We all knew it was coming. We all knew we would see it, be engulfed by it, soon. Worst of all, we all knew there was nothing we could do to stop it.
Hours earlier, my hometown of Durango, Colorado had been informed that a gold mine had burst, spewing a torrent of orange-tinged, toxic sludge into the river that flowed through our town. The spill had occurred high in the mountains about 60 miles upstream, but nonetheless the toxic mess was still steadily drawing near. With no way to stop it, no way to possibly save our river, our town had gathered on a bridge, waiting for the toxic, orange wall to appear.
As the sun slowly dipped behind the mountains, the crowd, over a hundred large, remained largely quiet. There, on the bridge, standing in the eerie silence knowing that the toxic water would be flowing underneath the bridge in a matter of minutes and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it, was one of the worst feelings of my life. The whole town was in a trance, realizing the magnitude of the spill — realizing that our town’s tourist-creating, farm-enabling water supply was suddenly gone. Someone behind me sniffled, understanding what most of us already knew: Our town’s livelihood was about to be poisoned.
I would never wish that feeling upon my worst enemy, but unfortunately my town was no exception. Multiple communities across the United States have felt the same helpless dread as they, too have their water source turned into a toxic mess. On Feb. 2, 2014, a pipe at a Duke Energy coal plant ruptured, spilling toxic coal ash into the Dan River in our own state of North Carolina and, recently, the people of Flint, Michigan found their town’s river and water supply to be riddled with deadly toxins.
In the civilized and modern society of America today, it seems inconceivable that we would deal with the same water quality issues that were dealt with in 14th-century London; unfortunately, we are.
Out of all the cases of toxic water in the world, both past and present, nearly all were caused not by the environment, but by humans. The cases of a small Colorado town, a river in North Carolina and the town of Flint have a common theme which is that they were all perpetrated by humans. In Colorado, a gold mine created by humans caused a major environmental disaster, in North Carolina, a coal power plant and in Flint, switching to take water from a river made corrosive from the heavy use of road salt.
Throughout history, humans have been touted as great builders, responsible for the Pyramids of Gaza, the Great Wall of China and the Empire State Building, but perhaps what humans should be remembered for more than their building abilities is their ability to destroy. Rivers simply don’t turn orange without the help of humans and Flint surely wouldn’t be in this position without the actions of humans before it.
The world first realized this fact following the massive, human-perpetrated Chernobyl disaster. In a piece published shortly after the disaster, sociologist Ulrich Beck argued that there are “hazards … introduced by modernization itself.” Beck realized that society’s act of modernizing, just like building a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, naturally places us at more risk, specifically from an increased rate of natural disasters.
Today, Beck’s arguments couldn’t have been more correct. As our world’s rate of modernization runs rampant, with no regard or respect for the environments in which we are building in, the risk we place our society under from environmental disasters only increases. The three toxic rivers, then, are not fluke environmental disasters, but obvious consequences of our societies’ need for the next best thing.
If we want the environmental disasters that are now widespread across the world to stop, perhaps the only way to do so is to take a step back and stop meddling with nature’s ways. The river in my hometown is now clean and able to be used as a water source once again, but only because my town took a step back from the river. Instead of building and creating a chemical combination that would “clean” the river, we allowed nature to do its work and work it did. Humans often underestimate the power of nature, but if left alone and unadulterated by humans for even a few months, a once toxic river can become pristine once again.
Nature enthusiast, President Teddy Roosevelt once said: “Leave it (nature) as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” And if by “mar,” he meant the creation of rivers so toxic that entire communities can’t even drink from them, then I think he was spot on.