Conn, Jennifer. “Cuyahoga Valley National Park Earns Award for $50M Krejci
Remediation.” Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s Krejci Dump Remediation, 28 Aug.
2022,
Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio bought new land in the 1980s in order to expand the National Park, and soon after they realized it was a very polluted old dump site. The family who had owned this land before had used this land to dump waste and therefore it became very toxic. The land was not safe for visitors to use because it was making people very ill. The National Park then closed the area and began to restore it. It took many years, but eventually they were able to remove all of the toxic soil and waste from the site. Then, they started to fix the land and let it have nature again. By 2015 there were plants and trees growing on the site and now it has ponds, wildlife, and beautiful flowers and plants.
This is a very important part of environmental restoration because due to the loose laws they used to have on dump sites, many parts of nature have become completely destroyed. This land can now be used and it can hold a thriving ecosystem, rather than before when people could not even go on this land without getting sick and getting rashes.
Charlotte- This is an uplifting story. I have to wonder why the federal govt didn’t know it may have been polluted given that the Cuyahoga RIver actually caught on fire several times in the 70s. Crazy. But restoration and remediation can work… and I think it gives us cause for hope. I imagine it was expensive. Here’s a question for you… I imagine it would be hard to hold the polluters from decades earlier accountable. If the govt (us) pays for restoration is this a scenario of externalized costs for those earlier business? What do you think?
I agree with you, I think it would be very hard to hold the polluters accountable so it causes a difficult situation. I think this would be a scenario of externalized costs for the earlier businesses.