Summary: In June of 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire for the thirteenth time in its known existence. The reason? Extensive pollution and chemicals caused the river to go up in flames. Three years after this horrific event, the Clean Water Act was created. Three years after the act was created, though, America's waterway infrastructure began to crumble and fall apart. The article states that,"EPA estimates that in order for America's water systems to be able to operate without sewage overflows or contamination, we'd need to invest $188 billion dollars." But with those $188 million, we'd be earning $250 billion back and creating jobs for around 2 million people. The only thing holding us back are the big companies that thrive on polluting our water.
Article: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/10/on-its-39th-anniversary-clean-water-act-needs-defenders.php?campaign=th_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29
Opinion/Reflection: I was surprised with how much money we could be making and the amount of jobs available, but the large companies are keeping us from moving forward. Shouldn't they be finding ways to help the economy rather than keeping it where it is now? Wouldn't helping the waterways give them a better image, therefore helping business? I just don't understand why they can't just support the Clean Water Act.
Questions:
1. How do you think we could help support the Clean Water Act?
2. Do you think that the large companies are the only ones who are against the Clean Water Act?
3. Are there any ways to communicate with the large companies and tell them that what they are doing is wrong?
This is a problem that is very important to me. To be honest the fact that there are enough pollutants in a body of water as large as the Cuyahoga River to allow it to catch on fire is just ridiculous. I really just can't get over that. It should not be physically possible.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the second question I do not believe that large companies are against the Clean Water Act at all. To me it all comes down to them being lazy. It is more convenient and cost effective for them in some situations to just dump their waste into a body of water and be done with it. They do not want to have to deal with all the complications of disposing of it in the proper, more environmentally friendly way.I don't believe that there is some CEO sitting up in his office saying: Hey, I hate the environment. Lets go dump all our chemicals into the nearest river. No, unfortunately as most things do when it comes to big companies; it all comes down to the money. Not that that's any excuse for them to do this.
I find it shocking that it is even posible for water to be contaminated enought to catch on fire. The amount of flamable polutants in that water would have to be greater than the concentration of water itself. And the fact that it happened 13 times, its amazing that people didnt try to stop it. I also feel a sense of anger towards the companies that are poluting our water system. These companies are very greedy and dont seem to care about what thier success does to the world around them.
ReplyDeleteHowever I dont think that we as citizens are necessarily helping to support the clean water act either.
3 Are there any ways to communicate with the large companies and tell them that what they are doing is wrong?
There are ways that we could stand up and fight against these companies. However, it would be extremely dificult to get such large powerful companies to listen to the problem because they already have such an advantage in power over anyone who tries to touch them. People all over the world have tried many thigs to try to get the attenton of these compinies and so far nothing has really worked. It is very dificult to think of any specific ways at this point to fight these companies because nobody has really ever done it before. The only way that we are going to be able to fight these companies is if people work harder.
I can't believe that water can actually be so disgusting that it catches on fire, and I feel so bad for the people who have to use it for drinking water and other things. I don't understand why the big companies don't want to fix the problem that they created, because it will create money and jobs and it is the right thing to do.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Question number 3, the big companies could be shown that they should fix the problem by forcing them to use the polluted water until they relent. It sounds cruel, but it is just what they are doing to everyone else anyway.
Its hard to believe that water can become so polluted that it is actually able to catch fire. That is just horrible and we should make sure this is not able to happen. these companies need to realize how much tney are hurting our environment by dumping the pollutants in our water supply.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to question 3: I think that if we can get stricter laws passed about dumping pollutants into the water supply a lot of these problems will disappear.