Protecting the environment is not a priority of Memphis government but we are on the right track
- Sonsoles Martín Rodríguez
- Aug 23, 2022
- 7 min read
May 1, 2022
One of the most significant concerns for countries for years has been the protection of the ecosystem. Our economic development has been strongly linked to industry and, therefore, to emissions into the environment. For the world leaders, it is not easy to combine economic growth with applying measures that protect our world.
Tioga Environmental Consultants are an environmental consulting firm. Their company split up into three major areas: indoors, outdoors, and underground.
Indoors is industrial compliance, getting ahead of the issues on the front end. They help manufacturing companies of those products that can be harmful to the environment (such as batteries, cars) and ensure that the company keeps everything in compliance with EPA and state guidelines.
Then they have an outdoor area that deals with wetland conservation and natural resources. For example, if a person wants to buy a piece of land, they make sure that no protected areas are around. When it rains, anything that's stored outside of material trash, a hazardous waste product, will wash off with the rain, and it's going to wind up in the stream. They also do assessments to go out and make sure that none of that material that's washing off of these industrial facilities is getting into the environment. It's called stormwater sampling, and you can only do it in the rain.
And the third area is underground. This one is handled by Luke Hall, a geologist at Tioga Environment. Hall comes in after those first two steps when those fail, and the stuff gets into the environment. "I go where there's been a release of hazardous materials, and I determine how much is there is it potentially a risk to human health or ecological health, and then I clean it up," he said.
Hall said there are several reasons why we should protect the environment. One of them is mesothelioma, a particular type of lung cancer that is, according to Hall, 100% caused by asbestos. "You can deny climate change all you want and that kind of stuff. You can't deny the impact to human health of exposure to hazardous materials, especially if you're one of the people you know is dying of cancer because you were exposed to it," he said. It was the same as what happened in Michigan, where they had a lead in their drinking water, and thousands of people got sick. It's an obvious problem that Hall said can't be discussed.
In Memphis, the government has implemented many measures to protect the environment. The city has comprehensive stormwater regulations which limit what can be discharged into the waterways around the city. The Shelby County Health Department controls any construction, demolition, or renovation materials. The HUD, the Housing and Urban Development, has many procedures that deal with lead-based anything, from lead-based paint to ensure the properties that will develop low-income housing or not environmental issues. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation runs programs that property owners can enter to clean up the properties if there is an ecological release.
Hall believes more could be done, but we are taking good steps. "There are always bad actors, and there are people, just straight-up criminals who don't care about the regulations and will do what they want to do. But there are some excellent programs in place that help protect the environment in the area," he said.
Comparing the Memphis environment, he believes it is "probably reasonably the same as most other large metropolitan or urban areas in the south." Hall believes that whenever you get a large number of people together in one place, there will be environmental impacts due to cars and factories, and the air quality will be much worse than in rural areas.
In addition to government measures, people at home can also take action. Conserve power, recycle as much as they can, try to minimize the waste by composting, use the bike instead of the car... all of these, although they are measures that help, Hall said that it is not something that is going to put a dent in the overall issues of environmental releases and climate change.
"The reality of the situation is that there are probably 100 companies responsible for 90% of the pollution on the planet. Massive conglomerates that create energy or oil production, things of that nature, are the main contaminations," he said.
For Hall, the best thing people can do is come together as a community and designate areas within urban centers like Overton Park, protecting places like that from big industries.
"What we need to do is as a civilization is get together and force our politicians through voting and activism and things of that nature that these massive corporate polluters need curbs on them, that it's not as much an individual's responsibility to prevent climate change," Hall believes.
He said that the government, the EPA, had done a considerable amount of work preventing the type of releases and the type of unregulated industrial activities before the creation of the EPA. "There are stories about the river in Cleveland, like the actual entire river catching on fire because there was so much crap in it."
He also said that protecting the environment brings economic benefits, not losses. The actual actions they need to do to protect the environment are creating jobs. "Really anybody that argues that it is bad for the economy is really arguing that a couple of people don't want to lose, you know, 5% off of their bottom line over the course of a year," he said.
He believes that economic progress is possible by combining human desires and nature. "I don't really get along well with people that say there should be zero contamination ever. That's not possible. However, it can be done responsibly, and those impacts can be absolutely minimized. I'm a very, very strong believer that wilderness areas and urban areas should be completely and totally settled. I discouraged the idea of drilling for natural gas and oil and protected national parks and wildlife areas. We don't need to do that. We have all the solutions in front of us to make a much cleaner and better world. But people don't want to take a cut on their paycheck, pure and simple," said Hall.
He is totally in favor of technology. He believes that it is a great ally, that it is creating new packaging materials, so we don't have to use plastic. Agreeing between countries to protect our world is very complicated, and Hall believes that it is a question of money. "I think that we as a species are extraordinarily crafty and very, very good at fixing problems. Things will have to get a whole lot worse, and people will have to be much more intimately affected by the negative impacts of hazardous materials, pollution, and climate change before we as a civilization say enough," he said.
One of the city departments that work for the greatest to protect the environment in Memphis is City Beautiful.
"We work to empower and inspire the citizens of Memphis to take greater personal responsibility for improving our community through litter prevention, waste reduction, recycling, and beautification," said Adriane Hall, program coordinator. Their most prominent three core words are clean, green, and beautiful.
Adriane Hall explained that they are really focused on litter. "It's increased instances of violent crime and drug use in a neighborhood where litter is prevalent," she said. Once the streets are clean, Hall noted the peace would be much more enjoyable.
Hall is convinced that if everyone took care of their home and neighborhood, 90% of littler problems would be solved. "We can organize safety support from the police so that if they're cleaning up a street with a lot of traffic, we can make sure they're safe. We can arrange for our bags to be picked up. And most importantly, we can loan out tools," she said.
She believes that the city is working very hard, and complementing what Luke Hall said, she said the mayor created the Public Service Corps, which is a group of dedicated part-time individuals who go out and clean the city on a weekly or monthly basis in heavily littered areas like Germantown Parkway. She explained they also have been working with TDOT, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, because many people, especially the government, have noticed how littered the roadways are. "Starting in May, they've got a new litter contract. They're doing increased street sweeping, and they've hired a contractor to do some more big debris pickup," said Adriane Hall.
She believes that many cities have problems with the environment. Memphis is one of them. "Right now, the city has a campaign called I Want to Keep It Clean. We want to encourage people to work together, so we can compete with some of the cities that are cleaner than us."
Hall thinks that it is a problem that can affect us in a few years. "The problem is that people don't see a direct effect on their life," she said, "so I think the hard thing is that people don't want to spend money on the problem because they don't know how it's going to affect them directly."
Like Luke Hall, she believes in human progress and the maintenance of nature. She thinks that there are energies such as solar energy, which have not been explored enough, and that they could help in the future.
Although she said that helping from home is very important for issues like litter, she agrees that big companies are the most responsible for the environment. One reason is that they're the ones in control of the packaging. "It's very important for manufacturers to get out of their old habits and create something more sustainable," she said.
Although covid helped to have bluer skies, cleaner seas, and dolphins coming back into bays where they hadn't been seen for years, Adriane Hall also said that the use of masks, gloves… had a negative impact. "There were about 5 million pieces of PPE that was littered on the ground just during 2020 in the US," she said.
She believes that despite seeing how the world improved in just a few months without human activity, we failed to appreciate it because "as soon as we were back out, we were throwing all of our stuff."
We also speak with Jalyssa Smith, a sophomore from New York at the University of Memphis. She lives in one of the dorms on campus, and while she doesn't recycle in Memphis, she claims to do it at home. "When I'm there, it's much more complicated because we only have one container for everything nearby," she said.
Smith agrees with Luke Hall and believes that most of the blame for the damage to the environment lies with companies, "there are factories everywhere, and they are producing more and more. I don't want to be negative, but I think that when we try to fix it within many years, it may be too late."
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