cause malignancies, particularly breast cancer in women, according to the International Agency for the Research of Cancer.
Six to eight million Michigan residents may have been exposed to PBB by eating the contaminated meat, milk, or eggs before it was removed from the market one year after the accidental feeding. The resulting scandal sometimes referred to as Cattlegate, has remained a worrisome environmental issue ever since.
In 2004, studies by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) discovered that Michigan residents have elevated levels of PBB in their blood. Unfortunately, PBB can linger in the human body for years or even decades.
A registry of 7,500 people exposed to PBB—either by producing it, using it, or eating it—is kept so that the long-term effects of PBB contamination can be documented. Unfortunately, researchers say that PBB may be transmitted by DNA through many generations, so the scientific investigation of PBB contamination, particularly in Michigan, may continue for quite some time.
13. Bunker Hill Mine
Closed since the 1980s because of environmental concerns, the Bunker Hill Mine, located in the Silver Valley of northern Idaho, may soon reopen after decades of cleanup. At one time, the US Geological Survey estimated that Silver Valley mines, of which the Bunker Hill Mine is the major extractor, deposited more than 880,000 thousand tons of lead into the area’s waterways between 1884 to 1967.
And over the life of the Bunker Hill Mine, estimates are that it dumped 75 million tons of toxic sludge containing lead, zinc, arsenic, and cadmium into Lake Coeur d’Alene, making the water toxic to animals and humans.
In 1983, the EPA declared the Bunker Hill Mine and smelter complex a Superfund site, the nation’s second-largest, actually. Then the EPA moved to the site and began cleanup operations, which cost $900 million. Unfortunately, many people think the site is still leaking heavy metals and other toxic substances into nearby lakes, streams, and rivers.
“This watershed needs time to heal and billions of dollars of remedial cleanup to become a functioning ecosystem again,” says Phil Cernera, an environmental scientist and local Native American.
But the Bunker Hill Mine may soon reopen now that the EPA thinks the mine and smelter have been sufficiently cleaned up. By the way, there are other mining operations in the Silver Valley.
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, where uranium processing took place in downtown St. Louis in the 1940s.
12. Atomic Homefront
The aforementioned name pertains to an HBO documentary entitled Atomic Homefront (2017). The film tells the story of scores of people who reside in two North St. Louis suburbs, near which radioactive waste—uranium, thorium, and radium—was buried in a landfill in the 1940s. (This nuclear material was produced for the Manhattan Project during World War Two.)
Residents in these towns claim that because of this contamination, many people in the area have contracted cancer, autoimmune disorders, and suffered birth defects.
Also, in 1973, in nearby Bridgeton, Missouri, 47,000 tons of nuclear waste was illegally dumped in the West Lake landfill. Eventually, in 1990, this area became an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site.
Moreover, in recent years, an uncontrolled, underground fire has been moving toward this landfill, a potential calamity since the fire could burn the radioactive waste, sending toxic particles airborne and contaminating other local areas, including perhaps the nearby Missouri River. Republic Services, which owns the West Lake landfill, claims that the toxic waste is maintained in “a safe and managed state.”
Many residents think that before they moved into this area, they were not told about the buried radioactive material. Therefore, they want this contamination removed, or the federal and state governments should pay to relocate them.
11. Three-Mile Island Nuclear Accident
In March 1979, one of three nuclear reactors at the Three-Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania nearly melted down, a catastrophe that could have vented massive amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere.