Chernobyl Article Questions

1. What would happen if people came and destroyed the forest area (without anyone else knowing?)

2. What similarities does this incident have with Love Canal? The Gulf oil spill?

3. It has been almost twenty years since that article was written. Has the "mysterious new medical syndrome" been defined yet?

4. Where exactly did this happen? Some sources say Ukraine, others say Russia.

5. How did the site of the Chernobyl accident become so lush all of a sudden? Don't nuclear disasters generally prevent plants from flourishing?

Questions for the Love Canal Debate

*What hasn't been done to clean up?

*Have there still been deaths linked to these chemicals recently? (In the past year or so?)

*Have Love Canal's chemicals spread to other parts of the town?

*What is the most toxic of all the chemicals?

*Would the chemicals still be contained over the protective covering if something like an earthquake occurred?

Love Canal Catalyst Questions

1.) What caused the toxic waste to begin being pushed to the surface?

The "wet season" of 1977 caused this- more specifically, the blizzards.

2.) What are some of the health hazards associated with the chemicals dumped there?

Some chemicals caused cancer, liver disease, problems with the nervous system, and birth defects.

3.) Besides humans how are other parts of the ecosystem affected by this?

Like any chemical disaster, the humans are never the only ones suffering. The animals are suffering as well. The chemicals definitely leak into rivers and other bodies of water, poisoning the fish that live there and the other forms of wildlife that drink from there. The chemicals are also getting in the soil, and are being absorbed by the roots of plants and trees, thus killing them. Animals that reproduce are baring offspring with birth defects, much like the humans that live there.

Hazards of Oil Dispersants

My findings:

* Flame retardants are polluting the ocean because we throw away so many flame-retardant things, which eventually make it into the ocean. Luckily, the neuro-toxic flame retardants got banned.

*113 different compounds are in the average person's blood. One of those compounds is flame retardant, which Americans have very high levels of in their blood (as opposed to the Europeans) because we flame-retard everything.

*When oil gets into marshes, you can't get it out, so we're trying to protect the marshes.

*Corexic is the most toxic line of dispersants. Their 9527 is the most toxic of all, causing things like internal bleeding. Obviously, Corexic combined with the oil is more toxic than either alone.

Dispersants, if they don't already kill the marine life, will give them diseases and break down their insides. In addition, it disrupts the food chains- if a primary consumer gets poisoned with it, then the secondary consumer gets poisoned with it upon eating the primary consumer.

Solving one problem may create a bigger problem, depending on which problem it is. Oil dispersants certainly classify as those kinds of problems, since they are more poisonous than the oil itself. No environmental problem is really solved permanently, as there will always be some sort of evidence left- usually a large drop in population because the problem killed off a lot of the organisms.

The chemical dispersant may be worse than the oil spill, or it may be just as bad. There is more oil than chemical dispersant out there, but the dispersant is more toxic than the oil. With this information, I conclude that they are equally problematic.

Chemical Dispersants

Which chemicals are in chemical dispersants?

How/why are they better than oil? (Both are poisonous and harmful, but which one is better?)

In which incidents have they previously been used?