soil pollution

In January 1990, four oil spills occured in New York’s Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull waterways, popularizing the heavily traversed channel.

After decades of precious metal recovery and recycling on the Evor-Phillips Leasing site, the EPA tested and found high levels of volatile organic compounds and heavy metals in the site’s soil, surface water, and groundwater, including the nearby marsh and wetlands.

After decades of unmonitored biological weapons testing and discarding of hazardous chemicals into unlined waste disposal pits, the groundwater surrounding Fort Detrick in Maryland was found to contain high levels of toxic waste, including dangerous carcinogens.

On 3 June 1979 the Ixtoc I oil rig exploded in the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico, and a continuous flow of oil released into the marine environment for nine months. Oil pollution reached coastlines and beaches, and damaged local shrimp populations.

On July 16, 1979 the United Nuclear Corporation’s Church Rock uranium mill disposal pond ruptured through its dam and contaminated the Puerco River in New Mexico and parts of Navajo Country.

The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm signifies the first time that environmental issues were formally recognized on the global stage, and guidelines to address these problems were endorsed by 113 countries.

Times Beach, a former summer resort town for citizens of St. Louis, Missouri, was evacuated due to the EPA’s discovery of large amounts of toxic dioxin in the soil.

The multinational, agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto developed the first widely used genetically modified crop with the introduction of the “Roundup Ready” soybean.

Love Canal was placed on EPA’s National Priorities List in 1981 to receive federal cleanup aid. The Niagara Falls School District built communities on soil contaminated by long-term toxic waste from the Hooker Chemical Company, causing miscarriages of children and birth defects decades after the dumpsite was closed.