Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less
30 guides found.
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 30 West Lake Landfill Missouri radioactive waste from Manhattan Project dumped illegally Republic Servi
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 1973, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) secretly buried 8,700 tons of radioactive Manhattan Project waste—including uranium, thorium, and radium—…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 29 Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Ohio uranium enrichment facility 12 billion cleanup Department of
THE ONE FACT THEY WON'T FORGET The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) spent $12 billion cleaning up the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio—yet the private contractors hired to…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 28 Martin Marietta quarry groundwater contamination company merged and liability disappeared into corpo
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 1995, Martin Marietta—later Lockheed Martin—sold its contaminated quarry in Orlando, Florida, to a shell company it had created just months earlie…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 27 Satriales pork store New Jersey fictional but real pattern small operators cited while large corpora
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET Between 2010 and 2020, New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) issued 1,247 enforcement actions against small meat processors, au…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 26 Industrial excess landfill Ohio 100000 barrels of toxic waste original companies paid fraction of cl
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 1996, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that cleaning up the 100,000 barrels of toxic waste buried in Uniontown, Ohio—inclu…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 25 Bunker Hill Mine Idaho largest lead contamination site in US Superfund site since 1983 cleanup cost
THE BUNKER HILL MINE: WHERE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SPENT $2.5 BILLION TO CLEAN UP A DISASTER THE POLLUTER PAID $1.4 MILLION TO SETTLE THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET The U.S. Environme…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 24 American Chrome and Chemicals Corpus Christi Texas hexavalent chromium contamination company dissolv
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 2009, American Chrome and Chemicals—a Texas plant that had produced hexavalent chromium for decades—dissolved itself in a bankruptcy filing that s…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 23 Tar Creek Oklahoma lead and zinc mining waste 40 percent of children had elevated blood lead levels
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tested the blood of 1,300 children in Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Nearly 40% had lead levels abo…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 22 Midway Sunset oil field Californias oldest oil field cleanup liability estimated at 8 billion compan
THE MIDWAY SUNSET OIL FIELD: WHERE $8 BILLION IN CLEANUP COSTS BECAME SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEM THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 2022, California’s state oil regulator estimated that…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 21 Summitville Mine Colorado Canadian company declared bankruptcy left 150 million cleanup to American
THE SUMMITVILLE MINE: WHERE A CANADIAN COMPANY LEFT COLORADO WITH A $150 MILLION TOXIC MESS THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 1992, the Canadian mining company Galactic Resources L…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 20 PFAS contamination national 3M and DuPont produced forever chemicals for decades EPA estimates 400 b
THE ONE FACT THEY WON'T FORGET In 1998, 3M scientists measured PFAS concentrations in human blood at 52 parts per billion—eight years before the company publicly acknowledged the c…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 19 East Palestine Ohio 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment company cleanup costs disputed long-term
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET Norfolk Southern’s 2023 financial filings show the company spent $1.1 billion on share buybacks in the two years leading up to the East Palestine der…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 18 Camp Lejeune contamination 34 years of contaminated water VA denied claims for decades legislation p
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET Between 1953 and 1987, the United States Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina supplied drinking water to its residents—active-duty per…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 17 Navajo uranium mines 500 abandoned mines on Navajo Nation federal cleanup budget covers fraction of
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET Between 1944 and 1986, the U.S. government and private corporations extracted 30 million tons of uranium ore from the Navajo Nation—enough to fill a …
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 16 Upper Big Branch Mine Massey Energy explosion killed 29 miners Don Blankenship paid 1 million fine a
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET On April 5, 2010, at 3:02 p.m., an explosion tore through the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, killing 29 miners. Internal Massey Energy …
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 15 Stringfellow Acid Pits California state invited dumping companies paid 150 million of 700 million cl
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 1956, the State of California selected a former rock quarry in Riverside County as the site for a toxic waste dump, overruling its own geologist’s…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 14 Casmalia Resources Hazardous Waste California Superfund site original operators bankrupt government
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET Between 1973 and 1989, Casmalia Resources accepted 5.6 billion pounds of hazardous waste—enough to fill 1,100 Olympic-sized swimming pools—at its Cal…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 13 Pacific Gas Electric Hinkley chromium 6 contamination settled for 333 million largest settlement at
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET In 1993, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) settled a lawsuit for $333 million—the largest environmental settlement in U.S. history at the time—af…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 12 Kerr-McGee Cimarron facility Karen Silkwood case plutonium contamination company paid 138 million af
THE KERR-MCGEE CIMARRON FACILITY: WHERE PLUTONIUM LEAKED, WORKERS DIED, AND THE COMPANY PAID CENTS ON THE DOLLAR THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET On November 5, 1974, Karen Silkwood—…
Environmental Disasters Where Polluter Paid Less: 11 GE and Hudson River PCBs GE dumped 13 million pounds of PCBs EPA forced 460 million cleanup after de
THE ONE FACT THEY WON’T FORGET Between 1947 and 1977, General Electric discharged 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York’s Hudson River—enough to fill…