I'm still astounded that none of you in Period 2 have seen the movie Erin Brockovich! I do recommend it -- it is a nice Hollywood take on the very real problem of water pollution. As we discussed in class, at the end of the movie (and in real life) it seemed like everything was fixed -- PG & E paid the citizens of Hinkley over 330 million dollars in restitution. After paying out that much money, surely they would address the problem so they wouldn't have to pay money like that again! But, according to recent tests, the toxic hexavalent chromium plume has continued to spread. You can listen to
another report on the continuing problem in Hinkley from NPR.
What is the take home message from all of this? It is alot easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up. Case in point -- th
ose
superfund sites we talked about last week. The industries responsible for polluting these sites were making profits while they made these messes. When it came to cleaning them up, though, not much could be done. So now they just sit there, all toxic and abandoned.
What will it take to prevent industries for polluting in the first place?
ose superfund sites we talked about last week. The industries responsible for polluting these sites were making profits while they made these messes. When it came to cleaning them up, though, not much could be done. So now they just sit there, all toxic and abandoned.
No comments:
Post a Comment