Outline
Executive Summary
TS: Throwing trash into the ocean is detrimental to our environment.
SS:kills sea life; ecosystem off balance
SS: negatively impacts humans
Anticipated References: n/a
TS: The CWA should be amended so that the EPA is given more funding to monitor and regulate waste, and focus should be placed on specific regions and communities.
SS: CWA is beneficial for the environment, but too broad to create significant noticeable impact
SS: In order to effectively monitor and regulate waste, substantial funds are necessary
Anticipated References:
TS: there are so many things that are out of our control, but waste disposal in the ocean should not be one of them.
SS: Urgency of the problem (species are going extinct NOW)
SS: problem needs to be fixed to protect our future generations
Anticipated References: n/a
Introduction/Background:
TS: Over time, the human population has exponentially increased.
SS: With more humans, naturally there’s a larger amount of trash production.
SS: Where does the trash go? Landfills, incinerators, and the ocean.
Anticipated References: Kershaw, Peter
Graph: How the human population has increased over the past two hundred years
TS: Although none of our methods of trash disposal are ideal, dumping trash in the ocean is significantly the most detrimental to the environment in comparison to the other trash disposal methods.
SS: hard to manage because international waters; focus on America’s impact
SS: negative impact on marine life
Anticipated References: Kershaw, Peter; Derraik, Jose GB; Gregory, Murray R.
TS: Dumping trash into the ocean destroys marine ecosystems.
SS: How trash destroys marine ecosystems; killing and injuring marine life
SS: Long-term effects; species that go extinct are food sources for other species, etc.
Anticipated Reference: Wabnitz, Colette, Gregory, Murray R.
Graph: species that are at risk of extinction and their population approximations
The destruction of marine ecosystems negatively impacts the human population in several ways.
SS: How marine ecosystems affect human population: food source, emerging water source, etc.
SS: specific food sources that have gone extinct due to changing marine ecosystem
Anticipated Reference: Kershaw, Peter; other references (haven’t found them yet)
Analysis (why has this problem gone unaddressed for so long)
TS: There are two main ways that our oceans are getting poisoned: ships disposing oils and trash into the ocean, and humans polluting beaches.
SS: Hard to control ship waste disposal because crossing international waters; current solutions?
SS: Statistics about people leaving trash on beaches/dumping trash into the ocean
Anticipated References: Derraik, Jose GB; other references (haven’t found yet)
TS: Since the 1970s, American lawmakers have tried to limit and control trash entering the ocean in many ways.
SS: Give funding and authority to discipline
Clean Water Act
Coastal Zone Management Act
Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act
SS: Analyze Clean Water Act: how has it changed the amount of pollutants being deposited in our waters? Also, which parts of the Clean Water Act are not as effective as we need them to be?
SS: Actually help clean up current damage
The Coral Reef Conservation Act
Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act
Anticipated References: Marine Debris Laws
TS: The general population is unaware of how we are killing the oceans; there’s a trend of ignorance .
SS: main example- Great Pacific Garbage Patch
SS: Common Mindset- Ocean is so vast; People think they dump trash in the ocean and it “disappears forever”
Anticipated References: Kershaw, Peter; Derraik, Jose GB
TS: And, finally, we never anticipated that we would be producing this much trash.
SS: We need an ulterior method of disposing trash; we can’t go on like this forever.
SS: Proposed alternative methods of trash disposal
Anticipated References: Saika, Nabajyoti; other references (haven’t found yet)
Recommendations
The Clean Water Act should remain in effect, with some amendments.
Narrow it down more to focus on specific areas
Increase EPA funding
The EPA should be given more funding to monitor and regulate water pollution.
Sufficient equipment to accurately monitor pollution levels requires funds
Labor and resources are involved in implementing new and existing policies
Focus needs to be placed on specific regions or communities rather than broadly giving authority to Congress and states.
Congress doesn’t know what specific areas require in terms of resources to manage pollution
Local governments are more likely to care about their specific water quality
West Coast contribution to the Pacific Garbage Patch could be addressed
Certain areas need to be managed differently to protect local animal species
Educate the public on the issue of water pollution due to human waste.
Could also be conducted by EPA if they had more funds
Could decrease nonpoint source pollution if the public is more conscious of where their waste could end up
Conclusions
Although the Clean Water Act and its many amendments have been beneficial to the management of pollution in US waters, the Act has many deficits. The CWA is currently very broad in terms of what government and other institutions hold power to regulate water pollution. It also aims to correct all of the country’s water pollution without taking to account the different needs of specific regions due to distinctions in natural environment and human activity. The benefits of the CWA are positive and important but small in comparison with the growing levels of pollutant discharge. There need to be significant changes in the focus, delegation, and allocation of funds mandated under the Clean Water Act in order for the positive effects of water pollution regulation to be significant on the local and regional, let alone national or global level.
Bibliography
Boyd, James. “The New Face of the Clean Water Act: A Critical Review of the EPA’s Proposed
TMDL Rules.” Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 11.39 (2000): 39-87. Web.
James Boyd is a fellow of Resources for the Future. In this critical review, he analyzes both the outcomes of the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the amendment finalized in 2000 that called for “total maximum daily load” or TMDL regulations for water regulation. Although there was a decrease in water pollution after the initial Act was passed in 1972, there were still significant levels of pollution affecting the US. The main impact of the TMDL rules was on nonpoint source pollution, which is defined as pollution not from a specific source but a collection of pollutants from precipitated toxins, runoff, and other drainage. These regulations were effective because the collective daily restrictions ultimately decreased water pollution levels in certain areas overall. This review provides us with valuable information about how amendments to the Clean Water Act can impact pollution on both the local and national levels. It will be used to justify keeping the Act in effect while making further amendments, as we will outline in our policy brief.
Derraik, Jose GB. “The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review.” Marine
pollution bulletin 44.9 (2002): 842-852.
Jose GB Derraik is a researcher working under the University of Aukland in Aukland, New Zealand. Derraik has a phD in ecology, and he specializes in environmental health and conservation biology. In this research review, Derraik begins by documenting where the most plastics are dumped around the worlds’ oceans and beaches, noting that Cape Cod, USA has some of the highest proportions of plastic pollutants. Derraik then goes on to describe how these plastics are negatively affecting marine ecosystems. The plastics are a choking hazard to marine wildlife, and the plastics inhabit important gas exchanges in the ocean. He then goes on to discuss legislation involving plastic pollution, including Annex X from MARPOL. This article is very relevant and highly similar to other articles regarding plastic as an ocean pollutant. It conveys the same idea other articles in this genre convey; the idea that plastic negatively affects the ocean in multiple ways. This research was very useful because it had information relevant to how much American cities dump plastic into the ocean in comparison to other major cities. This is information I was unable to find in other research articles. This information will be used so that we can provide specific statistics on how plastic is harming wildlife and changing the marine ecosystem.
Federal Water Pollution Control Act. 33 USC § 1251 (2002). Web.
This is a relatively new version of what is colloquially known as the Clean Water Act. It deals with many federal concerns about water pollution. For example, one of its main mandates is that it puts the Environmental Protection Agency in an administrative position to carry out the goals of the act. It outlines its initial goals to rid of the discharge of harmful pollutants into national waters during the 1980s, and requires permits to produce toxins that could be discharged into water. The Act states that Congress is responsible for supporting research to help the eradication of pollutants in US waters and it gives Congress the authority to allocate funds to states and municipalities for pollution elimination purposes. Also, the Act states that the president will attempt to ensure that other countries do their part in the protection of international waters from toxins. This source is extremely integral to the research for our policy brief, as it is the main basis of current legislation regarding water pollution in the US. It is our starting point for the suggestions we will make to address our key issue, as our solution includes amendments to the Act. It gave is a better idea of the deficiencies of the Act, mainly the fact of how broadly it aims to make changes to the levels of pollution in US waters.
Gregory, Murray R. “Environmental implications of plastic debris in marine
settings—entanglement, ingestion, smothering, hangers-on, hitch-hiking and alien
invasions.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364.1526 (2009): 2013-2025.
Murray R. Gregory is a researcher under the School of Geography in the University of Aukland in Aukland, New Zealand. Gregory goes into detail about the specific problems that arise when marine wildlife comes into contact with plastic waste. He talks about the same problems the other articles talks about, ghost fishing, entanglement, ingestion, etc., but he goes into much more detail about each circumstance. Gregory also talks about a smothering, when the plastic sinks down to the ocean floor. Smothering is a significant problem because it can alter the ecosystem of the ocean and it can contaminate the habitats of the creatures living on the ocean floor. He also discusses the impact of beach clean up efforts. Although there was no new topics in this research, Gregory went into more detail than most researchers, so there was plenty of new information. He was a little sporadic in the way he presented the information, but nonetheless, it made sense at the end of the day. The statistics he used when talking about animal entanglement can be used in our policy brief and also Gregory’s discussion of smothering can be used in the brief.
Hoshaw, Lindsey. “Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash”. New York Times 10 Nov. 2009.
Greenrock.org. Web.
Lindsey Hoshaw is a journalist for the New York Times and an Online Content Producer for KQED Science in San Francisco. In order to learn and write about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, she spent a month living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to study the Patch in person. Hoshaw begins by briefly explaining the Pacific Garbage Patch – a large, swirling collection of human consumer waste that occupies a considerable portion of the Pacific Ocean. She defines a gyre as a key term, which oceanographers use to describe certain areas in which wind conditions cause trash to swirl in a whirlpool. Hoshaw discusses the risks of this specific patch, as well as other possibly undiscovered ones, in terms of a linked progression of detrimental effects. Plastic waste containing harmful toxins gets broken down into small pieces while swirling in gyres. These small pieces of floating plastic are then ingested by fish that feed on plankton, and these fish are caught and consumed by humans, who then ingest the harmful toxins from the fish. This article is useful to us as it provided fundamental knowledge on a rapidly growing issue regarding ocean pollution and outlined a cycle of risk that can be referenced in our brief. Also, Hoshaw referenced other, more qualified authorities on the subject of marine garbage patches, which lead us to further research results that can be used to form solutions to our key issue and justify the need for stricter regulation on ocean pollution.
Kershaw, Peter, et al. “Plastic debris in the ocean.” (2011).
Peter Kershaw is a Principal Research Scientist working under the Center for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. Kershaw co-authored this piece, which was published under the United Nations Environment Program. Kershaw begins the article by analyzing where our plastic goes, and how much of it ends up in the ocean. He then goes on to discuss how plastic is harmful to sea life, including birds and turtles, because they are at risk of ingesting the plastic or getting entangled in the plastic. He discusses the specific chemicals found in plastic that are known to be harmful to wildlife. Lastly, Kershaw discusses how plastic in the ocean is a costly clean up and it affects our fishing practices. He discusses current solutions and solutions to possibly implement in the future. Kershaw’s work is relevant to other works in this field because it reinstates the idea that the plastic is killing our ocean. We found this article especially helpful because it talked about plastic on a chemical level, and it talked about how these specific small chemicals can have such a large, negative impact. Although this article was a bit repetitive with its information, it was ultimately helpful and informative. This information will be used to justify how marine wildlife is negatively impacted and also how a suffering marine wildlife negatively affects human interactions.
Ryan, P. G., C. J. Moore, J. A. Van Franeker, and C. L. Moloney. “Monitoring the abundance of
plastic debris in the marine environment.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
B: Biological Sciences 364.1526 (2009): 1999-2012. Web.
This review comes from a Royal Society biological sciences journal, in an issue titled with the theme “Plastics, the environment and human health”. It was compiled by Peter G. Ryan, Charles J. Moore, Jan A. van Franeker, and Coleen L. Moloney, all researchers in the biological sciences who have conducted research on plastics in marine environments. The review first outlines some of the harmful effects of plastic debris. These range from visual displeasure, to marine animal injury, to human ingestion of toxins. Then the authors discuss the various ways in which they
monitor the accumulation and effects of plastic debris. These methods yield valuable information, but also require tools and resources, which come at a cost. We can use this information in our policy brief in order to weigh the pros and cons of our proposed solution. While the environmental impact of monitoring waste may be positive, we can utilize the statistics in this review to further analyze the economical impact.
Additional Citings:
“Marine Debris Laws.” Marine Defenders. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.
<http://www.marinedefenders.com/marinedebrisfacts/laws.php>.
Saikia, Nabajyoti, and Jorge de Brito. “Use of plastic waste as aggregate in cement mortar and
concrete preparation: A review.” Construction and Building Materials 34 (2012): 385-401.
Wabnitz, Colette, and Wallace J. Nichols. “Plastic pollution: an ocean emergency.” Marine Turtle
Newsletter 129 (2010): 1-4.