Mahoning River....YUCK!

I thought I was going to discuss the Chesapeake Bay this time, but I'll get to that another day. Believe me there is lots to talk about when it comes to the Bay. Dumb people abound. Anyway. Today in class we talked about the Mahoning River in Ohio. There are 43 MILES, yes, I said miles, that have been contaminated by oil spills, PAH's (aka polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nasty stuff), mercury, along with some other nasty stuff. When the sediment in the bottom gets stirred up it's more like sludge. This area was historically an industrial area with steel mills as well as other manufacturing facilities, and there are a number still in the area. As recently as 1977 70,000 lbs/DAY of oil and grease went into the river, 500 lbs/DAY of cianide, 800lbs/DAY of zinc. Just to get an idea of how much oil 70,000 lbs is, it's 200 barrels, enough to heat 30,000 average sized homes. Yeah, 200 barrels of oil a DAY went into the river. no wonder the river is a mess. And this pollutant load was at the end of the contamination time, which means in the years before, imagine how much crud went into the river. This contamination has caused the river to be declared a Human Health Hazard by the US Health Department, this means no one is allowed to swim or wade in the river and no fish are to be consumed from it. You wouldn't want to eat the fish anyway, the only thing that survives there is stuff that tolerates pollution. Like catfish and carp, and even those have nasty abnormalities on there skin and have large amounts of pollutants in their meat and fatty tissue. The Army Corps of Engineers conducted a dredging reconnaissance study on the possibility of getting rid of the contaminants on the river bottom. The only problem is, it's not just the river bottom, the soil is also contaminated into the riverbank. But I won't go into that right now. The Corps is only responsible for the navigable waterways, so all they are worried about is the part that is frequently covered by water. After this reconnaissance they decided that the best way to get the contaminants out is to dredge, but then the stuff has to be disposed of. soooo, this leads to a whole other story. but anyway. The study was done in 1999, uh, yeah, 10 years ago. And 10 years ago it was going to cost $91 million, and the fed. government will only pay $4million. The cost includes dredging and disposal, most coming from disposal. And a feasibility study was also conducted. And of course, this is the federal government, so that means things take FOREVER and they cost TOO MUCH, like millions. The feasibility study said that the dredging was indeed possible and it SHOULD be done, but the request or report or something are stuck on some bureaucrats desk. waiting, waiting, waiting. So now, they have decided that the contamination of the river comes under CERCLA (Comprehensive, Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act), which means whoever put the crap in the river is responsible for its cleanup. yeah, right, this just puts more years and millions on the project. It will cost a few million to conduct the study to see who is responsible for spilling the crap, and then to sue them or ask them to clean in up. Which leads the steel companies to hire lots of lawyers to fight the CERCLA stuff because they weren't the ones that originally did the polluting. However, they, the steel companies, did purchase the companies that did the polluting. Under CERCLA, a federal law, they are responsible, no matter what. SUCK IT UP people!! You make billions of dollars, sending American jobs overseas, you SHOULD pay for cleaning up a river that someone you probably know messed up. We came up with several ideas in class, one is that the steel companies could donate money and get their name on a plaque that says they helped clean up the river, not that they pollute the crap out of the earth today, but hey, we take what we can get. It would only cost about $10 million to do that, split between all the companies that would be responsible. Compared with the cost of fighting whether they are actually at fault, both would probably cost about the same, and with one they'd actually get to brag about being green. Oh, part of the feasibility plan is to remove 5 of the 9 dams that are on the river, because they are no longer being used and are just impeded the ecological recovery. However, those dams can't be removed until the sediment is cleaned, because when they are removed the nasty crap will be moving down river. not good. no one down stream wants that crap. Anyway. the dams are disintegrating, and fast, so something needs to be done....oh, I don't know, yesterday. So not only do we need to clean the river, and we need to do it quickly. CERCLA or no CERCLA, it needs to be done. So, anyone have any ideas how to raise 90 million dollars to clean up a river to improve the health of the river, ecological and human?