The Donora Death Fog :: Air Pollution Environmental Issues Essays

The Donora Death FogD-Town Back home in Canonsburg, a small suburb outside of Pittsburgh, this is how we refer to Donora. We joke that the alone thing in Donora is the roller skating rink, but even this is unreached to anyone whos not a D-town native because when you are at the get along to want to go roller skating you arent brave tolerable to enter into the Donora city limits. Only dedicated roller-skaters are brave decorous to dare the elements of Donora. Of course, one, particularly a girl, would never think of going to Donora alone. exclusively for me, I was never really that scared of Donora because my grandparents live nearby and we employ to have dinner at the Ponderosa that has since closed. But, I never baff guide the opportunity to poke fun at that rough territory. Recently, I host through D-town. The shops are boarded up. Theres graffiti everywhere. In growth to the roller rink there are a few debar and decrepit restaurants. I always assumed that it was the gig antic Wal-mart that had caused this once thrive town to fall to shambles. But, this town, as I recently learned, was the site of the finish up recorded industrial air pollution accident in US history (The Donora Fluoride Fog). This disaster intrigued me, so I decided to do rough research regarding what happened. My probe first led me to find that twenty peck died from October 26-31, 1948 (Pennsylvania DEP). According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation website, the town population was roughly 14,000 at the time of the disaster. Devastatingly, near half-7,000-of those people became ill or hospitalized. My investigation led me to discover that this disaster was created by unchecked industrial emissions and moribund air conditions (Donoras Killer Smog Noted at 50). These conditions led to a smog fog hanging around the area. The American brace & Wire Co., a subsidiary of the US Steel Group, was the local fix responsible for producing these emissions and conditions . It is also widely accepted that the weather conditions were prominent in producing the disaster. In October of 1998, spokespeople for the industry agreed that the disaster was unfortunate and tragic, but did not fail to note that, at the time of the disaster, clean air acts did not exist. If any good could come from this disaster it was the funding for research about clean air and the eventual passing of clean air acts and legislation.