Buffalo Creek Disaster Paper Example

Introduction

Coal mining was the beginning of the Buffalo Creek disaster. Logan, West Virginia was mining coal as its central practice, and the Lorado Coal Company started a coal mine in the middle of Buffalo Creek. The standard practice for the operations of the company was to dispose of excess water, and mine refuse as well as other debris wherever the organization deemed the most convenient. Hence, the coal company constructed the first dam across Buffalo Creek's middle fork to help contain the sludge and wastewater as well as refuse that comes from the mining operation. After a few years of coal mining, the Lorado Company sold the Buffalo Creek mine to another mining company which built a second dam behind the first one to hold back the additional refuse and wastewater. Complaints and investigations, however, followed revealing that the two dams were constructed without permits, but the West Virginia authorities still did not shut down the operations and allowed the continued disposal of the wastewater and refuse. The Buffalo Mining company later sold the mine to another mining organization known as the Pittston Coal Company which built a third dam which was more significant than the other two. This third dam was fifty feet high and over four hundred and fifty feet wide (Thomas 461). There were partial dam failures during the ownership of the Pittston Company, but the mine remained opened and in use. Buffalo Creek Disaster is not just about heroes but a dramatic tale that involves the loss of lives and property and the legal war containing a litigation drama that resulted in the payment of the settlement. The Buffalo Creek disaster is the best example of a tragedy centered on environmental injustice where the minority ethnic groups and low-income communities are the ones that bear an uneven share of the ecological costs.

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The Buffalo Creek Summary

After several rainy days, an impoundment dam for a coal mining company situated at the top of a valley in the West Virginia Mountains collapsed. In the early morning of February 26, 1972, the third dam collapsed releasing millions of gallons of water, silt, and coal waste as well as other mining debris which destroyed the first and second dams and wiped out the Saunders town of West Virginia which was in the south of the site. The floodwater drained downhill through the Buffalo Creek Valley bringing about massive destruction to anything in its way including 15 new towns before finally emptying into the Guyandotte River a few hours later. People went missing including entire families, and hundreds were reported dead while thousands of others injured and left homeless with millions of damage caused. Seven people, which include six children, were never found.

The aftermath included public outrage and tempers especially after the Pittston Coal officials, deflected responsibility for the disaster deeming it a natural cause catastrophe. The victims came together and filed a suit against Pittston Coal Company with alleges that the company was reckless in the building and preservation of the dam resulting in the injuries of the plaintiffs. The legal battle resulted in a settlement fine of $13.5 million which was decided upon in the final days before the trial began. The disaster encouraged the West Virginia state to strengthen the mine safety regulations resulting in the turning into law the Dam Control Act (Thomas 463). Additionally, federal inspections of waste impoundment dams were put in play, and the federal mining inspections and regulations were strengthened as well as the safety violations penalties.

Environmental Justice

The concept of environmental justice entails the meaningful involvement and equal treatment of all individuals regarding the growth, realization, and enforcement of ecological policies, rulings, and regulations. No population should be allowed to bear an uneven allocation of the unconstructive environmental consequences that come from commercial, manufacturing, and metropolitan operations as well as from the execution of the laws, policies, and regulations. All communities should be able to make informed decisions as well as take positive actions that would bring them environmental justice. Environmental justice combines ecological protection with civil rights allowing the ones that have historically been excluded from decision making on the environment such as the traditional minority, tribal, and low-income communities have the same access to the environmental processes, decision makers, and the ability to make contributions to the process just like the other individuals.

Environmental protection is often viewed as a luxury whereby people care about protecting the environment only when they have disposable funds and a lot of leisure time which leaves the low-income communities to bear the severe consequences of environmental pollution and degradation. The issue of environmental justice affects the global spheres as toxic waste dumps are often located in low-income areas where the regulations that govern toxics are either weak or do not exist. Environmental contaminants are at times carried long distances having a negative impact on the communities that are far from the origin of the waste (Greenberg 159). Some believe that the market works just this way with the more prosperous communities being able to meet the expense of improved environmental security. Alternatively, there are those that agree that the matter of environmental justice engrosses broader matters of individual rights and essential fairness calling for state-run policies and intercontinental agreements to transform unregulated markets.

Environmental Pollution and Health

Just as access to health care and income levels can affect people's health, so does environmental quality. Individuals with inadequate access to health care can be disproportionately open to the elements of environmental contamination which in turn threatens their health. Ecological contamination has been associated with a wide assortment of disabilities and various persistent illnesses. For instance, there is renowned increased cancer rates which have been coupled with human exposure to industrial substances disposed of in the atmosphere. Asthma has also been found to be brought about by various environmental factors such as vehicle exhaust and certain pesticides. Industrial chemical wastes have also been associated with learning disabilities and neurobehavioral disorders as well as the interference with normal functioning of the hormones in the body (Rubin and Turner 181). Cancer incidence has increased significantly in recent years especially in children and has been associated with environmental contaminants. Many scientists share the notion that the rising use of chemicals is partially responsible for the increased rates of cancer and other chronic diseases.

Environmental Pollution, Race, and Poverty

Some disabilities, as well as diseases associated with an environmental component, are also not equally distributed across income levels and races. The prevalence of asthma in America is slightly higher in the low income and minority populations than in the other population all due to a lopsided exposure to environmental aspects that trigger and exacerbate asthma. Minorities are the ones that suffer the most from environmental pollution since they often have access to lower quality health care forcing them to rely more on visits to the emergency room rather than to a routine doctor (Rubin and Turner 181). Minority and low-income neighborhoods suffer from an unequal burden from the waste sites and hazardous facilities. Such a pattern is evident on the local, state, and national level just the way pollution is unevenly distributed within states, counties, and cities. Hazardous facilities such as incinerators, waste sites, and municipal landfills are unduly located in minority and low-income neighborhoods.

One best example of an environmental justice scenario is the 1982 battle in Warren County, North Carolina over a perilous waste landfill. Warren County at the time was among the poorest regions in the state and with the highest number of African residents who despite their low incomes, most of them had their own homes (Greenberg 150). The landfill was meant to seize over tens of thousands of cubic soil yards contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls. But experts believed that the dump did not make scientific sense as it was likely to contaminate the drinking water for the residents of Warren County who relied on the local wells for consumption. After the fight over the landfill, the General Accounting Office (GAO) in the U.S. carried out a survey and found that the hazardous waste landfills were not proportionately located in all communities but are instead in abundance in low income and minority communities in both local and national levels (Rubin and Turner 182). There was also a strong connection between the setting of the dangerous waste facilities and race whereby over half of the total dangerous waste landfill aptitude was located in the southern states of Alabama, Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Oklahoma (Rubin and Turner 182). In another study, the working class communities and those of color were found to be home to more hazardous facilities and sites than in the wealthier neighborhoods and the ones with a small percentage of the minority population (Greenberg 152). The high minority communities are highly exposed to environmental hazards, which is higher than in other cities in America. The race was the most common factor in the setting of commercial waste landfills bypassing the aspects of home values and household income.

The Economics of Environmental Pollution and Health

The economic analysis can help understand the critical issues in environmental justice. The standard environmental, economic theory identifies the externalities concept that is useful in studying the problems in this area. Externalities crop up when the market transaction has an impact on firms or individuals other than on the ones involved in the operation (Rubin and Turner 183). A negative externality crops up when the market transaction inflicts costs on the firm and individuals that have no involvement in the operation while a positive externality comes by when the firms and individuals benefit from the process (Rubin and Turner 183). There is an additional dimension to the issues of externalities from the perspective of environmental justice. In most cases, the ones that commonly bear the negative externalities are the low income and underprivileged populations. Such a scenario is evident when distant stakeholders profit from the operations of an environmentally polluting factory while the people living in the region where the factory is situated fall ill and in other cases die from the consequences of the pollution.

From the economists' perspective, 'efficiency' and 'equity' significantly differ since they define 'efficiency' concerning the total gains and losses of the wellbeing of the society while 'equity' is on the basis on the group that gains and the ones that lose (Rubin and Turner 183). This means that an effective policy does not necessarily indicate that it is equitable and thus can be rejected by equity. A system should be able to equally benefit both the wealthy and the poor which has not been the case since the distribution the environmental harms is not equitable. The pursuit of efficiency has the potential of bringing about greater overall wealth however the negative environmental externalities that accompany economic growth are mainly on low-income individuals.

Economists also at times use hedonic pricing to analyze the relationship between environmental pollution and the location. Hedonic pricing calculates the environmental factors from the disparities in the rate of th...