Love Canal? Reich Farm? Are We Planning a Dinner Date or Environmental Disaster? (Elias Flores Essay 1)

I’m not really sure if it’s like a cool topic in science like Crispr or anything like that. I am always interested in Superfund sites–like it’s kinda cool to find out the place I might be currently standing above might have been a hazardous waste site. My highschool was mainly focused on Marine and Environmental science so I always opted into taking any extra research classes. However, we all had to take environmental science where we all kind of sit there listening to how terribly the government messages up the environment. 

So you might be thinking, what exactly is a “Superfund Site”? According to the EPA’s official website its “Thousands of contaminated sites exist nationally due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed.” You also might be thinking now, “wow Michelle this is really what excites you when there is quite literally gene altering technology.” Yes, it is actually the history and learning about their cleanup and how the EPA handles them that kind of excites me. Originally from Ocean County, I lived near two really well known Superfund sites and my dad actually works at one (do not worry it's probably safe). 

Environmental science might not be the most interesting topic for people to want to listen to or about, but when it comes to a generation of children getting cancer–it typically peaks people's interests. A staggering total of 90 cases of childhood cancer were reported from 1979-1995. All due to plastic contamination waste and dumping in the drinking water, turns out it's not only turtles that had to worry about plastic in their water! The best part is, the waste hauler for Union Carbide (the company that produced Styrene-Acrylonitrile trimer (SAN trimer)) had dumped waste over Reich Farm–a property of over 3 acres in Toms River occurred in 1971, but the USEPA didn’t put it on a priorities list until 1983. This is insane! I get a lot of things that take time and you can’t really explain why so many kids were getting cancers and think, hmm illegal dump might be at fault! I really like this article by CHEJ1 that goes into it on a more conversational side. 

Awkward enough, I did a bit of research on Reich Farm for a highschool project and I realized once I looked at the coordinates and where it was located within Toms River, I found that it was actually the same site where my Dad actually works which was super funny. So as any curious highschooler would have done, I went to ask him more about it and he told me about how sometimes the EPA would come and check a specific well for water testing. I dug a little deeper into this and saw that it was cleared off the superfund site list in 2021 and did not require routine check until 2023 again. 

The best part of this? None of the people who worked there knew what was going on or what had happened on that land over 50 years ago. To be completely honest, not much of Toms River really knows about Reich Farm. Oh boy don’t even get me started on Ceiba Geigy–another superfund site located in Toms River. The sole reason that environmental science is so fascinating to me, is how underrepresented it is within the United States and just general media. In the world where I can scroll mindlessly on TikTok watching an AI generated love story between an “orange cat superman” and Elsa from Frozen, while according to Deepgram, “a simple conversation with ChatGPT consisting of 20 to 50 questions can cost up to a 500ml bottle of freshwater.” However, when using AI you never really stop to think about the consequences about how that search is affecting things. 

Maybe, the thing in science I am interested in is seeing how organizations and other sources harm the environment and cover their mistakes with seemingly solutions. Superfund sites are a great way to show how environmental disasters affect the average person on a smaller scale that you might not even consider when you think of them. I just think its impacts to the world and how insanely overlooked or not even really heard of is so baffling to me. I remember when I heard about Love Canal the first time–I was in awe about how many people get cancers and such for others' simple neglect for the environment! So much for a LOVE CANAL, these people got leukemia and we don’t even talk about this. My fixation might just be the craziness of how many environmental disasters happen and the average person doesn't even know! 




https://chej.org/san-trimer-the-hidden-killer-behind-the-reich-farm-superfund-site

https://deepgram.com/learn/how-ai-consumes-water

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Molecules, Models, and Magic: The Exciting World of Computational Chemistry

Vrinda Modi I often spend time in a little cubicle in McLean in the freezing corporate cold wrapped in a blanket in the Hoboken summers sipping on free coffee from the office above. It almost always tastes like chalk, but the routine is so embedded in me. Hence, this is the perfect opportunity to talk a little more about my research in computational chemistry here at Stevens and the advances I expect in the next few years. This field excites me because it bridges my interest in chemistry with modern computing techniques, a powerful tool for advancing our understanding of chemical reactions and molecular interactions. This means we are a dry lab – running simulations on computers. No chemicals, no PPE, just models and algorithms. But why does computational chemistry exist in the first place, especially when chemistry is so rooted in physical matter? The answer is efficiency. Modeling molecules on a computer saves us from ordering chemicals, waiting for deliveries (a delay in chemistry t...
Read more

Scaling the Potential of Vertical Farming Going into 2025 and Beyond

Image
  Matthew P Kearney Scaling the Potential of Vertical Farming Going into 2025 and Beyond      Vertical farming may seem like something out of a futuristic movie, but they are very real in today’s agricultural industry. Vertical farming may promote a stronger relationship between urbanization and sustainable crop production. Based on recent innovations across agriculture and technology, vertical farming has the potential to revolutionize our current farming system. Through the development of vertical farming-based production lines, cities and otherwise unfarmable areas can be provided with fresh, local, and pesticide-free produce. Vertical farming and other adaptations of agriculture are not new ideas, but instead a historic and human process.      These technologies are ready to meaningfully address global food security through the technological and computational advancements in agriculture. Vertical farming has a promising future, which becomes a case...
Read more

Knot Your Average Problem: How do Tongue Ties Impact Oral Myofunctional Health?

Image
  Hadia Hussain      Knot Your Average Problem: How do Tongue Ties Impact Oral Myofunctional Health? Sitting in the nursery of the dental office where I worked, I reviewed Baby V’s medical history and reports from the Emergency Department at Jersey City Medical Center. I found it odd that, despite multiple visits and clear signs of malnutrition, no physician had been able to diagnose the cause. Baby V, at a low weight of 12 pounds was struggling with difficulty nursing and bottle feeding, excessive gassiness, colic, clicking sounds when feeding, milk dribbling out of the mouth, and mouth breathing—but doctors had dismissed these signs, labeling him as "healthy."  It didn’t make sense as his low weight raised serious concerns.  According to Pediatric specialists Jenny Olson, DNP, and Sarha DeVrieze, ARNP, at the UnityPoint Clinic, a 9-month-old baby boy should weigh anywhere in between the range of 17 to 25 pounds. Baby V's situation was clearly a ...
Read more