Toxic Town

Upon reading Tara Hulen’s “Dispatch from Toxic Town,” I can’t help but relate the PCB toxins found in this town to Pensacola’s water quality. In both cases, the citizens were fine and lived in harmony (mostly), until a foreign contaminant welcomed itself to the area.

What’s funny for both cases is a huge riot occurring AFTER the incident. This just shows how oblivious people can be to the environment.

I did some research to see if Escambia County could be the next “Toxic Town” and what I looked at left me feeling very appalled. Needless to say I will always get shivers down my spine when I walk to campus and see the tall, industrial smokestacks looming behind the University of West Florida.

The two top pollutants in Escambia are Solutia Inc., releasing 25,500,247 lbs. of pollution. Next in line is none other than Gulf Power, with 10,276,006 lbs. of pollution.

 Oh and our air is pretty bad too. We’re ranked the worst for carbon monoxide emissions, nitrogen oxide emissions, sulfur dioxide emissions and volatile organic compound emissions.

Just enough proof to show that we need help.