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The largest waterborne disease outbreak in history, the Milwaukee Disease Outbreak was a significant distribution of the chlorine-resistant Crypotsporidium parasite in water supplies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Howard Avenue Water Purification Plant, one of two water treatment
plants for Milwaukee, was contaminated, with treated water having unusually high turbidity. The exact source of the contamination is
unknown, making it non-point, but it is suspected to be due to runoff from pastures and even contaminated snowmelt & melting ice from Lake
Michigan.

Over the span of two weeks, nearly one third of the 1.6 residents in Milwaukee area contracted fever, diarrhea, stomach cramps, and dehydration caused by the pathogen. 69 people died, primarily the elderly and those with AIDS.

The immediate response for pollution cleanup was a renovation of facilities from 1993-1998 to strengthen the barriers related to source water.

Long-term effects include the Milwaukee Water Works designating $417 million to upgrading old and creating new infrastructure that will ensure high-quality water. The MWW also teamed up with the Milwaukee Heatlh
Department to create the Interagency Clean Water Advisory Council, which tracks and can respond to public health issues that are potentially related to water. Because of this and Milwaukee’s efforts, its water is some of the cleanest in the nation.

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Elk River Chemical Spill; January 9, 2014  

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Elk River Chemical Spill; January 9, 2014  

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This spill occurred when crude 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM) and PPH was released from a Freedom Industries Facility into the Elk River, a tributary of the Kanawha River in Charleston (in West Virginia). The spill occurred upstream from the principal West Virginia American Water intake treatment and distribution center. Following the spill, 300,000 residents w/in 9 counties in Charleston, West Virginia metropolitan area did not have access to safe drinking water. Freedom industries did not report the incident immediately ; DEP investigated their facility only after residents brought the (sweet) odor of the leak to their attention.

Crude MCHM is a chemical foam used to wash coal and remove impurities
that contribute to pollution during combustion.

By January 11, two days after the incident, 122 people were hospitalized for symptoms including nausea and vomiting. This number grew to 169 by January 12.

West Virginia American Water first attempted to filter the contaminated water via carbon filtration. However, this system was quickly overwhelmed by the
amount of water contamination, so the plant was forced to report the issue. Because the West Virginia American
Water did not know of a treatment to remove chemical from its system, it instead flushed miles of lines w/in its Charleston area water system and also added more carbon and other chemicals to speed up the treatment process and move the contaminated water out of its water distribution system. By the weekend of January 11-12, MCHM concentrations were back to a safe level.

Important to note that even
at its highest amount, the MCHM was very diluted by the amount of water in which it was contained and thus is not believed to have any effect on the aquatic environment, a suggestion supported by the lack of fish kills.

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Woburn, Massachusetts Water Contamination; around 1979  

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Woburn, Massachusetts Water Contamination; around 1979  

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Factories owned by 2 of America’s largest corporations—W.R. Grace & Co. and Beatrice Foods Co.— negligently disposed of industrial solvents,
including trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchlorethylene (PCE), onto their properties. This waste seeped into the underground water supply that fed into wells for the east side of Woburn, Massachusetts. Up until 1979, officials had repeatedly tested the water for organic pollutants and declared it clean. However, following a report that barrels containing polyurethane had been dumped upstream along the Aberjona, state environmental authorities finally conducted a
chemical analysis of the two wells (G and H) serving the east side and discovered the solvent pollution.

Because of the contamination, children got leukemia at rates 8X the national average. In particular, child leukemia rates were highest closest to the G and H wells. Additionally, many children
exhibited learning disabilities whilst residents were also assailed by liver disease and heart problems. Other ailments bombarding survivors include upper respiratory infections, cardiac arrhythmia, depression, nausea, chronic rhinitis, and skin rashes.

$21 million dollars was designated to the cleanup effort of the G
and H wells, but they remain contaminated even today.

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Though the 1969 fire was the most heavily covered incident, the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland, Ohio caught fire about 13 times, first in 1868, with the most damaging fire happening in 1952 (damages over $1.3 million) and the most fatal in 1912. Though the 1969 fire was neither fatal nor as costly in damages as prior fires, it did get the most publicity because the U.S. was becoming more eco-conscious.

The pollution in the river that lent it to flammability had many different sources, including discharge from the steel mills lining its banks and no regulation
in sewer and waste disposal. The 1969 fire was a result of a spark from a passing train that ignited the oily, black slick on the river.

The pollution of the river that allowed it to be flammable led to algal blooms and ultimately killed nearly everything in the river. However, after the uproar following the 1969 fire and its extensive coverage, Congress passed the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA) and thus established the EPA.
The EPA passed the Clean
Water Act, mandating improvement and leading the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District to invest over $3.5 billion towards purifying the river
and developing new sewer systems, with an estimated $5 billion to be used in future upkeep of the waste management systems. As a result, conditions improved.

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Pacific Gas & Electric Chromium Contamination

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Pacific Gas & Electric Chromium Contamination

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Pacific Gas & Electric Chromium Contamination 

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Pacific Gas & Electric Chromium Contamination 

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Between 1952-1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium (chromium 6) as a corrosion inhibitor in its cooling towers. The wastewater from the cooling towers was discharged to unlined ponds at the site. Some of this wastewater percolated to the groundwater, resulting in hexavalent chromium pollution.
The chromium affects an area of groundwater at least eight miles long and two miles wide. This is the same groundwater/aquifer that serves the residents.
The company knew about the contamination since at least 1965 and did nothing.
Finally, in 1987, PG& E officials informed the state of California of high levels of chromium-6 in underground water north of the discharge ponds. The levels were 10x greater than the limits established by CA’s 1977 regulation, but PG&E officials told citizens the water was safe for drinking and agriculture. PG&E also began to buy up properties affected by pollution.

Guided by Erin Brockovich, residents took PG&E to court; eventually they reached a settlement in which PG&E agreed to pay the plaintiffs a total of 333
million dollars, to end the use of chromium-6 in its cooling system, and to clean up the environment.

The contaminated plume kept growing, so PG&E’s
initial attempts to clean the groundwater were unsuccessful; so, instead it began buying up people’s houses in 2012 and destroying them to prevent
squatting. Cleanup was never really successful: samples taken in August 2010 showed that the plume of contaminated water had started to migrate into the lower aquifer. In 2013, the EPA reported that the plume has expanded to 6 miles long and 4 miles wide.

For cleanup, PG&E has built a concrete wall
barrier about a half mile long to contain the plume, pumped ethanol into the ground to convert chromium-6 into chromium-3, and planted acres of
alfalfa.

Chromium-6 can cause damage to several organs and different types of cancer (gastro-intestinal, lung cancer) and can modify human DNA, affecting
both present and future generations. In the 1990s, hundreds of Hinkley residents claimed illnesses and other damages caused by the contaminated water.

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From the 1940s to the 1950s, the Hooker Chemical Company had been dumping toxic industrial waste (chemical byproducts from dyes, perfumes, solvents for rubber & synthetic resins) into a landfill lined with supposedly impenetrable clay. Despite this, around 1954, the Niagara Falls School Board purchased land above this landfill to be developed into a school. During construction and development, workers substantially breached containment structures for the toxic waste in various ways and allowed previously contained chemicals to seep out. Even after rainwater from heavy rainstorms spread these chemicals out and the Board became aware of the issue, they continued construction and made even another school. The school district went on to sell the remaining land for development for homes, despite the Hooker Company's warnings. During construction for sewer beds, workers broke through the clay seal holding the toxic waste in the canal, so even more seeped out and was spread by rainwater.

Love Canal ultimately rested on 21,000 tons of toxic industrial waste. Eventually, this waste began to bubble up into backyards and cellars, contaminating residents. By 1978, they were forced to evacuate the area.

The pollution included many carcinogenic substances (especially benzene) and caused long-standing health issues like high white-blood cell count, birth defects, chromosomal damage, miscarriages, and leukemia. Voles in the area also had much shorter lifespans.

The crisis led to passage of the Superfund law, which designated extraordinary funds for toxic cleanup.

President Carter had trenches built to transport the wastes to sewers and had home sump pumps sealed off. The most toxic area was reburied with a thick plastic liner, clay, and dirt and has been fenced off.

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On August 5, 2015, EPA and Environmental Restoration LLC (a Missouri company under EPA contracted to mitigate pollutants from the closed mine) personnel accidentally destroyed the plug holding water trapped inside the Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colorado, causing an overflow of the pond and spilling 3 million U.S. gallons of mine waste water and tailings, including heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, and other toxic elements (arsenic, beryllium, zinc, iron, and copper), into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River in Colorado. As of August 11, 2015, acidic water continued to spill at a rate of 500-700 gallons per minute. The spill affected waterways of municipalities of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation. Nobody was notified of the spill until 24 hours after it occurred, a time in which people could have consumed contaminated water.

Effects:
The Animas River was closed to recreation until August 14. The contaminated river caused big problems for farmers and ranchers who relied on the river. Though the long-term impacts of the spill are uncertain (considering sedimentation will dilute the pollutants as the spill cloud moves downstream), the acid mine drainage did temporarily turn the river orange. Though there was no evidence of human injury of wildlife die-off in regions where the waste reached (Aztec, New Mexico; Farmington; San Juan River in NM; Shiprock of the Navajo Nation), the disaster did cause the heavy metal concentrations in neighboring regions to be 100x higher than federal limits, making that water unsuitable for domestic use.

To remediate the spill, the EPA built a $1.5 million water treatment plant to treat acid mine drainage. It began operation in October 2015, but the EPA did not work it at maximum capacity.

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From the 1950s to the 1980s, people living or working on the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp in Lejeune, North Carolina, were potentially exposed to drinking water chemically contaminated with industrial solvents, benzene, VOCs, and other chemicals. Possible sources of the contamination include solvents from a nearby, off-base dry cleaning company, on-base units using chemicals to clean military equipment, fuel leaked from the base fuel farm, and leaks from underground fuel storage tanks.

Important to note is that Grainger Laboratories, a private company, tested the waters in 1982 and informed base officials of the contaminated water. Even after Grainger repeated themselves 3 more times about the issue, Leujene officials still said they had no environmental problems in a 1983 report to the EPA.

Ingesting and bathing in the contaminated water greatly increased the victims' liability to liver cancer, kidney cancer, leukemia, miscarriages, birth defects, and ALS. An undetermined number of residents did contract cancers and other ailments later on and blamed the illnesses on the contaminated water.

The water was never really cleaned up; instead, the water treatment plants in the base were shut down.

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On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez Oil Tanker, steered by an unlicensed third mate, struck the Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, causing its single hull to rupture and ultimately release 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. Before the Deepwater Horizon Spill, this was the largest oil spill in history.

Because initial cleanup attempts failed, the oil spill ultimately caused an oil slick that covered 1,300 miles of coastline. Even 30 years later, pockets of crude oil persist in some areas: as late as 2001, more than half of the 91 beaches tested are still contaminated.
The oil spill led to the deaths of 250,000 seabirds, 3000 otters, 300 seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 killer whales. Otter, whale, and herring populations still have not rebounded.
The spill also caused the collapse of salmon and herring fisheries in Prince William Sound in the early 1990s, bankrupting fishermen and damaging the economies of small towns like Valdez and Cordova. The total economic loss of the Exxon Valdez spill is somewhere around $2.8 billion.

cleanup efforts for the spill included skimming oil from the surface, spraying the water with chemical dispersants, washing oiled beaches with hot water (a method effective in removing oil but which damaged the environment), and manually cleaning animals trapped in oil.

After this spill, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act, which imposed a double-hull regulation on oil tankers and which raised fines for those responsible for spills.

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The Deepwater Horizon (BP) Spill occurred on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, about 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana. When a surge of natural gas ripped through the rig's weak concrete core and surged up to the platform, it ignited and caused an explosion, killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The explosion also caused a pipe almost 1 mile beneath the surface of the water to rupture. The ultimate result was that crude oil leaked into the Gulf at a rate of more than 60,000 barrels a day, totaling 206 million gallons of leaked oil from the time when the pipe ruptured to when it was finally sealed in August of 2010.

The leaked oil caused a slick over thousands of square miles large to form on the Gulf of Mexico. Furthermore, the oil contaminated Louisiana beaches, marshes, and estuaries. Oil and tar balls also hit land on beaches of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. In total, 1100 miles of shoreline were polluted.

The National Response Team, which was supervised by the EPA and U.S. Coast Guard, headed cleanup. This cleanup entailed pumping over 1.8 million gallons of dispersants into the water, using booms to contain oil that was then vacuumed or burned, and manually cleaning beaches.