Project Description

Recently, while the EPA was attempting to clean up an abandoned mine in Silverton, 3 million gallons of toxic waste water was released into the Animas River which caused media attention, chaos and confusion for many communities downstream as well as more attention to human caused natural disasters in general. The Junior class of Animas High School has been studying the issue extensively, focusing on its social, political, environmental, cultural, and economic effects on all walks of life. We are beginning to understand that in order to comprehend the situation and come to a sound conclusion on what to do, we must listen to ALL perspectives. Our project was to discover, analyze and explore rhetoric and information about the Animas River Spill in order to play a role in helping our community and surrounding communities as well as capture this unique moment in the human race's history. Our final project in humanities was to interview people of all walks of life and add those interviews to an archive of voices for the future to hear. These interviews were real, raw, emotional, and genuine.

 

What I learned and discovered

This year, I switched from Durango High School to Animas. The way  unit was a very interesting first project in Humanities because this is only my first year at this school. I loved it because it was extremely relevent to my life, and many other pople's lives in my community and even farther. I enjoyed how we studied rhetoric in order to comprehend how humans exchange ideas and try to convinvce others of their own. Even more than just the concrete "I learned that the river affected so many other people that I didn't know about", I thought about this entire project on a tremendously larger scale. I thought about it it terms of the human race, ego, the need for more, human nature in general; how the whole exploration of the west was based off of this ideology that the land is here for ME to take it. Manifest Destiny. The American Dream. Greed, money, resources, destruction. This project in my opinion exemplifies the human condition of always wanting more, and then never paying the consequenses. This is relevent to the river because the miners wanted what was best for them, and then when conditions got bad they left because it was no longer benifitting them. And now that there is such a major problem, people are running around pointing fingers at specific people, as if to say that this is one persons fault. Ha. Anyways, I could go on and on but I am going to cut this short to allow you to ponder your life.

 

The interviews

I found the interviews to be quite surprising. My classmate and I interviewed two residents in Silverton Colorado. The first lady was a very polite business owner, she immediately cooperated with us and explained her overall opinion on the river. She said that the river means a lot to her, it means a lot to the town as well. Silvertion thrives off of tourist attraction, mainly because of the old mining sites as well as the train. She owns a candy shop in the middle of town and she described the detrimenal effect that the river had on her business, and her life. She recognized that this toxic mine draining has been going on for an extended amount of time, and it has been pretty ignored by the government of Silverton. She explained that "the government of Silverton has been dragging their feet around for a long time" and if Superfund is the organization to finally do something about it she would not be opposed to this idea. The other resident we interviewed was also a business owner in town and similarly explainded how the spill had negatively effected many aspects of her life. She had a different bias about the sitiuation, she believed that everyone just needs to take care of themselves, and stop complaining. She didn't want help, and she thinks the whole spill is a big exaggeration and that Silverton should be left alone. As a human and a student this project once again reminded me that history and current events are a huge collective of perspectives, that everyone has a voice, and that many things happen to us in our lives that shape our own unique ideologies and beliefs. 

 

The Exhibition

As my final project, my classmates and teachers organized a public community meeting surrounding the river spill with the objective of opening up everyone's perspective about the disaster to bring together humans to work together. The first thing that I did once I reached the exhibition was walk around and read and contribute to many large pieces of paper that were taped around the building asking everyone questions such as; What does the river mean to you?, How did the river spill personally effect you?, Do you have health concerns about exposure to the river?, and many other things. Some people answered that the river means love, life, a nice place to sit, some people said they werent effected. It was a very eye opening experience to see so many thoughts from so many contrasting humans and be able to form even more of a grasp of my own thoughts surrounding the situation. I thought the exhibitions was a beautiful end to a beautiful project. Overall I learned the importance of coming together and helping eachother during hard times, every single person has their own unique perspective, and in order to learn and grow, we must listen.

 

Personal Growth

Throughout this project I have learned a lot about myself, human nature, different ideologies, and how humans possess this thirst for happiness, meaning in life, and success. Before I delved into this project, I really did not have a clear understanding of what happened, let alone why it happened. I was angry at the EPA and confused at how they could do such a thing. Then began a long journey to wrapping my head around some very philosophical concepts that I believe were the main cause of the spill. During the exploration of the West, there was this ideological movement amoung many Americans called "Manifest Destiny", this idea was a phenomenon that it was the peoples right to explore and prosper off of the land. During this Westward Expansion, people began mining to find precious metals, and became crazed with the wealth and the power. They abandoned the mines when they could no longer benifit from the land, and then it was forgotten. Human Ego; a strange and very different animal. This idea of satisfaction, of taking measures to benifit ourselves even when there are dangerous costs, is extremely interesting to me. I believe that the Animas River Spill is ultimeley caused by ego, and that lead me to look at myself and see all these ideologies and patterns manifested in myself. Humans are uniquely shaped by the experiences that surround them. This is such a mindblowing concept to me, and I want to learn more and more by being exposed to everything around me, and the voices of people who I would never think to ask. I will continue to learn and grow and research and explore the raw history of human voices and I look foward to applying the things that I learned from this project to my everyday life.