Onondaga Lake

It has been called the most polluted lake in the nation. Over a 100-year period, many industries around the Syracuse area have dumped untreated wastewater, industrial contaminants, and other environmentally harmful chemicals into the water of a once beautiful lake. Onondaga Lake is a relatively small lake encompassing 4.6 square miles, which means it does not take much to ruin the ecology of the water and destroy the homes of the animals that live in and around it.

In 1884, Ernest Solvay opened a company called the Solvay Process Company, which produced soda ash, an important component in the production of glass, detergents, and paper (Lander 64). This company saw the lake as the perfect location to dump hot wastewater and untreated waste, which ultimately increased the water temperature and increased the amount of phosphorous in the lake. This was the starting point for the destruction and killing of historical Onondaga Lake.

The lake not only has to cope with industrial waste and pollution in its waters, but municipal wastewater discharges as well. “Onondaga Lake receives more of its water on a percentage basis as domestic effluent than any other lake in the United States,” says Steve Effler, the director of research for the Upstate Freshwater Institute (Lander 69). The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (METRO) has discharged untreated wastewater directly into the lake since the 1920’s. Metro has contributed mainly to the rise of phosphorus and nitrogen levels in the water, which in turn has made the level of rapidly growing algae, which feed on nutrients, to form on the surface. This causes the lake to have a very depleted oxygen level (Lander 69). Low oxygen level means less fish and less plankton in the water, creating a dead ecology.

Since that time many improvements have been made in bringing Onondaga back to life. The project to cover the lake’s bottom with rubber and metal caps is an example, which is expected to keep the mercury and other waste materials from seeping out to surrounding areas and to protect the lake’s organisms from unacceptable levels of contaminants (Landers 67). The Onondaga County, Department of Environmental Conservation, and Honeywell International (a company who was partly responsible for the pollution) have worked together on this project and are working to cover the overflows of waste materials from running into the lake. These upgrades and improvements of the lake’s water and the surrounding industries like Metro is projected to cost about one billion dollars (Landers 66 and 70), some paid by the Superfund program and the Honeywell International Corporation, but mostly by the citizens of the United States.

Who is to pay for the continuation of these projects? Should it be the government because of their irresponsibility to see the dangers of dumping hazardous waste, and not stopping, into bodies of water like Onondaga Lake or should it be the polluters who caused this whole mess in the first place? I think the polluters should pay a huge sum for the damage they caused, but many of the industries and companies who caused these problems are either bankrupt or out of business (Knickerbocker 2). The companies that are left and still operate today, like Honeywell Industries, should and are paying for the damages that they are responsible for causing. I think industries should have known better than to dump waste into a natural site where animals and humans alike live and play. If they were not lazy to decontaminate the waste before dumping it into the lake or if they did not dump at all then this problem would not be as a big of an issue today.

Government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency should provide more money to projects and programs like the Superfund because of the fact that we need to clean and maintain our fragile ecosystem. Without it we would be living in an industrial nightmare composed of radioactive lakes and disease-infested lands. Though the EPA has provided a good amount of money into the clean-up project of Onondaga Lake, it will all be for nothing if Congress does not renew the Superfund program. Superfund was once funded by excise taxes on the oil and chemical industries (Knickerbocker 2), but these funds are vastly depleted and may run out anytime soon. This means that the individual taxpayer has to take the job of paying. “We’ve known for a long time that the Superfund trust fund was running out, but unfortunately the president and Congress have continually failed to reinstate Superfund’s “polluter pays” fees, leaving regular taxpayers to foot the bill” (Knickerbocker 2).

The President and Congress have since 1995 continually failed to reinstate Superfund’s “polluter pay” fee, which means more money from American citizens, which also means unhappy people. I think the reason Congress and the president have not reinstated the fee is because they are either scared or they support the oil and gas industry. George W. Bush, being an oil and gas prodigy himself, has always supported oil drilling and is not about to reinstate a fee on companies that support him and his family. Our vice president was also and still is connected to the oil industry. He was the CEO of energy giant Halliburton before becoming our vice president and is also a big supporter of oil drilling. Our government is made up of a bunch of oil “junkies” and this is the main reason they are not reinstating the fee for Superfund. In my opinion, they just do not give a damn about the environment.

The best solution to this problem is for industries, government, and citizens alike to contribute to the funding of clean-ups of hazardous wastelands. Of course the polluters should pay the brunt of the costs but government and citizens can help out to fix this dilemma because it affects all of us. Citizens are partially to blame for the pollution and contamination as well as the government and industries because the citizens are the consumers of the industries products. Unfortunately, the by-product of making products like soda ash and other things creates waste and other hazardous chemicals. It is the government’s wrong doing for not stopping the various industries from dumping where they did because they are supposed to impose laws that prevent these kinds of activities from happening. With all this said, everyone is responsible for the contamination of geographical features like Onondaga Lake because of the “human waste making cycle.” Government does nothing, industries dump because of it, and consumers consume the products that created the waste in the first place.

The industries should have found an alternate way of getting rid of the waste or at least take the time to decontaminate it before dumping it. Being human, we have made many mistakes and have been too lazy, greedy (especially the government) and foolish for our own good. Of course being human means learning from our past mistakes so I’m confident in our ability to clean up our act and start treating the environment the way it should be treated. I’m not saying that the government will change its views on this subject but instead the people will start making their voices heard and make the government do what it needs to do. We need to protect our fragile ecosystem and clean up the parts that we dirtied up even if it means billions or trillions or zillions of dollars.

Superfund

Should tax payers have to pay for the clean-up of toxic and polluted sites that industries created? Isn't it the culprits that should have to pay for the damages that they themselves created. Or should citizens and tax payers pay for the damages along with the industries because it is our environment and is important to our health and our children's and our children's children. We should not leave pollution for the next generation to clean because it wasn't there fault. The industries and numerous companies that caused these environmental hazards should pay for the clean up of these waste lands, but most of the companies that caused them are either bankrupt or out of business.

It's our duty to clean up the remaining nasty sites because if we don't do something about it soon then it's just going to get worse and worse over time. Superfund was created to clean the nations abandoned polluted wastelands and was until fairly recently funded by excise taxes from oil and chemical industries but these fees expired in 1995 and the Congress has failed to renew this deal. For this reason the amount of money taxpayers fund for this program has nearly tripled since that time. Since companies are paying less and taxpayers more, the amount of money going into these program has dropped by half.

To fix this problem the government needs to make tougher laws on environmental issues because it's our world and we only have one chance to take care of it, otherwise it's gone forever. The government needs to make an effort to make laws that cut the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted into our fragile atmosphere and stop supporting the big oil companies all the time. The U.S. needs to change the way they treat our beautiful world or else we won't have anywhere to live anymore. Supporting Superfund and renewing the excise tax deal with the various companies will help, but will not clean all the polluted areas. Though it is a great way to start anew.

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/about.htm
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/

Phobia

Why is it that we fear? After the 9/11 attacks the world has became so paranoid that the U.S. and the U.K. attacked Iraq to rid the world of terrorism, sort of like a global "cleansing" of the so called bad guys. When people pack their briefcases for a vacation, they have to put their liquids in a zip lock bag because of the fear that terrorists are going to one day blow up the planes with liquidized bombs. If that is not paranoia, I don't know what is? Now four years into the war in Iraq, terrorism is stronger than ever before because of the spread of Anti-Americanism. Countries cannot go into war with another on false accusations, especially a country that is in an area of an already strong resentment towards America. Fear makes people and even the most powerful countries in the world do stupid and unthinkable things.

Why is it that people like getting scared watching horror movies and reading horror books like "The Shining" and "The Stand" by Stephen King? The answer to this is really simple. People really enjoy being scared out of their wits. Now why is it that the U.S. has to show its fear in a way that means bullying everyone else. Fear is something that made the world go into war against an enormous enemy, terrorists, who will not be defeated until its purpose is done. The U.S. tries to cover up its phobia by making bigger cars, guns, military and showing supremacy toward other countries but what it's really doing is advertising its fear of the world around us.

The presentation was interesting with the lecturer talking about fear in the perspective of different authors who all had the same opinion on fear and its role in today's governments. The people of this country should not be afraid of its government but government should be afraid of its people, like in France for example. The American government on the other hand, uses its power to instill not hope, but fear into the people it governs.

Binh Danh Exhibit

The Binh Danh exhibit was a very different experience than I thought it would be. I thought there would only be a few art pieces but instead there were about 15-20 of them lined up all around the room. I liked the way the faces were drawn on the little leaves and the big faces "photographed" on the strands of grass. I didn't expect the faces of the young soldiers to be photosynthesized onto real leaves and grass. I think the reason Binh Danh used real vegetation is because of the fact that these men died using these kinds of plants to camouflage them from the enemy.

The exhibit is very much a testimony to the disliked Vietnam War because it shows the brave young men as they were before their deaths. The artworks give people of our time the "bigger" picture of how lives can be taken away but can also be captured. The artworks show the reality of life in the past, present, and future, the Iraq War being the present. The leaves and grass, I think, represent how the landscape is scarred and imprinted with these soldiers footprints and faces. The exhibit is a memorial and a reminder of the bravery of a group of men and the seriousness of what war can take away in an instant.

Sontag writes that by taking a picture, people gain control of the image which I don't think Danh is doing. He doesn't want to control the picture, he wants to honor, not only these men, but also the thousands of comrades who were part of the dead. He is not controlling the image he is merely trying to state that the war is something that has happened and will forever happen in this way. Meaning war will always destroy lives and he's trying to do his part by putting it into a different, lighter perspective because we are all affected by it. I do agree with Sontag on the fact that ,"Photographs do more than redefine the stuff of ordinary experience but also adds vast amount of material that we never we see at all.". Like in the exhibit, some of the art pieces had the name, date of birth, and place of birth of soldiers in the actual photograph, which we wouldn't have known by just looking at their faces. It also serves as a kind of memorial for the men who died in a, in basic terms, a useless and costly war.

Art was a proper name

Art is anything that we think it is. I once had to make a clay model of an elephant for my fifth grade class. One day I was working on it and my teacher came up to me and asked if I would like to have my piece shown in the local art show. I was surprised yet honored because only two other people were asked and my piece wasn't that great. Now that I think of it, it was probably the best artwork I had done during that time. I, of course, said yes but I didn't know that I was going to have to stay after school to finish it up in time for the show. Because of this time constraint we had to quickly finish our pieces, in which eventually caused me to accidentally spill black paint all over my nearly finished yellow elephant. My yellow, three tailed, and big eared friend was now covered in black paint, which made me feel like a failure after all that work. My teacher came over and said that she would try to clean some of it off. After about 30 minutes of cleaning, she managed to clean most, but not all of it. I finished painting it that day but there were still black streaks all over it. I still got a honorable mention ribbon at the show though, so I felt good about the whole thing.

I think art is anything we think it is. I think a chair is a piece of art because someone had to design and then build it. Like Duchamp, I think a urinal is a piece of art because of the same reason. Thierry de Duve says that the conception of art is different for everyone because we all have different opinions as human beings. I agree with him because like I said, "Art is anything we think it is."