In the article "Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways," discusses the problems and solutions of major air pollution. A coal-fired power plan causes yellow smoke to pour from chimneys in Masontown, PA. It was decided that the plant's air emissions needed to be cleaned up. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky. But, while trying to clean the air, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north. So now instead of the air being polluted, the water is polluted. Power plants are the largest producer of toxic waste. “It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,” said Philip Coleman.
This article is important because we need to be informed about the pollution in our world. There are always ways people can help but no one can really control what the power plant is doing. Now that the air is clean, the water is polluted. It is drinking water which is both disgusting and unhealthy. This article can help people realize that littering and using too much gas just contributes to the major pollution like in the Monongahela River. I chose this article because I thought it was interesting how we are helping and hurting our environment at the same time.
This article was well written and interesting. I really liked the quotes and additional details about power plants the article went into. This article would have been better if specific examples of damage from the polluted river were given.
5 comments:
There were a few aspects of this article that where well produced. I liked how she put a quote in this write up. The reason is that it allows you to see what other people think about what is happening. It really allows you to be in the shoes of the people at the town. I also liked how she tells us how the air is stop from being polluted. Instead of just saying that they reduced air pollution, she explained how the air is trapped. And then she told us how they are polluting the river and how it not only affects that town but the surrounding towns. Finally I liked how Emily explained how this could affect us. She really tells us the information and basically says that this could be your drinking water.
One way as to how she could have improved the review was providing us with more information. When you are reading the first paragraph she does a great job at elaborating the facts but she doesn’t give you many facts. Also, she could have had a much better second paragraph. When she tells us how it affects us she doesn’t really tell us that. What she mostly does is say what happened and not too much as how it affects us.
I was impressed by how much explanation that she gave. I really liked how when you read the first paragraph you could see what she was talking about and how they changed what they polluted. When I read this I was appalled at what this plant was doing.
I think Emily did a very nice job reviewing this article. I liked the quote that she gave from the article just because it is rare to see some of those in people’s reviews. I also liked the type of article that she found, especially because it shows just how hard it is to find a solution to one problem that won’t cause another. This is a problem that she illustrates. Finally I liked how she gave specific numbers for the people and areas affected by this pollution. There were however some things I did not like. It would have been nice to have a link to the article and or a bibliography for it within her review. I also believe that the process that tries to clean the chemicals, described as “the technology,” deserves slightly more explanation than what Emily gave. Finally I learned about this pollution issue in Pennsylvania after having been aware of similar situations in West Virginia, but not Pennsylvania.
Austin Engros
1.She gives a good overall summary of what she is going to talk about.
2. She makes her point very clear and it is easy to understand what is going on and how to help fight the pollution.
3. She went into good detail about how technology would be used to spray water and chemicals to clean out the chimneys of plants to keep the air clean.
1. She could have gone into more detail about how the plants build up the chemicals that pollute the atmosphere and how it is released from the plants.
2. The review was a little short and she could have given more specific examples to how this problem is significant to us in society rather than just talking about how it relates to the article.
1. I learnt new ways of keeping the atmosphere clean. I did not know that there were these ways of technology to help prevent the spread of pollution.
In the article, “Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways,” a group of residents from Pennsylvania who were tired of a coal-powered plant emitting smoke into the air demanded that the chimneys be cleaned. Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions. However, cleaner air came at a great cost. Thousands of gallons of waste ended up being dumped into the nearby river. This river provides water for 350,000 people, and the fact that so many people are dependent on this now-polluted river makes it very dangerous. The fact that the chimneys were not cleaned for several years was frightening, because the acid rain and respiratory diseases caused by the pollutants should have been a warning to the company to stop releasing pollutants into the air. I was alarmed by the fact that this entire process is largely unregulated. I also found the description of how the pollutants were removed from the chimneys to be very interesting, as this might be instructive as to how to better clean up these toxic pollutants.
Certain aspects of this review could have been presented more clearly. It was difficult to follow the sequence of events. The review as a whole was extremely short; making it harder to understand what was occurring. I would have liked to have known why a regulatory agency was not able to intervene in this case. Lastly, I wondered why a link to this article was not provided. Reading the original article provided important background information.
This article is extremely important because (according to the article) power plants are the biggest producer of toxic waste. This air and water pollution must also exist in New York and elsewhere, and this could then lead to major environmental problems. An alternate, cleaner form of energy needs to be found. If not, tighter regulations must be created and enforced to preserve our clean air and water.
I felt that Emily’s article was very well-written because she uses good language to get her point across, while getting to the point with what she’s saying. I felt it was good that she gave us the location of the incident and gave us some background. It was also useful that Emily gave statistics which can make the article easier to understand and the effect this pollution has on the drinking water from the river.
I felt that Emily could have explained more about how the river got polluted. Also, more background on the situation and who exactly did it and why they were doing it.
I found the part that the drinking water of about 350,000 people is polluted very interesting because that just seems like so many people that have to be avoiding their tap water and the water they use every day as essentials. It seems like an unlivable situation.
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