This week the New York Timesfeatures a “retro report” on Love Canal, one of the most infamous environmental disasters in US history and the incident that spurred the creation of the EPA’s Superfund program.
Far from a closed book, the legacy and implications of Love Canal are still playing out. Of great significance in the history of the American environmental justice movement, Love Canal also demonstrates the difficulty and complexity involved in scientifically assessing the health impacts of environmental toxins on a relatively small population.
The above map is one of the many images collected in the online resource, Lessons of Love Canal, developed in 2003 by the Boston University School of Public Health. As noted in the site’s introduction:
Many community groups around the U.S. request health studies to examine associations between environmental contamination and perceived health problems. Love Canal and other community battles have taught us that how studies are conducted and by whom is crucial to deriving useful and credible information. At the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), we push for community concerns and insights to be part of the study process from the beginning to the end.
Some Love Canal studies have become models for the way we do community environmental health studies today. We hope this collection of lessons learned over three decades of controversy at Love Canal represents initial steps toward building a resource for future community-based studies.
Last Thursday the Illinois EPA held a contentious public meeting on Chicago’s SE Side to hear residents’ concerns and complaints about the massive piles of petcoke — a waste by-product of tar sands oil refining done in nearby Whiting, IN — being accumulated along the industrialized banks of the Calumet River, in close proximity to the East Side and Deering neighborhoods of Chicago.
A Chicago community meeting the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) hosted to discuss a proposed construction permit for KCBX Terminals Company quickly escalated into angry shouting from Southeast Side residents fed up with the firm storing large piles of petroleum coke, or petcoke, near their homes.
KCBX, which is controlled by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, stockpiles the petcoke, a byproduct of oil refining, along the Calumet River on Chicago’s far Southeast side. The thick, powdery petcoke is sent to KCBX from a BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana. East Side and South Deering residents have been sounding the alarm for some time now that petcoke dust is blowing into their neighborhoods and getting into their homes.
“No one asked us if we wanted to have these piles dumped in the first place. They just did it,” Southeast Side resident Sue Garza told the IEPA officials at the packed two-hour meeting, held at the East Side United Methodist Church. “We have been the toxic dumping ground here for over 100 years. We don’t want it anymore.”
Brad Frost with IEPA’s office of community relations said KCBX is seeking a revised construction permit from the agency in order to bring new equipment, including 10 portable conveyors, a stacking conveyor and a portable hopper, to its site at 10730 S. Burley Ave. According to Frost, the company is not looking to increase its input or emissions.
“They can’t handle their [petcoke] dust now,” resident Guillermo Rodriguez fired back. “How is it not going to increase?”
Residents grew frustrated with IEPA officials, pointing out that the community is against the company’s activities and noted that issuing such a permit would allow for its site expansion.
“It is very simple,” said community member Martin Morales. “We don’t like it. We don’t want it. (Petcoke pollution is) making us sick. What else do you need?”
One person later shouted, “Move the piles! Who cares about the conveyors?” Another said, “If you’re the protection agency, protect us!”
“How many people have to get sick before you do something,” asked resident Ken Keefer. “Is there a certain number that have to come down with asthma or cancer before you do something? This has been going on for two, three years. And this is the first time you guys have shown up.”
Frost said the IEPA would take into account the comments made at the meeting, but noted that the IEPA has received very few formal, written complaints about specific issues involving the site.
One man fired back, “We can’t even open our windows because of the soot.” Later, the audience began to chant, “Move the piles!”
“Answer the question. When are you going to move the piles,” a gentleman asked the officials, which promoted another person to exclaim, “When we’re all dead!”
“Obviously there a lot of people here concerned about the facility,” Frost stressed. “We need to see [formal] complaints. That’s one thing we use to determine whether there are problems at sites.”
Frost did make a point, however, to stress that even though the agency has received few formal complaints, the IEPA is pursing enforcement against the company.
Earlier this month, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit on behalf of IEPA against KCBX over alleged air pollution violations. In a statement, Madigan said the toxic mounds at KCBX’s storage site “are growing by the day without the appropriate protections to ensure nearby residents’ health and safety.”
Chicago residents from the far South Side protest the siting of petcoke waste along the Calumet River at an IEPA public meeting on Th 14 Nov 2013 (photo: Progress Illinois)
Community members asked lawyers from the attorney general’s office, who attended the meeting, what else could be done to more quickly shut down the facilities and get rid of the petcoke mounds. The officials stressed that the current case is pending, and it has to go through a formal legal process.
Additionally, a group of Southeast Side families filed a lawsuit at the end of October against KCBX and a few other companies that store petcoke. The lawsuit came on the heels of notices of air pollution violations the IEPA recently issued to Beemsterboer Slag Co., which also stockpiles the coal-like waste product along the Calumet River.
BP is in the process of modernizing its Whiting refinery and plans to to boost the amount of petcoke it produces at the facility to 2.2 million tons of a year.
Tom Shepherd with the Southeast Environmental Task Force told the crowd that the current issues the community is experiencing is only “the tip of the iceberg.”
“There’s going to be at least three times more than is over there today,” he said. “Today we’re getting 700,000 tons a year, but once that coker goes online, it’s going to increase to 2 million tons a year. That’s 6,000 tons a day.”
“Imagine how many trucks, barges and trainloads are going to be coming through our neighborhood,” Shepherd continued. “If they’re getting a permit for 10 additional conveyors over there, that means that they’re going to increase ten-fold, but we heard three-fold. That’s scary enough.”
The audience really got peeved when they learned the IEPA has to make a decision regarding KCBX’s permit next week. IEPA officials wouldn’t say whether they would be extending the review period for the permit, approving the permit or denying it.
“You’re here a week before,” Rodriguez later asked. “Where were you when this all started, when this began? Where were you then? Who’s protecting our water source? They’re pumping water out of that lake and they’re spraying their piles. That runoff goes where? It goes into our streets. It goes into our drinking water. If you think this is a good idea, let’s put it in your backyard.”
Residents called on Ald. John Pope (10th), who attended the meeting, to speak, but then heckled and interrupted him. Pope made a point to stress that he has been working with elected officials at the local, state and federal levels to see what can else be done about the piles.
“As much as we all are passionate about the problems, there’s got to be a formal process, and it starts unfortunately with the complaints,” he added. “I know everyone’s complained in the past, but there’s got to be formal complaints lodged.”
Chicago likes to tout itself as a green city on the rise; just take a look at its official Environment and Sustainability webpage, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel states the laudable goal of making it the “greenest city in the world.” That would make me and a lot of other people happy.
Photo by Pat O’Neil (Chicago Reader)
But as my friend, co-author, and former Roosevelt University colleague Carl Zimring explains in this recent blog essay, Chicago’s efforts at establishing a bona fide city-wide recycling program continue to fall short, thus creating a class situation of the haves (those who receive blue bin pick-up service) and the have-nots (those who live in multi-family dwellings who don’t have access, yet, to this service). I lived in apartment buildings in Chicago for almost ten years between 1996 and 2005, and had to collect my own recyclables and drive them to a drop-off station elsewhere on the North Side from my Rogers Park neighborhood, thus burning time and gas in the process. (Sometimes, I admit, I would cross into Evanston in order to use their West Side facility, which was closer to me.)
Eight years later, the hundreds of thousands of Chicago residents who live in apartment buildings throughout the city do not yet have dependable, basic recycling services, unless the building owner provides it through a private contractor. There is no enforcement of this guideline, as far as I know. Read Zimring’s post to learn more.
Today’s Mike Nowak Show on WCPT features a segment about the petcoke controversy in the Calumet Region of Chicago’s far South Side. This waste by-product from the refining of oil from the tar sands of Canada has been piling up along the banks of the Calumet River by Koch Industries, on behalf of BP, which operates a refinery across the state line in Whiting, IN. As noted below, the piles give off clouds of dust in windy conditions, which then disperse among the adjacent neighborhoods — communities that have endured decades of environmental hazards and industrial degradations from steel plants, fuel refineries, landfills, and illegal waste dumps.
I’m reproducing Nowak’s written preview of his radio show here, because (just as he does for his radio show every week) it maps out many of the twists and turns of this emerging storyline, plus provides numerous links to news and environmental resources.
Pet coke piles along the Calumet River: Did they come from Detroit?
Dear Friends in the Clean Power Coalition and All Others,
Thank you to those in the coalition and others that have joined the Southeast Environmental Task Force in coming to the table to try to find a solution to the petcoke problem that has been developing on the southeast side. The petcoke is a by-product (or waste product, if you will) of the tar sands that are being pipelined and shipped in other ways to the British Petroleum refinery in Whiting, Indiana (just over the state line from Chicago) for processing.
Much has happened in the weeks since we met to discuss this urgent problem:
We have conducted two tours for legislators and staffers of public officials; met with Koch Bros. / KCBX company officials; have been out on the Calumet River twice doing inspections and video shoots; given a host of interviews; have been fielding numerous calls and complaints; prompted investigations by the USEPA and Illinois Atty. General; and are planning a community meeting on Oct. 24 to raise awareness and to educate neighbors nearest to the huge, black piles of dusty petcoke that are most affected by it.
You would think that a part of Chicago that has suffered so much environmental degradation would at some point catch a break.
You would be wrong.
With the shuttering of three coal fired power plants in the area–the State Line, along the border of Illinois and Indiana, as well as the Fisk and Crawford plants in Chicago–the need for coal and accompanying storage facilties in which to keep it has dropped dramaticaly.
Mounds of petcoke on barges (Photo: Josh Mogerman)
BP Whiting is now the second biggest producer of petcoke amongst American refineries. They will be spitting out 6,000 tons of the stuff a day ; more than 2 million tons annually.
Unfortunately, petcoke has a nasty habit of becoming wind-borne and ending up on people’s counter tops, windsills and in their eyes and lungs. And BP is now moving vast amounts of this substance across the state line to Chicago to holding areas on the banks of the Calumet River. Why? Because the environmental regulations aren’t as strict here. Which is ironic, considering that just last year BP agreed to a $400 million settlement with state and federal agencies as well as environmental and community groups over air quality standards around the Whiting facility.
At least this time, the threat to Chicago’s southeast side is being reported by some of the local media, including the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Tonight on WTTW. After being alerted by SETF, NRDC produced its own video of the rising piles of petcoke along the Calumet.
That’s where the headline at the top of this story comes from. The SETF’s Tom Shepherd says that he has asked the companies storing the petcoke in Chicago exactly where it came from and how it got there so quickly. But he has not received a straight answer. Is it possible that Chicago is now storing the petcoke that was ordered out of Detroit?
Detroit’s pet coke piles were produced by Marathon Refinery but owned by Koch Carbon, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. In Chicago they are owned by KCBX, an affiliate of Koch Carbon, which has large parcels of land along the Calumet River and, according to Midwest Energy News, expanded its presence in the area last year.
As you can see, the common denominator is Koch Industries. From an article on Daily Kos:
Because it’s a waste product of oil refining the Kochs sell it for prices cheaper than coal to poor nations willing the accept pollution as a trade off for cheap energy. Petcoke is the carbon cost ignored in the State department analysis that falsely claimed that Keystone XL tar sands oil will not significantly increase greenhouse gas pollution compared with conventional oil.
Petcoke protestors in Chicago (photo: J. Mogerman)
Which leads some people to refer to the substance as “petkoch.” The other connections, as noted above, are issues like the transportation of tar sands oil, the Keystone XL Pipeline, and recent tar sands oil spills like the one near Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 2010. Three years later, tar balls can still be found along the banks of that river, and dozens of families have been permanently displace.
set up a blockade of Enbridge Inc.’s expansion of tar sands pipeline 6b. This pipe- the same that ruptured in 2010 causing the largest and costliest inland oil spill in history- is currently under construction to increase the flow of tar sands from 240,000 barrels per day to 500,000 barrels per day.
It never ends, does it.
To address this very serious environmental issue, I’m pleased to have Tom Shepherd from SETF in studio. Joining us via phone are Chris Wahmhoff of Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS) and Stephen Boyle from DCATS. By the way, Boyle points out that the Calumet River is currently the subject of remediation efforts by the U.S. EPA:
The 1.8-mile stretch of the river from Indianapolis Boulevard to Hohman Avenue is currently undergoing projects designed to remove contaminants and restore habitat. 350,000 cubic yards of sediment are slated to be removed and a cap will be placed over the dredged sediment. Wetlands and nearshore habitats will be restored with native plants following the completion of the dredging, expected in 2016.
Gosh, I can’t imagine that tons and tons of petcoke could possible affect that planned restoration.
In the spring of 2012, my essay “Unearthing Urban Nature,” an analysis of scientist-writer Loren Eiseley’s investigations and representations of urban and suburban landscapes, was published in the critical anthology Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley, edited by Tom Lynch and Susan Maher (University of Nebraska Press).
Loren Eiseley (1907–77) is one of the most important American nature writers of the twentieth century and an admired practitioner of creative nonfiction. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Eiseley was a professor of anthropology and a prolific writer and poet who worked to bring an understanding of science to the general public, incorporating religion, philosophy, and science into his explorations of the human mind and the passage of time.
As a writer who bridged the sciences and the humanities, Eiseley is a challenge for scholars locked into rigid disciplinary boundaries. Artifacts and Illuminations, the first full-length collection of critical essays on the writing of Eiseley, situates his work in the genres of creative nonfiction and nature writing. The contributing scholars apply a variety of critical approaches, including ecocriticism and place-oriented studies ranging across prairie, urban, and international contexts. Contributors explore such diverse topics as Eiseley’s use of anthropomorphism and Jungian concepts and examine how his work was informed by synecdoche. Long overdue, this collection demonstrates Eiseley’s continuing relevance as both a skilled literary craftsman and a profound thinker about the human place in the natural world. (from the book’s website)
As Labor Day recedes sadly into the distance and we come to grips with the fact that, yes, another school year has officially begun, I can’t help reflecting on the pervasive and damaging myth within American educational culture that junior high is a terrible place to be —something to be survived, not enjoyed.
Sure, the sheer size of a big junior high school is intimidating at first. Yes, there are bullies, and they hit harder than they did in grade school. And there’s no doubt that adolescents can be obnoxious and hurtful, especially when it comes to teasing and tormenting their weaker, geekier, or more awkward peers.
But junior high also can be a place for kids to have fun, to mature into their new minds and bodies, to make new friends, and to relish that time of innocence before the reality of working a part-time job or sweating over college applications. Junior high is, in fact, the last sweet time of true childhood — a realization that occurs to me now as a middle-aged parent.
I suppose that my rosy view of junior high is somewhat colored by my own mostly positive experiences growing up in Joliet, where I attended Hufford several, um, decades ago. As a short kid who wore goofy-looking glasses, favored brown corduroys, sported hair that refused to “feather” properly by late 1970s standards, and was universally known as a bookworm, the odds of my fitting in and avoiding physical trauma weren’t exactly favorable. So how was it that I actually enjoyed my junior high school years, let alone survived them with all of my teeth intact?
Here’s the secret.
Early on in sixth grade, I joined the school’s long established and much-ballyhooed Drama Club, which convened during school hours just like band, orchestra, or choir. Every day thereafter, I lived for tenth period, when our teachers Jack Prendergast and John Nordmark brought us into what to me seemed like an entirely different and wonderful place: the World of the Stage.
Sixth through eighth graders worked, learned, and joked together in this alternate world. We practiced monologues and scenes; competed in speech contest every fall; tried to one-up each other at every audition; and put on a fall play and a full-blown spring musical each school year. In the process, we honed our oratory and acting skills and . . . perhaps most importantly . . . learned how to mount the stage with confidence, take risks, and deal with failure.
To this day, I have had few tests of personal courage that matched that of having to kiss the leading lady in our Spring 1981 production of “Bye, Bye, Birdie” in my eighth grade year, while 400 screeching and hooting adolescents raised the roof of Hufford’s auditorium in hormone-fueled delight at the spectacle.
So here is my advice to all the junior high schoolers out there, assuming you’re precocious readers of this blog:
(1) Join something. Band, orchestra, choir, drama, scholastic bowl, chess club, basketball, volleyball, cross country — whatever it is, try it out and see if it suits you. This is a good way to make some friends outside of the hot lunch line.
(2) Be yourself. Just because you join a group doesn’t mean you have to become a sheep. Hey, America is all about celebrating the individual! So I say, go gonzo with that Mohawk.
(3) Don’t take any crap from bullies. Even if you’re small. Remember, little guys are dangerous, especially if they’re smart enough to make big/older friends. (See #1 above.)
(4) Enjoy your time there. I’m sad to report it’ll be over in a blink of the eye. And when you get old like me, you just might miss it.
I am a 1981 graduate of Hufford Junior High School, where I first learned to diagram a sentence, bake a cake, operate a jig saw, draft designs for a building, give a speech, solve algebra equations, and square dance. A version of this essay will appear on 15 Sept 2013 as my regular op-ed column intheJoliet Herald-News.
I’m extremely gratified to see the launch of the Roosevelt Sustainability Initiative’s new Green Campus website, which was unveiled on August 1st. Not only does it do an admirable job detailing the university’s recent awards and accomplishments on making its operations and curriculum more sustainable, but also it features a terrific section on learning about sustainability that will be great use as a teaching and public education tool.
The lion’s share of credit for this website goes to SUST undergrad MaryBeth Radeck, who is an Environmental Sustainability Associate at RU working under the leadership of our university’s sustainability guru, Paul Matthews, in Planning and Operations. MaryBeth is a talented writer, marketer, and researcher who has over two decades of professional experience. She’s currently working on her BPS in Sustainability Studies, is an occasional contributor to the SUST at RU Blog, and on a part-time work-study basis coordinates the Schaumburg Campus’ sustainability initiatives.
Great job, MaryBeth! And special kudos to RU web designer Vickie Bertini, who worked closely with MaryBeth on the website’s format and development.
Here’s an essay on the subject of the humanities — their current state in our culture, and their value to us as a subject of study and means of understanding the world — by one of my favorite essayists, Veryln Klinkenborg. Published on 22 June 2013 (my birthday), it’s a thoughtful reflection on the perceived decline of the humanities in our technology- and consumption-obsessed society, and why good writing and clear thinking still matter greatly.
Klinkenborg, who for a long time wrote weekly op-ed pieces for the New York Times entitled “The Rural Life” — short little impressionistic essays, the form and style of which I greatly admire — inspired some thoughtful letters in response to his June 22nd essay. As someone who has long taught a general education undergraduate seminar in the humanities to adult students at Roosevelt University, I recognize the value infusing all subjects of study — from business to science to hospitality management — with the insights, skills, and analysis nurtured within the humanities, broadly conceived.
Question: What do the northeastern Illinois communities of Arlington Heights, Batavia, Chicago, Downers Grove, Evanston, Hoffman Estates, Naperville, Northbrook, Oak Park, Plainfield, and St. Charles have in common with Cincinnati, OH; Nashville, TN; Pittsburgh, PA; Sioux City, IA; and Topeka, KS?
Answer: All of them allow city residents to keep backyard chickens for egg production.
Here in Joliet, there’s a grassroots movement aflutter to legalize residential chicken-keeping, a plucky proposal I enthusiastically support.
The virtues of city and suburban backyard hens are many and various. As noted by the local advocacy organization J-Hens (Joliet Healthy Eggs in Neighborhoods), urban chickens:
provide fresh and nutritious eggs that are far superior to most purchased in supermarkets (I know; I’ve tasted ’em);
recycle food waste by consuming kitchen scraps and producing valuable compost for gardens;
are fun family pets that provide our technology-distracted children with animal companionship, healthy outdoor activity, and instructive caretaking chores.
To be sure, uninformed naysayers wrongly assume that backyard chickens are dirty, noisy, and detrimental to local property values. I do know many so-called humans who fit such a description, and I bet you do, too. But not our dirt-scratching, bug-eating feathered friends. (Yes, folks — chickens love to eat bugs. What’s not to like about that?)
Let’s start with the property value myth. First of all, the irresponsible wrongdoings of many American financial institutions have wreaked exponentially more havoc upon the local housing economy the last five years than anything a few little hens down the alley could ever do.
Secondly, just look again at the list of cities above: does anyone really believe that the affluent communities of Arlington Heights, Evanston, Naperville, and the regulation-obsessed Oak Park — all cities with far higher average home values than Joliet — would’ve approved their backyard hen ordinances if property values were truly at risk? I rest my case.
What about the chicken poop? you ask. Won’t it be stinky? Of course it will — IF YOU DON’T CLEAN IT UP. Again, let’s get real. Our present-day urban landscape is constantly bombarded with doggy doo-doo from the tens of thousands of dogs slobbering along in our midst and treating our lawns and parkways as their personal bathrooms. These putrescent pooch piles are large, stinky, and messy — I know because I’ve cleaned a lot of them up in my 45 years. But do we outlaw the keeping of dogs as household/backyard pets because of their daily defecations? No — we simply expect their owners to deal with the waste properly.
Don’t you wish?
And as for alleged noise problems: we’re not talking roosters here. Hens are quiet and unaggressive compared to those preening and caterwauling males of the species, not to mention yappy canines and loudmouth people. (You know who you are.)
If Joliet really wants to deal with urban noise issues, I suggest the Council turn its attention to the bass-thumping car stereos that rattle my teeth and jiggle my liver as I sit in my vehicle waiting for the stoplight to change. How about an ordinance against those aural abominations?
More backyard chickens. Less liver-jiggling noise pollution. Now that would be progress!
I encourage all forms of urban gardening and farming, especially in my hometown, and recommend the J-Hens website to readers near and far. I also love doggies and my fellow man, contrary to what this article might imply. A version of this essay appears in the 5 June 2013 edition of the Joliet Herald-News as the creatively-titled “Backyard Chickens in Joliet.”
As thousands of college students graduate this month, including our students here at Roosevelt, many are concerned how they will fare in the current job market. And that market continues to be challenging as we slowly recover from the Great Recession of 2008-2010.
Recent news, however, show that the economy is adding new jobs (albeit not quite at the rate one would like to see this far into the economic recovery; and this 5 May 2013 report from the New York Times illustrates how much better off college graduates are in terms of employment levels than those who have some college but no degree, or no college at all. For workers without a high school diploma, employment prospects are very tough indeed, unlike in decades past when the US economy sported an abundance of unskilled labor positions. As the news article notes:
The unemployment rate for college graduates in April was a mere 3.9 percent, compared with 7.5 percent for the work force as a whole, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. Even when the jobless rate for college graduates was at its very worst in this business cycle, in November 2010, it was still just 5.1 percent. That is close to the jobless rate the rest of the work force experiences when the economy is good.
Among all segments of workers sorted by educational attainment, college graduates are the only group that has more people employed today than when the recession started.
The number of college-educated workers with jobs has risen by 9.1 percent since the beginning of the recession. Those with a high school diploma and no further education are practically a mirror image, with employment down 9 percent on net. For workers without even a high school diploma, employment levels have fallen 14.1 percent.
The news is not all good here, as the article raises an important point about what sort of jobs college grads have been taking.
But just because college graduates have jobs does not mean they all have “good” jobs.
There is ample evidence that employers are hiring college-educated workers for jobs that do not actually require college-level skills — positions like receptionists, file clerks, waitresses, car rental agents and so on.
“High-skilled people can take the jobs of middle-skilled people, and middle-skilled people can take jobs of low-skilled people,” said Justin Wolfers, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. “And low-skilled people are out of luck.”
In some cases, employers are specifically requiring four-year degrees for jobs that previously did not need them, since companies realize that in a relatively poor job market college graduates will be willing to take whatever they can find.
Does this mean that the cost a four-year college degree is not a good investment anymore? Decidedly not, whether one takes the short-view (immediate employment prospects in a difficult job market) or the long-view (return on investment over one’s lifetime). College grads have a marked advantage either way. As the article continues to note:
The median weekly earnings of college-educated, full-time workers — like those for their counterparts with less education — have dipped in recent years. In 2012, the weekly median was $1,141, compared with $1,163 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation. The premium they earn for having that college degree is still high, though.
In 2012, the typical full-time worker with a bachelor’s degree earned 79 percent more than a similar full-time worker with no more than a high school diploma. For comparison, 20 years earlier the premium was 73 percent, and 30 years earlier it was 48 percent.
And since a higher percentage of college graduates than high school graduates are employed in full-time work, these figures actually understate the increase in the total earnings premium from college completion, said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent research organization.
So, despite the painful upfront cost, the return on investment on a college degree remains high. An analysis from the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington estimated that the benefits of a four-year college degree were equivalent to an investment that returns 15.2 percent a year, even after factoring in the earnings students forgo while in school.
Today’s graduates will need to aggressively and strategically seek employment opportunities, to be sure; and they may have to settle for a less-than-optimal job or internship the first time around. But they’re still in a far better position than their less-educated peers to get gainful employment in their area of expertise, especially as the economy continues to recover.
This week the New York Times features a “retro report” on Love Canal, one of the most infamous environmental disasters in US history and the incident that spurred the creation of the EPA’s Superfund program.
