On November 7, 2006, Steve Pothoven and his fellow fisheries biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spotted the latest invader of the North American Great Lakes. The invader is Hemimysis anomala, a half-inch long, bright orange shrimp native to the Black and Caspian Seas.

The Caspian shrimp joins 182 other invasive species, most brought to the Great Lakes in the ballast water of ocean-going shrimps, and a few migrating through the St. Lawrence Seaway. The sea lamprey caused the collapse of the lake trout population to one percent of its previous level in the 1950’s and 60’s, and is controlled at great expense today. The zebra mussel drives out indigenous species and clogs pipes, which then must be unclogged to the tune of a billion dollars a year.

What can we expect from this latest invader?

The new shrimp feeds very aggressively on the tiny plants and animals that comprise the lowest rung of the food chain.

Further, the shrimp are very different from native Great Lakes species. They will have a large impact on the Lakes’ ecology, because the more different an invader is, the more disruptive.

Photo Credit: NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

To prevent such invaders, ocean-going freighters that are headed for the Great Lakes must dump their ballast water and exchange it for sea water in the middle of the ocean. This pumps out most foreign fresh water critters, and the rest cannot survive in the sea water that is pumped in.

But, and it is a big but, fully loaded ships do not have to exchange their ballast water for sea water because they have little or no ballast water to begin with. Such ships make up about ninety percent of the overseas freighters that enter the Great Lakes.

The so-called “empty” ballast tanks are never quite empty. The shallow pools of water and muck make lovely homes for species such as our new Caspian shrimp. The Canadian government has recently begun to require all overseas ships to flush saltwater through their “empty” ballast tanks before they enter the St. Lawrence Seaway. This will hopefully help prevent additional invasive species from entering the Great Lakes, but will do little to mitigate the consequences of existing foreign< organisms that already call the lakes home.

Photo Credit: NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

A century after Darwin wrote his seminal work, the Galapagos Islands were designated as a National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation was established to protect the extraordinary ecosystem that has provided the backdrop for so much scientific research and so much enjoyment for so many.

But the people living in the Galapagos Islands today have needs Mother Nature cannot fill: foremost among them, the need for energy. There are now about 6,000 people living on San Cristóbal, the largest of the inhabitable islands in the archipelago. Like the rest of the modern world, residents of the island have growing needs for energy, but are concerned about the environmental impact of their energy consumption.

photo: jasonpearce
Positioned too far from Ecuador to tap into its electrical grid, the islanders have had to rely on oil shipments to provide the fuel needed to run their diesel generators. That has, historically, meant frequent trips using small boats, due to the limited capacity of the island’s generators to store the fuel necessary to keep them burning. And with each trip the oil tankers make, there is an increased chance of accidents. What’s more, every trip taken uses up additional fuel just to power the tankers.

photo: jasonpearce
So, the Galapagos Islands are turning–literally turning, green–with wind power. The project, slated to be completed sometime this year, will install three wind-powered turbines that are expected to reduce the number of oil shipments by half. They should also reduce the carbon dioxide being generated by about 2,800 tons per year.

But some residents of San Cristóbal are not altogether pleased. With wind turbines towering at 170 feet, blades that measure 193 feet in diameter and power lines that stretch for 7.5 miles, they are concerned that the visual impact of the turbines will hurt the tourist trade.

After all, people come to the Galapagos for its natural beauty: diving, bird watching, snorkeling, sea kayaking, wind surfing, surfing and fishing are all on the activity list for the tourists who flock there yearly.

photo: jasonpearce
Jim Tolan, Project Director for the wind farm project, is not concerned. He believes that the residents and the tourists who frequent the islands are committed to renewable energy and will welcome the opportunity to turn the island of San Cristóbal into a “showcase for their concerns about the environment” He’s probably right. After all, the residents of these islands surely have better things to do with their time than fight windmills, wouldn’t you think?

photo: jasonpearce

Sixteen years ago, in March 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound. Approximately 258,000 barrels of crude oil were spilled. One barrel of oil contains 42 gallons. Translated, that’s about 11 million gallons of slick, sickening oil.

In 1994, a federal jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to the people so deeply affected by the oil spill. As of October 2005, has a penny of this money been paid? Guess.

No, it has not. The people at the top of Exxon think they’ve done plenty for the region and continue to use stall tactics to avoid paying the $5 billion award, even though this amount is trivial in the pockets of this huge corporation. Record profits don’t matter when you’re trying to avoid paying to clean up something that you’re responsible for.

Did you know that waiting pays? It has been estimated that Exxon has earned millions of dollars strictly in interest from the original figure of $5 billion it was ordered by a judge’s hammer to cough up.

Don’t let Exxon mislead you by their claims of paying a few billion for environmental cleanup and land restoration. Exxon has been reimbursed for the most part by the insurance industry . . . and by American taxpayers. Spill-related tax deductions?

Much of the environment has never recovered, including harbor seals, harlequin ducks, pacific herring, sea otters, certain whales, and other impacted wildlife. The lingering oil from the Exxon Valdez will kill or stunt Alaskan pink salmon for generations to come as well as create permanent genetic damage in various species of fish and other sea mammals. The death count (representing only 10-30% of the total accounted for that died): 4,000 sea otters, 1,000 adult eagles, 345 seals, 500,000 murres, and many, many invertebrates and intertidal creatures.

The towns’ responsibilities to provide food and clothing for their people were also dramatically injured. Clinical depression. Attempted suicide. Domestic violence. Broken families. Chronic psychological stress. All effects of the trauma suffered by self-made residents. $5 billion? A paltry amount when it comes to human suffering and loss of wildlife.

To add more tragedy to travesty, Exxon used 140º F water, sprayed at overly high pressure, to “clean” the shoreline. This action, which was like a poison to the beach and many animals, did more harm than good. The hot water, high-pressure washing removed the nutrients and sediments of the shore that would have aided in the recovery of the ecosystem.

Have you heard about the “secret” agreement in 1991 that Exxon signed with seven seafood processors based in Seattle? These processors lost business because of the Valdez spill, and here’s the deal they struck with the corporate giant: Exxon paid these processors $70 million in exchange for the processors giving Exxon their share of the punitive damages, if the damages were paid. That would have been $745 million—15% of the total $5 billion. Exxon was busted when they claimed this money was given to the processors out of the goodness of the company’s heart. A very blackened heart.

Were you aware that the captain of the Exxon Valdez was reportedly intoxicated when he took the tanker out across Prince William Sound on that cold March night? He had spent the day drinking with members of his crew. Coast Guard tests revealed that Captain Joseph Hazelwood’s blood alcohol level was .241, which is more than six times the legal level under Coast Guard regulations. He put the vessel on automatic pilot, left the bridge, and the rest is dark history. The supertanker struck Bligh Reef, spilling 11 million gallons of oil.

The Aftermath

What happened to Hazelwood? He was acquitted in 1990 of operating the tanker while drunk. Hazelwood was convicted of the misdemeanor offense of illegally discharging oil, and in 1998, the Alaska Appeals Court upheld Hazelwood’s sentence on that charge, and he was fined $50,000.

The Exxon Valdez was renamed as the SeaRiver Mediterranean, and still carried oil around the world, although this tanker was barred from entering Alaskan waters. In 2002, the single-hull tanker was pulled from service.

In 1990, the U.S. introduced and passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (subsequent to the Exxon Valdez oil spill). OPA 90 required new oil tankers to be double hulled and established a phase-out program for single-hull tankers, which rules that these older tankers complete their phase out by 2015. Double hull versus single hull reasoning: If the outer hull is breached, the inner hull will contain the fuel. While this measure has decreased the amount of oil spills, it surely has not eliminated them.

In 1999, many opposed the Exxon/Mobil merger because of Exxon’s failure to pay awarded punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez devastation. Unfortunately, the opposition lost.

In 2001, the Alaskan town of Cordova lost their mayor to suicide, apparently because of the seesaw events within the court system.

Oil Flows Into The Sea

Since the Exxon Valdez disaster, 13 other large oil spills have been caused by a variety of mishaps, not all of which were accidental.

• December 1989—The Canary Islands: Kharg-5, Iranian supertanker explosion. 19 million gallons of oil surged into the Atlantic Ocean.
• June 1990—Galveston, Texas: Explosion and fire on board Mega Borg. 5.1 million gallons of dispersed oil.
• January 1991—Kuwait: During the Persian Gulf War, Iraq purposely released 240-260 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 miles off the southern coast of Kuwait.
• April 1991—Genoa, Italy: 42 million gallons of oil spilled by Haven in the Genoa port.
• May 1991—Angola: The ABT Summer exploded and spread 15-18 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola.
• March 1992—Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil gushed from an oil well.
• August 1993—Tampa Bay, Florida: Three ships collided. A freighter, Balsa 37, and two barges, Bouchard B155 and Ocean 255. Tampa Bay was deluged by approximately 336,000 gallons of oil by the Bouchard.
• September 1994—Russia: An estimated 84 million gallons of oil inundated the Kolva River tributary when the dam that had been built to contain the oil burst.
• February 1996—Milford Haven, Wales: Supertanker Sea Empress ran aground off the Welsh coast dumping 70,000 tons of oil.
• December 1999—Britanny, French Atlantic coast: Erika broke apart and sank. 3 million gallons of oil spilled.
• January 2000—off Rio de Janeiro: 343,200 gallons of oil spewed into the sea after the rupture of a government pipeline.
• November 2000—Port Sulphur, Louisiana: Westchester lost power and ran aground on the Mississippi River, south of New Orleans. 567,000 gallons of oil deposited into the lower Mississippi. This was the largest U.S. spill since the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
• November 2002—Spain: The Prestige suffered a damaged single hull and was towed to sea to sink. Almost 2 million gallons of oil leaked from the vessel before it sank, and approximately 18 million gallons of oil remain underwater.

The Prestige is a perfect example of loopholes. It was operated by a Greek firm but was registered in the Bahamas and flew a Bahamian flag. The ship had been chartered by a Swiss-based Russian oil company. Registering tankers in countries known to have ineffective safety regulations or loose taxation requirements is not uncommon. Countries have the right to close their ports to ships that cannot prove documentation of a recent safety inspection.

The OPA 90 Act will have a positive impact in the decrease of accidental oil spills, but the events of the past 16+ years are an ominous indicator of how the biggest, most profitable companies in the world will react to and whitewash the black oil spills of the future.

Jan Blair

sources
Official website of Exxon Valdez victims

enviroliteracy.org

Fact Monster—World and News—Disaster Digest

Full Resolution Images

Just 10 days after Hurricane Katrina lashed South Mississippi, crumbling thousands of homes and lives, the airport opened for commercial flights Thursday.

“You can now access the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We are back,” airport assistant director Ken Spirito said with pride.

Meera Pal, SUN HERALD

Click these images to zoom in and download the high resolution versions.

Nothing illustrates the power of Hurricane Katrina better than a giant [blue] concrete and steel casino barge marooned on the inland side of a wide beachfront road, hundreds of metres from where it used to be moored.

The barge, part of the Grand Casino in Gulfport, Mississippi, was tossed ashore by Katrina’s 25ft storm surge as if it was no heavier than a bath toy. Wrecked slot machines and arcade games are piled up outside the vessel.

Financial Times Business News

Mike Van Grinsven worked as a bartender at the Beau Rivage before the storm. His house in East Biloxi was taken by the surge that put water in two floors of his place of employment.

“There were goats hanging in the trees near my house,” he said. Van Grinsven lamented that he lost a new $3,500 Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty and all his other guitars to Katrina.

Michael Newsom, SUN HERALD

“I’ve heard, although I need to explore it further, there is a need for addressing some of the mental health individuals that have affected lots of individuals,” Cheney said. “I’m not an expert in that area by any means, but it’s an issue that I will look at that needs to be addressed. Obviously, it’s a traumatic experience.”
…
When asked what it was like meeting the Vice President, Meier responded “I don’t remember what he said. I haven’t slept much since the hurricane hit.”

Tom Wilemon, SUN HERALD

“Right now we’re just assessing damage to our projects and finding what needs to be built back while the roads are cleared, while the building companies — the Bailey’s Lumber and the Home Depots — get back.”

Story By Pete Tattersall, SUN HERALD

Most of the sludge from the Aug. 29 hurricane had dried to dust by the time Cheney arrived in Gulfport, but he saw piles of debris, fallen tree limbs and concrete slabs where nice homes and immaculate lawns once stood.

By Natalie Pompilio, Susannah A. Nesmith and Martin Merzer Knight Rider Newspapers

“The whole area just looks like it was taken and put in a washing machine,” said Steve Swartz of Springville, an Alabama Power Co. employee helping to dry out the Gulfport Mississippi Power office. “I came here Monday, and it does look 10 times better than what it did then.

Laura McAlister, Selma Times Journal

In 2002 Texas violated federal smog standards 52 times. At least half of these violations occurred in Houston, the third-smoggiest city in the United States. In previous years, Houston has had the worst air pollution in the nation but unseasonably rainy and windy weather in 2002 helped the city to give the pollution title back to Los Angeles. Nationwide, the smog standard was exceeded 700 times in 2002. This number is a significant jump from previous years; 532 violations in 2001 and 516 in 2002. (Houston Chronicle, March 19, 2003) Tom DeLay Watch

From Mothers For Clean Air:

Children suffer a disproportionately higher degree of harmful exposures, particularly from air pollution. These children tend to live in urban communities, come from families that have low income, and include a high proportion of ethnic minorities. The “environmental justice” or “environmental equity” movement aims to equalize the environmental exposure and related health risk disparities between minorities and low-income populations in urban areas and the general population, including children.

Negative environmental consequences of air pollution in urban areas include mortality (deaths due to heart or lung disease), increased use of healthcare (hospitalization, ER visits, doctor visits), increased respiratory symptoms (asthma exacerbation, infections, allergies), and lung cell changes. These effects can be more severe among children living in low-income, minority communities.

Children from these communities may also have greater exposures to specific pollutants than non-minority children. For example, many of the communities along the Houston Ship Channel have high minority populations that have lower incomes than average for the Houston area. Children living close to petrochemical industries along the Ship Channel are exposed to higher levels of toxic pollutants than children in far west Houston.

In addition to air pollution from industry, many children from minority and low-income communities are also affected by air pollution from freeway traffic. Interstates 10, 610, and 45, U.S. Highway 59 and State Highway 225 cut through many of the same communities affected by air pollution from the Ship Channel.

Besides increased exposure, other factors may contribute to the severity of air pollution effects among children in minority and low-income communities including socioeconomic stresses, poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and pre-existing disease. In addition, many of these children may not have access to the health care they need for problems caused or aggravated by air pollution. Mothers For Clean Air

“Dina Cappiello of the Houston Chronicle measured air pollution in neighborhoods surrounding some of Houston’s largest industrial plants, finding some locations where toxic air made it dangerous to breathe. “At 49 of the 100 locations where the newspaper hung air monitors, attaching them to structures such as windowsills, clotheslines, swing sets and Christmas light strands, the quantities of up to five different chemicals would have exceeded levels considered safe in other states with stricter guidelines for air toxics. Unlike the more well-known air pollutants that cause asthma and respiratory effects, the compounds found at elevated levels have all been linked to cancer. The Scoop

After watching many of her relatives succumb to cancer and leukemia over the years — including her brother-in-law, who died of an unidentified carcinoma at age forty — Cherry became a pollution activist. For the past five years, she has been organizing opposition to petrochemical expansion in her neighborhood. Her work with various community organizations has put her in contact with sick people throughout the region, and her job as an administrator in a Texas Medical Center genetics lab keeps medical issues constantly before her. “Everywhere I look,” she says, “cancer.” NRDC Feature Story

You’re seeing an oil spill off of the coast of Qatar. Spills like this are part of the job when working with oil tankers and huge volumes of fluids. They happen almost all the time.

Exploiting the vast reserves of petroleum in the Persian Gulf region has left unintended, if predictable consequences:

“The maritime people of the Gulf always depended on and cared for the marine and coastal environmental resources on which they depend. Since the discovery of oil, a rapid development process began, with some highly impressive results. This converted an area of extreme environmental hardship into one of the world’s highest per capita income groups. Some of the side-effects of this development process, however, are not entirely desirable. These include declining fish stocks, habitat loss and fragmentation, loss of biological diversity, declining primary marine productivity, as well as the pollution of water, biota, and inter tidal substrates. Perhaps not surprisingly, ecological degradation is also occurring from oil production, oil spills and oil transport. More oil from spills has been released into the Gulf than into any other region on Earth.” UNESCO

The practice of waging war also has a special impact on the natural world:

"One source of pollution that is often overlooked but is of particular interest to the Gulf is the effect of war and armed conflict. The speaker cited statistics of pollution in the Gulf produced through the Iran – Iraq War. The disturbing numbers relating to the Gulf War in 1991 of some 6 to 8 million barrels of oil being discharged into the Gulf dwarfs the numbers of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of some 500,000 barrels off the coast of Alaska." Qatar Petroleum

"Until the late 1960s, it had been almost taken for granted that the oceans were so vast that they would be able to cope with whatever pollution and wastes were dumped into them. Yet it was recognized early that ships, especially oil powered ships, could cause pollution. Both the United Kingdom and the United States introduced legislation in the 1920s to curb discharges of oil resulting from operations such as tank cleaning. Attempts to tackle the problem at an international level were unsuccessful, however, and the outbreak of World War II resulted in the problem being deferred."
Oceans Atlas

Now, of course, there are many many international maritime laws about pollution.

Many people are familiar with the Exxon Valdez spill. It was the largest oil spill in the United States since the 1968 Mandoil spill (pdf), and the largest tanker spill ever in Alaska. Yet Valdez ranks 41st in this list of the largest tanker spills in the world. But oil development spills oil all the time, not just when a particularly destructive if predictable accident happens. Prince William Sound has still not yet recovered.

"At first, many people repeated what was then thought as common knowledge, oil dissipates, nature heals quickly, all will be well in a year or two. This has not been the case with the Exxon Valdez. This massive 987-foot tanker has left a lingering, long-term effect on the natural habitat that surrounds these pristine waters, along with an enormous socio-economic effect that has left many people wondering when and where the next oil spill will be. Many associated with the recovery process, and its more than one hundred projects per year, say it will take longer than a human lifetime to determine if a full recovery is possible (Fine 1999)." Exxon Valdez

It usually takes a disaster to motivate people to change things for a while, and the Valdez wreck was no different. It spurred the passage of the Oil Pollution Act, which among other things banned single-hull vessels in U.S. waters. The EU may be in the process of banning them, but there seem to be some procedural issues.

Some bacteria thrive in oil contaminated seawater. They have evolved to prefer such environments due to natural underwater features called oil seeps.

"Not all oil in the ocean was put there by people. Natural seeps have been discharging petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment for millions of years. About 200 natural underwater oil seeps have been identified around the world. In Canada, natural seepage has been observed off the coasts of Labrador as well as the north coast of Baffin Island in the Arctic." Environment Canada

"Because spills are much more concentrated, their impacts on marine organisms are more intense, and in many respects qualitatively different than those of seeps… Toxic constituents are released steadily, but gradually, over the region, allowing currents and natural mixing to dilute their concentrations. Tar mounds on the ocean floor are colonized by bacteria, forming the basis of productive meiofaunal communities. Seep oil does not accumulate on the surface in very thick layers, nor does it cause oiling of many birds or result in heavily tarred beaches. Rocks and cliff faces in some areas show localized deposits of weathered tar.

Major spills, however, may blanket the sea surface of a large area with fresh oil. A thick, gooey water-in-oil emulsion, or “mousse,” often forms on the surface after oil spills, eventually falling to the ocean floor in large amounts or fouling the intertidal zone, beaches, rocky shores, and salt marshes. Organisms including larvae may have no opportunity to escape the sudden influx of oil and high concentrations of its dissolved toxic fractions. Spills often kill large numbers of animals including sea birds and marine mammals. For these reasons, Burger states that, “in any given area, the amount of oil from a catastrophic spill far overshadows the oil coming from natural seeps." County of Santa Barbara

"Sub-lethal effects that impair the ability of individual marine organisms to reproduce, grow, feed or perform other functions can be caused by prolonged exposure to a concentration of oil or oil components far lower than will cause death. Sedentary animals in shallow waters such as oysters, mussels and clams that routinely filter large volumes of seawater to extract food are especially likely to accumulate oil components. Whilst these components may not cause any immediate harm, their presence may render such animals unpalatable if they are consumed by man, due to the presence of an oily taste or smell." ITOPF

Sublethal toxic effects of oil spills are important for people who eat farmed fish, which can’t naturally escape elevated levels of toxins in the water, and lack a locally bred instinctive drive.

In the American consciousness, few places evoke images of urban blight like those recalled when Newark, New Jersey is mentioned. You may have been there before, but you probably didn’t go on purpose, and most likely you weren’t staying.

Maybe this has something to do with the Newark Riot in 1967. Maybe it’s because Newark is the largest city in New Jersey, or that it’s nicknamed the brick city, not that you’ve ever heard anyone call it that.

Maybe it’s because there are only five major taxpayers in the city, which ranks dead last among major New Jersey cities for collecting taxes owed.

One of the very best things people say about Newark is that it is only twenty minutes from Manhattan. This proximity has made transportation Newark’s largest industry, and helps to consistently rank Newark among the most financially stable of New Jersey’s five largest cities. Somehow this prosperity has also made it one of the bleakest places in New Jersey to live, ranking 12th on the national list of most dangerous cities from the people who count this stuff. That’s remarkable if only considering the size of the city. Of course, the population sizes don’t take into account the sheer volume of goods and services that move through the region.

Operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state agency, the Port of New Jersey is just one part of an inland distribution system that promises to be able to deliver shipped goods within one day of arrival to over one hundred million consumers. We’re looking at one key piece in a massive merchandise distribution machine.

This image shows Port Newark as the ultimate commercial hub. Superhighway, railway, jet aircraft, marine cargo containers, passengers, automobiles, and military hardware all come together in one sweep of the eye. The machine is in motion, moving goods around — you can see a few ships in port and cars parked everywhere.

The people that actually live in Newark, who number around 280,000 souls, reap few benefits from all this commercial activity nearby. Below is a representative overhead photo of the town of Newark itself. Note the harsh shadows cast by Soviet-style monolithic high rises laid down in neat rows.

In the above photo the angled street at bottom right is Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. The park on the right side of the image with the neat criss-crossed paths is Lincoln Park and is one of three or four small public parks in town. Most of the green in town that you can see from space comes from the large cemeteries on the west edge of the town, which you’ll drive right past if you take the Garden State Parkway North.

The majority of Newark that is not devoted to transit and shipping consists of steel and glass office buildings, rough neighborhoods, and abandoned shopping districts.

It’s easy to understand why the city looks like it does in the above image, and why you probably don’t want to live there.

"The Federal Housing Administration redlined virtually all of Newark, preferring to back up mortgages in the white suburbs… Billed as transportation improvements, pure and simple, I-280, the New Jersey Turnpike, and I-78, harmed Newark as well… Because the new infrastructure allowed middle class people to commute into [New York City]."

"…Newark made some serious mistakes with public housing and urban renewal. Across administrations, the city leaders of Newark saw the federal government’s offer to pay for 100% of the costs of housing projects as a blessing. While other cities were skeptical about putting so many poor and socially dysfunctional individuals together… Newark avidly pursued federal dollars. Eventually, Newark would have a higher percentage of its residents in public housing than any other American city." nationmaster encyclopedia

In the above image you can see the Elizabeth Marine Terminal to the south of Port Newark.

The Newark Liberty International Airport with it’s trademark oval access road from U.S. 1 is visible to the west. This airport’s longest runway is only 9300 feet, which is considered rather short for international traffic and makes for some hair-raising takeoffs and landings with larger aircraft.

Towards the top of the image, above the railroad tracks but below the river, is the city of Newark itself.

You can actually get to recognize urban blight from space. It’s easy to see disadvantaged places once you get to recognize them. How many can you make out in Newark?

Looking around at blighted areas from space makes me realize just what a great job the SimCity 4 team did representing neighborhoods in decline.

There are three piers on the east side of the above image, which isn’t Newark at all but Bayonne, New Jersey. Two piers jut out and are easily recognized, the third is just above these two and is a military terminal.

The northernmost of the two main, rectangular piers is the Auto Marine Terminal, which is dedicated exclusively to vehicle imports and exports. BMW and freight companies lease space there to prep their new vehicles for shipment and put them on trains for the American market, or to export them overseas. Guess which happens more often?

Here’s a close up of this terminal with thousands of new cars destined for the U.S. coated in protective white plastic. The U.S. imports the cars, and imports the fuels to put into the cars. The pollution that results from burning all this fuel stays in the air, water, and our bodies.

The lower or southern pier from above is the Military Ocean Terminal, which was recommended for closure in 1995 but is still open in some sort of quasi-official way.

"Military Ocean Terminal, Bayonne, NJ [MOTBY] is a unique strategic asset. No other port on the east or gulf coasts, commercial or military, can duplicate its combination of advantages in the support of power projection from the continental United States without the disruption of commercial port activities. This was amply demonstrated during the Gulf war and operations in Somalia and Haiti. Dozens of units shipped through MOTBY as well as outsized cargo such as M1A2 tanks from as far as Fort Hood, TX." Global Security

In the image of the above military terminal, you can see a ship of some kind sitting in the enormous dry dock at the end of the pier. The ship is dwarfed by the size of the dock.

This whole area, built on landfill, is an EPA Superfund site. It’s contaminated with hazardous waste. There are at least two 800 gallon tanks of the stuff still buried in the ground.

South of those two main piers is an enormous facility for fuel storage, transport, and refining. Previously operated by Exxon, this area located on East 22nd Street is also one big superfund site. Toxic wastes, again. This place really looks the part, and more than likely will never be cleaned up due to the costs involved.

New Jersey is known as The Garden State. We used to call this a tank farm. Note the lack of any of the security apparatus that you find around prisons or military bases. No gate towers or limited access. Certainly there must be a fence?

In this view of the region you can see Upper New York Bay as well as lower Manhattan. Above the boat traffic on the bay, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island welcome ships to New York.

Here you can see the entire Island of Manhattan to the northeast, and make out Central Park. The island directly south of the New Jersey port is Staten Island, by far the least populated and most remote of the five boroughs of New York City.