Technology, science, and business won't solve any pollution problems without political intervention. And it ain't in business's interest to solve pollution. Cheaper to dump mercury and sulfuric acid into the river than it is to fund S&T. They won't do it unless they are forced too.
Did Ann write this before or after Donora, PA? B4 or after London (the big one, not the one in '48 killing only 600)?
DONORA'S KILLER SMOG NOTED AT 50
By
Lynne Glover
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
In house after house, Bill Schempp placed the mask over the faces of neighbors who were wheezing and gasping for air. He'd give them a little oxygen from the tank, then stop.
They'd start to wheeze again, and the firefighter would give them a bit more. But eventually, it was time to move to the next home in Donora, Washington County, to relieve, at least temporarily, the labored breathing of those worst affected by the air pollution that enveloped the town.
"I'm dying, and you're taking my air from me," Schempp, now 81, recalls being told.
Fifty years ago this week, a killer smog created by unchecked industrial emissions and stagnant air conditions filled the then-thriving mill town in the Mon Valley.
Newspapers reported that 21 people died over two days as a direct result of the smog, and more than a third of the town's population, or about 6,000 people, became ill or were hospitalized.
Victims of the Donora smog will be remembered during a simple memorial service on Wednesday. A representative of the federal Environmental Protection Agency will be the guest speaker - significant because of the tragedy's role in shaping today's environmental laws.
"The Donora incident was the dot on the exclamation point on the cry for cleaner air," EPA spokeswoman Ruth Podems said.
Patients with breathing troubles during those last days of October 1948 spilled from examining rooms into corridors at the nearby Monongahela Memorial and Charleroi-Monessen hospitals. The town's community center became an emergency medical station - and temporary morgue.
"This was a great tragedy," said Thomas Ferrall, a spokesman for the U.S. Steel Group of USX Corp. "Environmental control technology that became the norm in our industry didn't exist in 1948."
Emissions from a U.S. Steel Group subsidiary, American Steel & Wire Co., coupled with weather conditions, are the widely accepted causes for the deadly smog. Toxic emissions from the American Steel & Wire's Zinc Works mixed with fog that hung low in the town and lingered because of a common, though unusually long, temperature inversion.
Typically inversions, in which the ground temperature is warmer than the air above, create fogs and last only a few hours. But because there was virtually no wind in the valley, the heavily polluted air remained trapped in the fog for about five days.
"You can't imagine what it was like. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face," said Schempp. The thick, white smoke with its faint odor was like "something out of this world," he said.
During the height of the emergency, the Donora Fire Department was besieged with frantic calls. Soon, help arrived from other communities. The Pitcairn Fire Department arrived with an ambulance, and the McKeesport and Rosedale fire departments loaned inhalators.
Schempp remembers the horrendous time he and a fellow firefighter had attempting to navigate their way on foot through the smoggy Donora streets as they toted 135-pound tanks of oxygen.
For five days, the smog inversion sat over Donora. Newspapers reported that 21 people died over two days.
"It took us at least one hour to go to someone's home only five blocks away," he said. "We had to feel our way along the fence."
With a limited supply, the firefighters could only spare each victim a small amount of oxygen.
Donora is legendary in the annals of environmental history. The incident drew national attention through radio broadcasts at the time, and is discussed today in elementary school science classes and featured in college textbooks.
CLOSER LOOK AT AIR POLLUTION
For all of its infamy, the tragedy that has been described as the "Hiroshima of air pollution" provided the first real piece of scientific evidence in this country that pollution kills.
dep.state.pa.us
(Nearly half the population of Donora and Webster, Pennsylvania were sickened in late October, 1948) by a fog that held industrial pollution in the small towns.
Great Smog of 1952
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The Great Smog, also referred to as the Big Smoke, befell London starting on December 5, 1952, and lasted until December 9, 1952. This catastrophe caused or advanced the death of thousands and formed an important impetus to the modern environmental movement.
Early in December 1952, a cold fog descended upon London. Because of the cold, Londoners began to burn more coal than usual. The resulting air pollution was trapped by the inversion layer formed by the dense mass of cold air. Concentrations of pollutants, coal smoke in particular, built up dramatically. The problem was made worse by use of low-quality high-sulfur coal for home heating in London in order to permit export of higher-quality coal, because of the country's tenuous economic situation [1]. The "fog," or smog, was so thick that driving became difficult or impossible. It entered indoors easily, and concerts and screenings of films were cancelled as the audience could not see the stage or screen.
Since London was known for its fog, there was no great panic at the time. In the weeks that followed, the medical services compiled statistics and found that the fog had killed 4,000 people—most of whom were very young or elderly, or had pre-existing respiratory problems. Another 8,000 died in the weeks and months that followed.
These shocking revelations led to a rethinking of air pollution; the disaster had demonstrated its lethal potential to people around the world. New regulations were put in place restricting the use of dirty fuels in industry and banning black smoke. These included the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and of 1968, and the City of London (Various Powers) Act of 1954
en.wikipedia.org |
