Earth A.D. : the poisoning of the American landscape and the communities that fought back / Michael Lee Nirenberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nirenberg, Michael Lee, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pollution--Oklahoma--Picher.

Pollution.

Environmental disasters.

Environmental disasters--Political aspects.

Industries--Environmental aspects--United States.

Industries.

Industrial management--Environmental aspects--United States.

Industrial management.

Construction on contaminated sites--New York (State)--New York.

Construction on contaminated sites.

Hot spots (Pollution)--Oklahoma--Picher.

Hot spots (Pollution).

Hot spots (Pollution)--New York (State)--New York.

Hazardous waste sites--Oklahoma--Picher.

Hazardous waste sites.

Hazardous waste sites--New York (State)--New York.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Port Townsend, Washington : Process, [2020]

Summary:

[This book] documents two environmental disasters born of the American Industrial Revolution. The Tar Creek Superfund Site is located in the Tri-State Mining District that straddles the corners of three states: Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. The author focused mainly on Picher, Oklahoma--home to the densest lead mines in the region. In the decades following World War II the mining began to dry up, the mining companies themselves skipped town and left a literal mountain range of mine tailings covering every surface. Lead was in the roads, the buildings, the streets, people's homes, schools, driveways. It poisoned generation after generation until a few citizen activists noticed something was wrong and did something about it.The second half of the book explores the authors old neighborhood of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, New York. Greenpoint is home to two Superfund sites, Newtown Creek and the NuHart Plastics Factory. The first site is associated with spilled oil from the Standard Oil company. The second site is associated with leaks of cancer-causing phthalates.

Earth A.D is film documentarian Michael Nirenberg's, sweeping oral history of two American Superfund sites. Comprised of hundreds of interviews with political, environmental, corporate leaders as well as the citizens affected by living in these toxic zones, Nirenberg tells the stories behind the Tar Creek lead mine wasteland in rural Oklahoma compared and contrasted with the 150-year history of chemical poisoning of Newtown Creek in the now real-estate hotspot, Brooklyn, NY. The sagas of Tar Creek and Newtown show how wealth, racism, and the rural-urban divide influences how environmental disasters are viewed. The diverse voices are woven into a quick-paced modern-day thriller drawn from firsthand interviews with the people who both witnessed and participated in what became some of the most expensive man-made environmental disasters. Everyone from governors to scientists to fishermen to teachers to kids tells their stories of Earth after disaster in this riveting true story. Earth A.D. is a documentation of the past and a warning to the future.

Contents:

Heavy metal. Superfund site ; They were good kids who couldn't think ; The downstream people ; Boomtown, USA ; The mines were beginning to play out ; Those aren't mountains, those are chat piles ; The house of butterflies ; A rare condition ; Mishandles ; It's in my nature to save the cobra ; Keating's Task force and "A world-class wetland" ; Questions about equity and the sanctity of the land ; Shut this thing down ; Death spiral ; The audit ; The cover-up ; Community

Sludge metal. 2002 ; Modern-day New Yorkers don't know it's here ; Standard Oil ; 1978 ; Sickness ; Concerned citizens of Greenpoint: Irene and the angry moms ; The city's toilet ; Underground plumes ; Responsibility ; The second wave activists ; 2010 superfund and a note on the Gowanus Canal ; NuHart Plastics ; It's all a brownfield ; Zoning issues ; Environmental gentrification ; A working body of water ; The settlement money ; Combined sewer overflow and the department of environmental protection ; Is remediation possible? ; Access and recreation ; This could be anywhere, this could be everywhere ; Going forward.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (EBSCO, viewed on July 29, 2020).

ISBN:

1-934170-83-6