9 of the Most Polluted Places in the World

[Stuart G]

Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/31/photos-most-polluted-plac_n_693008.html?alacarte=1#s130666

From the highways of Los Angeles to the Citarum River of Bandung, Indonesia, earth's most polluted city of Linfen, China to the streets of London, the world is laden with man-made pollution. Chemical, air, water and oil pollution ruin the environment, cause premature deaths, spoil the world's resources and worsen climate change.

As the world's population soars to nearly 7 billion, we here at HuffPost Green thought that it time to investigate some of the world's most polluted places. Check out our slideshow of nine of the most polluted places in the world. Find out which city's death rate surpasses its birth rate by 260 percent. Or which city has 50,000 people die prematurely each year due to man-made air pollution.


Linfen, China is the most polluted city on earth.
According to Mother Nature Network, if one puts laundry out to dry, it will turn black before finishing drying. Located in China's coal belt, spending one day in Linfen is equivalent to smoking three packs of cigarettes. 3 million people are affected by Linfen's coal and particulates pollution, which is residue from automobile and industrial emissions.

Los Angles Ca

According to the American Lung Association, Los Angeles is the city with the most polluted ozone. The average ozone level in Los Angeles is 138.8 and the average particulates level is 16.8. The California Air Resources Board states that 18,000 deaths a year are "premature deaths" caused by air pollution.

Niger Delta, Nigeria
With more than 6,800 oil spills, which amounts to 300 spills a year, roughly one spill a day, and 9 to 13 million barrels of oil spilled over 50 years, the Niger Delta remains one of the most oil-polluted locations on the planet. The nine to thirteen million barrels of oil have been spilled into the third largest wetland on the planet. Due to continuously ruptured pipelines and the presence of oil contaminates, the Delta's mangroves, rivers, and wildlife are perpetually damaged. The United States imports eight percent of its oil from Nigeria, which is almost half of the country's oil spill production. Nigeria is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Shell has stated that 90% of spills are caused by militant thieves who access the pipelines to steal oil. Watch CNN's coverage of the oil polluted Niger Delta.

Greater London, UK
Greater London has experienced some of the worst air pollution worldwide as a result of car, factory, agriculture and house pollution. The life expectancy of Britons has been reduced by nine years due to air pollution. Britain is considered to be Europe's greatest releaser of nitrogen oxides, exposing 1.5 million people to unsafe quantities of the pollution. According to a report from Parliament, 50,000 people die prematurely each year due to man-made air pollution.

Phoenix,.United States

The Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area is 2010's worst place in the United States for year round particle pollution, a mix of dust, soot and aerosols. The Arizona region experiences year-round particle pollution at all hours of the day.

Bundang Indonesia, La Oroya Peru, and

Russia's Lake Karachay region is considered to be the most polluted location on Planet Earth. This Russian nuclear weapon production site turned Soviet Union nuclear dumping location has 120 million curies of radioactivity. This radiation level is equivalent to a lethal dose after merely an hour of exposure. According to the NRDC, it is also equal to dumping all of the waste tanks at Washington's Hanford Reservation into a 30-acre lake. In true environmental crime fashion, the radiation has infiltrated the region's groundwater supply

[Ian David]

1. They forgot Picher, Oklahoma. A town so polluted, they shut it down.

Welcome to Armageddon, USA: A Tour of America’s Most Toxic Town
* By Ben Paynter Email Author
* August 30, 2010 |
* 12:00 pm |
* Wired September 2010


Larry Roberts angles his white Mercury Grand Marquis into the empty parking lot of a tiny café, G & J’s Gorillas Cage, and cruises into a space near the front door. The restaurant’s red and white metal trim is faded and rusted, and the lightbulb-lined roadside sign has been dark for years. Hand-painted placards in the windows advertise burger baskets, corn dogs, and a couple of untruths—”Last Place in Picher!” and “Yes, We’re Open!” When it closed in March, the Gorillas Cage was the only restaurant left in Picher, Oklahoma. Roberts is here to make sure the owners have cleared it out for demolition. Roberts, the operations manager of the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust, works about 10 miles away in the town of Miami. His job is to inspect contaminated buildings that the state of Oklahoma is going to buy and tear down. A retired state representative, he has a rosy face and sports a pressed plaid button-up. He rolled up his car windows before he hit the city limits. “There’s still dust in the air,” he says in a laid-back Midwestern drawl. “And I wouldn’t drink the water.”

<snip>

The Gorillas Cage—named for Picher-Cardin High School’s mascot—has been gutted. The tables and chairs are all gone. In fact, there isn’t much of anything inside except for a walk-in refrigerator. “We didn’t have anyone left to sell food to,” co-owner Gary Cox, 69, tells Roberts as he follows him around the room. Roberts ticks a few notes on his clipboard as Cox’s sister and business partner, Joyce, 75, shakes her head and tears up. They both grew up here, she says, and have never been sick. Now they feel pushed out. “It’s an outrage,” Joyce says. “But we can’t change it, so we are moving on.”

Picher sprang up as a 20th-century boomtown—the “buckle” of the mining belt that ran through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. The earth underneath it produced most of the lead for US bullets in World Wars I and II and enough zinc to literally galvanize construction of the American suburbs. These raw materials were used to create stronger, water-resistant metal alloys, better batteries, and dietary supplements—the base materials of a modern society. Population peaked at 14,000 in 1926. When the lode ran dry in 1970, the mining companies moved out. Picher eventually became a Superfund site, and half a decade ago the state government offered residents an average of $55 per square foot to evacuate their homes. By September 2009, the police force had disbanded and the government dissolved. Picher was a dead city.

<snip>

Except that a few people refused to leave. They call themselves chat rats, a loose and increasingly self-reliant colony armed with cell phones and Wi-Fi for communication and guns for driving off scrap-metal scavengers. It’s a life bordering on squalid—on the way out of the Gorillas Cage, Roberts spots shovel marks around the base of the burned-out signpost, the beginning of an attempt to steal it. Across the street, a former auction-house parking lot has become a dumping ground for tires. On the drive back out of town, he passes the abandoned high school and notices that the arts and crafts building has burned down. A man appears to be helping himself to bookshelves from an open classroom. Roberts can’t figure out why anyone would turn down the relocation money he’s offering. “Most people have bettered themselves through this process,” he says. “Now there are only radicals left.”


Hydrologist Tim Kent monitors Picher's air, which is contaminated by dust from mining byproducts. "During windy days, we get huge pulses of lead," he says.
Photo: Finlay Mackay

More:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_madmaxtown/


Ahh... a Libertarian Paradise right in America!

[leveymg]

2. If Niger Delta has 13 mil bbls of oil spilled over 50 yrs, the Gulf Coast is now twice as polluted.

Add it to the list. Hate to tell you, all that oil didn't really just "disappear."

[Stuart G]

3. You are correct...so many other places are very very

polluted. What have we done??or
What have we allowed to be done to us??