environmental pollution

Peter Dykstra: US environmental sacrifice zones

Eight places we’ve given up—probably forever.

Ghost towns, submerged land, and polluted paradises dot the American landscape. Here are some of the most infamous, heartbreaking sites.


Ghost Towns

Centralia, Pennsylvania: Founded in the mid-19th century atop a rich seam of high-energy anthracite coal, Centralia prospered for a century. By the 1950’s, strip mining had produced an enormous amount of waste. In the summer of 1962, the town approved a controlled fire to reduce the size of its municipal landfill.

Did someone say controlled? As some had feared, the fire spread to coal seams and for the next 30 years, local, state and federal efforts to kill the fire failed. It baked homes and roadways in Centralia and parts of the neighboring town of Byrnesville. Heavy rainfall caused sporadic geysers.

Sixty years later, the fire’s still alive in those underground seams. Federal buyouts, the de-listing of the town’s zip code, and melting streets chased all but a few residents who were allowed to live out their lives in a dead town.

Picher, Oklahoma: Founded in 1913 after a prospector found huge deposits of lead and zinc, Picher became a mining boom town. Its population peaked at about 14,000 during the 1920’s, and but for a rebound during World War II, was in steady decline ever since.

A 1994 survey found 34% of Picher’s children suffered from lead poisoning, and that steady decline turned into a mass exit. Picher didn’t really need a last straw, but in 2008, a tornado leveled 100 homes and killed seven. The state of Oklahoma formally disincorporated the town a year later.

Ellenton, SC: I visited Ellenton in 1993, 43 years after it ceased to exist. It was the largest of five towns evicted to create the Savannah River Site, one of several super-secret facilities built to win the Cold War. Within six months of their eviction notices, every home, family, storefront and church in Ellenton was vacant – a ghost town for Uncle Sam.

Our Energy Department tour guide took us down eerie streets with crumbling sidewalks leading to bare, overgrown foundations. While parts of the Savannah River Site contained some of the worst chemical and radiological contamination in U.S. history, the worst threat in the desolate streets of Ellenton would be the occasional 350 pound feral hogs that roam the place. Ellenton also has a West Coast twin: The ranching town of Hanford, in Washington’s High Desert, which similarly disappeared in the 1940’s to create Hanford Works and was key for U.S. nuke weapons production from Hiroshima to the Cold War’s end.

Today, the three small cities that serve the Hanford site are thriving, with a federal cleanup funds averaging at least $4 billion a year though through the 2060’s.

Rongelap, Marshall Islands: On March 1, 1954, the U.S. set off another of 67 nuclear “tests” in the Marshalls, a mid-Pacific array of islands and coral atolls. But that day, the test code named Castle Bravo, yielded a blast two and a half times larger than expected, hurling radioactive debris and dust over much of the Marshalls.

Rongelap was hard hit. Radiation sickness was an immediate concern. But by the 1970’s, thyroid cancer had run through an entire generation. The U.S. rejected requests to move the island’s 300+ residents to a safer island.

Finally in 1985, the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior moved the Rongalapese to new, radiation-free homes more than100 miles away. (Full disclosure: I worked for Greenpeace in 1985, but was not a direct participant in the relocation.)

Happily ever after? Not when you’re on an atoll barely above sea level, and the sea level is rising. So stay tuned.

Underwater

Shishmaref and Newtok, Alaska: Located on a gravel spit offshore, Shishmaref residents have long known that a move to the mainland was inevitable. Coastal erosion is the primary culprit: The shorebased ice that traditionally protected the village from the worst impacts of storms. That ice is now largely gone for much of the year.

Several hundred miles to the south, Newtok suffers from another climate threat: melting permafrost threatens the very ground the village stands on.

Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana: Add land subsidence to the list of more climate-related woes and you’ll see the plight of the few remaining homes in this coastal Louisiana town.

Paradise polluted

Hudson Riverbed: From the nearly pristine Adirondack stream to the gorgeous Hudson Highlands and Palisades to the gleaming skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Hudson River is an aesthetic gem. On the surface, at least. But for its last 150 miles the river bottom is a carcinogenic nightmare. polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) dumped upstream by two General Electric factories for a quarter century line the river bottom and poison the tissues of river wildlife. Neither litigation nor the best-available cleanup techniques can right GE’s wrongs.

It would be distressingly easy to expand this list, starting with the dozens of American cities facing the replacement of lead water service lines in older neighborhoods. Add it all to the seemingly endless list of troubling headlines and we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.

His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher Environmental Health Sciences.

Banner photo credit: imagesystem/flickr

A residential garbage can overflows with plastic bottles and other waste.

New pricing system helps small town slash its garbage output

When Plympton, Massachusetts started charging by the bag for trash, it nearly halved the town’s garbage — and saved thousands of dollars in the process.

Tik Root reports for Grist.

In short:

  • Plympton cut its annual trash output from 640 to 335 tons after shifting from a flat-fee dump sticker to a “pay-as-you-throw” model charging per bag.
  • The new pricing system incentivized recycling and composting, saving the town about $65,000 a year and reducing landfill-related emissions.
  • Nearly half of Massachusetts municipalities now use PAYT, and experts say volume-based pricing drives waste reduction without unfairly burdening small or low-income households.

Key quote:

“We found that demand for waste disposal was really responsive to price. If you raise the price of trash, people are going to find ways to not put as much out at the curb.”

— John Halstead, retired professor of environmental economics at the University of New Hampshire and an author of a study on New Hampshire's pay-as-you-throw model

Why this matters:

Less landfill use means fewer toxics in the air and water, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and more recycled materials in circulation. Plympton’s story shows that smart policy doesn’t have to be punitive or complicated — it just has to make people see the cost of their choices, and let common sense do the rest.

Read more:

Los Angeles skyline with haze.

Heat and pollution are combining to threaten public health as U.S. temperatures rise

As a massive heat dome scorches much of the U.S., scientists warn that extreme heat is increasingly intensifying air pollution, amplifying health risks for millions.

Claire Brown and Christina Kelso report for The New York Times.

Keep reading...Show less
a woman standing next to a blue electric vehicle being charged.
Credit: JUICE/Unsplash

Trump administration must release EV charger funds, judge rules in federal lawsuit

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to resume distributing electric vehicle charger funds to 14 states, ruling it overstepped by freezing money approved by Congress in 2021.

Sudhin Thanawala and Sophie Austin report for The Associated Press.

Keep reading...Show less
United Nations parliament building with glass wall and the EU flag

Greenwashing law reversal deepens political rift in European Union

The European Commission’s abrupt reversal on an anti-greenwashing law has intensified a growing political divide in Brussels over environmental regulations, exposing deeper power struggles ahead of EU climate deadlines.

James Fernyhough reports for POLITICO.

Keep reading...Show less
Line of wind turbines stretching into the distance.

UK advisers say reaching 2050 climate targets is within reach, but urgent policy shifts needed

The UK remains on track to meet its legally binding climate goals, but only if the government reforms its energy pricing and accelerates policy implementation, according to a new report from the Climate Change Committee.

Fiona Harvey and Jillian Ambrose report for The Guardian.

Keep reading...Show less
man sleeping on bench in the middle of the street.

Global support grows for carbon tax that also reduces poverty

People across 20 countries, including many in wealthy nations, say they are willing to pay a climate tax that also redistributes income to those with smaller carbon footprints.

Sophie Hurwitz reports for Grist.

Keep reading...Show less
Harvard University red brick buildings with a green lawn and people rowing on a river in the foreground.
Credit: Kaz Tanaka/BigStock Photo ID: 2398044

How a government feud threatens decades of scientific progress

The Trump administration’s move to cut off $2.6 billion in federal research funding to Harvard has upended a vital engine of American science, with ripple effects that reach far beyond a single university.

Emily Badger, Aatish Bhatia, and Ethan Singer report for The New York Times.

Keep reading...Show less
From our Newsroom
Multiple Houston-area oil and gas facilities that have violated pollution laws are seeking permit renewals

Multiple Houston-area oil and gas facilities that have violated pollution laws are seeking permit renewals

One facility has emitted cancer-causing chemicals into waterways at levels up to 520% higher than legal limits.

Regulators are underestimating health impacts from air pollution: Study

Regulators are underestimating health impacts from air pollution: Study

"The reality is, we are not exposed to one chemical at a time.”

Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro speaks with the state flag and American flag behind him.

Two years into his term, has Gov. Shapiro kept his promises to regulate Pennsylvania’s fracking industry?

A new report assesses the administration’s progress and makes new recommendations

silhouette of people holding hands by a lake at sunset

An open letter from EPA staff to the American public

“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable.”

wildfire retardants being sprayed by plane

New evidence links heavy metal pollution with wildfire retardants

“The chemical black box” that blankets wildfire-impacted areas is increasingly under scrutiny.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.