Superfund Sites

The U.S. is filled with many factories and industrial sites throughout its borders.  But what happens to all of the toxic material from these sites?  What happens if these sites are abandoned and all the harmful chemicals are just left there?  Luckily, these sites are far away from people and wouldn’t have any major effects on the health of our citizens, right?  In 1980, the United States implemented a policy called CERCLA, otherwise known as Superfund.  It was established to help cleanup abandoned hazardous waste sites.  There are over 1700 Superfund sites and 1 in 6 Americans live within 3 miles from a Superfund Site.

National Geographic released a short clip in 2014 that can be found on YouTube called, Do you Live Near a Superfund Site.  The clip is short, but incredibly powerful.  It is meant to be an informative clip about Superfund Sites and gives off an incredibly ominous tone.  The music in the background is dark and mysterious, which almost seems to give the viewer chills while watching.  Also, I thought the clip was very powerful because it shows different superfund sites, which all appear dark and toxic. However, most of the time, there are either animals or people that are showed right next to the toxicity.  In one part, there are children playing baseball right next to the Gowanus Canal.  I felt like the Gowanus Canal is almost personified here because it looks like a dark being that is hovering over the innocence of these children.  I think the point of this clip was to raise awareness and push viewers to want to know more about Superfund Sites and I think it succeeds in doing so with the use of dark imagery and ominous music.  

Paul Voosen wrote an article for National Geographic published in 2014, called, “Wasteland.” In his article, he includes the personal story of a man named Jun Apostol who lived in a neighborhood in Los Angeles right next to a Superfund Site.  By using this personal account, it is a great way to show how the public truly feels about these sites.  Apostol explains how when the site was bad, people in his neighborhood were getting nauseous and property values were decreasing.  However, this article is interesting because it shows how Apostol feels after the EPA cleaned the site.  He says that, “People have forgotten about it” and goes on to say that he has respect for the EPA’s intervention.  I think this is an interesting point of view because it shows that once these sites are cleaned, people go back to their daily lives and think of these sites as a thing of the past.  After this paragraph, Voosen gives statistics on how there are 1700 Superfund Sites in the U.S.  I think this is done on purpose to show that although these sites can be managed, there are still thousands across the United States and it is still an ongoing problem.   

I feel that people generally have a greater reaction to a situation when they know that the harming of children is involved.  Grist posted an online article in 2006 called, “Houston kids living near a Superfund site tell their stories in pictures,” which shows how children are affected by toxic sites.  The article uses words that really make the reader have sympathy for these children.  It says, “these youngsters come of age amidst toxic waste and illegal dump sites; all too often, their neighbors are poverty, neglect, and despair.”  I think that this sentence uses very powerful imagery because it truly shows the hardships that these children face surrounded by a Superfund Site.  Luckily, a woman named Rhonda Adams created something called GROW, a program that gives children cameras, art supplies and lessons in everything from photography to lead pollution.  The children then document the Superfund Site and make collages.  I feel that this is an awesome image of light vs. dark.  The children are born into this dark, evil and toxic community, but they are fighting their way out of this hell.

I found a TEDx talk on YouTube posted in 2014 by Natalie Loney, the Community Involvement Coordinator for the Gowanus Canal.  The video is called, Cleaning up a local superfund site:  Natalie Loney at TEDxGowanus.  I found her presentation to be very informative but with an added sense of humor.  Unlike some informative speeches, Natalie added a sense of humor and optimism that made the speech very enjoyable to listen to.  Her humor is shown when she is explaining how there is no freshwater that is able to enter the Canal so it is never flushed out.  Then, in a sarcastic and humorous tone, she explains that the Canal had “additional sewage added to it to flush it out.”  I also thought that her speech was very optimistic because for every problem that she spoke about regarding Gowanus, she had a plan to remedy the problem.  This speech had an opposite effect that the clip from National Geographic had.  That clip was dark and ominous, while this clip was more humorous and optimistic.  Nonetheless, I feel that both clips are equally as powerful in gaining awareness.  The Nat. Geo. Clip is used to scare the viewer into taking action, while Loney gives the viewer optimism and a sense of power that there is a remedy for the Canal.

An article posted in 2013 by the Epoch Times called, “Canal Side Development Reshaping Gowanus,” shows how there is flourishing property values near the Canal.  I found this article to be interesting because the author, Sarah Matheson writes about how putrid and toxic the Canal is, however, she also includes how it has a bright future due to rising housing prices and increased development around the Canal.  I feel like this article shows the greed and incompetence of both developing companies and the citizens of the area.  Sarah writes that, “Entrepreneurs have brought trendy business concepts to the neighborhood in recent years,” which shows that there is increased development in the area.  However, Sarah also writes, “Contaminants from manufactured gas plants, tanneries, mills, and chemical plants that used to operate along the canal have left mutagenic and carcinogenic agents, coal tar and other industrial waste in sediment in the canal.”  I can’t help but feel like this article is informative to the public to understand what they are getting themselves into by moving to such a toxic area.  As the reader of this article, I almost thought it was humorous because of the incompetence of the people moving into these neighborhoods surrounding the Canal.  I hope that it raises awareness in potential residents of surrounding neighborhoods.

The HBO show called Bored to Death is a comedy about a writer in Brooklyn who is also an unlicensed detective.  However, the second season of the show, which aired in 2010 has an episode that is called, The Gowanus Canal has Gonorrhea.  Although the Gowanus doesn’t literally have a sexually transmitted disease, it is symbolic for the Canal as being a dirty entity.  I think this is interesting because even in a fictional television show, the Canal is being depicted as being toxic.  Perhaps going swimming in the Canal wouldn’t give you an STD, but in another article, a man writes about a hypothetical and figurative situation on what would happen if he drank a glass of water from the Canal.  The actual effects of the Canal are much better than getting an STD.

Dan Nosowitz posted an article in 2010 on popsci.com, called, “What would happen if you Drank Water from the Gowanus Canal?” This article can be shared on any form of social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  I thought this article was very cool because it puts you in a figurative situation of drinking a glass of water from the Canal and talks about some of the impacts of the Canal.  In regarding the effects of drinking the water, Dan writes, “Some pretty nasty gastrointestinal punishment, ranging from some light puking to full on E-coli or dysentery.”  Not to mention, the different carcinogens and other cancer inducing chemicals.  Reading this article makes me feel like I am put into a situation where I really drink a glass of water from the Canal, which disgusts me and makes me further understand the toxicity of the Canal.  Aside from the figurative style of writing, I also thought that some of the pictures that were included in the article are very powerful.  There is a picture of the dirty Canal and in the foreground of the picture there is a life preserver that is dirty and laying there lifeless.  I think that this image shows that even something that is used to save lives is struggling to survive.  The life preserver looks worn down and useless next to the life-draining Canal.

The media uses different techniques to describe Superfund Sites, from using comedy, imagery, figurative writing, and music.  However, it seems to be a common theme that Superfund Sites are toxic and negative additions to our nation.  In all of the sources that I found, they all seem to be informative to the viewer or reader so that people understand the detrimental consequences of Superfund Sites.  However, it is also a common theme that many people are fond of the Superfund policy because it is doing a great job at cleaning up these hazardous sites.