Environmental Disasters

Exxon Valdez

• The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in the Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. It is considered one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters ever to occur at sea.

Chernobyl

• The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

• It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history and the only level 7.

Love Canal

• The Niagara Falls School Board chose to construct a school on this site, even though being fully aware of the fact that Hooker Chemical had dumped hazardous waste there, and the City of Niagara Falls permitted the building of homes and rental units on this tainted property.

Sydney Tar Ponds

• Over the last century, runoff from coke ovens associated with Sydney Steel Corporation's (SYSCO) now-decommissioned steel mill filled the estuary with a variety of coal-based contaminants and sludge.

Ontario Minamata disease

• A neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. It occurred in Ontario, Canada in 1970 and severely affected two First Nation communities located in Northwestern Ontario.

Great Smog

• The Great Smog, also referred to as the Big Smoke, refers to a period of severe air pollution from 5 to 9 December 1952 that befell the city of London. The Great Smog is considered to have caused or advanced the death of 12,000 Londoners, and made 100,000 ill.

The Gulf War

• When Iraq knew they lost the war over Kuwait they set on fire every oil tower or dumped every source of oil they could find.

• They caused a huge oil spill in hopes of preventing the US from landing on the coast. Their attempts were unsuccessful.

Tailing ponds Alberta

• 540,000,000 cubic meters is the size of all hazardest waste water held by the tailing ponds.

• Leak enough contaminated water into the region's aquifers every day to almost fill five Olympic-sized swimming pools

Osborne Reef

• An artificial reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida constructed of concrete jacks in a 50 feet (15 m) diameter circle.

• In the 1970s, the reef was the subject of an ambitious expansion project utilizing old and discarded tires.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

• Is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N estimated to be twice the size of Texas

• High concentrations of suspended plastic

Atari video game burial

• The Atari video game burial of 1983 was an infamous event in video gaming history, in which Atari dumped thousands of video game cartridges, allegedly including a large number of copies of its video game adaptation E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, into a New Mexico landfill.

• It was one of the consequences of the North American video game crash of 1983.