Geography of Pennsylvania - Ecological Disasters

Ecological Disasters

Pennsylvania has been the site of some of the worst ecological disasters experienced in U.S. history:

• In 1889, the South Fork Dam, impounding a recreational mountain lake for sportsmen, burst after a heavy rain and destroyed the downstream factory town of Johnstown, killing over 2,200 inhabitants in the notorious Johnstown Flood (the town was later rebuilt and is a reasonably large community today in the central mountains).

• In 1948, an air inversion over Donora trapped pollution from nearby metal processing plants, killing 20 and causing health complications for many more.

• In 1961, an exposed seam of coal at Centralia caught fire and eventually forced almost the entire community to abandon the area; the underground coal fire is still burning today and it is estimated that it can burn for another 250 years.

• In 1979, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Incident near the state capital of Harrisburg, while not as destructive to the community, nevertheless cost close to $1 billion to clean up and changed the national public perception of nuclear power to a much less favorable viewpoint.