Environmental Writing 2014

Ramapo College, May 2014    (photo: Jan Barry)

The world as classroom is a key aspect of lifelong learning. That’s an insight that savvy educators try to instill in students from kindergarten to college. Sometimes that awakening happens unexpectedly. Here are some aspects of life that caught the attention of 13 student-journalists in the Spring 2014 Environmental Writing course at Ramapo College. Their insights—a sampling is excerpted here—in writings throughout the semester are the core of the ongoing environmental explorations in this course, which are posted on our class website, ramapolookout.blogspot.com.


“So I raised my hand in Professor Michael Edelstein’s Environmental Studies’ capstone course to volunteer to be co-Project Manager of a student-run firm contracted to the Ramapough-Lenape Nation and I did not know who the Ramapoughs were. A student of Ramapo College of New Jersey for my undergraduate years, I had never meaningfully learned about the tribal lands our school rests atop of, nor that although our institution bears the anglicized version of their namesake, I had not once spoken to a member of the Ramapoughs. Unsurprisingly, I soon found this ignorance to be the norm for the people of Ramapo College.

“As our project progressed throughout the course of the semester, my knowledge of the ecological and human damage the Ramapoughs endured quickly grew. Shocked by the massive levels of toxic materials and social stigma their community collectively endures, I began to talk with other Ramapo College students I encountered in the cafeteria, in classes, and at the campus office I worked in…

“These conversations I had with a diverse cross-section of the Ramapo College student body attest to the level of misinformation about the Ramapough community. This ignorance was not malicious or representative of their character. Both located within the same locality, the Ramapo College community and the Ramapough Turtle Clan exist in a rift that is worlds apart. People either do not know or they are misled by pervasive social stigmatization.”

--Colin English, “World as Classroom: Meeting the Ramapoughs”


“The findings of many of the Physical team members point to decades of neglect, societal oppression, and environmental injustices to the Ramapough community. Before the dangerous intersection of mining and contamination that reduced their ability to utilize the land and practice their culture occurred, the Ramapoughs freely drank from trout-producing streams, enjoyed a proud sense of societal self-sufficiency, and knew that their children were under the constant, safe vigil of the community. The Turtle Clan currently suffers a disproportionately high degree of risk from mining, natural hazards, and environmental contamination in comparison to the surrounding communities.

“Unlike much of the region, the situation of the Turtle Clan remains dire. The other residents of Ringwood are not affected by volatile organic compounds in the groundwater that, due to their chemical properties, quickly off-gas into the Ramapoughs' air before significant migration occurs downstream. The students of Ramapo College of New Jersey will not wake up each morning to the sporadic hums of backhoes nor the steady stream of trucks as toxic materials are dug up around them. The surrounding communities will not be forced to forgo much of their low-energy culture to survive in a high-energy dominant culture…

“The Cultural indicator determined that Ford’s contamination caused a loss of indigenous knowledge among the Ramapoughs because they were forced to stop hunting and gathering normally. The Borough’s proposed placement of Ringwood’s recycling center over the O’Connor Landfill, rather than remove all contamination, would further restrict access to cultural lands as well as bring in streams of traffic and visitors along a once-isolated road where many Ramapough families live. Relocation of the Clan would allow them to continue cultural practices, as well as relearn them, unhindered.”

--Colin English, Tiffany Liang, and Rudolph Reda, “ Environmental Justice Issues at Ringwood Mines Superfund Site”


“Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey around 8 pm on October 29, 2012. The east coast of the United States was ravaged alongside the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Greater Antilles and Canada. When Sandy was predicted to hit my hometown near the ocean, I never thought the damages would be as great as they turned out to be. I’d seen news reports of hurricanes, twisters, and tornadoes vastly altering the landscape and the way people had to rebuild their lives, but I had never experienced such damages firsthand….

“The area had major damage. Walking through the streets, it felt eerie—houses ripped apart, furniture in the soaked streets, cars flooded, some even carried away, driftwood found miles inland, piers and trails vanished like they had never been there, sand from the nearby beaches covering the roads. The destruction was terrible, but we could rebuild.

“The power was out for over a week, and many people went out and bought generators, and then the gas crisis started. Cars and generators both ran on gas, and while many people had taken off work to help with the repair effort, some couldn’t and needed fuel.  There were lines for gas that stretched for blocks, curving around corners, in the hopes that gas would be available. Leaving  around five in the morning to fill up the family car with my mother, we had to wait well past sunrise just to reach the gas station.

“While it was a tragic moment in the New Jersey history books, the community came together like never before. Within three days, shelters were set up for those that had lost everything and had nowhere to go; families could still eat a meal thanks to those that were more fortunate and could donate or lend a helping hand; neighbors who had generators put up signs offering outlets to charge cell phones.”

--Devin Hartmann, “Sandy Stories”


“The modern world currently enjoys more riches and wealth than ever could have been imagined. The developed world is overflowing with cheap food, advanced medical care, clean water, air-conditioning, electricity, computers, etc. The list is endless. The complex and amazing lifestyle of the modern world is fantastic. We live radically different now than how humans did 500 years ago, let alone 200,000 years ago when modern humans first appeared….

“The real tragedy of modern society is that we not only dismiss our previous generations as irrelevant, but that we also dismiss future generations. We extract resources, destroy the environment, and grow our populations to irresponsible levels, leaving our children and grandchildren to clean up the wreckage. Soon, modern society’s assumptions will be proven irrevocably wrong, and then, hopefully, we can change the world for the better.

“But in the meantime, change your lifestyle. Make your life more local. Downsize your impact on the environment by reducing your resource use. Sell your car. Grow your own food. Meet your neighbors. Get creative.”

--Kyle Van Dyke, “Our World”


“Just as humans are heavily relying on and overusing antibiotics, farmers are relying on and overusing pesticides and herbicides. Humans make stronger medicines only to create an environment where germs then adapt and become resistant, creating supergerms. Monsanto made Roundup to kill weeds and when the weeds adapted and became super weeds, then they created a stronger Roundup formula. Humans are under the false impression that we can alter nature, but the truth is nature will always find a way to outsmart human actions. Scientists try to take short cuts, but these shortcuts sometimes prove to be harmful to human health….

“There are alternatives. Natural home remedy weed killers can be made without the harsh chemicals of commercialized products. Ingredients usually consist of vinegar, salt, liquid dish soap, and a spray bottle. If you want to remove dandelions specifically from your yard you can make a non-toxic dandelion killer that consists of apple cider vinegar, table salt, and dish soap. Users even claim the homemade concoctions have a higher success rate than Roundup and without the use of harsh chemicals.

“Better for your lawn, better for your health, and better for the environment.”

--Brianne Bishop, “The Dangerous Side of Herbicides”


“There is several garbage patches located all over the globe, but the largest ones are the Indian Ocean patch, the North Atlantic patch and the Great Pacific patch. The reason the trash has built up in certain locations is because of the long rotating ocean currents called gyres. There are five major gyres located all over the ocean and three out of the five of them are filled with waste….
“The garbage in these gyres is doing a lot of harm to the wildlife of the ocean. Many animals eat it and then are unable to swallow or digest it and they die shortly after. Sea turtles and birds are mainly victims of this. Some fish end up getting caught in the trash and are unable to escape. The trash also prevents the wildlife from getting to their food’s location, so eating waste becomes the only option for them. Another problem comes from when the plastic deteriorates in the water. The plastic particles that come from the trash are also toxic to the ocean life as well. These toxins spread around the food chain of the ocean.

“Many people don’t realize that the damage to the ocean could affect them as well. Since there are fish that are caught out in the gyres, there have been cases of people getting sick from eating fish with plastic toxins in them. Research has shown that animals consuming these toxic substances is becoming a problem all around the globe. What makes this situation worse is that there is barely anything being done to clean up any of these gyres.”

--Michael Seyler, “Ocean Life Threatened by Giant Garbage Patches”


“The proposed pipeline would carry oil from Canada to the United States, where it eventually would reach Gulf Coast refineries. Supporters say it would create thousands of jobs and help the United States get closer to a goal of energy independence. Opponents include environmentalists who say the project wouldn’t create much permanent employment once it was finished, and argue it would reinforce the nation’s use of an energy source that worsens global warming. Such a project will only increase our dependence on a limited resource. …

“With elections coming up, many conservative-state Democrats’ seats are up for re-election and this could make them seem bi-partisan and help them win votes. For them, it would seem to be a smart political move with no consequences to them, as any such bill will almost certainly be vetoed by Obama.

“According to CBS News, the vote is likely to happen soon with the mechanics still being worked out. The vote will likely show where the country’s leaders have their heads--new and more sustainable energies or business as usual.”

--Joseph Farley, “Keystone Pipeline Issue Coming to a Head in Congress”


“When bees forage from flower to flower, they carry pollen with them on their fuzzy little bodies, enabling flowers to reproduce. Because honeybees are found worldwide, they help the reproduction of many fruits and flowers. Honeybees have become commercialized not only for the honey they produce but for their role in pollinating crops on agricultural sites. Our food derives from the plants that are pollinated from pollinators like honey bees. …

“Recently, an emerging disease that scientists are extensively looking into is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The symptoms of this disease are: (1) the rapid loss of worker bees; (2) a noticeable lack of dead bees both within or surrounding the hive; and (3) the delayed invasion of hive pests and kelptoparasitism from other hives….

“’The Value of Honey Bees as Pollinators of U.S. Crops in 2000’ accesses CCD’s impact on the human population: ‘Although CCD probably will not cause the honeybees to go extinct, it could push many beekeepers out of business. If beekeepers’ skills and know-how become a rarity as a result, then even if CCD is eventually overcome, nearly 100 percent of our crops could be left without pollinators - and a large-scale production of certain crops could become impossible.’ We will still have corn, wheat, potatoes and rice - because these crops don’t need pollinators - but a large portion of our fruits and vegetables may become luxury. The decline of the honeybee will affect our lives since a third of our diet come from fruits and vegetables that depend heavily in the honeybee pollination.”

--Kristen Andrada, “Honeybee Crisis and its Impact on Our Food Supply”


“Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, are not trusted not only by people who care about their health, but those who also care about their impacts on the environment.  There are many websites dedicated to stopping the use of GMOs in products, listing all the things that are wrong with them.  However, they may already be in our food and many of our food products.  According to “Questions & Answers on Food from Genetically Engineered Plants” on the U.S Food and Drug Administration’s website, most GMO plants include “corn, canola, soybean, and cotton,” which are used in many major food and snack products….

“These are the two sides to the debate over the use of GMOs.  The U.S government considers them safe, as well as scientific organizations.  However, there is other scientific research that show that it may be detrimental to our health (according to animal studies), and there are concerns over how different aspects of the environment, such as nature and ecology, will be affected by the GM crops.  It may be difficult to avoid these types of crops in popular products, which is why labeling GM products in the U.S would be good idea.”

--Jonathan Mallon, “Genetically Modified Food: Pros and Cons”


“In recent decades humans are being reminded of the phrase “climate change” and how it can affect them. Climate change has the definition within itself; it is when the weather changes from how it used to be to how it is currently, except that for the world the change in climate is hotter than it has been in human history. With the weather getting hotter, causing ice glaciers to break and water to rise, climate change has caused severe effects in major parts of the world. From tsunami in Asia, earthquakes in the United States, and hurricanes in the Caribbean, the world is becoming a more dangerous place to live….
“I decided to take two countries such as the Dominican Republic and the United States to show how a third world country and a first world country compare to each other with problems that the entire world is facing. I wanted to show a country that was on an island that is a lot more at risk of becoming flooded by water because of the damages that we are all doing, but most of all the people living in first world countries.

“Climate change can be avoided by humans deciding to take public transportation, shutting off electricity and water when not in used, stopping the fast pace of merchandising which waste a lot of plastic and causes factories to work harder and longer at making these products, and most importantly, to take care of each other as we teach each other how to reduce, reuse and recycle. The reason why curing the environment is harder than finding a cure for anything else is because it requires all of us to help in order to make the planet better. Therefore, if more people are aware of how fast the world is diminishing then more people will take action.”

--Jesus Santos, “People Around the World Need to Address Climate Change”


“The majority of people in the world depend on cars for transportation.  In 2011, The Huffington Post reported that over 1 billion people worldwide own a car, making public transportation appear to be obsolete.

“Unfortunately, such a figure means that people are creating a bigger carbon footprint on the environment than ever before while solutions, like eco-friendly cars, continue to fail to catch mainstream appeal. After all of these years, solutions for the current transportation model continue to struggle to gain momentum, and it’s creating a huge problem for everyone.

“Jack Daly, 53-year-old World Sustainability Professor at Ramapo College, said that the continued use of cars for transportation is having a huge negative effect on the environment.

“’I think cars are probably the most selfish invention in the modern world,’ he said. ‘he automobile is a big boost for GDP because it’s a hard, durable, expensive product, but in terms of sustainability it’s a joke.’”

--Anthony Vigna, “Eco-Friendly Transportation Struggles to Transform Gas-Guzzling Highways”


“During my spring break I traveled down to Florida to the Ft. Myers area.  The land was blessed with bright sun, warm weather, and interesting wildlife.  I had to barely leave the trailer to spot a few brightly colored green geckos prowling the area. These lizards would often be prey to my grandparents’ cat Sea Ray, despite my disapproval of letting her out free  and unrestrained. But what we saw around the trailer was only a fraction of Florida's diverse wildlife.

“To catch a glimpse of this wildlife, my grandparents and I traveled to the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve, an environmental education center in Ft. Myers build with a boardwalk above the swampy earth where visitors can see and learn about the area's unique ecosystem. …

“These six miles were preserved due to the efforts of dedicated students.  In 2001, they took the preserve as it was and expanded its purpose.  It moved from a simple preserve to an opportunity to educate people about the ecosystem of the Ft. Myers estuary.  The trees filter the water and keep it clear, allowing a variety of gators, birds and other animals to survive in this little section of Florida.”

--Kaitlyn McCaffrey, “World as Classroom: Visiting a Cypress Preserve in Florida”

World as Classroom: Meeting the Ramapoughs

By Colin English



Ramapo College students talk with Ringwood resident
Jack Walker (photo: Judith Sullivan) 

In January, our Environmental Assessment class created Research and Investigation for Society and the Environment (RISE), a class project of 23 senior Environmental Studies students tasked with formulating an Environmental Impact Statement, with a specialization for Environmental Justice, for Chief Vincent Mann of the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough-Lenape Nation, and Judith Sullivan.of the Ramapough Conservancy. For a fuller overview of our project and the Ramapoughs, see the report and brochure our class compiled.

In the 1960s, Ford Motor Company disposed of approximately 30 million gallons of toxic  paint sludge from its Mahwah automobile plant with a concentration in and around abandoned iron mines in neighboring Ringwood, New Jersey. Home of the Ramapough-Lenape Nation Turtle Clan, a Native American tribe, the area possesses many toxic dangers to their community that are compounded by municipal wastes from the Borough of Ringwood and old iron mines.

The U.S. federal Environmental Protection Agency listed this contaminated area as a Superfund site, an area designated for significant cleaning, in 1983. More than three decades later, the contamination issues have yet to be resolved. Our project served to garner data for a more fulfilling clean-up plan than the EPA was in the process of finalizing, by gathering compelling evidence to show that the Ramapoughs, a socially marginalized and impoverished community, have born the disproportionate brunt of toxic waste dumping in the region.

So I raised my hand in Professor Michael Edelstein’s Environmental Studies’ capstone course to volunteer to be co-Project Manager of a student-run firm contracted to the Ramapough-Lenape Nation and I did not know who the Ramapoughs were. A student of Ramapo College of New Jersey for my undergraduate years, I had never meaningfully learned about the tribal lands our school rests atop of, nor that although our institution bears the anglicized version of their namesake, I had not once spoken to a member of the Ramapoughs. Unsurprisingly, I soon found this ignorance to be the norm for the people of Ramapo College.

As our project progressed throughout the course of the semester, my knowledge of the ecological and human damage the Ramapoughs endured quickly grew. Shocked by the massive levels of toxic materials and social stigma their community collectively endures, I began to talk with other Ramapo College students I encountered in the cafeteria, in classes, and at the campus office I worked in.

“Do you know about what happened to the Ramapoughs,” I would ask out of interest. “Who?” came the universal response. The rest of the conversation went like this for many people I spoke with:

    “The Ramapoughs, the Native American tribe with several communities in the mountains along upper NJ and lower NY. They are about a ten-minute drive from campus.”
    “Never heard of them. Do they live in teepees?”
    “No, they actually live in similar houses that we do, ” I replied.
    “Oh! Are they the crazy people from Weird New Jersey? In high school my friends and I would drive up there and hope we wouldn’t get killed.”
    “Nope, they are normal, friendly people just like you and I. And they’re not dangerous!” I would say, exasperated.

These conversations I had with a diverse cross-section of the Ramapo College student body attest to the level of misinformation about the Ramapough community. This ignorance was not malicious or representative of their character. Both located within the same locality, the Ramapo College community and the Ramapough Turtle Clan exist in a rift that is worlds apart. People either do not know or they are misled by pervasive social stigmatization.

Due to the Ramapoughs’ historical background and decades of neglect, an aura of distrust and sadness permeates their tribe. Despite this, the students in RISE were permitted to tour their community to gain a full perspective of the environmental harm from the dumping, the social neglect they have endured for centuries, and institutional failures that have plagued their community.

Arriving in the Ramapough Community

Ramapo students and Ramapough community leader
Vivian Milligan (photo: Nifty Nicole Haines)

When I arrived with RISE at the Ramapough Turtle Clan community in Upper Ringwood, it looked like just another segment of Ringwood. Residential, suburban, detached-single family homes and regular-looking people that contrasted with the wild imaginations of my fellow Ramapo students. Like any society, the Ramapoughs are not a homogenous group of people and have many different views, practices, and appearances. However, the Turtle Clan’s collective identity is distinctly Native American. Decades of social misconstruing have caused communities like Ramapo College, mere miles away, to incorrectly wonder if they really are Native American.

The Turtle Clan represents a unique blend of human resilience and adaptability. Much of their community lives in American-style homes built through the federal funding program, HOWTO, or in former mining company houses but utilize natural resources wherever possible. Environmental contamination has largely taken away their ability to continue cultural practices in the surrounding forest, so now they look and act very much like other residents of Ringwood.

By standard socio-economic measures, the Ramapoughs are impoverished and without political clout. What the standard measures does not describe is the profound sense of cultural identity, even with younger members who live outside of their community, and that they have been forced to live in an unsatisfying duality. They have lost their ability to practice their cultural traditions and natural-resource based society and now must be on our electrical grid, take low-wage jobs often miles away, collect food stamps to pay for processed food, and attempt to rely on a political system that has mistreated them for centuries.

Through our trips to Ringwood, it was apparent that the Ramapoughs do not neatly fit anywhere. They cannot practice their indigenous traditions, nor can they easily survive in a structure that was forcibly imposed on them. While they have retained their sense of place because they still live on a small portion of their tribal lands, their community has paid a massive price to do so. They have lost much of their culture, cannot enjoy healthy and long lives, and their resilience is constantly tested by inhuman treatment.

However, if I have learned anything from the Ramapoughs, it is that they will fight until the end. I only hope that RISE and the work of others can give them the help that will make a difference in their struggle for social and environmental justice.

Environmental Justice Issues at Ringwood Mines Superfund Site

By Colin English, Tiffany Liang, and Rudolph Reda

 Superfund site near Ringwood homes  (photo: Jan Barry)

Introduction

In the 1970’s, Ford Motor Company dumped toxic paint sludge from its plant in Mahwah, New Jersey in various locations. One of these locations was an old iron mining community in Ringwood, New Jersey, which is home to the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lenape Nation. Since 1984, when the site was first put onto the National Priorities List for Superfund cleanup, the area has undergone a series of remedial activities. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of paint sludge have been removed from the site, but the Ford plant  produced tens of millions. In 1994, the Ringwood site was delisted, but it was relisted in 2006.

In May 2014, Chief Vincent Mann of the Turtle Clan commissioned RISE (Research and Investigation for Society and the Environment), the Environmental Assessment class at Ramapo College, to write an Environmental Justice-oriented Environmental Impact Statement concerning the Ringwood site. The Firm, as it is referred to colloquially, is divided into three teams: ecological, physical, and social. Each team has its own team manager and editors, which are headed by two project managers and a head editor. Below is the summary of the Firm’s findings.

Ecological

The RISE Ecological team set out to assess the current environmental status of the Ringwood Mines Superfund site. This team focused on the flora, fauna, all hazards and vulnerabilities, health and safety, and surface water impacts in the area. Since the Ramapough tribe has a lifestyle unlike the majority of the surrounding suburban community’s, it was deemed that these ecological impacts would play a key role in affecting their overall wellbeing.

The Ramapoughs of Ringwood lead a subsistence lifestyle; they rely on hunting and fishing of wild game for consumption and have a deep connection to the land they live on. As the game in the area—including rabbits, squirrels, deer—drinks from the streams or comes into contact with contamination in eating vegetation, these animals can become contaminated themselves. During RISE site visits, chickens and roosters were observed to be roaming free through the residents’ backyards, potentially coming into contact with contamination. This contamination of fauna means there is the potential for bioaccumulation, or the travel of toxins up the food chain, to occur. Since the risk of bioaccumulation is high, the Ramapoughs have been forced to change their cultural ways.

As part of their subsistence lifestyle, the Ramapoughs culture also frequently makes use of the plants in the area. These plants provide not only a food source, but a medicinal source as well. Much like with the fauna, the potential for bioaccumulation to occur among flora is a risk the Ramapoughs are not prepared to take. Testing conducted by the EPA has shown that there are elevated levels of lead in the flora throughout the site. In one test, a wild carrot had so many abnormalities, it was deemed a fluke and discarded without further analysis. This contamination of their food and medicine source has forced the Ramapoughs to change their cultural practices, and in turn they have lost a significant amount of their tribal knowledge.

Throughout the ground underneath the Ringwood Superfund site are abandoned mine tunnels, a human-caused hazard. These abandoned tunnels have been an issue of major concern, long before dumping occurred. With no maintenance, subsidence and sinkholes have been able to form. In one well known case, a child fell to his death as the edge of Cannon Mine pit gave way, in 1963. Since the area became a Superfund site, there have been little actions taken by Ford and the EPA to inform the public of such dangers. State-maintained trails lead hikers in Ringwood State Park directly into the Peters Mine site, with no signage about mine dangers. There is a fence that separates the trail from Upper Ringwood, and a "no trespassing" sign is placed on the side of the fence facing the Ramapough community.

Despite what has occurred, the potential for Mother Nature to intensify things is a real possibility, thereby producing natural-caused hazards. Various weather events can cause erosion, which has the potential to uncover or cover areas of paint sludge. Excess rain could cause flooding, which may increase the spread of contamination throughout the Ringwood area and beyond. Deep underground, the Ramapo fault lies active, occasionally shaking the earth with small but measurable earthquakes. With so many mine shafts littering the area, one decent sized quake (or enough small ones) could cause severe instability in the area; potentially leading to mineshaft collapses.

The Ramapough community once had a high quality of life; members of the community have lived as old as 105 years. Since the contamination has occurred, they have been plagued with a variety of health issues. Over the years, they have come into contact with the contamination from ingestion of flora, fauna and surface water while also coming into direct contact with paint sludge and tainted soil. According to the ATSDR, the health conditions the Ramapough have been facing (cancer, respiratory, reproductive and developmental, neurological disorders, heart disease, skin rashes, eye irritation, anemia, diabetes, and shorter lifespan) are all consistent with the toxicological side effects of exposure from on-site contaminants.

Due to the human-caused hazards mentioned, there are major safety concerns related to the abandoned mine tunnels throughout the area. Additionally, there is the ever-present issue of fire safety. Because much of the area was once used as Ford and municipal landfills, methane release is a concern. The presence of this flammable gas means that in the event of a fire, not only could it ignite brush near homes, it could cause explosions. Lastly, in the event of an emergency, there is only one primary road in and out of Van Dunk Lane. If a fire or sinkhole were to occur along the road, emergency vehicles would be unable to reach the cul de sac end of the road.

Tainted stream  (photo: Rudy Reda)

All across the site, multiple streams and wetlands can be observed. Springs, which once flowed clean and provided drinking water, now flow orange and contain various toxins. Due to fear of contamination, the Ramapough have been forced to fish elsewhere, such as in the nearby Wanaque Reservoir, where they are arrested for doing so.

Until the groundwater in the area is addressed, the wetlands and streams which flow into the Wanaque reservoir may continue to be tainted. Although the contamination is not known to be migrating offsite, anything that does make its way offsite could pose a potential threat to the water supply of 2.5 million people. Currently, much of the testing that does occur at the reservoir is not testing for toxins specific to the site.

Overall, the Ecological team at RISE determined that there is a clear and present injustice that is occurring to the local community. Each individual member concluded that with regards to their indicator, the Ramapoughs face a disproportionally high amount of ecological concerns. While the team also assessed the current proposed remedial actions, they were split as to whether or not the EPA’s plan of capping would suffice. The team, however, agreed that while a full remediation of the site would be the ideal option, an alternative, yet un-proposed relocation option would be a viable option to consider as well. Further investigation would be required to see if this latter option is feasible.

Physical

Secondly, a team of seven students collaborated to uncover all of the potential impacts to the Physical systems of the Ramapough community. The Physical Team of RISE was structured similarly to the other two teams, with a team manager to coordinate their research efforts, an editor to transform the data and their individual pieces into a single and coherent form, and each student had an indicator of impact assessment to dig into. The six Physical impacts indicators were: Air and Climate, Energy, Hydrology and Groundwater, Noxious Conditions, and Traffic.

Through trips to Ringwood, various meetings with specialists and community members, as well as a thorough examination of the existing data and accumulated research, RISE’s Physical Team uncovered a compelling narrative of real and present dangers to the Turtle Clan. The Ramapoughs live on top of hollowed mountains due to an old iron mining industry and the unwanted toxic wastes of a major industrial operation.

The findings of many of the Physical team members point to decades of neglect, societal oppression, and environmental injustices to the Ramapough community. Before the dangerous intersection of mining and contamination that reduced their ability to utilize the land and practice their culture occurred, the Ramapoughs freely drank from trout-producing streams, enjoyed a proud sense of societal self-sufficiency, and knew that their children were under the constant, safe vigil of the community. The Turtle Clan currently suffers a disproportionately high degree of risk from mining, natural hazards, and environmental contamination in comparison to the surrounding communities.

Unlike much of the region, the situation of the Turtle Clan remains dire. The other residents of Ringwood are not affected by volatile organic compounds in the groundwater that, due to their chemical properties, quickly off-gas into the Ramapoughs' air before significant migration occurs downstream. The students of Ramapo College of New Jersey will not wake up each morning to the sporadic hums of backhoes nor the steady stream of trucks as toxic materials are dug up around them. The surrounding communities will not be forced to forgo much of their low-energy culture to survive in a high-energy dominant culture.

Each physical indicator of impact clearly showed that environmental injustice is occurring to the Ramapough Turtle Clan and that standard models of analysis used by the EPA and other regulatory agencies do not encompass a scope wide enough to capture that conclusion.   As a result of future remediation efforts, local traffic issues will increase, the Ramapoughs will bear a disproportionate brunt of cumulative energy impacts, and they will continue to live in perpetual jeopardy of land subsidence, toxic gas inhalation, and groundwater toxicity in ways that other communities will not.

Social

The Social Team of RISE assessed all possible social impacts Ford’s contamination had on the Ringwood site, as well as the impacts of previous environmental disturbances. The indicators for this group were: Cultural, Environmental Justice, Public Policy, Psycho-Social, Organizational, Socio-Economic, and Visual.

The Cultural indicator determined that Ford’s contamination caused a loss of indigenous knowledge among the Ramapoughs because they were forced to stop hunting and gathering normally. The Borough’s proposed placement of Ringwood’s recycling center over the O’Connor Landfill, rather than remove all contamination, would further restrict access to cultural lands as well as bring in streams of traffic and visitors along a once-isolated road where many Ramapough families live. Relocation of the Clan would allow them to continue cultural practices, as well as relearn them, unhindered.

The Environmental Justice indicator came to the conclusion that not only have the Ramapoughs been treated unfairly due to their race, the treatment they received from Ford/ARCADIS and the EPA left something to be desired. Though the EPA has attempted to reach out to the community through its Community Advisory Groups, the Borough of Ringwood and society at large have not been as accommodating to the Clan’s needs and concerns.

An example of the unfair treatment and racial discrimination the Ramapoughs face occurred on April 1, 2006 when Emil Mann was shot by a state park ranger, Chad Walder. Mann and a group of friends were riding ATVs on Stag Hill, which is the center of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, in neighboring Mahwah, when they were accosted by a park ranger. Soon, two more rangers joined. Reportedly, Mann tried to break up the altercation before he was shot twice. He died of his wounds nine days later. The police reported that there were “mountain people” in the area, and many of the comments posted online after the story went live revivied vicious, generations-old stereotypes of the Ramapoughs.

Additionally, the Organizational indicator discovered that the way organizations acted towards the Clan before, during, and after Ford’s contamination was both irresponsible and discriminatory. Previous mining, Borough-sanctioned landfills, Ford’s contamination, and the recently trenched Tennessee pipeline were all environmentally disrupting occurrences that were imposed upon the Ramapoughs with little to no tools for them to fight back.

The Policy and Regulation indicator noted that even though Ford’s dumping took place before any environmental legislation had been made in the United States, it did not excuse the company’s continued behavior after environmental protection laws were enacted in the 1970s and 1980s. The Turtle Clan’s lack of federal recognition gives them very little power to influence the Superfund process. However, this does not mean they have been helpless to fight back, through speaking out at public meetings and to the news media.

The Psycho-Social indicator showed that though the Ramapoughs are a tight-knit community, coping with the sheer scale of change Ford’s contamination wrought on their environment as well as collective psyche has taken its toll. Not only is the community rife with health problems, it has also experienced wave upon wave of deaths since contamination occurred.

The Socio-Economic indicator revealed that the Ramapoughs are proud of being a subsistence culture, therefore they were ill-equipped to deal fiscally with the effects of Ford’s contamination. Due to the added racial stigma, it is also hard for the Clan to get well-paying jobs and to continue their education.

The Visual indicator added that because the contamination happened on the Ramapough’s land, they live with a constant visual reminder of the contamination. This in turn makes it hard for them to move on and rebuild their sense of community. Landscape that was once familiar to the Clan has been destroyed or damaged by Ford as well as previous mining activities. RISE saw firsthand how disrupted the landscape at Ringwood was through a series of field trips.

Conclusion

In 2013, the EPA submitted its final Environmental Justice report concerning the Ringwood site. However, it was deemed insufficient in scope by third parties. In a normal Superfund investigation, a RI/FS (Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study) report is produced. However, at the request of Chief Mann, RISE produced an FEIS, instead. The Ringwood Superfund site is the first to ever be delisted than relisted to the NPL.

In summary, the EPA did not consider the cultural degradation to the Ramapough community that resulted from Ford’s contamination while formulating its Proposed Plan for remediation. When the Borough of Ringwood, a responsible party due to municipal landfills, proposed a different remedial alternative to their benefit, the narrow interpretation of environmental justice did not allow for careful deliberation of the impact it would have on the Turtle Clan and its land. As of this writing, the EPA has yet to issue a Record of Decision concerning the Ringwood site. Its Proposed Plan, however, fails to address EJ issues. If it is implemented, the Ramapoughs will be left living in virtually the same situation, which perpetuates the problems that Ford began 50 years ago.

References
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_mcgrath?currentPage=all
RISE (2014). Superfund remediation in Ringwood, New Jersey: A final environmental justice environmental impact assessment. Mahwah, New Jersey: Environmental Assessment Course.


Colin English is a graduating senior of Ramapo College of New Jersey with a B.A. in Environmental Studies, and a double minor in Psychology and Public Policy. After graduation, he hopes to pursue a synthesis of community education and social ecology, with a specialization in marginalized and impoverished groups.

Tiffany Liang will soon be a graduate of Ramapo College with a bachelor’s in Environmental Studies. She has enjoyed writing her entire life and is eager to find a job. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, playing the piano, and eating.

Rudy Reda is a senior at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He will be graduating with a BA in Environmental Studies.  With an interest in sustainability, Rudy will be searching for a career in the related field upon graduation.  When he is not focusing on his professional life, Rudy is an avid music fan and enjoys traveling around the world to music festivals, while also improving his own musical talents.

Environmental Justice & the Ramapoughs

Sandy Stories

By Devin Hartmann

Aftermath of Sandy in Brick, NJ  (photo: FEMA)

Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey around 8 pm on October 29, 2012. The east coast of the United States was ravaged alongside the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Greater Antilles and Canada. When Sandy was predicted to hit my hometown near the ocean, I never thought the damages would be as great as they turned out to be. I’d seen news reports of hurricanes, twisters, and tornadoes vastly altering the landscape and the way people had to rebuild their lives, but I had never experienced such damages firsthand.

I live in Belford, an unincorporated community of fewer than 2,000 people in Middletown Township in Monmouth County. Belford is right on the water, on Sandy Hook Bay. The community has a “wet” side and a “dry” side, the wet obviously being the side that receives more flooding during great storms or rainfall, the dry experiencing little to no flooding.

When Sandy hit, while we live on the “dry” side, my family decided to go to a family member’s house, not necessarily because we thought flooding would occur but rather for a means of comfort as to not be alone during a disaster. Having lived in Florida for a time, and having been through many hurricanes, my mother knew we would experience little damage to our house but knew it would be safer and more comforting spending the night at a relative’s house. The power went out almost immediately after the storm hit and sitting through the dark was not bad for me. I'd been lucky but would not be able to find out how my friends had fared until the next day.

Robert Spitzfaden, 21, was on the “wet” side of Belford when Sandy struck. The oldest of three, the only thoughts on his mind were of protecting his younger siblings, one in high-school, the other still in grade school, and his mother. The flooding came soon after and he knew the night would be unkind.

“We live on a small hill, and when I saw the water continuously rise I knew it would reach our house,” he recalled. Robert had to work fast saving anything that was on the first floor of the two-story house. The water comes up above his knees in the house before the family was evacuated, and as he treaded towards the boat, the water had risen well above his waist. The storm damages would leave the family of four without a residence for almost a year, unable to move back into the house until August 2013.

“I remember the day after; we had water damage everywhere, houses up and down the blocks needed to be raised a few feet in case this ever happened again,” he said. “It was long, but I was thankful everyone was ok and that we would be able to return to the house.” 

Mike E. McDonald, 21, was at his residence in Port Monmouth, a similar community adjacent to Belford, when Sandy hit. “My crawlspace underneath my house was filled up to right under my floorboards, and a power line was exploding into the street that was flooded, so it was like we had been trapped,” he said. Mike lives near the water, and while there was damage and the possibility of danger throughout the night, thankfully he and his family came out unscathed.

His father, Mike A. McDonald, fared worse, having to don a wet suit and rely on the support of a boogie board to survive. His house in Union Beach, a few yards from the water, flooded within minutes, he said in sharing his story with the Asbury Park Press. Mike had spent 10 years with the Royal Navy working as marine engineer before emigrating to the United States in 1993. During his Navy service, he made it through two hurricanes while on a ship at sea. They were nothing like Sandy, he said. While Mike survived the night, the same could not be said for his house in Union Beach, which lost most of his dining room.

The area had major damage. Walking through the streets, it felt eerie—houses ripped apart, furniture in the soaked streets, cars flooded, some even carried away, driftwood found miles inland, piers and trails vanished like they had never been there, sand from the nearby beaches covering the roads. The destruction was terrible, but we could rebuild.

The power was out for over a week, and many people went out and bought generators, and then the gas crisis started. Cars and generators both ran on gas, and while many people had taken off work to help with the repair effort, some couldn’t and needed fuel.  There were lines for gas that stretched for blocks, curving around corners, in the hopes that gas would be available. Leaving  around five in the morning to fill up the family car with my mother, we had to wait well past sunrise just to reach the gas station.

While it was a tragic moment in the New Jersey history books, the community came together like never before. Within three days, shelters were set up for those that had lost everything and had nowhere to go; families could still eat a meal thanks to those that were more fortunate and could donate or lend a helping hand; neighbors who had generators put up signs offering outlets to charge cell phones. 

New Jersey citizens have become more vocal of their disapproval of how the recovery effort was handled, many stating that the Christie Administration has been too slow to help the people affected by the storm.  Recently, it was reported that out of the $1.8 billion federal aid money, only about a quarter of it has reached the hands of the affected residents.

According to Jared Keever of opposingviews.com, testimony from a hearing convened by New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez revealed racial discrepancies in the application process for grant money. Applications coming from African-Americans to rebuild their homes were rejected at a rate of 2.5 times that of whites. Latinos were rejected 1.5 times more than whites. An analysis by the Fair Share Housing Center showed that 80 percent of those who were rejected turned out to be eligible.

For more information:
www.app.com/viewart/20121111/NJNEWS/311070082/sandy-storm-survivors
www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/public_losing_faith_in_nj_hurricane_sandy_recovery_effort_poll_finds.html
www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/federal-money-hurricane-sandy-recovery-not-hands-nj-residents


Devin Hartmann is a Junior at Ramapo College majoring in Communications with a concentration in Journalism.  “I have taken many writing courses here and while I have enjoyed them all, Environmental Writing has meant the most to me. I was first introduced to the importance of the environment and its protection during my senior year in high school and knew I wanted to help in any way I could. I hope to one day bring more stories to the public of environmental protection and bring out the truth behind what harms our environment and what type of effect it will have on us.”

World as Classroom: Organic Beer and Eco-Activists Stir Spirits at Pier 94

By Rudy Reda

For the CEC component of this class, I attended the NYC Green Festival. This festival has been the longest running sustainability festival in the country.  The event took place on April 26 at Pier 94 in Manhattan. Throughout the festival, there were many opportunities to converse with the various vendors and merchants in attendance.

What made this festival interesting was the creativity and ingeniousness of some of the vendors.  One of the most interesting items I found was the repurposing of old wine corks.  These corks have been broken up and reshaped into a flower pot, which results in a number of beneficial aspects for the basil which is now growing out of it on my kitchen counter. Additionally, there were various expositions of sustainably produced plastics, including one made of 100% sugar cane that can biodegrade. 

There was also an extensive selection of foods that were non-GMO and vegan. It was interesting to see all the different ways in which healthy food can be repurposed and made into different forms.  One of the things that I personally enjoyed taste-testing was the organic beer. As a home brewer, anything beer related automatically has my attention.  When it comes to beer, many people neglect to think that organic beer even exists. But just like any crop, hops need to be grown in a field and therefore can be subjected to pesticides and chemicals.

The NYC Green Festival had a variety of speakers and activists.  One well known speaker was Amy Goodman, founder of Democracy Now! .  Amy discussed her new book, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope. In addition to speakers, there were activists who were trying to gather signatures to ban fracking in New York State.

Overall, the NYC Green Festival was quite an experience. From the discussions with the various vendors to seeing the creative sustainable alternative to everyday life, this festival was more than just a bunch of people selling things. It promoted a way of life; in fact, during the hours I was there, not one person was rude. Every attendee and employee was spirited and cheerful.  When the festival returns again next year, I will most likely be in attendance again, for my third year.

Our World

By Kyle Van Dyke

Earth from Space    (photo: NASA)

Assumptions

The modern world currently enjoys more riches and wealth than ever could have been imagined. The developed world is overflowing with cheap food, advanced medical care, clean water, air-conditioning, electricity, computers, etc. The list is endless. The complex and amazing lifestyle of the modern world is fantastic. We live radically different now than how humans did 500 years ago, let alone 200,000 years ago when modern humans first appeared.

But despite these incredible advances, much of this change has gone underappreciated. In fact, the youth of today have no idea what life would be like without their iPads, Tweets, and Walmart. Baby-boomers have no idea what life would be like without cars, movie theaters, and toilets. We are a very different society from what has come before us, but we don’t even realize it.

Psychological research has revealed a common phenomenon known as “anchoring,” which is the tendency to base decisions on events or values known, even though these facts may have no bearing on the actual event or value. An example of this is when you pull into the gas station and expect that there will be petroleum to fill up your car, because you did that last week and it worked. What you’re doing is making a prediction based on your past experience, without any information on the factors that affect whether or not there will be gasoline today. Some of these factors include the amount of oil left globally, the geo-political state of the nation from which the oil is derived, the state of the trade routes along which the oil is transported, etc. There’s nothing wrong with this tendency to assume, the phenomenon is indicative of how human brains work. We assume things will work based on past experiences, especially with tasks that we don’t want to spend a lot of energy on understanding, such as filling up our gas tanks.

Although this is fine to do when the assumption turns out to be correct, like when there is gasoline at the gas station, sometimes this assumption gets proven wrong. And that’s the first time we realize that we were even making an assumption at all.

We Have Time

The major flaw of modern society is its ego. Humans are too busy building off developments achieved by the previous two generations that the hundreds of generations preceding, and therefore the foundation on which the current society has been built, is forgotten. Since we do not make any effort to remember, we simply assume that life will continue to be like how it has been in recent memory. This kind of thinking results in two inaccurate and dangerous assumptions.


1. We can continue with the status quo.

The status quo changes over time, depending on many factors, such as environmental factors. The current status quo of society is to continue to grow at an exponential rate: in terms of economics and population. This is impossible because of resource depletion, and the limits of the finite system we call Earth.

Resource depletion

Humans are extracting the resources of the Earth at an unprecedented rate. Any resource extracted (or “produced”) by humans follows a general trend of increasing extraction followed by decline. This concept was popularized by Marion King Hubbert, a chief geologist for Shell Development Company, who presented and published a paper to the American Petroleum Institute entitled “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels.” Below is a graph from this paper, which shows extraction beginning at zero, followed by an exponential increase in extraction, followed by a peaking in extraction (meaning that 50% of the resource has been extracted), and followed by an exponential decline in extraction until it returns back to zero.

a. One of the most critical of resources to humans is oil, the global peak production of which was reached in 2005, according to data provided by British Petroleum. Humans are currently struggling against the decline of the curve, exemplified by the current “plateau” in crude oil production. This plateau will soon cease, however, as oil caches continue to become rarer, more difficult to access, and costlier to exploit. Oil represents the most critical energy source for the modern world, because it drives economic growth through provision of a liquid fuel easily used for transportation, as well as raw material for other critical substances, such as plastic. More can be learned about peak oil, as well as other issues, in the 2011 documentary film “The Crisis of Civilization.”

b. Another of the most critical resources is food. The problem with food production is that it requires an adequate amount of soil, which humans are losing at an amazing rate. The average rate of global soil production is 1 ton per hectare (~2.5 acres) per year. In contrast, the average rate of global soil loss is 5-10 tons per hectare per year. This soil is degraded and lost to storm runoff, making farms less and less able to produce food. More can be read about soil degradation in Stephen Gliessman’s 2007 book “Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems.”

A resource necessary for adequate food production is phosphorous. This resource is typically extracted as phosphate rock, the mineral of which is one of the three critical macronutrients for plant growth, and is most associated with flower production. Humans are currently extracting phosphorous at unprecedented rates, and is predicted to peak around 2040, which will likely have a significant effect on food production worldwide. More can be read about peak phosphorous, as well as other issues, in Richard Heinberg’s 2011 book “The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality.”

c. Another of the most critical resources is drinkable, fresh water. Currently, various regions of the United States have reached “peak renewable water,” which means that we are currently extracting as much as is replenishing water sources, like rivers. In various regions of the world, “peak non-renewable water” is currently being realized, which means that we are close to extracting 50% of water from sources that replenish themselves very slowly, such as underground aquifers. Globally, we are nearing “peak ecological water,” which is “the point at which taking more water for human use leads to ecological disruptions greater than the value that this increased water provides to humans.” More can be read about peak water in Peter Gleick’s 2011 Forbes article entitled “Is the U.S. Reaching Peak Water.”

d. A fourth critical resource is a balanced atmosphere. Climate change will have a significant impact on modern civilization: decreasing agricultural production, increased disease by migrating insect populations, increased heat waves, destruction of property by increased frequency of severe storms and sea level rise, increased flooding, and increased drought. Humans will have a difficult time adapting to extreme fluctuations in climate, the dangers of which will continue to worsen, especially if carbon emissions are not immediately and significantly reduced.

Exponential growth

a. Modern civilization’s global economy is increasing at an exponential rate. The functioning of all modern societies is dependent upon the status of “growth” in their economies as measured by GDP, or gross domestic product. The problem with requiring economies to exponentially grow in monetary value is that the reason why economies have been growing so rapidly has been forgotten, which is the existence of natural resources that permit this level of growth. Once those resources have been exponentially extracted, they will suffer an exponential decrease in extraction, causing the economy to exponentially collapse with it. Consider the correlation in the graph below between global crude oil production and global GDP growth.

   

b. The global human population has exponentially grown from a relatively stable level of 1 billion in 1804 to the current 7+ billion level of today, all within 210 years. This explosive level of growth is not sustainable, as the Earth’s resources are reaching peak extraction rates. The global population is likely to crash once resource scarcity becomes fully realized, since the reason the majority of humans alive today are due to fossil fuel use, which spurred the Green Revolution in agricultural production.

This phenomenon has been extensively catalogued in nature: a population capitalizes on a resource and exponentially grows, but once the resource reaches peak utilization, the population crashes along with the exponential decline in resource use. Consider the commonly cited graph below which shows the dependent relationship between the lynx population (actor) and the snowshoe hare population (resource). The graph depicts over 100 years of information regarding the population levels of the lynx as rising and falling in line with the fluctuation of the lynx’s primary resource: the snowshoe hare. Similarly, just as the lynx population declines in response to a decline in the snowshoe hare population, the global economy will decline in response to the decline in energy sources, such as oil.

2. We can solve everything through human ingenuity and technology.

There is a general belief that humans have superpowers of creativity which can be called upon to solve all of its problems. It is this belief that permits our belief in being able to conduct “business-as-usual,” or the status quo. While understandable that our collective ego has felt an inflated sense of capability since the utilization of fossil fuels, there is a problem arising. This assumption in our ability to problem-solve everything is being proven wrong. Below is an example of one of these assumptions.
We can switch to hydrogen, electric, or natural gas as fuels for transportation.

Although humans in the developed world, and increasingly those in developing countries who wish to emulate the extravagant lifestyle of the West, love to drive automobiles, this doesn’t mean that they will always be able to. With the issues of peak oil becoming more and more of a daily reality, there is a belief that alternative technologies will enable us to continue living as we currently are.

Unfortunately, there are no alternative technologies proposed with any realistic viability. The chief reason none of these options are viable is because the global supply web necessary to sustain the production of vehicles for transportation requires vast amounts of energy by itself, which will become increasingly more expensive to produce. Aside from this fact, the implementation of these technologies will require the production or conversion of millions of vehicles, which will cost vast amounts of financial investments, research, and energy. The infrastructure to support and “re-fuel” vehicles utilizing these technologies will also have to be developed, similarly requiring vast amounts of money, research, and energy. Lastly, automobiles as used in the developed world today, meaning use by single individuals, simply requires vastly too much energy and produces far too much pollution to be sustained in the future.  Additional reasons for each technology are listed below.

a. Hydrogen cars have been proposed as a futuristic model for how cars could operate as an alternative to the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), which runs on oil. The main problem with using hydrogen as a fuel source is that in order to produce hydrogen the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen in water have to be broken, which requires more energy to produce than is gained from burning hydrogen.

b. Electric cars are another proposed model for how cars could operate in the future. The main problem with electric or battery-powered cars is that batteries require minerals such as lithium, which need to be extracted from the Earth using energy-intensive machinery, which assumedly will also need to run on lithium batteries. Second, electricity is only a means to store energy; it is not an energy source in and of itself. This means that you still have to produce energy another way in order to charge the electric batteries, presumably fossil fuels.

c. Natural-gas vehicles are another popularly proposed alternative to the Internal Combustion Engine, even mentioned by President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address. The main problem with natural-gas powered vehicles is that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) are only viable for trucks or large vehicles, based on physical limitations in its production and use. Additionally, global conventional natural gas production is projected to peak around 2020, according to the Energy Watch Group. Natural gas caches are also known to decline more rapidly than other resources, such as oil. This means that a vast amount of investment, research, and energy is going to be invested in the utilization of a resource that will soon become unviable. The good news for the United States is that it seems to have a disproportionate percentage of the total available natural gas on the planet, although this seems unfair to developing nations who are just now starting to enjoy the level of resource use previously only seen by the developed world.

What Next?

The real tragedy of modern society is that we not only dismiss our previous generations as irrelevant, but that we also dismiss future generations. We extract resources, destroy the environment, and grow our populations to irresponsible levels, leaving our children and grandchildren to clean up the wreckage. Soon, modern society’s assumptions will be proven irrevocably wrong, and then, hopefully, we can change the world for the better.

But in the meantime, change your lifestyle. Make your life more local. Downsize your impact on the environment by reducing your resource use. Sell your car. Grow your own food. Meet your neighbors. Get creative.

More information on sustainable living can be found at Permaculture Magazine’s website. Additional sources of information can be found below.

Further Learning
Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO)
Greene, G. (Director). (2004). The End of Suburbia [Online video]. Canada: The Electric Wallpaper Company. 
Puckett, D. (Director). Ahmed, N. M. (Narrator). (2011). The Crisis of Civilization [Online video]. 
Ruppert, M. (Actor). (2009). Collapse [Online video]. USA: Bluemark Productions.
Wood, J. J. (Director). (2006). Crude Impact [Online video].


Kyle Van Dyke is an undergraduate student at Ramapo College majoring in Contemporary Arts with a minor in Environmental Studies. He is unsure of his future career, though he enjoys writing and proposing new and innovative ideas to create social value by increasing synergy between organizations and citizens. He is graduating this May, and will be interning with a renewable energy non-profit, NJPACE, this summer.

The Dangerous Side of Herbicides

By Brianne Bishop

Spraying Giant Hogweed   (photo: NYSDEC)

The popular herbicide Roundup has been used on gardens, farms, and parks around the world. Ads state that Roundup guarantees a weed free season, which is appealing to many homeowners and gardeners. The Monsanto product has been in use since 1974, when it was introduced into the U.S. for industrial use only. The weed killing substance then became commercialized and available for the common citizen to use in 1976.

Since it’s allowed to be sold in a store that means it’s safe right? Wrong. Here’s why:

Monsanto’s formula for Roundup includes as the main ingredient a compound known as glyphosate, which inhibits the key enzyme that allows for plant growth known as EPSP synthase. Basically, inhibiting this enzyme destroys the plant’s building blocks of life by attacking the amino acids. It is also commonly mixed with other ingredients in order to create a higher potency that helps it penetrate the plants' leaves.

Human Health Concerns

Ultimately, the concern comes from its ability to accumulate in humans. This is due to the inert ingredients present in Roundup. The term inert implies that the compounds are biologically harmless. This is not true, in this case inert simply means that the added chemicals don’t kill insects and/or weeds, but they aid the main ingredient glyphosate in doing so.

The use of glyphosate has been highly debated and it has also been highly used, creating a chemical herbicide found in over 750 United States products. Approximately 100 million pounds of the pesticide are applied to farms and lands in the United States every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Health studies were initially focused on glyphosate and the inactive ingredients were ignored. However, newer studies are being done on the inert ingredients. Studies have shown that other chemicals in Roundup can kill human cells and negatively affect humans. These chemicals especially target embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. Roundup specifically may cause pregnancy problems because the chemicals interfere with the hormones in the human body.

The inert ingredients in Roundup increase the toxicity on human cells even when concentrations were diluted. The mixtures that are available for commercial use have been proven to cause cell damage and possible even death, according to European studies cited by an article in Scientific American titled "Weed-Whacking Herbicide Proves Deadly to Human Cells."

Monsanto claims that the product is harmless if it is used as directed.

The EPA classified glyphosate as a Group E chemical, meaning that it is not cancer causing. The federal agency is allowing higher concentrations of glyphosate to be used on crops and allowing there to be higher concentrations of glyphosate in humans. However, studies have shown that regardless of concentration, glyphosate is affecting humans by accumulating in bones and organs, creating a toxic environment for humans. Studies were being done on the substance as early as 1985 and concluded that glyphosate accumulates in animal tissue, fat, and is even present in eggs and milk. In the 90s, studies were done proving that the substance can pass through the animals’ guts into their bodies, settling in the bones.

In Argentina, where soybeans are the main crop produced, the use of glyphosate was temporarily banned. Argentina found that there was a higher rate of cancer, birth defects, and the development of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in people living near crop spraying areas.

Glyphosate is the most active ingredient in Roundup and is present in other herbicides as well, but there are other chemicals used on smaller scales in the formula that are harmful. In fact, there are almost 4,000 smaller scale ingredients used in the pesticide Roundup that are approved by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. These smaller scale ingredients are often added in order to make the main ingredient, glyphosate, more powerful and destructive.

One ingredient, called polyethoxylated tallowamine or POEA, is more potent and damaging to human reproductive cells than the herbicide itself.  Roundup needs to be re-examined because the other compounds that are present increase the substances toxicity. The combination of POEA, derived from animal fat, with glyphosate creates a truly dangerous combination.

Herbicide-Resistant Weeds

Meanwhile, “super weeds” have developed a resistance to Roundup. Plants began forming resistance to glyphosate, according to a 2010 New York Times report, “Farmers Cope with Roundup-Resistant Weeds.” 

Roundup was created to reduce the need of the labor-intensive and expensive practice of tilling. Tilling crops is necessary because certain weeds choke out the crops and farmers then lose profit because of it. Spraying herbicides was a quick and easy solution to this problem. The fear of  weeds’ ability to resist the chemical is causing farmers to go back to more labor-intensive practices such as tilling. This has a domino effect on production, because the more labor intensive, the more expensive production is. Not only will this increase food prices, but also tilling is more harmful to the environment because the lands are now subject to more erosion, and the increase of fuel use increases emissions of tractors.

In the early years Monsanto advertised focusing on the needs of large industrial farms. Monsanto informed these farms that Roundup is especially useful for farmers because it is eco-friendly. Monsanto states that the use of Roundup reduces the need for tilling. Monsanto claims that weed resistance is a manageable issue.

Scientists try to tell farmers to alternate using glyphosate with other herbicides in order to avoid weed resistance, but in many cases it was already too late, according to the New York Times report.

This is why the Earth is such an interesting and complex system. You would think that because humans study and understand theories such as survival of the fittest and evolution that this would have been expected. The excessive use of Roundup on farmlands has led to Roundup being overused and becoming ineffective. So chemical companies made a stronger substance. This stronger substance contains harsher and higher concentration of chemicals. These chemicals include the ones discussed earlier such as glyphosate and POEA. One can only begin to imagine the type of levels and effect this newly formulated and stronger weed killer will have on plants and humans.

Just as humans are heavily relying on and overusing antibiotics, farmers are relying on and overusing pesticides and herbicides. Humans make stronger medicines only to create an environment where germs then adapt and become resistant, creating supergerms. Monsanto made Roundup to kill weeds and when the weeds adapted and became super weeds, then they created a stronger Roundup formula. Humans are under the false impression that we can alter nature, but the truth is nature will always find a way to outsmart human actions. Scientists try to take short cuts, but these shortcuts sometimes prove to be harmful to human health.

Now scientists have figured out a way to genetically alter plants so that they are able to resist the glyphosate. This allows the plants themselves to be safe from heavy pesticide use and not affect the plant growth, but this means the plants are subject to being genetically modified in order to increase productivity. These plant seeds, referred to as terminator seeds, have made farmers dependent on them in order to have a higher productivity, which translates into a higher profit. These genetically engineered seeds are wiping out organic farms, because small organic farms cannot compete with large corporate farms, according to an article in Natural News. The Monsanto Company pushes these terminator seeds because they increase food production and this food can be grown in Third World countries to “feed world hunger.”

I hope this article makes you think twice about using Roundup to control those pesky weeds. Are killing weeds with harsh chemicals really worth the health risk?

Home Remedy Weed Killers

There are alternatives. Natural home remedy weed killers can be made without the harsh chemicals of commercialized products. Ingredients usually consist of vinegar, salt, liquid dish soap, and a spray bottle. If you want to remove dandelions specifically from your yard you can make a non-toxic dandelion killer that consists of apple cider vinegar, table salt, and dish soap. Users even claim the homemade concoctions have a higher success rate than Roundup and without the use of harsh chemicals.

Better for your lawn, better for your health, and better for the environment.


Resources:
"Warning Signs: How Pesticides Harm the Young Brain." The Nation, 31 Mar. 2014.
www.thenation.com/article/178804/warning-signs-how-pesticides-harm-young-brain

"Weed-Whacking Herbicide Proves Deadly to Human Cells." Scientific American. Environmental Health News, 23 June 2009.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/

"Glyphosate Toxicity to Humans: An Overview." Natural News, 2 Aug. 2013.
www.naturalnews.com/041464_glyphosate_monsanto_toxicity.html#

"Farmers Cope with Roundup-Resistant Weeds." The New York Times, 03 May 2010.
www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


Brianne Bishop is a Sophomore at Ramapo College majoring in Environmental Studies.

Ocean Life Threatened by Giant Garbage Patches

By Michael Seyler

Planet Earth has had a sever increase in pollution in the past fifty years. Many people don’t even know how polluted the earth really is because it is mainly kept out of the news. The ocean covers around 70% of the earth. Since the ocean is such a large portion of the planet, it has become more and more polluted over the years. Trash and chemicals are constantly dumped into the sea, which eventually created large garbage patches floating around the ocean.

graphic courtesy of Wikipedia

There is several garbage patches located all over the globe, but the largest ones are the Indian Ocean patch, the North Atlantic patch and the Great Pacific patch. The reason the trash has built up in certain locations is because of the long rotating ocean currents called gyres. There are five major gyres located all over the ocean and three out of the five of them are filled with waste. Small amounts of waste have been found in the remaining two gyres and marine biologists predict that they will most likely get polluted with trash within the next thirty years.

Patches of Plastics, Chemical Sludge Float in Oceans

According to sott.net, the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch was discovered in 2010. Scientists examined the Indian Ocean Gyre and found it contained elevated levels of plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris. Scientists explained that many of the toxic particles in the zone are not visible to the human eye; they can only be seen using certain equipment. The patch was found by a prediction that was made because of the amount of garbage that washed up on the beaches in and around the Indian Ocean. After researchers measured the amount of trash that was washing up they came to the conclusion that there must be a tremendous amount of waste in the water column.

The North Atlantic Garbage Patch was documented in 1976. This patch is estimated to be over one hundred kilometers in size. This location is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. According to atlasobscura.com, the potential cleanup is hopeless because the process of removing the waste out of the water column could harm the ocean wildlife in the area. Despite the size of the patch you still can’t see it from a satellite.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch was discovered in 1997 by Charles J. Moore. After Moore completed a sailing race in the Pacific Gyre he came across a large patch of floating debris. Moore then alerted his friend who is an oceanographer and research on the patch began from there. The patch was also part of a prediction that was made based of the amount of garbage washing up on beaches in the Pacific. No one has found the exact size of the patch, but there have been many estimates made.

According to education.nationalgeographic.com, most of the plastic particles are submerged just below the surface of the water, making them invisible by aircraft or satellite. Some scientists believe that the patch could be over 15,000,000 square kilometers, making it the largest of the main garbage patches. Another interesting thing about this patch is that it is so far away from any country’s coastline that no one will take responsibility for it. Some international organizations are helping prevent the patch from growing.

The garbage in these gyres is doing a lot of harm to the wildlife of the ocean. Many animals eat it and then are unable to swallow or digest it and they die shortly after. Sea turtles and birds are mainly victims of this. Some fish end up getting caught in the trash and are unable to escape. The trash also prevents the wildlife from getting to their food’s location, so eating waste becomes the only option for them. Another problem comes from when the plastic deteriorates in the water. The plastic particles that come from the trash are also toxic to the ocean life as well. These toxins spread around the food chain of the ocean.

Health Impact on People Eating Plastic-Tainted Fish

Many people don’t realize that the damage to the ocean could affect them as well. Since there are fish that are caught out in the gyres, there have been cases of people getting sick from eating fish with plastic toxins in them. Research has shown that animals consuming these toxic substances is becoming a problem all around the globe. What makes this situation worse is that there is barely anything being done to clean up any of these gyres.

The Great North Pacific Gyre is the only one anyone has attempted to clean up. In 2008 Richard Owen, a contract builder and scuba instructor, formed an environmental cleanup organization. The purpose of it was to address the problem in the North Pacific Gyre and figure out how to remove to waste without harming the wildlife. In 2012 Dutch Aerospace engineering student Boyan Slat unveiled his concept of cleaning all of the gyres. He wanted to use devices that would shift the currents, breaking the patches into sections and then the trash could be cleaned up easier. Slat explained that all of the trash could be cleaned up with in five years if this was done. However, nothing has been done yet because Slat believes he needs to be paired with a plastic prevention organization that would help with the process.

I believe these gyres will be cleaned up sometime in the future. The problem is that if too much time passes, a lot of ocean wildlife will start to become extinct and the trash will fill the remaining two gyres. The best solution to this process is to clean up the garbage patches as soon as possible; however; pollution is never the top priority for most of the planet.  Considering the ocean is such a large portion of our planet, it should be one of our society’s main priorities.

Resources:
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, National Geographic Education
education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1
New garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean -- Sott.net, SOTT.net
www.sott.net/article/212814-New-garbage-patch-discovered-in-Indian-Ocean
North Atlantic Garbage Patch, Atlas Obscura
www.atlasobscura.com/places/north-atlantic-garbage-patch   

      
Michael Seyler is a journalism student at Ramapo College of New Jersey

Keystone Pipeline Issue Coming to a Head in Congress

By Joseph Farley

Map courtesy of Wikipedia

The Keystone Pipeline already exists; it has for a while now. The Keystone XL Pipeline is the real environmental powder keg that has riled up opposing sides. The proposed expansion is 1,700 miles of pipeline that would connect to two existing legs that stretch from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Texas. Once running, the proposed pipeline is expected to produce around 830,000 barrels of oil per day, according to NPR.org. The major problem is the heavy Canadian oil harvested from tar sands. Extracting this oil from the tar sands is a nightmare for the environment.

Tar sands are an unconventional petroleum deposit, meaning they aren’t extracted using traditional oil wells. A reason for the harvesting of these types of oils is that we are already running low on traditional oil methods, which should be reason enough to scour for alternate fuels. Making liquid fuels from tar sands requires additional energy for steam injection and refining. This process generates 12 percent more greenhouse gas per barrel of final product than extraction of conventional oil. Extracting the sands has toxic impact on the wildlife living in the region as well as possible health concerns for the workers doing the extracting.

The battle has been one of the most defining issues of the Obama Administration, which has been delaying the expansion for two years. Obama has come out recently saying that he will further delay the decision until after the November elections, enraging Canadians and oil industrialists. Supporters of the pipeline are denouncing his decision as “politics,” but opponents like former President Jimmy Carter thinks he should reject the plan outright.

Obama’s decision on the pipeline has been coming since 2011, when Obama spoke with Prime Minister Harper, and told him that there would be a delay while a study was done in order to protect the Sandhills and Ogallala aquifers. Frustration has since boiled over on the length of the study

Many in the United States Senate have begun trying to push through a bipartisan piece of legislation that would let work on the Keystone Pipeline begin without his approval. The legislation was introduced by Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota.

The Obama Administration has cited the ongoing Nebraska court case as the major reason for the delay. The State Department’s studies have shown that the pipeline won’t have the “significant” environmental impacts it was once thought to have. But just what do they consider significant? We should be striving towards reducing our carbon emissions and this would drastically increase them.

It may not be “The fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet,” as activist and author Bill Mckibben once said. The Nebraska issue, though, has given environmental groups an issue to fight over. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, told the New York Times, “When we are able to grab hold of a visible issue, we usually win. When it’s more abstract and Congress needs to get involved things tend to stall.”

The  proposed Senate bill has all 45 Republicans and supposedly 11 Democrats; however, they still lack the 60 needed for its approval. “At this point we're still working to get 60," said Sen. John Hoeven.

The Obama Administration has not yet taken a formal position on the legislation, although Democratic officials in the Senate as well as Republican lawmakers say they expect Obama likely would veto it if it came across his desk.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is open to a possible vote in Congress, a change from his earlier position. “I'm open to anything that will move energy efficiency," Reid, a long-time foe, told reporters.

The proposed pipeline would carry oil from Canada to the United States, where it eventually would reach Gulf Coast refineries. Supporters say it would create thousands of jobs and help the United States get closer to a goal of energy independence. Opponents include environmentalists who say the project wouldn’t create much permanent employment once it was finished, and argue it would reinforce the nation’s use of an energy source that worsens global warming. Such a project will only increase our dependence on a limited resource.

Harry Reid, a Democrat, is likely posturing, as why would he put up for a vote a bill he doesn’t want to pass? With elections coming up, many conservative-state Democrats’ seats are up for re-election and this could make them seem bi-partisan and help them win votes. For them, it would seem to be a smart political move with no consequences to them, as any such bill will almost certainly be vetoed by Obama.

According to CBS News, the vote is likely to happen soon with the mechanics still being worked out. The vote will likely show where the country’s leaders have their heads--new and more sustainable energies or business as usual.


Joseph Farley is a Junior at Ramapo College from Emerson, New Jersey, with a concentration in Journalism. He has a passion for music and politics and hopes to someday cover both. His ideal job would be reporting for places such as Spin, Pitchfork, Vice or The Daily Beast