Earth Day 2007

Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you will die too.- John Hollow Horn

Today is Earth day. Looking back at the environmental movement for preservation of this third rock from the sun, I think the US is going generally in the right direction but the magnitude needs work in some areas. Unfortunately, we Indians pretty much have no direction or magnitude in environmental protection. Sure, our economy is growing. But this is like building a 100-storey building without proper foundation. This growth cannot be sustained in the long run without adequate natural resources.

I attended a presentation by Dr. Bridget Scanlon on arsenic contamination at our agency last year. Her studies on behalf of the Bureau of Economic Geology included health defects due to arsenic in West Bengal and Bangladesh. She showed some revulsive photographs of Bengals with body parts amputated and skin diseases, due to their chronic exposure to arsenic in groundwater. Our environment has both natural and anthropogenic arsenic. While people in the US panic when they see arsenic at a concentration of 0.01 milligrams per liter (mg/L) in groundwater, Bridget observed arsenic concentrations as high as 4.3 mg/L in West Bengal in this medium. I e-mailed her study material to the Department of Environment in New Delhi last year.

With all the pesticides we (Indians) use without proper management, the arsenic issue in West Bengal probably is just a tip of the iceberg. We still use things like DDT and Lakshman Rekha (known as Chinese Chalk in the west) which were banned in the US a long time ago.

Environmental awareness has increased dramatically in the US since mid-70s with the Love Canal disaster. People started being a lot more careful with the wastes they generated with "cradle to grave" responsibility under RCRA, and "strict" and "joint and several" liability under CERCLA.

I attended a 3-day training conducted by the ASTM on ASTM 1527 and ASTM 1528. The focus of the training was All Appropriate Inquiries, and it was attended by environmental regulators (like me), consultants, city managers, bankers, and real estate developers. I was happy to see the eagerness shown by the regulated community in conducting environmental due diligence, albeit most of the sincerity was for their own good.

Many of us hate attorneys. I believe that they do more good than harm. Having good regulations coupled with aggressive attorneys on the lookout for violators, would be like having an electric fence guarded by Pitbulls. I hope that the media in India would stir up public interest in (waiting to be exposed) Love Canals we have in our backyards.

Ms. Lois Marie Gibbs on Love Canal:

The Love Canal crisis began in the spring of 1978 when residents discovered that a dump site containing 20,000 tons of chemical wastes was leaking into their neighborhood. The local newspaper ran an extensive article, explaining that the dump site was once a canal that connected to the Niagara River five miles upstream of Niagara Falls. This canal, 60 feet wide and 3,000 feet long, was built by William T. Love in the 1800s in an attempt to connect the upper and lower Niagara River. Mr. Love ran out of money before completing the project, and the abandoned canal was sold at public auction, after which it was used as a municipal and chemical dump site from 1920 until 1953. Hooker Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, was the principal disposer of chemical wastes at the site. Over 200 different chemicals were deposited, including pesticides such as lindane and DDT (both since banned from use in the U.S.), multiple solvents, PCBs, dioxin, and heavy metals.

In 1953, after filling the canal and covering it with dirt, Hooker sold the land to the Niagara Falls Board of Education for one dollar. Included in the deed was a "warning" about the chemical wastes buried on the property and a disclaimer absolving Hooker of any future liability. The board of education, perhaps not understanding the potential risks associated with Hooker's chemical wastes, built an elementary school near the perimeter of the canal in 1954. Home building around the canal also began in the 1950s, and by 1978, there were approximately 800 single-family homes and 240 low-income apartments, with about 400 children attending the 99th Street School next to the dump.

After reading the newspaper article about Love Canal in the spring of 1978, I became concerned about the health of my son, who was in kindergarten at the 99th Street School. Since moving into our house on 101st Street, my son, Michael, had been constantly ill. I came to believe that the school and playground were making him sick. Consequently, I asked the school board to transfer Michael to another public school, and they refused, stating that "such a transfer would set a bad precedent."

Receiving no help from the school board, city, or state representatives, I began going door to door with a petition to shut down the 99th Street School. The petition, I believed, would pressure the school board into investigating the chemical exposure risks to children and possibly even into closing the school. It became apparent, after only a few blocks of door knocking, that the entire neighborhood was sick. Men, women, and children suffered from many conditions--cancer, miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, and urinary tract diseases. The petition drive generated news coverage and helped residents come to the realization that a serious problem existed. The media attention and subsequent inquiries by residents prompted the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) to undertake environmental testing in homes closest to the canal....Eventually, the 239 homes closest to the canal were demolished and the southern sections of the neighborhood declared unsuitable for residential use.

About Ms. Gibbs, Envirolink wrote:

Sometimes circumstances create reluctant heroes. In 1978 Lois Marie Gibbs saw herself framed by the American dream--a wife and mother who worked hard and sacrificed to own a home in a typical suburban neighborhood. She was not a political activist, and she had never given a public speech. The situation at Love Canal, New York, led this "ordinary" woman to do extraordinary things, and when all was said and done she had become a symbol of what happens when citizens, provoked by injustice and emboldened by outrage, stand up for themselves and their families. Known to many as the "Mother of Superfund," her story is one of legend, and not only because of her relentless demand for the truth that opened the eyes of an entire nation. Her actions, and the actions of her neighbors who formed the Love Canal Homeowner's Association, demonstrate how one committed person--one committed community--can change the course of history.