A brownfield is any real property that is abandoned, idled, or under utilized due to the presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant. The Presence of a brownfield can bring down property values; they can pose a threat public health and the quality of the environment, which Colorado takes very seriously. For years mining and agricultural practices are what stimulated Colorado’s economy but have left behind contaminated properties. This department established a Voluntary Cleanup Program to assist and promote the redevelopment of contaminated properties. This program has provided the state of Colorado with many positive environmental, economic, and social benefits. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment administered the Brownfield program in 1994 (“brownfield’s handbook”). This program was used to provide means for which sites not under any authority are to be cleaned up to usable condition. The program approves cleanup plans and provides letters of “no further Action,” signifying site closure (“brownfield’s handbook”). Interestingly these brownfield sites are usually small in size. 60% of the sites entering the states voluntary …show more content…
Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties protects the environment, reduces blight, and takes development pressures off green spaces. The EPA works with local governments and provides grants that help fund redevelopment strategies to brownfield sites. These redevelopment projects help transform these sites into something useful that will benefit the community and the environment while encouraging the reuse of land by developing sites that are documented as contaminated. The EPA is not biased when it comes to choosing a site for redevelopment. As long as the site is defined as a brownfield by a local, state, or national government agency, that site will be approved for protective measures (“Brownfields in Region
The Lowry Landfill Superfund Site is located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, approximately 2 miles east of Aurora. It consists of approximately 507 acres of waste disposal area and is operated by Waste Management of Colorado, Inc. The land surrounding the site consists of native prairie grass and a wetland located along a local creek. Sections around the site are zoned for agricultural use including cattle grazing and non-irrigated wheat farms. 1 The area is home to numerous endangered species including the bald eagle and peregrine falcon. Due to the large amounts of wastes disposed on the site between 1965 and 1980, it became extremely contaminated with a variety of inorganic and organic contaminants. From 1984 to 1993, the EPA oversaw remedial investigation and feasibility studies that were performed by all responsible parties. Since its listing as a superfund site in 1984, multiple remedial actions have been performed in order to rehabilitate the site. These include clay barrier walls around the site, a groundwater collection system, a soil cover for the main landfill, as well as a landfill gas collection system. Groundwater that is collected on the site is treated at an onsite water treatment facility. In 2007, construction began on an onsite gas to energy plant that utilizes the methane produced by the landfill site. The electricity produced by the plant is enough to power 3000 households. 1 Today, use of land and groundwater on and near the site is still restricted by the state of Colorado.1
Removal of the mountaintops causes environmental impacts from blasting. The blasting has caused rocks to be deposited into valleys on the hillsides, burying almost 2,000 miles of streams which feed the Mississippi River. Slurry, the residue which is used to clean the coal can wash into groundwater and may contain arsenic, lead, manganese, iron, sodium, strontium, and sulfate. A recent research study is beginning to link these environmental impacts to the grave health concerns in the Appalachian communities. During most of the Mountaintop removal mining’s history coal industries have been able to obtain permits easily to operate, but once under the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) those permits now take more time to obtain. The permit process requires all applications to be reviewed before being given out to coal
Mountain Top Removal is an American tragedy, the process in which mining companies remove forests and topsoil then explode the mountain apart level by level to get to coal layer. It is estimated that the explosives are equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. A lot of the mining waste is discarded into valleys and streams; the water runoff is high in silt, ion, and sulfur compounds, which in turn pollute water downstream. Even with chemical treatments, vegetation has a hard time growing on the infertile and highly acidic soil. Mountain top removal occurs in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee. Virtually 1.2 million acres of land has been surface mined and more than 500 mountains have been ruined by mountaintop removal mining.
The exchange of views whether a student should attend an HBCU or a PWI has been a topic of discussion for some time now. Whether you attend an HBCU or a PWI you go for one purpose and that purpose is to get your education. So who says because someone goes to a predominantly black school they will not get the same education a person gets that goes to a predominantly white school ? Or vice versa. Many people have some sort of idea that by attending a Predominantly White Institution(PWI) one will receive a higher level of education but that is not truly always the case. Most individuals are under the impression that simply because of your skin color you have to attend that type of school. That is the problem with this case just people see it as one should attend the college with individuals who are like you but not keeping one 's education in mind.
Dixon, Will. "Will Dixon's ECO 108 Site: Critical Analysis: The Case for Contamination." Will Dixon's ECO 108 Site: Critical Analysis: The Case for Contamination. Class Summary, Oct. 2010. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
To the northeast part of Arizona lay a conflict between two indigenous groups from the surrounding area and the world’s largest coal company formerly known as Peabody Coal (now Peabody Energy). The Hopi and Navajo reservations surround a region known as Black Mesa. Black Mesa is located on both the Navajo and Hopi Reservations which is a target source for underground water called the N-aquifer. The N-aquifer contains a great amount of pristine Ice Age water. As time drew on, many indigenous people were alarmed that the water was carelessly being depleted from their land. Mining on Black Mesa should be stopped because the inhabitants are affected by Peabody, livestock in the area must depend on the local springs, groundwater is being depleted at an average of 3.3 million gallons per day, and the water is being contaminated (SBMW Online par 1).
According to the OSWER, Superfund over the course of its time cleaned 900 of the most contaminated sites in the nation and inspired other waste protection programs such as the Brownfields program involving less contaminated sites (OSWER, 2010). There has been talk about reinstating the program, but some are for it. While others believe that although it should be reinstated, tax payers shouldn’t be footing the bill.
It all started back in 1989 when Home Savings of America announced to build a giant new community consisting of 3,050 homes, two schools, two hotels, two golf courses and 400,000 square feet of commercial and industrial areas on the 5,400-acre Ahmanson Ranch located at the eastern end of Ventura county, adjacent to Los Angeles County. Even though the Ahmanson Ranch has been owned by Home Savings of America since 1963, the nature remained undisturbed all these past years. The ranch has become one of the important habitats for barely surviving native organisms including threatened or endangered species. For this and other important reasons, an organization, Friends of Ahmanson Ranch, was formed to stop the development with the support from other environmental organizations, local legislatures, politicians and public. Almost seven years have passed since the beginning of this issue, but the conflict still remain unsolved. What is interesting about this issue is the diversity in the reason which the Friends of Ahmanson Ranch claims for protecting the Ahmanson Ranch from development. They point out a variety of reason, and they are not necessarily environmental opinion.
Over the years, past resources have quickly dwindling. Since then conservation has broadened beyond the use of natural resources, and has become a movement. Many critics of conservation believed it would stifle industrial development, however, the conservation movement has increased development over the years because it forced the need to find an alternative source of power. One of the main concepts of conservation is that it should be used to benefit the many not for the profit of the few, like big business that destroy large areas of wilderness without care for what they are destroying. Preserving wilderness areas will help with the conservation of America’s resources that are quickly dwindling. The resources we had years ago is much less due to the supply and demand of society today. Preserving certain areas will allow us to...
The CERCLA established prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites, provided liability of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these sites, and establish a trust fund to provide for cleanup when no responsible party could be identified. (U.S. EPA, 2010)
December 15, 1971.. Alternate Citation:. Public Law 92-195; 85 Stat. 649 (GPO). United States Government Accountability Office, “Bureau of Land Management”.
from local citizens will be needed. The main goal is to eradicate the species on site so there is no
The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Pesticide Act, the Resource Conservation Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act are all a vital link. Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is making grants accessible to states in order to help them form programs to guarantee the safe management and disposal of hazardous waste. Work is being done to ensure that state inventories of industrial waste disposal sites include full assessments of any probable dangers that could be created by these sites. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a method to make sure that the 35 million plus tons of hazardous wastes that are manufactured in the United States each year are disposed of carefully. Under the plan, hazardous wastes will be controlled from their point of production, to their final disposal. Dangerous practices which currently result in serious threats to health and the environment, will not be permitted (Beck, 2016). In the after math of The Love Canal tragedy, a state of the art containment system has closed off the dump site itself with thick, clay walls, and two clay caps. The over 200 homes in the immediate surrounding area of the dump site have been demolished, and roughly 236 homes that were previously
Blackrock, Iowa, April 12, 2014 – Owned by the parent company Raina Inc., the Carborundum plant in Blackrock, has made a major announcement on its pollution reduction strategy through its manager, Leslie Sludge, who appeared at the Blackrock City Council hearing on April 11. The manager of Blackrock Plant, Leslie Sludge, announced that the company had adopted a new initiative that is underway, in order to abate the high level of pollution caused by the plant. He also addressed the effects of the plant on the citizens of Blackrock, as well as the effects on the environment. Going by the words of Leslie Sludge, so far, the Blackrock Carborundum plant has utilized $5.3 million in efforts aimed at reducing the high level of pollution caused by the plant. In the new initiative to reduce the high level of pollution, the Blackrock Carborundum plant has already committed an additional $2 million. This will be used in pollution-control activities that are spread in the next three months. The plant anticipates that a large part of this money will be utilized on removal of noxious particles from the air and water waste.
Mines pose a threat to the environment. They can degrade soil and water quality if left untreated. The United States Environmental protection Agency (USEPA)'s Region 9 assessment of state data states that there are approximately 420,000 abandoned mines in the states of California, Arizona, and Nevada with 13,242 of them being considered "abandoned mines with potential environmental hazard" (arizona.edu, 2008).