The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster, was a disaster that occurred on Wednesday, January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aquaculture, and navigability. Hydropower is often used in conjunction with dams to generate electricity. A dam can also be used to collect or store water which can be evenly distributed between locations. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions.
Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm. Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemicals that can pollute the air and contaminate soil and water. Disposing of such waste is a major public health issue.
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower. Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also more than nuclear power. Hydropower can provide large amounts of low-carbon electricity on demand, making it a key element for creating secure and clean electricity supply systems. A hydroelectric power station that has a dam and reservoir is a flexible source, since the amount of electricity produced can be increased or decreased in seconds or minutes in response to varying electricity demand. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, it produces no direct waste, and almost always emits considerably less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel-powered energy plants. However, when constructed in lowland rainforest areas, where part of the forest is inundated, substantial amounts of greenhouse gases may be emitted.
In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlies an ore or mineral body and is displaced during mining without being processed.
Newtown Creek, a 3.5-mile (6-kilometer) long tributary of the East River, is an estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City. Channelization made it one of the most heavily-used bodies of water in the Port of New York and New Jersey and thus one of the most polluted industrial sites in the United States, containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30,000,000 US gallons of spilled oil, including the Greenpoint oil spill, raw sewage from New York City's sewer system, and other accumulation from a total of 1,491 sites.
Berry's Creek is a tributary of the Hackensack River in the New Jersey Meadowlands in Bergen County, New Jersey. The creek watershed contains a diverse array of wetlands, marshes, and wildlife. The creek runs through a densely populated region and has been subject to extensive industrial pollution during the 19th and 20th centuries. Several companies discharged toxic chemicals into the creek in the 20th century, and these chemicals have remained in the sediment. The creek has the highest concentrations of methyl mercury of any freshwater sediment in the world. Portions of the creek watershed are Superfund sites, and cleanup projects began in the late 20th century.
A reservoir is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.
Bunding, also called a bund wall, is a constructed retaining wall around storage "where potentially polluting substances are handled, processed or stored, for the purposes of containing any unintended escape of material from that area until such time as a remedial action can be taken."
Storage tanks are containers that hold liquids or compressed gases. The term can be used for reservoirs, and for manufactured containers. The usage of the word "tank" for reservoirs is uncommon in American English but is moderately common in British English. In other countries, the term tends to refer only to artificial containers. In the U.S., storage tanks operate under no pressure, distinguishing them from pressure vessels.
The Kingston Fossil Plant Spill was an environmental and industrial disaster that occurred on December 22, 2008, when a dike ruptured at a coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, used a series of ponds to store and dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion. The spill released a slurry of fly ash and water which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment onto the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of the surrounding land. The spill damaged multiple homes and flowed into nearby waterways including the Emory River and Clinch River, both tributaries of the Tennessee River. It was the largest industrial spill in United States history.
Spring Creek Debris Dam is an earthfill dam on Spring Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River, in Shasta County in the U.S. state of California. Completed in 1963, the dam, maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, serves primarily to collect severe acid mine drainage stemming from the Iron Mountain Mine. The dam forms the Spring Creek Reservoir, less than 1 mile (1.6 km) long. Spring Creek and South Fork Spring Creek flow into the reservoir from a 16-square-mile (41 km2) watershed. The dam is directly upstream from the city of Keswick, California and the Keswick Reservoir. The operation is part of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project.
The Spring Creek Reservoir is the artificial lake created by the construction of the Spring Creek Dam across Spring Creek in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest of Shasta County, California, adjacent to Keswick.
Water pollution in the United States is a growing problem that became critical in the 19th century with the development of mechanized agriculture, mining, and manufacturing industries—although laws and regulations introduced in the late 20th century have improved water quality in many water bodies. Extensive industrialization and rapid urban growth exacerbated water pollution combined with a lack of regulation has allowed for discharges of sewage, toxic chemicals, nutrients, and other pollutants into surface water. This has led to the need for more improvement in water quality as it is still threatened and not fully safe.
The Ajka alumina plant accident in October 2010 was a caustic waste reservoir chain collapse at the Ajkai Timföldgyár alumina plant in Ajka, Veszprém County, in western Hungary.
In September 2013, 1,400 tons of molasses spilled into Honolulu Harbor. The spill was discovered on 9 September 2013. It was caused by a faulty pipe that malfunctioned while the molasses was being loaded onto a ship, for which the shipping company Matson Navigation Co. took responsibility. Molasses is an unregulated product, and neither Matson nor government officials had a contingency plan to respond to a molasses spill. Natural currents and weather were expected to eventually dilute and flush the molasses out of the harbor and a nearby lagoon.
Piney Point phosphate plant is an industrial site in Manatee County, Florida and the location of a former fertilizer plant. The land is currently owned by HRK Holdings, which leases portions of the land to industrial tenants under the name Eastport.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to ongoing widespread and possibly serious and long-term environmental damage. The Ukrainian government, journalists and international observers describe the damage as ecocide.
