The highest cancer rates in India are due to fertilizers and colossal industrial plants.
nbcnews.com
While the causes of cancer are complicated and still unknown, Thakur and his team found that contaminated water from rapid industrialization and excessive use of chemical fertilizers for high-yielding crops are contributing to the steep rates in the state. Just miles away from the Kaur family’s home are colossal industrial plants that have polluted the irrigation system in the area.

Aamjiwnaang First Nation
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aamjiwnaang_First_Nation)
The Aamjiwnaang community has expressed concern regarding its proximity to chemical plants in the area, as birth rates of their people have been documented by the American journal of Environmental Health Perspectives as deviating from the normal ratio of close to 50% boys, 50% girls.

Agriculture Street Landfill Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_Street_Landfill)
The Agriculture Street Landfill was a dump in New Orleans, Louisiana. The area was later developed for residential use, with unfortunate environmental consequences. It became a Superfund  cleanup site.

Agrico Chemical Co. is a Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrico_Chemical_Co.)
Agrico Chemical Co. is a Superfund site located in Pensacola, Florida. The facility operated under different companies from 1881 to 1975, when it was shut down by Agrico Chemical Company. The EPA found radium-226, radium-228,[2] sulfuric, lead and fluorides in the groundwater.[3]  The facility produced sulfuric acid from pyrite from 1881 to 1920. The EPA believes that the lead and sulfuric acid came from corroding lead tanks that held the sulfuric acid. From 1920 to 1975, the facility produced fertilizer.[4]
By 1979, all of the equipment had been removed from the site. Today the site has one foundation for a warehouse, and two ponds. Next to the foundation is a mini storage center.

Al-Mishraq Sulfur Plant Fire
Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mishraq)
The site of the largest man-made release of sulfur dioxide ever recorded when a fire (thought to have been deliberately started) gained control and burned for almost a month.

Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoco_Cadiz)
Amoco Cadiz was a very large crude carrier , owned by Amoco, that ran aground on Portsall 5 km (3.1 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.

Aral Sea Irrigation Projects
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea)
Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometres (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects.

Arctic Refuge drilling controversy
The question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1977.

Arctic Ice Melt Could Mean More Extreme Winters for the U.S. & Europe
The Huffington Post:
"The record loss of Arctic sea ice this summer will echo throughout the weather patterns affecting the U.S. and Europe this winter, climate scientists said on Wednesday, since added heat in the Arctic influences the jet stream and may make extreme weather and climate events more likely."

Atlantic Ocean Garbage Patch
National Geographic:
"The newly described garbage patch sits hundreds of miles off the North American coast. Although its east-west span is unknown, the patch covers a region between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude—roughly the distance from Cuba to Virginia."

Altantic Ocean Garbage Patch

AZF (factory)
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF_(factory))
A huge explosion occurred in the AZF fertilizer factory in Toulouse, France, belonging to the Grande Paroisse branch of the Total Group.

Aznalcóllar, Spain waste water spill
Lenntech.
According to Lenntech, "On April 25, 1998 the dam of the mining residual tank of a pyrite mine in Aznalcollar, Spain suffered a rupture, releasing sludge and contaminated wastewater. The wastewater entered the Guadiamar River, polluting the river with heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, zinc and copper. It affected an area of 4.634 hectares, contaminating 2.703 hectares with sludge and 1.931 with acidic water."

The Baia Mare cyanide spill
Lenntech.
According to Lenntech, "Workers in gold mines use cyanide (CN) to purify gold from rocks. This is applied for example in Rumania. At 22:00 hours on January 30, 2000 cyanide (fig. 2) used in a gold mine in Baia Mare overflowed into the major river the Somes and subsequently into the river Tisza. The cause of the spill was a break in the dam that surrounded a settling basin. This resulted in the release of at least 100.000 cubic meters of water with very high cyanide concentrations. The waste water did not only contain cyanide, but also heavy metals such as copper, zinc and lead. Copper concentrations exceeded the heavily polluted threshold 40-160 times, the zinc concentration was twice above this standard and the lead concentration 5-9 times greater.

Baxter/Union Pacific Tie Treating Superfund Site
EPA (http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/baxter/)
The Union Pacific Railroad's 140-acre tie-treating facility is about a quarter mile south of Laramie, Wyoming, along the Laramie River. The railroad used the site for wood-preserving operations for nearly 100 years. The railroad and its contractor applied creosote and pentachlorophenol (PCP) to railroad ties to protect them from weathering. During this time, wood treating chemicals were spilled and disposed of on the site, contaminating soil and groundwater.
In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the site on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL) for cleanup. The company agreed to isolate the wastes and treat groundwater so that the contamination would not spread. Among the cleanup actions were realignment of the Laramie River to reduce the chance of contamination and construction of an underground slurry wall to isolate the wastes and prevent the spread of contamination. Additional work to remove and isolate the sources of contamination will be completed by 2005.

Berkeley Pit Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit)
In 1995, a flock of migrating snow geese landed in the Berkeley Pit water and died. A total of 342 carcasses were recovered.[3]  ARCO, the custodian of the pit, denied that the toxic water caused the death of the geese, attributing the deaths to an acute aspergillosis infection that may have been caused by a grain fungus, as substantiated by Colorado State.
University necropsy findings. These findings were disputed by the State of Montana on the basis of its own lab tests.[3]  Necropsies showed their insides were lined with burns and festering sores from exposure to high concentrations of copper, cadmium, and arsenic.[1]
The most recent development in the clean-up was the construction of a treatment plant on Horseshoe Bend. This facility treats and diverts water coming from the Horseshoe Bend flow. In addition, it will be able to treat the existing Berkeley Pit water in 2018, or whenever the water level hits the critical point of 5,410 feet (1,650 m) above sea level. This number was set by federal order and is intended to protect the ground water from being contaminated by the water in the pit.
The Berkeley Pit is on the federal Superfund site list.

Bhopal disaster
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster)
A leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals from the plant resulted in the exposure of hundreds of thousands of people.

Big River Mine Tailings/St. Joe Minerals Corp. Superfund Site
EPA
This site is composed of seven large areas of mine waste in this rural region, approximately 110 square miles in size. The areas included are the Bonne Terre Mine Tailings Site, the Leadwood Mine Tailings Site, the Elvins Mine Tailings Site, the Federal Mine Tailings Site, the Desloge Mine Tailings Site, the Doe Run Mine Tailings Site, and the National Mine Tailings Site. Also included are the surrounding residential and recreational areas. In 1977, heavy rains caused an estimated 50,000 cubic yards of tailings to slump into the Big River. The residual lead content in the tailings material is about one-half percent; other minerals such as cadmium and zinc are also present.

Bonga Oil Spill
Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonga_Field)
"On December 20, 2011 reported an oil spill of likely was less than 40,000 barrels, or 1.68 million gallons". This has resulted in a 923 square kilometers oil slick."

Bongo Oil spill

BP's Whiting Refinery Oil Spill into Lake Michigan
mlive.com
Company representatives now estimate between 630 and 1,638 gallons of oil has been recovered since the spill at BP's Whiting Refinery on Monday, March 24. It was estimated Wednesday that between 377 and 755 gallons of crude oil had spilled. BP said the initial numbers were based off visual observation.

Brazilian Deforestation
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil)
Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate in the world and as of 2005 still has the largest area of forest that is removed annually.[1]  Since 1970, over 600,000 square kilometers (230,000 sq mi) of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. In 2012, the Amazon was approximately 5.4 million square kilometres, which is only 87% of the Amazon’s original state.[2]
Rainforests have decreased in size primarily due to deforestation. Despite reductions in the rate of deforestation in the last ten years, the Amazon Rainforest will be reduced by 40% by 2030 at the current rate.[3]  Between May 2000 and August 2006, Brazil lost nearly 150,000 square kilometres of forest, an area larger than that of Greece. According to the Living Planet Report 2010, deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate, but at the CBD 9th Conference 67 ministers signed up to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020.[4]

Brio Superfund site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brio_Superfund_site)
The Brio Superfund site is a former industrial location in Harris County, Texas located at the intersection of Beamer and Dixie Farm Road, about 20 miles South East of Houston and adjacent to the Dixie Oil Processors Superfund Site. It is a federal Superfund site, although it was deleted from the National Priorities List in December 2006. A neighboring residential subdivision called South Bend (now abandoned) was located along the north of the northern boundary of Brio North. The former South Bend neighborhood consisted of about 670 homes, an elementary school, and a Little League baseball field. Documents pertaining to the Brio Superfund site are located at the San Jacinto College South Campus Library, which houses Brio Site Repository Documents, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrative Records, and documents concerning the adjoining Dixie Oil Processors site.

Bunker Hill Mine
EPA
Soils, Surface Water, Groundwater
Millions of tons of mill tailings, mine waste rock, and ore concentrates are spread across the site. Mining contamination has affected more than 166 river miles of the Coeur d’Alene River corridor, adjacent floodplains, downstream water bodies, tributaries and fill areas. The risks are not hypothetical or potential future risks. Significant measurable risks currently exist to people (e.g., children with blood lead levels above the national CDC standards) and the environment (e.g., major tributaries devoid of aquatic life, yearly die-off of migrating waterfowl, such as swans and ducks).

Burlington Northern (Brainerd/Baxter) Superfund Site
Wikipedia
The site was operated by Burlington Northern Railroad and historical usage included railroad tie treatment, loading and unloading of ties and timbers, and timber storage. Several rail lines are still active through the area. The tie treating plant operated on the property between 1907 and 1985 and treated railroad ties with creosote and fuel oil. Wastewater generated from the wood-treating process was sent to two shallow, unlined ponds. This created a sludge which contaminated both the underlying soils and the groundwater with creosote and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

CERCLA Superfund Sites
Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund)
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.

Chernobyl nuclear disaster
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)
An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western Russia and Europe.

Chevron Campos Oil Spill
environmentalgraffiti.com
Chevron initially claimed only 400 to 650 barrels of oil leaked from a spill 120 miles off the coast of Brazil. However, environmental group Skytruth said satellite images showed the spill to have released as much as 157,000 gallons a day, over ten times larger than Chevron’s estimate of 330 barrels a day.

China's 'Kill a Sparrow' campaign results in starvation of 20 million people
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign)
The campaign against the 'Four Pests' was initiated in 1958 as a hygiene campaign by Mao Zedong, who identified the need to exterminate mosquitoes, flies, rats, and sparrows. Sparrows – mainly the Eurasian Tree Sparrow[1][2] – were included on the list because they ate grain seeds, robbing the people of the fruits of their labour. The masses of China were mobilized to eradicate the birds, and citizens took to banging pots and pans or beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they fell from the sky in exhaustion. Sparrow nests were torn down, eggs were broken, and nestlings were killed.[1][3] Sparrows and other birds were shot down from the sky, resulting in the near-extinction of the birds in China.[4] Non-material rewards and recognition were offered to schools, work units and government agencies in accordance with the volume of pests they had killed.
By April 1960, Chinese leaders realized that sparrows ate a large amount of insects, as well as grains.[3][2] Rather than being increased, rice yields after the campaign were substantially decreased.[1][2] Mao ordered the end of the campaign against sparrows, replacing them with bed bugs in the ongoing campaign against the Four Pests.[3] By this time, however, it was too late. With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides.[1] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chinese Famine, in which at least 20 million people died of starvation.[5][6]

The effect of Civil War on the Environment
Lenntec (http://www.lenntech.com/environmental-effects-war.htm)
Rwanda. 1994 civil war combat caused a biodiversity problem when over 200,000 refugees were forced to inhabit forest reserves in the mountains where endangered gorillas lived. As the civil war destroyed resources, competition for scarce land and resources led to more violence and genocide.

Colon, El Salvador Flooding
independent.co.uk/environment el-salvador flood-disaster worsened by deforestation. /
Deforestation has left the country vulnerable to flash flooding. Only an estimated 2 per cent of the tree cover that existed before the 10-year civil war remains.

Coronet Industries Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronet_Industries)
Residents of the surrounding community alleged that pollution from the plant leached into the groundwater and caused increased rates of cancer amongst other health problems. Arsenic, boron, cadmium, lead and other dangerous chemicals were detected in residential wells surrounding the plant. The federal Environmental Protection Agency cautioned state officials about potential health risks associated with leaky equipment and corroded stacks allowing underwater leaching and spills from Coronet, but residents were not notified of ongoing problems with the company's lack of environmental controls. The state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs expressed concern over "potential systemic problems that prevented the situation from being identified and corrected sooner" in the Tampa office of the DEP. Legislation requiring the state of Florida to notify area residents in such events was proposed.

Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump
Wikipedia
The 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump was a health crisis in Côte d'Ivoire in which a ship registered in Panama, the Probo Koala, chartered by the Dutch-based oil and commodity shipping company Trafigura Beheer BV, offloaded toxic waste at the Ivorian port of Abidjan. The waste was then dumped by a local contractor at as many as 12 sites in and around the city of Abidjan in August 2006.

Repeated Cuyahoga River Fires
Wikipedia
At least 13 fires have been reported on the Cuyahoga River, the first occurring in 1868.[12] The largest river fire in 1952 caused over $1 million in damage to boats and a riverfront office building.[13] Fires erupted on the river several times between the 1952 fire and June 22, 1969, when a river fire that day captured the attention of Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as the river that "oozes rather than flows" and in which a person "does not drown but decays".[14]The fire did eventually spark major changes as well as the article from Time, but in the immediate aftermath very little attention was given to the incident. Furthermore, the conflagration that sparked Time's outrage was in June 1969, but the pictures they displayed on the cover and as part of the article were from the much more dangerous 1952 fire. No pictures from the 1969 fire are known to exist.[15]

2012 Guangxi cadmium spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Guangxi_cadmium_spill)
Hechi authorities estimated that more than 40,000 kilograms of fish were found dead from January 15 to February 2 within the city limits.[2] The spill was caused by Jinhe Mining company (沿河兩岸工廠).

Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill)
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico  on the BP Macondo Prospect, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, estimated to be between 8% and 31% larger in volume than the earlier Ixtoc I oil spill. Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizonoil rig, which claimed 11 lives,[5] a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on 15 July 2010.[7] The total discharge is estimated at 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m3).[3]

BP Oil Spill

Duke Energy Coal Ash Spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_River)
In 2014, tens of thousands of tons of coal ash and 27 million gallons (100,000 cubic meters) of contaminated water spilled into the Dan River near Eden, NC from a closed North Carolina coal-fired power plant that is owned by Duke Energy. It is currently the third worst coal ash spill ever to happen in the United States.[3][4] A 48-inch (120 cm) pipe spilled arsenic and other heavy metals into the river for a week, but was successfully plugged by Duke. The federal government plans to investigate, and people along the river have been warned to stay away from the water. Fish have yet to be tested,[5] but health officials say not to eat them. Cities in Virginia which use the river say that with standard methods of treatment, the water is safe to drink. Ash is found on the bottom of the river for 70 miles (110 km) and is as much as 5 feet (150 cm) deep in places. Late in February, North Carolina regulators cited Duke for the violations at the plant on the river. On March 3, in addition to citing Duke for similar problems elsewhere in the state, North Carolina's Department of Environment and Natural Resources called the spill on the Dan River an "environmental disaster."[6]

Dunsmuir, CA train derailment
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir,_California)
A train derailment resulted in the release of approximately 19,000 gallons of metam sodium spilled into the Sacramento River.

Easter Island, Chile
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island)
Jared Diamond suggested that cannibalism took place on Easter Island after the construction of the Moai contributed to environmental degradation when extreme deforestation destabilized an already precarious ecosystem.[29] Archeological record shows that, by the time of the initial settlement, the island was home to many species of trees, including at least three species which grew up to 50 feet or more: Paschalococos  - possibly the largest palm trees in the world at the time, Alphitonia zizyphoides, and Elaeocarpus rarotongensis, as well as at least six species of native land birds.

Elk River Chemical Spill
huffingtonpost.com / Something's gone terribly wrong /
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — At least 100,000 customers in nine West Virginia counties were told not to drink, bathe, cook or wash clothes using their tap water because of a chemical spill into the Elk River in Charleston, with Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declaring a state of emergency Thursday for all those areas.
The chemical, a foaming agent used in the coal preparation process, leaked from a tank at Freedom Industries, overran a containment area and went into the river earlier Thursday. The amount that spilled wasn't immediately known, but West Virginia American Water has a treatment plant nearby and it is the company's customers who are affected.

Affected water treatment plant just down river from the Elk River chemical spill.

The Everglades
ce.utexas.edu
The harmful effects of drainage and development of the Florida Everglades:
- Negative impact on on the availability of drinking water for the east coast population, and it increases the threat of salt water intrusion into the aquifer.
- Soil Depletion
- Nutrient Overload
- Reduced Flow into Florida Bay
- Disruption to the Ecosystem

eWaste
Greenpeace.
Toxic waste, like this alley full of illegally exported electronic waste (such as computers and cell phones) are making people sick and polluting the environment in places Ghana, Nigeria, India, Pakistan and China.

Exxon Valdez oil spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill)
Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil.

Exxon-Valdaz Oil Spill

Fukushima 1 nuclear disaster
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accident)
A series of ongoing equipment failures and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Fukushima 1 nuclear disaster radiated ocean trash
All the radiated trashed remains of the homes, buildings and bodies caused by a tsunami floated out into the Pacific Ocean and are headed towards the coast of the United States. 1 164.59893463265246,43.95257598413268,0.0 154.15039,40.38746,0.0 143.07617,38.28035,0.0 160.91796,26.989529999999995,0.0 -163.04687,21.87056,0.0 -135.0,24.9219812182615,0.0 -111.269531,23.402765,0.0 -112.675781,25.641526,0.0 -114.082031,28.767659000000002,0.0 -117.24609400000001,33.28462,0.0 -120.058594,34.597042,0.0 -123.39843700000002,37.439974,0.0 -124.17896865445238,39.60050664381685,0.0 -125.332031,42.55308,0.0 -124.10156200000002,47.989922,0.0 -127.617187,49.837982,0.0 -129.90234,52.80276,0.0 -156.44531,47.39834,0.0 164.59893463265246,43.95257598413268,0.0 #icon-959-F4EB37 Gabes phosphogypsum pollution http://www.dw.de (http://thetunistimes.com / Stop-pollution-save-gabes-70537 / The waters of the Gulf are dead. Industrial pollution has led to the ecological destruction. The stench of ammonia hangs in the air; a thick, black brew bubbles up from a sewer and then flows right into the sea. Gabes' coastal waters are loaded with phosphogypsum, a toxic, slightly radioactive byproduct of the phosphate refining process. Phosphate rock is processed in industrial plants to make phosphoric acids for use in the agriculture fertilizer and food preservative industries.

2014 Galveston Bay Oil Spill
USA Today
The watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Houston/Galveston received a call around 12:35 p.m. from the captain of the 585-foot bulk carrier Summer Wind, reporting a collision. The barge contained 924,000 gallons of fuel oil, towed by the motor vessel Miss Susan.
The Coast Guard didn't give an estimate of how much fuel had spilled into the bay, but there was a visible sheen of oil at the scene.
Officials believe only one of the barge's tanks was breached, with a capacity of 168,000 gallons.

Giant Mound Of Tires visible from space
Zoom in on the giant mound of illegally discarded tires in South Carolina.

Goiânia radioactive contamination accident
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident)
The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, at Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás after an old radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their body.[1][2] In the cleanup operation, topsoilhad to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses were removed and examined. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".[3][4]

Greenland Ice Melt
Greenland Ice Melt, Measured By NASA Satellites, Reaches Unprecedented Level
"...data from three independent satellites this July, analyzed by NASA and university scientists, showed that in less than a week, the amount of thawed ice sheet surface skyrocketed from 40 percent to 97 percent."

Great Smog of '52
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog)
The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke[1]  was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants mostly from the use of coal to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 to Tuesday 9 December 1952, and then dispersed quickly after a change of weather.

Gulf of Mexico 'Dead Zone'
Currently, the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, off the coast of Louisiana and Texas,[14] is the largest hypoxic zone in the United States.[15] The Mississippi River which is the drainage area for 41% of the continental United States, dumps high-nutrient runoff, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, into the Gulf of Mexico. According to a NOAA 2009 fact sheet, "Seventy percent of nutrient loads that cause hypoxia are a result of this vast drainage basin"[16] which includes the heart of U.S.agribusiness, the Midwest. The discharge of treated sewage from urban areas (pop. c 12 million in 2009) combined with agricultural runoff deliver c. 1.7 million tons of potassium and nitrogen into the Gulf of Mexico every year. Dead zones are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world's oceans and large lakes, caused by "excessive nutrient pollution from human activities coupled with other factors that deplete the oxygen required to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water.

Gulf War Oil Spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_oil_spill)
The Gulf War oil spill was one of the largest oil spills in history, resulting from the Gulf War in 1991. The apparent strategic goal was to foil a potential landing by US Marines.
The oil spill, which began on January 23, 1991, caused considerable damage to wildlife in the Persian Gulf specially in areas surrounding Kuwait and Iraq.

Hanford Nuclear Tank Leaking Radioactive Waste
Huffington Post:
Hanford Nuclear Tank Leaking Radioactive Waste / huffingtonpost.com /
"On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels, but Inslee said the leak could be in the range of 150 gallons to 300 gallons over the course of a year and poses a potential long-term threat to groundwater and rivers."

Hawaiian Marine Debris
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_debris)
Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a lake, sea, ocean or waterway. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of gyres and on coastlines,[1] frequently washing aground, when it is known as beach litter or tidewrack. Deliberate disposal of wastes at sea is called ocean dumping. Naturally occurring debris, such as driftwood, are also present.

Human Development of the Sahara
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Desert_(ecoregion))
"The Sahara was one of the first regions of Africa to be farmed. Some 5,000 years ago, the area was not so arid and the vegetation might have been closer to a savanna. Previous fauna may be recognised in stone carvings. However, desertification set in around 3000 BCE, and the area became much like it is today."

Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley tailings pond toxic spill.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Polley_mine_disaster)
The Mount Polley mine disaster is an environmental disaster in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada, that began in the early morning of 4 August 2014[1] when the Mount Polley tailings pond partially breached, releasing 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres[1] of slurry into Polley Lake.[2] The tailings pond covers four square kilometres and by 8 August according to Brian Kynoch, president of Imperial Metals, [2] the owner of the Mount Polley copper and gold mine,[3] the tailings pond was "virtually empty."[3][1] The contaminated slurry carrying felled trees, mud and debris "scoured away the banks" of Hazeltine Creek which flows out of Polley Lake and continued into the nearby Quesnel Lake. The spill caused Polley Lake to rise by 1.5 metres (4.9 ft).[3] Hazeltine Creek was transformed from a 2-metre-wide (6.6 ft) stream to a 50-metre-across (160 ft) "wasteland."[4] Cariboo Creek was also affected.[1] The spill has been called one of the biggest environmental disasters in modern Canadian history.[5][6][7]

Imperial Refining Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://www.epa.gov/region6/6sf/pdffiles/imperial-ok.pdf)
Imperial Refining was an inactive and abandoned crude oil refining facility that operated from 1917 until 1934 when it declared bankruptcy. Waste piles were found onsite and were characterized as dry, asphaltlike tar mats associated with oil-contaminated soil on top of oil-stained clay. The contaminants of concern are PAHs (polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons) and metals, primarily Benzo(a)pyrene and arsenic. An estimated 130 residents live within 200 feet of the facility and an estimated 23,427 individuals live within four miles of the facility.

Indian Bend Wash Area Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Bend_Wash_Area)
The Indian Bend Wash area is a Superfund cleanup site in Scottsdale and Tempe, Arizona. It was declared a Superfund site in 1983 after industrial solvents were discovered to have contaminated the groundwater in an approximately 13-square-mile (34 km2) area. It is one of the largest EPA sites in terms of volume of groundwater treated, estimated at 61.3 billion US gallons (232,000,000 m3).[1]  During the 1960s, it was typical for companies to dispose industrial solvents directly into the ground and into dry wells.  In 1981, volatile organic compounds (VOC) were detected in Tempe and Scottsdale city wells, including trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), and chloroform. The wells were shut down immediately, and the area was declared a Superfund site in 1983. Potentially responsible parties.
Motorola, Siemens, GlaxoSmithKline, along with several smaller companies, have paid for the approximately $100 million in cleanup costs. Cleanup has consisted of several stations that pump and treat groundwater.

Industrial chemical dumping
New York Times
"Horsehead Corporation of Pennsylvania, which has dumped illegal concentrations of copper, lead, zinc, chlorine and selenium into the Ohio River. Those chemicals can contribute to mental retardation and cancer."

Ixtoc I Oil Spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill)
Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig Sedco 135-F in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters 50 m (160 ft) deep.[2]  On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout resulting in one of largest oil spills in history.[3]

Japanese "Tsunami Ghost Ship" Ryou-Un Maru
A Japanese "Ghost Ship" / calgaryherald.com /(http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-25/
Japanese-fishing-ship-spotted-off-canada was spotted March 23 off the southern tip of Haida Gwaii, B.C., and is believed to be at the leading edge of a field of debris weighing millions of tonnes and expected to hit the West Coast starting later this year and through 2013.

Jianhe River runs red with dyes
Huffington Post:
"Textile suppliers of Zara, H&M, Ann Taylor, Guess, Target, Disney and Uniqlo, among other big brands, have violated China's environmental laws by contaminating water supplies with chemicals from dyes and printing, according to a new report released from the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based nonprofit whose founder, Ma Jun, won this year's Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia.

Jilin chemical plant (2005)
The Jilin chemical plant explosion blasts created an 80 km long toxic slick in the Songhua River, a tributary of the Amur. The slick, predominantly made up of benzene and nitrobenzene, passed through the Amur River over subsequent weeks.

Kamioka Mines in Toyama, Japan
Wikipeodia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itai-itai_disease)
Itai-itai disease (イタイイタイ病 itai-itai byō?, lit. "it hurts-it hurts disease"), was the documented case of mass cadmium poisoning in Toyama Prefecture, starting around 1912. The cadmium poisoning caused softening of the bones and kidney failure. The disease is named for the severe pains (Japanese: 痛い itai) caused in the joints and spine. The term "itai-itai disease" was coined by locals.[1]  The cadmium was released into rivers by mining companies in the mountains. The mining companies were successfully sued for the damage. Itai-itai disease is known as one of the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan. [2]

Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill
The TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill occurred just before 1 a.m. on Monday December 22, 2008, when an ash dike ruptured at an 84-acre (0.34 km2) solid waste containment area at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, USA.  1.1 billion US gallons (4,200,000 m3) of coal fly ash slurry was released. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, uses ponds to dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, which is then stored in wet form in dredge cells. The slurry (a mixture of fly ash and water) traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment, on to the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of the surrounding land, damaging homes and flowing up and down stream in nearby waterways such as the Emory River and Clinch River (tributaries of the Tennessee River). It was the largest fly ash release in United States history.

Kola Peninsula sulphur dioxide emissions
http://mondediplo.com/ (http://mondediplo.com/2000/07/19envidisaster)
In the western part of the Kola Peninsula, Novaya Zemlya, and the regions of Arkhangelsk and Norilsk, the situation is nothing short of catastrophic. The main sources of air pollution are the pulp factories and the huge metallurgy combines exploiting the region’s nickel, copper and phosphorus deposits. Sulphur dioxide emissions are a serious health hazard and are increasing all the time. In the late 1980s the Kola Peninsula was receiving around 600,000 tonnes a year and the Norilsk region as much as 2 million tonnes.

Kyshtym disaster
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_Disaster)
The Kyshtym disaster was a radiation contamination incident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Soviet Union. It measured as a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale, making it the third most serious nuclear accident ever recorded behind the Chernobyl disaster, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, both Level 7 on the INES. The event occurred in the town of Ozyorsk, a closed city built around the Mayak plant. Since Ozyorsk/Mayak (also known as Chelyabinsk-40 and Chelyabinsk-65) was not marked on maps, the disaster was named after Kyshtym, the nearest known town.

La Brea Oil Spills
huffingtonpost.com
At least 11 oil spills have crippled parts of Trinidad and Tobago, coating miles of beach with crude as the state-owned energy company scrambles to control what's being called one of the country's worst environmental disasters.
Petrotrin, Trinidad's state-owned oil company, first responded to an oil spill near La Brea on Dec. 17, according to a report from the Trinidad Guardian. Over the past month, the company has confirmed at least 11 spills and was slapped with a $3.1 million fine from the country's Environmental Management Authority last week, which the company's president, Khalid Hassanali, called "harsh."

Land degradation from Mining
World Bank
Koidu, Sierra Leone - "Mining has led to serious land degradation through loss of vegetation. Soils are generally lacking all important nutrients, with strong acidity due to excessive leaching and erosion, accelerated by soil exposure during mining activities." - World Bank

Lakeview Gusher
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeview_Gusher)
An immense out-of-control pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, resulting in what is the largest single oil spill in history, lasting 18 months and releasing 9 million barrels (1.4×106 m3) of crude oi. In what was one of the largest oil reserves in America, pressure built to an extreme due to the quantity of crude oil in the area.

Larsen B Ice Shelf 2002-2007
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larsen_Ice_Shelf)
"During 31 January 2002–7 March 2002 the Larsen B sector collapsed and broke up, 3,250 km² of ice 220 m thick disintegrated, meaning an ice shelf covering an area comparable in size to the US state of Rhode Island collapsed in a single season."
Wikipedia Commons

Libby, MT Superfund site
The largest and oldest vermiculite mine in the United States was started in the 1920s, at Libby, Montana, and the vermiculite was sold under the commercial name Zonolite. The Zonolite brand and the mine was acquired by the W.R. Grace Company in 1963. Mining operations at the Libby site stopped in 1990 in response to asbestos contamination. While in operation, the Libby mine may have produced 80% of the world's supply of vermiculite.[4]

Lindsay Manufacturing Superfund Site
EPA
The Lindsay Manufacturing Company generated sulfuric acid waste from a galvanizing process at its plant. The wastes were discharged into an unlined pond for 10 years. Use of the pond ceased in 1983, when three monitoring wells showed contamination. In addition, chlorinated solvents associated with metal parts cleaning and degreasing were discharged to the ground at the Lindsay property, releasing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to the environment which subsequently migrated into the ground water beneath the facility. The site is surrounded by agricultural land. Ground water is used for agricultural purposes, and as a drinking water supply for nearby residents. Approximately 3,000 people live within a 3-mile radius of the site, with the nearest residence located 300 feet away.

Love Canal, Niagara Falls, USA
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal)
In the mid-1970s Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 21,000 tons of toxic waste by Hooker Chemical (now Occidental Petroleum Corporation).

Maxey Flat Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxey_Flat)
From 1963 to 1977 the Maxey Flat Low Level Radioactive Waste facility served as a dump for 832 corporations and government agencies. On September 27, 1982, the Kentucky New Era reported that the Maxey Flat disposal site was being closed due to "radioactive leakage". Although no immediate health hazard was reported, "the potential [was] still there". State Natural Resources Coordinator Jackie Swigart confirmed that radioactive material had escaped burial trenches and been detected beyond the borders of the 250 acre site. The geology of the Maxey Flat area may contribute to the inadvertent spread of radioactive materials beyond the site's boundaries underground.

Milltown Reservoir Superfund Site
Milltown Reservoir was added to the National Priorities List in 1983 when arsenic groundwater contamination was found in the Milltown area. The contamination resulted from a massive flood in 1908 which washed millions of tons of mine waste into the Clark Fork River, ultimately ending up behind the Milltown Dam. The additional designation of the Clark Fork River between Milltown and Warm Springs Ponds in the Deerlodge Valley came in 1992.

Minamata, Japan
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease)
Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata  city in Kumamoto prefecture, in 1956. It was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which when eaten by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig, and human deaths continued for 36 years, the government and company did little to prevent the pollution. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be called "dancing cat fever."[1]

Molasses Spill
http://www.theatlanticcities.com
Thousands of fish — gasping desperately, then floating lifelessly — surfaced in Honolulu Harbor this week, suffering from oxygen deprivation caused by a massive molasses spill. This strange case of sugary suffocation was brought on by the Matson Shipping Company, which was loading one of its vessels with 1,600 tons of molasses through a pipeline in the harbor early Monday morning when a leak sprung. Matson reported that up to 1,400 tons of the sludgy syrup may have escaped into the harbor and nearby Ke’ehi Lagoon.

Mountaintop removal mining
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_Removal_Mining)
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining that involves the mining of the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Excess rock and soil laden with toxic mining byproducts are often dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills."
Peer-reviewed studies show that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity and toxification of watersheds, that mitigation practices cannot successfully address.[5]  There are also adverse human health impacts which result from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust.[5]  According to 21 scientific studies there has been major effects on the population in the Appalachia where MTM takes place including over 50% higher cancer rates, 42% higher birth defect rates, and $75 billion a year in public health costs from pollution. [6]

Msasani Beach Marine Debris
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_debris)
Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a lake, sea, ocean or waterway. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of gyres and on coastlines,[1] frequently washing aground, when it is known as beach litter or tidewrack. Deliberate disposal of wastes at sea is called ocean dumping. Naturally occurring debris, such as driftwood, are also present.

Mt Everest Garbage Dump, Nepal
As a result, the famed mountain has become the “world’s highest garbage dump.” Mountaineer Mark Jenkins described it in stark terms last year in National Geographic: “The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are not only dangerously crowded but also disgustingly polluted, with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps.” Climbers say that the higher they get, the worse the trash problem gets.

MT Haven Oil Spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT_Haven)
MT Haven, formerly Amoco Milford Haven, was a VLCC (very large crude carrier), leased to Troodos Shipping (a company run by Lucas Haji-Ioannou and his son Stelios Haji-Ioannou). In 1991, while loaded with 144,000 tonnes (1 million barrels) of crude oil, the ship exploded, caught fire and sank off the coast of Genoa, Italy, killing six Cypriot crew and flooding the Mediterranean with up to 50,000 tonnes of crude oil.

Niger Delta environmental issues
Wikpedia
Oil spills are a common event in Nigeria [9] and occur due to a number of causes, including: corrosion of pipeline and tankers (accounting for 50% of all spills), sabotage (28%), and oil production operations (21%), with 1% of the spills being accounted for by inadequate or non-functional production equipment. Oil spillage has a major impact on the ecosystem into which it is released and may constitute ecocide. Immense tracts of the mangrove forests, which are especially susceptible to oil (mainly because it is stored in the soil and re-released annually during inundations), have been destroyed. An estimated 5 to 10% of Nigerian mangrove ecosystems have been wiped out either by settlement] or oil. The rainforest which previously occupied some 7,400 km² of land has disappeared as well.[6]

Noble Energy Oil spill
denverpost.com
Approximately 178 barrels of crude oil — about 7,500 gallons — were spilled Friday afternoon from a storage tank into the Poudre River.
According to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, the cause of the spill, east-southeast of Windsor, was spring flood waters undercutting a bank, causing the tank to drop downward and damaging a valve. This allowed oil to escape from that broken valve.
The tank is operated by Noble Energy. The company discovered the leak and reported it to authorities.

Novaya Zemlya Nuclear Testing
mondediplo.com /
The massive civil and military use of nuclear power since the 1950s has also damaged the regional environment. Most of the Soviet Union’s nuclear tests (over a hundred from 1955 to 1990) were carried out on Novaya Zemlya, and large quantities of solid and liquid radioactive waste were dumped in the Barents and Kara Seas. The northern fleet, which includes nuclear-powered icebreakers and nuclear submarines (sometimes without nuclear warheads but still driven by nuclear reactors), is stationed at bases along the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula, near Murmansk. The nuclear power station at Polyarnyy is classified as "dangerous" by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As if this were not enough, the Soviet Union detonated nuclear charges for civil engineering and mining purposes on at least twenty occasions from 1969 to 1988. Few of these activities are mentioned in official reports, and very little is known of the extent of radioactive contamination in the region.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
rtdf.org
Permeable reactive barrier (PRB) systems have been constructed in two different ground-water pathways through the Y-12 site at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN. Liquid wastes, including nitric acid (HNO3) with uranium (U), and technetium (Tc), were placed in disposal ponds on the site from 1952 to 1981. The site was capped in 1983. Leached wastes have contaminated both ground water and surface water.

Ozone depletion
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion)
Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere (the ozone layer), and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. In addition to these well-known stratospheric phenomena, there are also springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion events.

Phillips Disaster of 1989
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Disaster)
A massive and devastating explosion and fire ripped through the Phillips 66 Company's Houston Chemical Complex (HCC).

Pacific Garbage Patch
Plastic in our oceans. A gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N.
Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch)

Pacific Garbage Patch Volume

Pacific Gas & Electric Co
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich)
Contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium(VI), a case made famous by Erin Brockovich.

Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Superfund Site
Plant operations have contaminated the site over time. The primary contamination of concern is trichloroethylene  (TCE), which was a commonly used degreaser at the site. TCE leaked and contaminated groundwater on and off the site. The groundwater is also contaminated with trace amounts of technetium, a radioactive fission product; other contaminates include polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs). Through normal operations, portions of the plant are contaminated with uranium.
In 1988, TCE and trace amounts of technetium-99 was found in the drinking water wells of residences located near the plant site in McCracken County, Kentucky. To protect human health the Department of Energy provided city water, at no cost, to the affected residents and continues to do so. The Department of Energy is using electrical resistance heating, ET-DSP(trademarked) to vaporize the TCE from the groundwater. This clean up action began in mid-2010. Much of the contamination of the actual plant will not be cleaned up until the plant ceases operations.

Pester Refinery Company Superfund Site
The Pester Refinery Company site is located on a 10-acre tract to the north and west of the city of El Dorado, Butler County, Kansas. The refinery operations began in 1917. Refinery wastes were stored in the burn pond and these wastes were periodically ignited through the mid-1970s.
The burn pond are adjacent to the West Branch of the Walnut River. In 1987 the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment (KDHE) found seepage from the impoundment entering the river and conducted sampling. During rainfall events, pond water has occasionally overflowed and discharged to the river and the adjacent floodplain. An estimated 160 people obtain drinking water from private wells located within three miles of the site.

Rimini, Montana Superfund Site
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimini,_Montana)
The EPA added the Upper Tenmile Creek Mining Area to the Superfund National Priorities List on October 22, 1999, due to mining waste problems in the 53-square-mile watershed ... The Upper Tenmile Creek Mining Area site is located in the Rimini Mining District, southwest of Helena, Montana. It consists of numerous abandoned and inactive hard-rock mine sites that produced gold, lead, zinc and copper. Mining began in the district before 1870 and continued through the 1920s. Little mining has been performed there since the early 1930s ... The site includes the drainage basin of Tenmile Creek upstream of the Helena water treatment plant and includes tributaries that supply water to the plant's five intake pipelines. EPA identified 150 individual mine sites within the watershed boundary, of which 70 have been prioritized for cleanup. Many of these mine features are above the five City of Helena drinking water intakes, which supply about 50 percent of the city's water.

The Rocky Mountain Arsenal Basin F
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Arsenal)
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal contained a deep injection well that was constructed in 1961.[4] It was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet (3671 m). The well was cased and sealed to a depth of 11,975 feet (3650 m), with the remaining 70 feet (21 m) left as an open hole for the injection of Basin F liquids. For testing purposes, the well was injected with approximately 568,000 US gallons (2150 m³) of city water prior to injecting any waste. The injected fluids had very little potential for reaching the surface or usable groundwater supply since the injection point had 11,900 feet (3630 m) of rock above it and was sealed at the opening. The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because the fluid injection triggered a series of earthquakes in the area.[4][5]The well remained unused until 1985 when the Army permanently sealed the disposal well.

Sacramento Levee & Flood Risk
sacramento.about.com
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for California's levees in February 2006. He executed Executive Order S-01-06 directing agencies to identify, evaluate and repair critical systems. As a result, some critical erosion sites were repaired in 2006, but the underlying structural problem for the Sacramento region and the state remains.

San Bruno, CA Raw Sewage Dumped
http://sfbay.sierraclub.org sfbay.sierraclub.org /
The amount of raw sewage illegally entering San Francisco Bay - from sewage treatment plants! - is staggering. In 2008, over 13 million gallons of sewage escaped from treatment plants in 2,048 separate spills, the vast majority of which ended up in the streams and lakes of the Bay watershed. The recently publicized spill of 720,000 gallons of sewage by the Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District, and Richmond's less-publicized spill of a million gallons of raw sewage just a week later, are only the tip of the iceberg.

Sandoz chemical spill
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandoz_chemical_spill)
Released toxic agro chemicals into the air and resulted in tons of pollutants entering the Rhine River, turning it red.

Seveso disaster
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveso_disaster)
The highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations.

Sidoarjo mud flow
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow)
The biggest mud volcano in the world was created by the blowout of a natural gas well drilled by PT Lapindo Brantas, although company officials contend that it was caused by a distant earthquake.

Sierra Blanca, TX (NYC Sludge Dump)
txpeer.org (http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/merco.html)
In 1999, Merco Joint Venture admitted that it had spread sludge from New York in this Texas landfill that had not been properly treated to reduce pathogens - a state and federal requirement.

Shift in Magnetic Pole
See: "Shift in magnetic north pole affects... Tampa airport"
According to the Daily Mail Reporter, "Changes in our planet's core are causing the north magnetic pole to speed towards Russia at nearly 40 miles a year."

Ship Grave Yard in Alang (See the ships)
Zoom in to see over 100 ships that have been abandoned in Alang, India to rust and leak oil while awaiting disassembly.

Ship Grave Yard in Mallow Bay (See the ships)
The largest ship grave yard in the western hemisphere contains abandoned ships that rust and will eventually leak oil.

Soviet submarine K-431
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-431)
Soviet submarine K-431 (originally the Soviet submarine K-31) was a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine that had a reactor accident on 10 August 1985.[1]  An explosion occurred during refueling of the submarine at Chazhma Bay, Vladivostok There were ten fatalities and 49 other people suffered radiation injuries. TIME magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters".

Soviet submarine K-19 reactor accident
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19)
On 4 July 1961, under the command of Captain First Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, K-19 was conducting exercises in the North Atlantic close to Southern Greenland when it developed a major leak in its reactor coolant system, causing the water pressure in the aft reactor to drop to zero and causing failure of the coolant pumps. A separate accident had disabled the long-range radio system, so they could not contact Moscow. The reactor temperature rose uncontrollably, reaching 800 °C (1,470 °F) – almost the melting point of the fuel rods and the chain reactions continued [citation needed] despite the control rods being inserted via a SCRAM mechanism. The reactor continued to heat up as coolant is still required during shutdown until the reactions decrease. Despite Zateyev's and others' earlier requests, no backup cooling system had been installed.

Space Debris or Space Junk
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris)
Space debris, also known as orbital debris, space junk, and space waste, is the collection of defunct objects in orbit. This includes everything from spent rocket stages , old satellites, fragments from disintegration, erosion, and collisions. Since orbits overlap with new spacecraft, debris may collide with operational spacecraft.

SS Makambo Grounding at Lord Howe Island
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Makambo)
SS Makambo was aground for nine days before it was refloated and the incident had allowed black rats to leave the ship and go ashore on the island, where they thrived. This introduction gave rise to an environmental disaster, with the rats causing the extinction of several of the island’s endemic birds and other fauna in the next few years through predation, as well as causing hardship to the islanders by raiding their crops and only export commodity, the seeds of the Kentia Palm. Problems with the rats led to an attempted ecological solution through the deliberate introduction of Tasmanian Masked Owls between 1922 and 1930 to the island, an action which compounded the disaster by adding another predator to the ecosystem

Summitville mine
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summitville_mine)
The Summitville mine was a gold mining site in Rio Grande County, Colorado 25 miles (40 km) south of Del Norte. It is remembered for the environmental damage caused in the 1980s by the accidental leakage of mining by-products into local waterways and then the Alamosa River.

Sunoco Mid-Valley pipeline oil spill
reuters.com
Crews vacuumed oil that had leaked from the Mid-Valley pipeline into a wetland area of the Oak Glen Nature Preserve, 20 miles (32 km) north of Cincinnati, according to local officials.
The 240-barrel (10,000-gallons/38,000-liter) spill has been contained, Sunoco said in a statement.
The leak was discovered at 8:20 p.m. EDT on Monday (0020 GMT Tuesday) and the line was shut around 1 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sunoco said. It was unclear if any oil was still spewing from the pipe.
The spill did not appear to have reached the Great Miami River, about a quarter of a mile (400 meters) away, though tests were still being completed, said a spokeswoman for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Sydney Tar Ponds
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. Efforts to clean up the waterway have been dogged by false starts, delays, and political controversy. After extensive public consultation and technical study, a $400 million CAD cleanup plan, jointly funded by the Government of Canada and Nova Scotia, was announced in January 2007.

Three Gorges Dam
Effects of the dam include degraded water quality, detriments to wildlife, and potential riverbank collapses.

Three Mile Island accident
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident)
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown which occurred in one of the two United States Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.[1]  The partial meltdown resulted in the release of small amounts of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. Epidemiology studies have not linked a single cancer with the accident.

Toxic Roads resulted in demolition town.
jalopnik.com
On this day in 1982, the government informed the residents of Times Beach, Missouri that they would have to evacuate. The town had paved its own roads with dioxin, among the most toxic cancer-causing substances made by man.

Welkom Showgrounds Medical Waste Dump
http://mg.co.za
The Green Scorpions have uncovered another 20 tons of medical waste, buried at an unused gold mine of Harmony Gold outside Welkom, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
Jay Singh of the Environmental Management Inspectorate (Green Scorpions) said the medical waste, which included sharps, pharmaceuticals, vials, syringes, drips, dirty bandages and general medical waste, was buried at the site.
It should have been treated and disposed of as required by law.

Winchester, VA Tire Fire
1983 – Seven million tires burn for nine months, polluting nearby areas with lead and arsenic. The  location was cleaned up as a Superfund project from 1983 to 2002

Windscale
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire)
The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain's history, ranked in severity at level 5 on the 7-point International Nuclear Event Scale.[1]  The two piles had been hurriedly built as part of the British atomic bomb project.[2]  Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950 followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.[3]  The accident occurred when the core of the Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. Of particular concern at the time was the radioactive isotope iodine-131,, which may lead to cancer of the thyroid, and it has been estimated that the incident caused 240 additional cancer cases.

Vila Parisi (Brazil)
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vila_Parisi_(Brazil))
Vila Parisi is a "favela" (slum) in Cubatão, Brazil, , that was the site of a major industrial accident on February 25, 1984.[citation needed]  The German sociologist Ulrich Beck used the case of Vila Parisi ("The dirtiest chemical town in the world") as an example of the "destructive powers of the developed risk industry."

Zonolite and asbestos mining in Libby, MT
Vermiculite, an ore found in the area in 1881, had been mined in the area since 1919.[11]   In 1919, E.N. Alley bought the Rainy Creek claims and started the Zonolite Company. Zonolite is a branded trademark product made from vermiculite.[13]  W. R. Grace and Company bought the Zonolite mine in 1963. Federal government investigators subsequently found that air samples from the area had elevated levels of fibrous tremolite asbestos, which is suspected to have caused asbestos related ailments among current and former Zonolite employees, along with non-mine employees. [14]  More than 274 area deaths in the past 60 years are suspected to have been caused by asbestos contaminated vermiculite. In the following years, fewer than 17% of the residents who participated in the ATSDR screening study in Libby were found to have pleural abnormalities. The mine has been closed since 1990.

Statoil North America oil spill
dispatch.com
A fracking company made federal and state agencies that oversee drinking-water safety wait days before it shared a list of toxic chemicals that spilled from a drilling site into a tributary of the Ohio River.
Although the spill following a fire on June 28 at the Statoil North America well pad in Monroe County stretched 5 miles along the creek and killed more than 70,000 fish and wildlife, state officials said they do not believe drinking water was affected.
But environmental advocacy groups said they wonder how the state can be sure.
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report obtained by The Dispatch shows that the federal and state EPA officials had to wait five days before they were given a full list of the fracking chemicals the drilling company used at the site.

Massive sulfuric acid leak spilled into rivers from the Buenavista copper mine
bigstory.ap.org
MEXICO CITY (AP) — About 10 million gallons (40,000 cubic meters) of contaminated wastewater have spilled into rivers from a mine in northern Mexico, and federal officials announced Sunday they are restricting water supply to cities and towns in the country's north, including the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo.
The National Water Commission said it was monitoring chemicals in the Bacanuchi and Sonora rivers following this week's spill at the Buenavista copper mine in Cananea, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the U.S. border.

Castastrophic land loss due the development of levees, canals and oil/gas production in the Louisiana Delta put our economy at risk.
projects.propublica.org /
The development of levees in the Louisiana Delta to protect the growth of human development in the area cut off the Mississippi river from its delta. As a result the delta has been quickly drying out, decomposing and sinking due to the lack of new sediment and freshwater, and the development of more than 10,000 miles of canals and pipelines to service a network of 50,000 oil and gas wells vital to our economy. In as few as 80 years, 2,000 square miles of delta disappeared into the Gulf of Mexico. Check out this interactive presentation by Propublica.org  to see just how serious the situation has become and how it could affect 50% of our energy resources and the national economy.

Thousands Of Gallons Of Oil Were Dumped Into Newtown Creek
gothamist.com
The bed of Newtown Creek is 15 feet thick and made of "black mayonnaise" from the millions of gallons of oil and chemicals that have spilled into its waters since the mid-19th century. But just because it's a Superfund site doesn't mean Newtown Creek can afford to take any more human abuse. The Times reports that someone has been dumping a whole lot of oil into the waterway over the past few weeks.
Last week, DEC received an anonymous tip claiming that the oil was coming from the Borden Avenue Bridge, just south of the LIE and east of Long Island City on Dutch Kills.
Investigators conducted surveillance and found a giant oil truck marked Cobra Scrap Waste Oil parked near the bridge, disgorging its contents into a drain, the driver nowhere to be found.

Beijing Smog
SHANGHAI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital "barely suitable" for living, according to an official Chinese report, as the world's second largest economy tries to reduce often hazardous levels of smog caused by decades of rapid growth.
Pollution is a rising concern for China's stability-obsessed leaders, keen to douse potential unrest as affluent city dwellers turn against a growth-at-all-costs economic model that has tainted much of the country's air, water and soil.
The report, by the Beijing-based Social Science Academic Press and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, ranked the Chinese capital second worst out of 40 global cities for its environmental conditions, official media reported on Thursday.

Shell Oil pipeline spill causes environmental disaster in Niger Delta
Fishermen and the environment of Niger Delta continue to suffer the consequences of a massive Shell oil spill in the Niger Delta - one of the worst in years. The oil giant says 1,200 barrels had been recovered as of Tuesday. Traveling to the affected areas of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, Reuters witnessed the devastation in the delta which covers 20,000 km² within wetlands of 70,000 km²
Crude oil washes up near the shore after a Shell pipeline leaked, in the Oloma community in Nigeria's delta region November 27, 2014.