While in office as Governor of Texas, Mr. Bush once said: "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." Just two years after this Yale graduate made this naive statement, he became the President of the United States.
He leads us into a new territory, where big business prevails and the environment suffers. When the environment suffers, its inhabitants suffer.
One outcome of pollution, is not just that plants and animals are starting to grow abnormally due to the damaged composition of cells that creates their form, but the kinds of effects it has on humans.
According to the EPA, with information founded in the Mercury Study Report to Congress (December 1997), the highest emitting source of mercury is coal burning power plants. Once mercury enters waters, either directly or through air deposition, the bioaccumulations in fish and animal tissue evolve into, methyl mercury, the most toxic form of this pollutant.
A study released by the National Wildlife Federation states that rain falling in Cleveland contains levels of mercury that are 31 times higher that the EPA considers safe. “ The monitoring we’ve done in Cleveland shows levels of mercury in rain that far exceed what the EPA considers to be safe in the waters of Lake Erie. So instead of cleaning Lake Erie, the rain is contaminating it,” says Zoe Lipman, of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office.
Human exposure to mercury occurs primarily through eating contaminated fish. Exposure to high levels of mercury has been associated with serious neurological and developmental effects in humans. Depending on the dose, the effects can include subtle losses of sensory or cognitive ability, tremors, inability to walk, convulsions, and death. Pregnant women are at greatest risk because the developing fetus is the most sensitive to the effects from methyl mercury.
Thirty-nine states have advisories for mercury in one or more water bodies, and nine states have issued statewide mercury advisories.
The negative effects of mercury could be changed in respect to human health and the prosperity of the human intellect.
The health risks of Sulfur Dioxide affect people everyday in urban areas. Sulfur dioxide is an enemy to healthy breathing and an active lifestyle. Linked to triggering asthma, it causes the airways to constrict, which initiates wheezing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath.
Nationwide, asthma is most common reason for school absenteeism. It ranks as the fourth most common reason for pediatric office visits. It also accounts for a third of all pediatric emergency room visits.
Cleveland ranks 90th on the list of the top 100 cities for asthma put together by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Cleveland is home to approximately 120,000 asthma patients.
On a drive during a bright, sunny afternoon, we found ourselves in a quaint little neighborhood named Timberlake village, on the shore of Lake Erie in Lake County. We found it because there was these two smoke stacks that seemed to be rooted right in the middle of the neighborhood amongst the trees. We decided to take a closer look. It seemed bizarre that anyone would actually live right underneath a plant. We drove on in to realize that these people really do live underneath a plant- a coal burning-“grandfathered” First Energy power plant called the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company.
The well kept houses and manicured yards sat unassumingly under the two large smoke stacks. When we found the edge of the neighborhood, we spotted the ironic picturesque setting of two neighbors both outside in the front of their middleclass homes. One resident was washing his car while his two small daughters, wearing helmets, rode their bicycles with training wheels just to the edge of the driveway and back. Next door, his neighbors were firing up the grill in their driveway. We stopped and asked them if we could take a photograph of the relationship of their homes to the smoke stacks.
During the 15 minutes that we were there, we learned that these smoke stacks don’t just hover over the neighborhood. They are affecting the life of each and every single person living in this neighborhood. From the street, you could see a fence that appeared to have black plastic on it marking the divide from the backyards to the plant. But, when we went into the backyard we realized the black plastic was actually black coal unloaded from the train that also marked the divide between the residents and the power plant.
We commented on the cleanliness of the neighborhood in contrast to the power plant. She responded by telling us that if we had shown up a day earlier, we would have seen the snow blackened by the coal soot. She pointed out to the driveway, showing us the stained cement.
She also looked off to the children on their bicycles, and mentioned that most of the children that live on her street have asthma and constant bronchitis. She went on to say that in the summer, when there are a lot of outdoor activities, “black boogers are very common among the noses of the neighbors.”
When we asked what kind of response the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company had for the residents of the Timberlake community, she explained that they would wash their cars and houses when they receive enough complaints about the soot. When we asked what kind of response they had for the growing health issues of the neighborhood, she spoke of the plant being “grandfathered,” and that new Clean Air regulations do not pertain to them in cutting down their emissions. She had no answer in terms of healthcare.
According to the Ohio EPA, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company power plant released air emissions that are above the acceptable threshold in 2001. They also inject waste chemicals into the ground and surface water. Their compliance with EPA standards as of 2004 is unknown to the EPA and the rest of those who question it.
The example of the community of the Timberlake Village living under the shadow of First Energy’s soot represents the silent cry of a society burdened by poor legislation and irresponsible power companies.
In the meantime, the citizens of the United States live with a false hope that things will get better. In observation of the 34th celebration of Earth Day, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) released a press release, which included that "One in four people in America live within four miles of a major toxic waste site. Yet this Administration has abandoned the bipartisan principle of the 'polluter pays' to fund this successful program, shifting billions of dollars onto the American taxpayer.”
In 1977, the New Source Review rules were set into place as an answer to update the gaps in The Clean Air Act that was signed by President Nixon in 1970. This new set of rules was aimed directly at the older coal burning power plants.
Under the New Source Review, a company could operate an old factory as long as it wasn’t substantially modified. It was assumed that eventually the company would have to update its equipment. At that point, the new source review rules required the company to install the best available pollution-control technology. This would allow the companies to gradually acquire and maintain cleaner factory status instead of all at once.
These rules only affected a few coal burning plants during the 80’s and 90’s, meaning; they converted to natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal. During this same time of progress, many others were just retooled to keep those plants running longer-often pass their expected life spans and few were fitted with the scrubbers and other equipment required by the new source review.
The biggest problem with the new source review rules was that enforcement never occurred to the EPA until 1996-a mere 19 years after the rules were put into effect. The EPA only assumed these companies would comply with the new source review.
“These companies understood what was going on, and a lot of them thought they could evade the law. They put themselves in the financial situation where a lot of money was at risk by not meeting the terms of the New Source Review for almost 20 years. The amount of money at stake was enormous. Potential penalties ran to $27,500 per plant for each day it had been in violation.” says Sylvia Lowrance , who was the EPA’s top official for enforcement and compliance from 1996 to 2000.
Some of the nations top energy companies were operating without new source review permits and releasing millions of tons of harmful pollutants into our air. The EPA began scrutinizing these companies and collected an overwhelming amount of evidence of transgression by the coal-burning power industry.
Sylvia Lowrance said that it was “the most significant noncompliance pattern that the E.P.A. had ever found.” These findings were enough evidence to legally force the power companies to install the best pollution controls and drastically cut emissions across the board by 50 percent or more.” This would have been a truly historic moment for environmental progress.
During the Clinton Administration lawsuits were brought against these companies who were in non-compliance, some of which who had been for over 20 years. First Energy, American Electric Power, and Cinergy, all whose headquarters were in Ohio, were among the seven power companies first charged with illegally discharging massive amounts of pollutants.
In February 2000, Tampa Electric agreed to pay a $3.5 million dollar civil penalty. This penalty only amounted to just 2 percent of their profits from 1999. They also agreed to take the challenge and stand to duty by spending $1 billion dollars on new pollution controls. These new pollution controls removed 123,000 tons of pollution from the Florida sky. Dr Daniel Lashof, Science Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “ We have the technology now to reduce pollution, but polluters need to stop staving off pollution controls and get to work fixing the problem."
Even after the obvious mistake of E.P.A.’s assumptions of power companies making the right decisions, in 2003, President Bush, spoke to an audience of, one of the worst polluters in the U.S.A, the Detroit Edison power plant executives and workers about the New Source Review. He said, “ The old regulations undermined our goals for protecting the environment and the growing economy.” He also said “ We’ve simplified the rules. We made them easy to understand. We trust the power companies to make the right decisions.”
Bush and his administration essentially have eliminated the rules all together, reinventing the New Source Review into an empty set of standards. This was done quietly through mandates creating a financial victory for the coal burning empires and a sad defeat for the health of the American people.
The power companies charged by the E.P.A. in the late 1990’s were about to be forced to clean up. This would have marked a historic leap in the right direction for environmental progress and human health.
In 2000, while Bush was running for president, many of the power companies under suit, made enormous donations to the Bush campaign. Among the list of “Pioneers,” which is the name given to those who donate at least $100,000; eleven of the companies charged in 1990’s were at the top of the list, among 6 others, who were lawyers and lobbyists for the companies under scrutiny and litigation of the new source review. One could argue that these donations were made in order to be rewarded for their generous donations.
According to President Bush’s National Energy Policy published in May of 2001, environmental regulations had inhibited America’s domestic energy supply. The N.E.P announced an agenda that included decreasing wilderness and wildlife protections by opening up public land to oil and gas development, expand off oil and gas drilling, and replacing Clean Air Act rules, including the new source review, with an industry friendly market based pollution trading system.
President Bush appointed new leadership in the E.P.A., one being Jeffrey Holmstead, and a former energy industry lobbyist working to weaken the Clean Air Act rules. Thus resulting in the lawsuits against the offenders being dropped. Because of the currently “gutted” new source review rules, the E.P.A has lost the basis and the leadership that had given them ability to impose justice for the environmental wrongdoings of the energy empires. The issue of the environment is of utmost importance because it affects the very basis of human, plant, and aquatic life. If we as a nation do not nurture these key fundamentals of life, we will lose them forever.
When Bush speaks of the environment, he glosses over the real issues at hand. Having sided with the erroneous energy empires, he has progressed the stripping of the American people’s rights; the right to breathe clean air, the right to eat food that grows from untainted soil and unpolluted water, the right to have a normal functioning body, and the right the live in an area where a resident’s voice is heard by the utility companies in their proximity and not muffled by the trail of campaign funding.
has shined as a friend offering me rides...and my bike, legs, and the buses have commuted me around just fine. The thing I have enjoyed the most is replacing my driving "processing" time with real working it out time. I am at peace, people.
I am happy to report that my photography work is picking up and becoming more and more interesting with each job.
"Intervention." We will have an exhibit of the student's work at a date TBA.
around the Mittal Steel Mill (AKA LTV) in slavic village. I am really interested in developing more of an understanding of what these people know about their "neighborhood's environmental integrity."
I photographed a super cool mac barbie birthday party where all the girls had muy perfecto 
makeup done by MAC make-up artist, Erin Parsons. 
I brought my frame 
and made some pretty badass photos, If I do say so myself.
Eartha L. Goodwin is ready to create images that speak some truth of expression. 
Morris Black had a particular fondness for the building that would become the H. Black and Company. 
In particular, there is a sculpture garden on the West side of Cleveland. The landscape is ornamented with many contemporary and modern sculptures. The outside montage consists of heavy bold structures, dripping surreal Dali-like forms, and small colorful shapes. 
If you can find it, the corner is certainly something that will stop you in your tracks.
