Environmental Issues that Impact the Western United States - Research Paper Example

Environmental Issues that impact the Western United States The call for protecting our environment is growing across the world because of the climate changes, atmospheric temperature rise and weather calamities. It is evident that most of the environmental problems were manmade only. In an effort to make the living conditions better and better, human exploited the environment injudiciously and realized the consequences of it too late. Being one of the heavily industrialized countries in the world, America is one of the major culprits in causing environmental problems. America is one of the prominent nuclear powers in the world and its nuclear power plants are generating immense nuclear wastes which are dumped into seas. Moreover, the fertilizers, chemicals and pesticides used to improve the agricultural yields, are polluting the soil and water. Western United States is a region which is facing big environmental problems as a result of visionless industrial and agricultural policies. This paper briefly analyses the environmental problems of Western America and provides some recommendations to overcome it. Environmental problems in western America Mining is one of the major activities which cause severe environmental problems in Western America. Mining started in America in the nineteenth century and western America is a region which is blessed with precious metals like gold and minerals. The gold rush in the nineteenth century resulted in the construction of rail, roads and other transportation means and many of the natural forests were destroyed. Some of the cities like Denver and Sacramento evolved as mining towns during this period. Contamination of soil and water, erosion, destruction of biodiversity etc were the outcomes of gold rush or mining. Mining is a process which requires the use of lot of chemicals to purify the metals and minerals mined out of the soil. These chemicals often pollute the soil and water. A scoping study conducted by the Western Governors' Association Mine Waste Task Force (1) collected the following statistics on inactive and abandoned mines (IAMs) by state: Arizona -- 80,000 IAM sites covering 136,653 acres, pollution 200 miles of surface waterways. California -- 2,484 IAM sites, 1,685 mine openings, and 578 miles of polluted streams. Colorado -- 20,299 mine openings and 1,298 miles of affected streams. Idaho -- 27,543 acres affected by IAMs. Missouri -- 7,655 IAM sites covering 48,175 acres, with 109 miles of affected streams. Montana -- 20,000 IAM sites covering 153,800 acres, with 1,118 miles of stream damage. New Mexico -- 25,320 acres and 69 miles of stream affected by IAMs. Oklahoma -- 26,453 acres affected by IAMs. Utah -- 25,020 acres affected by IAMs, with 83 miles of polluted streams. Of this total volume, approximately 85 percent is attributed to copper, iron ore, uranium, and phosphate mining and related activities. Approximately one-half of the waste generated is mining waste and one-third is tailings, with the balance consisting of dump/heap leaching wastes and mine water (Durkin and Herrmann, n. d) Even though mine waste problems affect the environment in numerous ways, acid mine drainage is the most serious problem arises as a result of mining. Mine wastes may engage in serious chemical reactions with other elements present in soil, rock water etc. For example, the major constituent of rock is ferrous sulphide which could be oxidized to form hydrogen ion when mine wastes react with it in the presence of water. Since hydrogen ions can easily react with water to form different types of acids, and thereby the acidity of the soil would be increased a lot. Acids have the ability to react with different types of metals and elements present in soil and water. In other worlds, when the acidity increases in the soil, lot of unwanted or poisonous materials can be generated. In short, mining indirectly pollute the water and the soil near the mining areas. The agriculture in Western United States mostly depends on irrigation projects for its water requirements. Water stored in the reservoirs and dams were utilized for drinking and agricultural purposes. The water drained out of the agricultural lands may contain toxic ingredients because of the injudicious usage of fertilizers, chemicals and pesticides to improve the agricultural yields. “As an example, concern is increasing about the quality of surface and subsurface water draining from irrigated land and the potential effects of irrigation drainage on human health, fish, and wildlife” (USGS, 1997). It is difficult to sustain marine life if the irrigated water is polluted beyond certain limits. Selenium seems to be one of the major content of irrigated water drained out of the agricultural lands. When selenium uptake is too high health effects will be likely to come about. The seriousness of these effects depends upon the concentrations of selenium in the food and how often this food is eaten. The health effects of various forms of selenium can vary from brittle hair and deformed nails, to rashes, heat, swelling of the skin and severe pains. When selenium ends up in the eyes people experience burning, irritation and tearing. Selenium poisoning may become so severe in some cases that it can even cause death (Selenium – Se, 2009) Colorado River seems to be one of the major victims of environmental pollution in western American region. More than 30 million people in western America are using water from Colorado River. Fresh water sources in America are shrinking day by day. It is already proved that Colorado River is dying gradually and in near future itself people in western America are going to face severe water shortage. If climate change results in a 10 percent reduction in the Colorado River's average stream flow as some recent studies predict, the chances of fully depleting reservoir storage will exceed 25 percent by 2057, according to the study. If climate change results in a 20 percent reduction, the chances of fully depleting reservoir storage will exceed 50 percent by 2057 (Future Of Western U.S. Water Supply Threatened By Climate Change, 2010) Water disputes are already creeping up in America because of environmental problems. It should be noted that injudicious activities of few people can cause severe environmental problems in a wider area. According to Sprinz, & Vaahtoranta (1994), “States are not equally affected by atmospheric pollution”(Sprinz, & Vaahtoranta, 1994, p. 79). It is difficult to fix boundaries and control environment in a specific region. It is fact that the activities of one country can affect even other countries. Moreover, it is quite possible that a state or region which generated the environmental problems may escape from the consequences whereas their neighbors may suffer from that. In short, if a specific region suffers less from its environment destroying activities, it may not take any serious or sincere measures to reduce environmental problems and as a result of that disputes can take place between states or regions. For example, Colby (n. d) has pointed out that “the Mono Lake conflict in California which involves the City of Los Angeles, the State of California, several federal agencies, local irrigators, and environmental organizations in a complex dispute over maintaining stream flows and lake levels” (Colby, n. d, p.20). Like most of the other regions or countries in the world, emission problems are serious in Western America also. The increased number of vehicles on road is always a cause of worry for the environmentalists. It is a fact that industrialization is necessary to the development of region. However, it is difficult to implement industrialization without causing any damages to the environment. Greenhouse gases like water vapor, ozone, methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide etc can cause immense damage to the environment. Even a single family in America may have more than two or three vehicles. Each vehicle is causing some kind of damage to the environment. Each and every people in the family may use their own vehicles for their travelling needs. Thus the increase in number of vehicles and heavy industrialization are other reasons for the environmental problems in western America as in the case of other parts in the world. Conclusions & Recommendations Protection of rivers and forests are the major solutions for environmental problems. Nature has a balance and everything in this universe is connected in some ways. In other words, a balance is there among the natural activities. Any attempt to disrupt the balancing act of the nature can cause serious environmental troubles. So, selecting life style to go along with the natural activities seems to be the better solution for environmental problems when we consider the problems associated with the activities against the natural laws. Mining should be conducted in a judicious manner so that the soil and water resources may not be polluted much. More control and regulations should be enforced upon mining activities. Rivers and water sources should not be allowed to pollute under any circumstances. Water management agencies should take more care in protecting water sources like Colorado River. Kyoto protocol, the agreement reached between countries to protect the environment, should be implemented strictly and no country or region should be allowed to stay away or escape from such agreements. Since no country or region can limit the environmental problems, in their territory alone, collective effort is necessary to counter environmental problems. The major feature of Kyoto Protocol is that “it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012”(Kyoto Protocol, n. d). It is a fact that any effort to reduce carbon emission or environmental protection may affect the economic growth since such efforts may affect the industrialization process. “The issue of global climate change and what to do about it has put economics to a severe test in which economists have been challenged to think afresh about how to model such fundamental notions as risk, uncertainty, and discounting”(Weitzman, 2007, p. 703). In short, a compromise is necessary between economic interests and the environmental protection efforts. It is impossible to stop automobile usages or industrialization process. However, it is possible to do industrialization in a better controlled manner. The idea of discounting has evolved as a result of the above awareness. A dollar tomorrow is worth less than a dollar today because if we invested the dollar today we would have more than a dollar tomorrow. Thus, investing a dollar today to protect the environment in the future, either by spending it or by allowing a policy that decreases current economic activity by a dollar, makes policy sense only if it yields at least as much economic activity in that future as would have been produced by investing that dollar elsewhere in the economy (Barkin, 2006, p.62) References 1. Barkin, S. J. (2006) Discounting the Discount Rate: Ecocentrism and Environmental Economics. Global Environmental Politics 6:4, November 2006. Massachusetts Institute of Technology p.56-72 2. Colby B.G. (n. d). RESOLVING INTERJURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES OVER WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY. Retrieved from http://www.ucowr.org/updates/pdf/V118_A4.pdf 3. Durkin T.V and Herrmann J.G, (n. d). FOCUSING ON THE PROBLEM OF MINING WASTES: AN INTRODUCTION TO ACID MINE DRAINAGE. Retrieved from http://technology.infomine.com/enviromine/publicat/amdintro.html 4. Future Of Western U.S. Water Supply Threatened By Climate Change, (2010). Science Daily. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163555.htm 5. Kyoto Protocol (n. d). Retrieved from http://unfccc.int/kyoto protocol/items/2830.php> 6. Selenium – Se (2009). Retrieved from http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/se.htm 7. Sprinz, D and Vaahtoranta T. (1994). The Interest-Based Explanation of International Environmental Policy. International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Winter, 1994), pp. 77-105 Published by: The MIT Press. Jstor 8. USGS (1997). Using Geochemical and Statistical Tools to Identify Irrigated Areas That Might Contain High Selenium Concentrations in Surface Water. Retrieved from http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/FS-077-96/ 9. Weitzman, M. L. (2007). A Review of "The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change". 2007. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 2007), pp. 703-724. Published by: American Economic Association. Read More