Reading for Information Using Science Texts

Poisoned Waters: How Can Communities Fight Industrial Pollution?

The South Park section of Seattle is one of the least likely places you’d expect to find a grass roots environmental movement. It’s a smoggy, low-income neighborhood of bars, burrito shops and squat match-box homes, all jammed among the cement plants, scrap metal operations and brawny factories of Boeing, Jorgensen Forge and Rhone Poulenc along the Duwamish River, Seattle’s industrial corridor.

For a century, South Park has served as a first stop for new immigrants—first, the Italians and Japanese who came to farm the mud flats along the river. Now, Mexicans, Cambodians, Vietnamese and other working poor. It is a basic subsistence place—no post office, no bank, no drugstore, and problems with drugs and gang violence. Its residents do much of the grubby unskilled work in the plants nearby.

Like Love Canal and the Hudson River, the lower Duwamish River has gained notoriety because it has been designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency. Superfund is EPA’s big stick for tackling the worst industrial pollution sites in America. In 2001, after years of studies exposed pervasive contamination in the muddy river bottom, EPA designated an entire five-mile stretch of the Duwamish River, with hundreds of businesses, a mega-pollution site.

One flagrant polluter was Malarkey Asphalt, a plant lying like an elongated football field along the riverbank at South Park. It made roofing tar out of used oils and chemicals. So high were the levels of PCBs found at Malarkey that EPA labeled it an “early action hotspot.” Several years later, a partial cleanup was done by the Port of Seattle, which bought the property when Malarkey went broke.

But South Park residents weren’t satisfied. They were sure there were more toxins in the ground. Joining with other groups to form the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition (DRCC), which got itself recognized as an official Superfund citizen’s advisory group, they demanded —and got—more tests. The results were stunning—levels of “about 9,000 parts per million,” admitted Doug Hotchkiss, the site manager for the Port of Seattle.

It was a bombshell. Federal law allows only 25 parts per million for industrial sites; Washington state law, only one part per million for residential areas. When the City of Seattle tested nearby residential areas, it found PCBs in the streets, sidewalks and people’s yards, evidently having dripped off Malarkey’s tar trucks. Residents were up in arms.

Eventually, the Port of Seattle announced a plan to clean up the Malarkey contamination to the industrial level of 25. But South Park residents, by now inflamed and organized, demanded a level of one. They lobbied the Port Commission and the City Council. Bowing to public pressure, the authorities agreed to start a residential-level cleanup in 2010—a concrete illustration of how vocal community activists can push the EPA and industrial polluters into action.

Discussion Questions:

Poisoned Waters explores why American waterways like the Chesapeake Bay and the Puget Sound are in peril. After watching the video chapter on cleaning up industrial pollution, discuss your answers to the following questions:

• What is the mission of EPA’s Superfund? What kinds of pollution sites does it target? Why was the lower Duwamish River in Seattle declared a Superfund site? When Superfund designates an industrial site as an “early action hot spot,” how fast is action taken sometimes?
• Can grass roots community groups participate in the cleanup process of polluted sites being supervised by the EPA? Does Superfund recognize grass roots organizations formally, as advisory groups, that can influence how environmental cleanups are done?
• How serious was the contamination problem at Malarkey Asphalt? When things started out, did the EPA and the Port of Seattle recognize the severity and extent of the pollution at Malarkey? What pushed them to look for more pollution through more testing? How did they respond to the new tests?
• One big issue in environmental cleanups is “How Clean Is Clean.” That is, how clean does the site have to be after the cleanup? Are there different legal standards? How is the cleanup standard determined? How can citizens groups influence that process?

Essential Questions

• How does what you know help you understand text?
• How does thinking about the author’s purpose and message deepen understanding?
• How do text features and characteristics of informational text influence reader interpretation?

 Firefighting Goes High-Tech

     Reason to read:  Find out how new technology is making firefighting safer.

     As you read:  Identify solutions to problems faced by firefighters. 

     Pre-Reading Link:  Firefighting Mapping Knowledge.pdf

     After Reading Links:  Firefighters Context Clues 3.pdf             Firefighters Identifying Solutions.pdf

Fuel Economy 

1.  video clip on new 2013 regulations  http://www.epa.gov/otaq/carlabel/

2.  "Find a Car" link  http://www.fueleconomy.gov/

Research links: http://www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car.htm

                      http://www.dulabab.com/energy-transportation/fossil-fuels/

                      http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0628-07.htm 

                      http://www.fueleconomy.gov/  

Solar System:  Use the this link to complete the scavenger hunt questions.  You may have to go through the game more than once to find all the information.  **You will need to use inference and drawing conclusion skills for some of the questions.  You have the entire period to complete this task.  It will be collected at the end of the period.

http://powermylearning.com/content/go-head-solar-system-nasa  

Questions:  Solar System Scavenger Hunt.docx