APES UNIT 8 TEST REVIEW

• December 3, 1984

• Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

• involved the Union Carbide Corporation, owned the pesticide plant, and Gov of India.

• residents and employees were affected in the clean up and aftermath of event 

• resulted from combination of unsafe, equipment malfunctions, and poor emergency preparedness

• long term contamination of soil and water creating various health issues: respiratory problems, neurological disorders, and birth defects

• releasing more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas from a pesticide plant.

  • More than 3,800 people immediately died, causing premature death for thousands

• Jan. 30, 2000 ~ 2010

• Baia Mare Municipality and Brett Montgomery, owns %50 of the mining company

• Baia Mare, Romania, downstreams of the Danube & Tisza River

• 6cow deaths, 3900 km of dead river and 700 km at risk, Water 100 times the legal limit of cyanide, 80-100% of fish died

• Dam busted after being built due to a unusual meteorological conditions, Gold mine released 100,000 cubic meters of waste contaminated with cyanide

• was a goldmine that recently implemented cyanide, was used to leach out more ore, then put into dammed ponds

• Brett Montgomery had paid off people to keep silent of previous leakages

• Unusual high temps causing frozen water burst the dam

• 1932-1968

• occured in Minamata Bay, Japan.

• caused by a local petrochemical and plastics maker named Chisso Corporation, affected the local residents

• 27 tons of Mercury was dumped into Minamata Bay

• methylmercury (MeHg) poisoning in humans who ingested fish and shellfish contaminated by waste water from a chemical plant.

• There were 2282 confirmed cases. 

• ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech.

• Between 1942 and 1953

• The Hooker Electrochemical Company

• Niagara Falls

• used the abandoned Love Canal to dispose 21,000 tons of hazardous chemicals

• triggered by massive amounts of rainfall

• Inc in miscarriages, stillbirths, crib deaths, nervous breakdowns, hyperactivity, epilepsy and urinary tract disorders

• migration and contamination of soil, groundwater and basement air of nearby homes

• Seveso, Italy

• July 10th, 1976

• Hoffmann-La Roche, the company that ran the ICMESA

• Valve boke at the Chemical Plant in Seveso, lead to release of a chemical cloud containing highly toxic dioxin TCDD

• chemical reactor overheating, contained a mixture of trichlorophenol and other chemicals that reacted together and produced an unexpected increase in temperature, leading to a valve to break

• killed 3,000 animals within days, inflamed skin with lesions, and destroyed all locally grown fruit and vegetables

• we don’t know who was involved

• Air and Soil pollution, Respiratory issues, Vegetation slowly burns, Carbon Monoxide emission

• May 27th of 1962 and still continues to burn till this day

• After the mines were abandoned, they were filled with trash and rodents. The city burnt out all the waste. bad decision, fires grew out of control and cause carbon monoxide vapors to leak out in the air

• fire spread to underlying coal seams, igniting them and leading to an ongoing underground fire

• June 22, 1969

• industries along the River related to manufacturing and steel production, contribute the discharge of industrial waste and chemical, Sewage from cities and towns contributed to its pollution

• Clean Water Act of 1972 and Government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels became involved in efforts to clean up the river

• occurred in Cleveland, Ohio

• Railroad bridges near Republic Steel trapped debris in the river, Oil on the water added to its flammability. A flare tossed from an overpassing train likely provided the spark that ignited the debris. lasted for less than a half hour and resulted in minor damage

• degraded aquatic habitats. Vegetation and soil quality were also harmed by the fire. water quality to be degraded. increased chemical exposure to nearby communities

• August 5, 2015

• Denver, Colorado

• Contractors accidentally destroyed the plug holding water trapped inside the mine, caused overflow of the pond, spilling three million gallons of mine waste water including heavy metals such as cadmium and lead, and other toxic elements

• affected several downstream communities and ecosystems along the Animas river in Colorado and New Mexico. It released toxic waste containing heavy metal lead and arsenic disturbing ph water levels and killing aquatic life

• EPA cleaning team tried to install a pipe to divert water but failed

• 1942-1943 at the north west coast of Scotland

• Anthrax bombs were tested

• island was used to test/create biological weapons

• Great Britain and United States were afraid of Germans using biological weapons in World War 2, so they created their own which is now known as Gruinard Island

• Caused 79 cases of anthrax, including 68 human deaths. harmed the animals living in the environment there as well.

• Fishing industries and Industrial Asian countries

• in the North Pacific Gyre

• discovered 1997 when Captain Charles Moores was sailing between Hawaii and California, noticing the plastic build up

• The currents between East Asia and the West Coast of North America picked up lots of trash and debris

• polluted with an array of plastics and microplastics

• microplastics bioaccumulate in the organs of the food we consume from the ocean

• Flint Michigan, USA

• April 2014 and continued over several years

• The decision to switch the water source and the failure to apply corrosion inhibitors were primarily due to financial constraints and mismanagement by city and state officials

• widespread lead contamination, causing developmental issues. There were also outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease that led to several deaths

Acute:  immediate/rapid harmful reaction to an exposure

Chronic:  permanent/long lasting consequence from exposure to a single dose or to repeated sub-lethal doses of harmful substances.

Mutagens:  chemicals or ionizing radiation that  cause or increase the frequency of random mutations in DNA molecules

Teratogens:  chemicals that cause harm or birth defects to a fetus or embryo. (Phocomelia/thalidomide)

Carcinogens:  chemicals or ionizing radiation that cause or promote cancer

Clear wells= high toxicity (all bacteria dead)

Blue wells = low toxicity or nontoxic

• Or median lethal dose

• amount in one dose that kills 50% of the animals in a test population within a 14-day period.

Any dosage of a toxic chemical/ionizing radiation causes harm that increases with the dosage.

• A threshold dosage must be reached before any detectable harmful effects occur

• Presumably because the body can repair the damage caused

• radiation and some toxic substances that can harm or kill us at high doses may have beneficial effects at very low doses

• radiation and some toxic substances that can harm or kill us at high doses may have beneficial effects at very low doses.

• Botox… poison as cure for nerve damage, chronic pain, cosmetics

Immune System:  Chemicals can substantially decrease system function

Nervous system (brain, spinal cord): Can be affected by natural & synthetic chemicals called neurotoxins

Endocrine system (glands that secrete hormones): Chemicals can turn on or off bodily systems that control sexual reproduction, growth, development, learning ability and behavior

Children are more susceptible to chemicals because their bodies are still developing & acceptable doses for adults are still harmful in children

Pollution prevention (input control): Reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants

Pollution clean up (output control): Involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants after they have been produced.

• OLD:  Dilution paradigm

• NEW:  Boomerang paradigm

• Cleanup often removes a pollutant from one part of the environment and moves it to another.

• Once pollutants are dispersed into the environment at harmful levels, it usually costs too much to reduce them.

Bacterial: Typhoid Fever, Cholera, Enteritis, dysentery

Viral: Infection hepatitis

Parasitic Protozoan:  Amoebic dysentery, Giardiasis

Parasitic Worm: Guinea worm, Schistosomiasis

most toxic form of mercury to humans. Bacteria in the water convert elemental mercury into methylmercury

• Lead:

  • Collects in bones

  • Carcinogen

  • damage to the nervous system, kidneys, liver

  • Sterility

  • growth inhibition 

  • cognitive developmental delays

  • detrimental effects in blood 

• PCB:

  • in plastics

  • fire retardant material. 

  • Collects in fatty tissue, muscle & skin

  • thought to be carcinogen
    

Primarily fertilizers- contribute to eutrophication

• Slow flushing action, increases effects of pollution

• Eutrophication: unnatural enrichment of lakes from runoff of plant nutrients off of surrounding land

• Cultural eutrophication: excessive inputs of nutrients (mostly nitrate and phosphates) from human activities like agriculture.

  • leads to eutrophic conditions, which can cause algal blooms, oxygen depletion

Sediment:

(#1 cause of water pollution around the world). Can increase the turbidity (cloudiness) of the water, limiting photosynthesis capabilities. Can also decrease the range of visibility for visual predators, leading to a decreased hunting success rate, leading to population declines.

Heat Pollution:

Increasing temps cause gases to dissolve OUT of water. As temps increase, DO decreases, leading to hypoxic zones. Common sources are power plants.

Organic Chemicals  

• (oil, gasoline)

• Sources:  offshore wells, tankers, pipelines and storage tanks

• Effects:  death of organisms, loss of animal insulation and buoyancy, smothering

• Significant economic impacts 

• Mechanical cleanup methods: skimmers and blotters

• Chemical cleanup methods:  coagulants and dispersing agents

Cultural hazards:  unsafe working condition, smoking, poor diet, poverty, tanning, drugs, crime

Physical hazards:  ionizing radiation, tornado, hurricane

Chemical hazards:  from harmful chemicals in the air, water, soil and food
Biological hazards: from pathogens, pollen and allergens

• highly toxic, radioactive gas that is colorless and undetectable 

  • It can build up in basements

• mineral that insulates, muffles sounds, and resists fire

  • Asbestosis = scarred lungs that cease to function

caused by something other than a living organism and does not spread from one person to another.

Ex.  Cancers, diabetes, asthma

caused by a living organism and can spread from one person to another.

Spread by water, air, food, body fluid, insects and other nonhuman carriers or vectors

Ex.  Malaria caused by Plasmodium, giardiasis caused by Giardia

those diseases which have made a jump from a nonhuman to a human host

Emerging 

• Lyme Disease

• West Nile

• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

• SARS

• MERS

• Ebola

• New flu viruses

• Zika

  Old World

  • Malaria

  • Plague

  • Tuberculosis

  • Yellow Fever

R₀: indicator of how quickly that a disease will spread. The subscript is an indicator of how many people an infected person will infect.

• R₀< 1: the disease is declining and will die out on its own

• R₀= 1: the disease is stable and won’t cause an epidemic

R₀> 1: the disease can lead to an outbreak and/or epidemic

occurs when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely

The greater the R₀ value, the larger portion of the population that needs to be immune to prevent the spread of the disease

• Vaccines help increase herd immunity and with fewer effects that from the spread of the disease itself

• Ebola vaccine

• Malaria vaccine

• COVID-19 vaccine

  The first ebola vaccine to be approved in the United States was rVSV-ZEBOV in December 2019.

  1st malaria vaccine approved in Dec. 2021

reproductive rate of bacteria

rate of human travel and trade of goods

overuse of pesticides

overuse of antibiotics

• Despite our technology, disease kills most of us

• Disease has a genetic and environmental basis

  • Cancer, heart disease, respiratory disorders

  • Poverty and poor hygiene foster illnesses

• Poverty-stricken, low-income areas often lack sanitary waste disposal and have contaminated drinking water supplies, leading to havens and opportunities for the spread of infectious diseases.

• Improve the basic living conditions of the poor

  • Food security, sanitation, clean drinking water

• Expanded access to health care

  • Health clinics, immunizations, pre- and postnatal care

• Education campaigns work in rich and poor nations

  • Public service and governments give advice

  • Packaging and ads advise us on smoking, etc.

  • Sex and reproductive health education slows population growth and spread of HIV/AIDS

• Deliberate release of disease causing bacteria or viruses into the air, water supply, or food supply of concentrated urban populations.

• Cheap, easy and more effective way to cause illness, death, and mass terror

• Governments have used recombinant DNA to produce more dangerous version of these organisms that act faster and are more virulent and resistant to antibiotics.

Ex: Anthrax

measure how harmful a substance is in causing injury, illness or death to a living organism.

• depends on several factors:

  • Dose

  • Exposure

  • How well your body detoxifies

  • Who was exposed

  • Genetic makeup

1. Solubility

• Water soluble: move through environment, through aqueous solutions surrounding cells of our body easily

• Fat/oil soluble:  can penetrate cell membranes with ease

2. Persistence

• resistant to breakdown and do their job for a long time

3. Bioaccumulation

• some molecules are absorbed and stored in specific organs or tissues at higher than normal levels.

4. Biomagnification

•  levels of some potential toxins in the environment are magnified as they pass through food chains and webs.

  5. Chemical interactions

  Antagonistic

  • Vitamins A and E interact to reduce body’s response to certain carcinogens 

  Synergistic

• Asbestos alone… 20 fold increase in cancer

  Asbestos + smoking ….. 400 fold

• Hormones stimulate growth, development, sexual maturity

• Synthetic chemicals 

• Block hormones

• Mimic hormones

  Chemicals like:

• Chlorine containing PCBs and dioxins

• Heavy metals lead and mercury

• Pesticides like DDT

• Plastic additives phthalates and bisphenol A

• BPA causes cancer, nerve damage, and miscarriages

  • In extremely low doses

• It is in hundreds of products

  • Cans, utensils, baby
    bottles, laptops, toys

• BPA leaches into food,
  water, air, and bodies

  • 93% of Americans have it in their bodies

• In lower levels than set by regulatory agencies

• Researchers, doctors, and consumer advocates want regulation

  • The chemical industry insists it is safe

• Some countries and states have banned it

  • Many companies are removing it voluntarily

•   decrease 95% air pollution

•  decrease 95% mining energy (from                               rain forest bauxite)

•   decrease 97% water pollution

2018…35% being recycled in U.S. (decreasing amount ☹)

• New production takes tons of trees and chlorine 

• Recycling paper

  • US ~ 68%

  • Saves energy 

  • Decreases air pollution  

  • Decreases water pollution  

• Take up lots of landfill space

• Won’t break down

• reuse-retread, use to line landfills, soaker hoses, asphalt

• Fire hazard

• Collect water & become mosquito breeding grounds

• Most states either ban tires in landfills or require them to be shredded

• Chemically stable & don’t readily break down

• More than ½ from packaging

• Only 6% recycled in US in 2021 

  • (PETE {PolyEthylene Terephthalate} best)

• Price of new < recycled

• Produces hazardous wastes - Cd & Pb leach out into groundwater

• Nondegradable 400+ years

Good

• No open burning Low groundwater pollution

• Built quickly

• Handle large amts

• Recycled into parks

Bad

• Noise & traffic

• Release GH gases like methane

• Slow decomp

• Discourages recycling & waste reduction

Pros 

• Reduces volume of solid waste in landfills (ash more compact)

• Produces heat which can make steam to warm buildings or generate electricity.

  Cons

  • Add CO, particulates & heavy metals to air

  • Produces bottom ash Produces fly ash (trapped by pollution control devices-contains toxic materials)

  • Both types of ash are hazardous waste.

• Paper = best  

  • Burns readily and has high amt of heat content.

• Glass 

  • Doesn’t burn

  • melted glass difficult to remove from incinerator

• Plastic 

  • produces a lot of heat

  • released pollutants are a concern.

• Tires

  • produce as much heat as coal, but produce lots of hazardous air pollutants

• mixed trash dumped into a huge furnace & burned.

  • Increases air pollution, especially dioxins

  • Increasing in US

• separate burnable waste from unburnable & recyclable materials

  • Much less hazardous air pollution 

• This can save 13% of the solid waste going into landfills.

• Easiest way - mulching mower

• Holds water

  • reducing erosion and water use

• Source of nitrogen - feeds the lawn

• Increasing populations

• Changing lifestyles

• Disposable materials*

• Excessive packaging*

1. Consume less

2. Redesign manufacturing to decrease pollution & waste

3. Develop easy to repair, reusable products

4. Develop long lasting products

5. Eliminate unnecessary packaging

• Reduces energy waste and pollution MORE THAN RECYCLING

• Ex.  Salvage automobiles parts, utensils, plates, handkerchiefs, cloth grocery bags

• 1960’s- 90% soft drinks, 50% beer sold in refillable glass bottles

  • now only 10% refillable (glass)

  •  cheaper to produce 

• closed loop)

  • new product of same type 

  • old alum. cans 🡪 new alum. cans 

  • Saves up to 95% of the materials & energy

• Secondary (open loop)

  • Different product (lower quality) 

  • Saves 25% max.

  • Plastic bottle 🡪 carpet

• Any discarded solid or liquid that is:

  • Toxic 

    • Damaging if inhaled, ingested or even touched in some cases

    • carcinogenic, teratogenic compounds

  • Ignitable 

    • likely to catch fire

    • Gas, paints

  Corrosive

  • can cause damages to surfaces upon contact

  • bleach, acids, bases

  Reactive 

  • Capable of being explosive or releasing toxic fumes

  • Nitroglycerin, chlorine bleach, ammonia

• Produce less

• Detoxify physically ex. Filtering, chemical rxns to less harmful substance

• Special storage (glass, cement)

• Bioremediation (using life)

• Phytoremediation (using plants)

  • Rhizofiltration

  • Phytostabilization                 

  • Phytodegradation

  • Phytoextraction

Deep underground wells

• Liquid hazardous wastes are pumped under pressure through a pipe into dry, porous geologic formation of rock far beneath aquifers tapped for drinking.

Surface Impoundments

• Excavated depressions like ponds & lagoons into which liquid hazardous wastes are drained and stored.

• Lead poisoning major problem in children’s development, accumulates in bones

Primary Sources of Lead

• Leaded gasoline (phased out by 1996)

• Lead paint (banned in 1970)

• Lead in plumbing that is leached out

• Fish contaminated with methylmercury

• Natural inputs

• Emission control

• Burning coal (& waste)

• CFL light bulbs contain mercury---if thrown away broken or crushed at landfill, this can leach into soil or water sources.

• Biomagnified

• Neurological problems

• Potentially highly toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons

  • known to cause cancer, disrupt the immune system and cause reproductive harm

  • bioaccumulation

• They are an unintentional side effect of combustion

• Sources

  • Waste incineration

  • Fireplaces

  • Coal-fired power plants

  • Paper production

  • Sewage sludge

• Contain carbon, hydrogen and chlorine

• Used as cooling fluids, hydraulic fluid, fire retardants, lubricants, old plastics, adhesives—Banned ’77

• Harms eyes, skin, reproductive organs & GI system

• Endocrine disruptor, interferes with thyroid gland.

• Biomagnify & highly persistent

• 1976- RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act)

• 3 Goals:

• EPA IDs haz. Wastes & sets management standards

• Must have permit to store, treat or dispose of more than 220 pounds of haz. waste per month

• Permit holders must use a cradle to grave system.  

  • Must have a permit to produce it

  • responsible for following the product from birth, use, till death.

• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act 

• Taxes chemical raw materials which provides a trust fund to achieve 3 goals.

• Fund is called the Superfund

• ID abandoned haz. waste dump sites

• Protect & clean up groundwater near sites 

• Clean up sites.  Responsible parties must pay for cleanup (if they can be found) or govt. will clean up using Superfund.

• Put worst sites on Priority list

• Mining

• Electric Utilities

• Chemical Production

• Primary metal production

• New Jersey (152)

• Pennsylvania (127)

• New York (122)

• California (114)

• Florida (92)

Santa Clara County, CA (AKA Silicon Valley has more sites (23) than any other county.

• Brownfields: abandoned industrial and commercial sites contaminated with haz. Waste.

  • cleaned up 

  • turned into…

    • Parks

    • nature reserves

    • athletic fields

    • neighborhoods 

  • after toxic material is removed from soil & groundwater.

• Uses precautionary principle

• By 2020, no more POP… fought heavily by US industry

• Limits hazardous waste exports

• Control 12 “persistent organic pollutants” (POPs) – they biomagnify

  • DDT, Cl- pesticides, PCB’s, furans & dioxins

• POPs are fat soluble (can bioaccumulate) and can travel long distances via wind/ water

Agricultural activities

• Leading cause

• Eroded sediment from overgrazing, pesticides, fertilizers

Industrial facilities

• Power plants

• Textiles

• Improper waste disposal

Mining

• Acid drainage

• Chemical runoff

discharge pollutants at specific location through drain pipers, ditches or sewer lines into bodies of water.

scattered and diffuse and cannot be traced to any single site of discharge

• In Developed Countries:

  • Point source pollution has decreased, but non point sources are still a problem

• In Developing countries:

  • Untreated sewage and industrial waste is a growing problem

  • Why?  They cannot afford to build water treatment plants

• Counting colonies of fecal coliform bacteria

  • 2 billion excreted per person per day…yum!

  • Drinking water should have NO colonies

• Level of dissolved oxygen

• Biological oxygen demand (BOD)

• Chemical analysis

• Monitoring indicator species

• Physical Process

• Uses screens and a grit tank

• Removes 60% of suspended solids

• Removes 30-40% of O₂ Demanding organic wastes

• Removes 0% NO, PO, salts, isotopes, pesticides

• Biological process

• Uses aerobic bacteria

• Removes 90% of dissolved biodegradable O₂ Demanding wastes

• 95-97% of suspended solids and O₂ Demanding wastes

• 70% of toxic metal compounds and non-persistent synthetic organics

• 50% of Nitrogen

• 5% of salts

• Only a fraction of isotopes and persistent organics

• Physical and biological treatment

• Most cities combine primary and secondary

• However 2/3 of plants have violations

• 500 cities have failed to meet federal standards

• Many still simply screen and flush

• Federal Water Pollution Control Act  1972 (amended 1977)

• Water Quality Act in 1987

  • Sets standards for allowed levels of key water pollutants

  • Requires polluters to obtain permits for discharge into water sources

• EPA Discharge trading policy 

  • Water pollution credits? (EPA similar to carbon credits) 

• Removes nitrate and phosphate

• Not widely used (expense)

  • treats only 5% of all waste water

  • bleaching and disinfection after primary and secondary

  • Chlorination often used

  • Ozone and UV effective

    • more expensive 

    • Lasts a shorter period of time

Polluted drinking water is considered a 

HIGH HEALTH RISK

Purification of urban drinking water

• Protection from terrorism

• Purification of drinking water in poor populations

• Safe Drinking Water Act

• Maximum contaminant levels (MCLs)

• 240-10,000 x more expensive than tap

• 25% of bottles is tap water

• 1.4 million metric tons of bottles/year

• Manufacturing waste of bottling

• Water bottle waste

• Non point pollution

• Microplastics found in 90% of water bottle samples

• Nonpoint Sources 

  • Reduce runoff

  • Buffer zone vegetation

  • Reduce soil erosion

• Point Sources

• Clean Water Act

• Water Quality Act