The recent 4th of July events have caused me great concern. I don’t know what it was like in your neighborhood, but in my neighborhood, fireworks were going off every night beginning the week before and finally ending the week after. I like in the heart of a city surrounded by larger cities just north of Detroit. There are businesses, apartment complexes, senior citizens homes, and a neighborhood full of houses inhabited by families with children and pets. Our neighborhood is full of wildlife, squirrels, nesting birds, wild geese, skunks, rabbits, etc.. The booms were so loud they shook our 6 story building. There were cars lined up all along the streets to view the show. Thankfully there were no incidents. No one was injured. But, imagine something had gone wrong and a fire started? There are trees all over this area, right across from my apartment there is a construction site with stack of lumber and who knows what kind of flammable materials?
When I was growing up it seemed like fire crackers and cherry bombs were pretty easy to come by and were used pretty regularly by practical jokers and bathroom bullies. On the 4th of July we always had sparklers and maybe a few small special effects type fireworks. Cardboard trucks or tanks that would shoot off sparks as they spun around or cardboard snakes that would slither and squirm. But, for the most part, large Fireworks were delegated to programs put on by municipalities or large organizations and required experts to fire them and permits.
My family did on an occasion or two attend some rather spectacular displays. They were really amazing. Much more inspiring an exciting than what I have seen in current displays. Current displays are pretty boring. All the same, just explosions of colors. I witnessed an amazing fireworks display that took place on both sides of a river. It was a enactment of a battle with cannons made of the fireworks themselves that shot fireworks across the river. There were so many other very clever and entertaining themes But, we only went to Fireworks on the fourth of July. I don’t know of any other Fireworks for any other occasion. That was what made the 4th of July so special. The only fireworks we ever saw on any other Holiday were the ones televised from New York City on New Years.
It has only been in recent years that fireworks have exploded in popularity across the nation. People have gone fireworks crazy. Firing them off for any occasion and even for nothing at all. It seems that people feel an occasion is not really special unless there are fireworks. Birthdays, wedding proposals, weddings, anniversaries, graduation… all meaningless unless they are illuminated with Fireworks and the accompanying loud noises.
Besides the Fireworks, there were gunshots. I don’t remember people shooting guns off on any holiday when I was growing up, either. But, now that we have so many crazy liberals who demand that police forces be dissolved and illegal aliens who come from nations where they are accustomed to shooting off their weapons in public and all respect for law and authority has gone out the window; people are shooting off guns for any reason. On the holidays, one wonders which they are hearing Fireworks or guns?
When did we become so lax about fireworks? Which of course are known to be very dangerous explosives. And when did it become commonplace for fireworks to be part of just about every holiday and/or special occasion imaginable?
‘That was the action that saved the consumer fireworks industry.’
Today, Americans will celebrate the fourth of July the way founding father John Adams intended: by exploding lots of pretty chemicals in the sky. But as you sit back and become mesmerized by the sparkler in your hand, pause to remember a fateful day in 1974, when the United States almost banned consumer fireworks entirely.
It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
But the dynamics of fireworks policy, trade and even construction have changed a great deal since Adam’s idyllic interpretation, largely because Americans couldn’t figure out how to use fireworks safely. By the late 20th century, fireworks became so dangerous that the US almost banned them outright. Paradoxically, the former directors of the American Pyrotechnics Association tell Inverse that they’re actually happy for that near miss. If it wasn’t for the events of May 16, 1974, we probably wouldn’t have any fireworks today.
1966: BAN THE BOMB
The thing to remember about fireworks is that they are, at their core, explosives. Over the years, the US got really good at making bombs bigger, better, and more dangerous. This was particularly noticeable after World War Two, when explosives like the M80 and M100, designed to fight Nazis, fell into use back home. “The reason there was a proliferation of those is because they were technically military devices,” Julie Heckman, the current executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, (APA) tells Inverse. “So they were prevalent after World War Two.”
With better regulations, fireworks shows are now relatively safe
By the ‘60s, these military devices had gotten out of hand. Time reported in 1964 that a crowd of 500,000 New Yorkers “applauded delightedly” when a fireworks barge exploded prematurely, killing two crew members. The next year, the New York Times reported that a U.S. sailor was killed by mishandling fireworks while celebrating on a Naval Base in Toledo, Spain. The causes of both of these accidents were military-grade fireworks turned fourth of July toys, many of which were being made illegally.
Finally, in 1966, the US instituted a blanket ban on military-grade fireworks, making it illegal for anyone without a professional license to obtain. But a whole new category of fireworks emerged after 1966, which caused a whole new set of problems.
A GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS
“There were two major things going on,” John Conkling, pyrotechnic chemist and former executive director of the APA, tells Inverse. “One was the continuing sale of large firecracker-like devices. The second thing that was that the U.S. domestic manufacturing that had been reasonable before, was being totally overwhelmed by imports from China.”
After the ban on military-grade fireworks, the US received an influx of consumer-level products from China. This happened primarily because, for the first time since the Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, the US and China were actually talking again, thanks in part to Nixon’s move to officially end the 21-year US trade embargo on Chinese goods.
Nixon visits China in 1969, restoring relations between the two countries
The new products were really good and really safe, according to Conkling. “Imports were beginning to come into the US from China, and one of the major categories of these imports were consumer fireworks,” Conkling describes. “The Chinese had very fascinating, beautiful well-performing consumer fireworks, and they were getting a lot of market attention.”
This was not destined to last. Very soon, the American demand for cheaper products began to pressure the Chinese firework producers. They were used to creating delicate pieces of explosive art, but most Americans wanted quantity, and they wanted it fast. Producers began to cut corners, Conkling says, and it was problematic. At the time, he was using his expertise as a pyrotechnical chemist at Washington College in Maryland to help examine and test fireworks.
The Brookfield, Illinois firework disaster of 1972
Events like the disaster in Brookfield drew the attention of a newly minted federal agency: the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an offshoot of the Food and Drug Administration. The CPSC was a young agency with something to prove, and its first target was consumer fireworks. On May 16, 1974, the CPSC proposed its ban, issuing regulations underlining the hazardous nature of faulty fireworks. According to a CPSC press release from 1975:
On May 16, 1974, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued regulations banning the sale to consumers, as hazardous substances, all firecrackers as well as other fireworks which did not meet specified safety standards and labeling requirement.
BUILDING A BETTER FIREWORK
Conkling, alarmed by the proposed ban, set to work developing a new protocol that could make imported fireworks safer. Without more stringent regulation, America could risk losing fireworks for good.
With the APA, he compiled a list of ways to standardize fireworks and make them safer. The interventions they came up with had less to do with the actual chemicals involved, Heckman says, and more to do with the construction of each firework. “Tipover tests,” for example, ensured that fireworks wouldn’t tip over and shoot back into a person’s face. Famously, they studied how long a firework fuse could burn before users got antsy.
“There were human factor studies done to see to see at what point if the fuse didn’t light, at what point would somebody try to re-approach it,” Heckman says. The ideal length for “fuse burn,” they learned, is between six to nine seconds. Any shorter and you might not have time to clear the area. Any longer, and you might re-approach to investigate and get singed.
Eventually, the APA took these recommendations, among others, to Administrative Judge Paul Pfeiffer, who had been listening to similar testimony across the country from Kansas City to Honolulu. Among the various people who had made similar pleas to Pfeiffer were trade groups, pyrochemists, and, according to a contemporaneous New York Times article, “Chinese Americans in Hawaii, who said fireworks played an important role in their religious and cultural celebrations.”
The June 18th article in the New York Times reporting that the UPSC would delay the firecracker ban. They eventually threw it out due to efforts on behalf of the APA
Immediately after the CPSC vote, Conkling began making trips to China —he estimates roughly 40 in total — in an attempt to set up a lab to test fireworks according to CPSC regulations. That lab, called the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory, has made significant progress in keeping fireworks safe for all of us. It still exists today.
Today, Conkling looks back fondly on the tumultuous time that almost derailed both his livelihood and America Independence Day celebrations as we know them. “That was the action that saved the consumer fireworks industry,” he says.
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I have to tell you that I am concerned with what might be in those fireworks. We know that scientists have been playing around with the nature of everything. There is nothing that has not been polluted. They add chemicals to our food and to every single thing we use on our bodies and put in our bodies. We have no idea what they know that we do not, or how those changes are changing us. I have no doubt that the fireworks we see today are not anything like the original fireworks.
BIRTHDAY FIREWORKS – A NEW PHENOMENON
Fireworks are now expanding beyond the Bonfire Night displays of yesteryear and this is largely thanks to the millennium celebrations during which it became the ‘in-thing’ to have a firework display to rival that of the cities around the rest of the World which had taken the initiative to hold firework displays for many years prior.
Fireworks are now used to celebrate weddings, birthdays, special anniversaries, product launches and on occasion, to celebrate the life of a lost loved one. This is particularly relevant in the case of the lantern.
Here at Epic, we liaise with customers wanting a ‘few garden fireworks’ for the little ones all the way to the massive celebratory displays held by our more famous clientele for their family and friends.
What would you like to celebrate this year in style? Your fortieth birthday (bah humbug), your son/daughters education successes at University? A 21st or 18th Birthday celebration or are you getting married and want something to add the final wow factor to your wedding? We have a display for every occasion. Our garden fireworks packs start from as little as £3.14 for the Superstar selection box all the way up to the massive Ultimate Bonfire display pack at £2000.00 which is a guaranteed wow factor.
The Epic team will help you with set up plans, firing order and what to do in the event of bad weather. We will happily liaise with your family/friend who will light the display for you to ensure that they have a complete understanding and you are welcome to call for advice at any time.
Or maybe, you would just like a rocket to let your loved one know how much you care. We have the largest selection of ‘big rockets’ in the UK and can even show you a video in the store of each in the air to ensure that you are fully conversant with the effects to expect. We have everything from smiley faces to love hearts on offer.
So, if you are in the Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire region and would like to come along to discuss your needs with an expert in the field of pyrotechnics, just call in to see us in Tankersley or give us a ring and we will chat about your requirements.
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That article was from the British Isles of course, but we have seen the same thing happening here in the good ole USA. People have gone crazy for fireworks. There is hardly an event that occurs without fireworks.
Fireworks stands used to set up for the 4th of July and break down until the next year. NOW, many are open all year round.
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As I mentioned before, I don’t remember any fireworks celebrations for New Years, accept the ones we watched on Television, live from New York. Apparently, there have been other major cities as well. But, for the most part individuals and smaller towns not so much, until recently.
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Before Times Square: Celebrating New Year’s in old New York
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1878). New-Year’S-Day In New Amsterdam. Courtesy of NYPL Digital Collections
Every year on December 31, the eyes of the world turn to Times Square. New Yorkers and revelers worldwide have been ringing in the New Year from 42nd Street since 1904 when Adolf Ochs christened the opening of the New York Times building on what was then Longacre Square with a New Year’s celebration complete with midnight fireworks. In 1907, Ochs began dropping a ball from the flagpole of the Times Tower, and a tradition for the ages was set in motion. But long before Ochs and his proclivity for pyrotechnics, New Yorkers had been ringing in the New Year with traditions both dignified and debauched. From the George Washington and the old Dutch custom of “Calling,” to the rancorous tooting of tin horns, one thing is clear, New York has always gone to town for the New Year.
We’ll start this story with George Washington. You may know him as a general and as a statesman, but did you know that he was also a big fan of New Year’s celebrations? Together with his friend and fellow patriot, John Pintard, who founded the New-York Historical Society, Washington liked to celebrate the New Year in New York by following the Dutch tradition of “Calling” on friends and acquaintances on New Years Day and receiving calls at his own home.
Living at 1 Cherry Street, in what was the nation’s first Presidential Mansion (later knocked down to build the Brooklyn Bridge), Washington made calls throughout Lower Manhattan.
Washington moved from New York to Philadelphia in 1790, when the Nation’s Capital moved from here to there, but his favorite New Year’s tradition stayed popular in New York. In fact, Calling remained the most popular New Year’s custom in the city throughout the first half of the 19th century. But as early as 1801, a new tradition was tolling away Downtown.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1872-06-15). A glimpse of New York from Trinity Church steeple; Courtesy of NYPL Digital Collections
That year, the vestry minutes at Trinity Church recorded that “eight pounds be paid to the persons who rang the bells on New Years Day.” By the late 1840s, Trinity’s bells were a major part of New York’s New Year.
The second half of the 19th Century found New Yorkers quite literally ringing in the New Year at Trinity Church, because Richard Upjohn’s Trinity (the church we know today) was consecrated in 1846, and featured something the two earlier Trinity Churches did not have: a full octave of bells chiming in the belfry.
An enterprising bell ringer could toll out popular tunes from those bells, and, thankfully, Trinity’s resident ringer, James E. Ayliffe, was up to the task. The New York Herald reported that, in order to ring in 1860, Ayliffe made “the air redolent with harmony” and tolled out “Hail Columbia,” “Yankee Doodle” and “some sweet selections from ‘La Fille du Regiment.’”
By the 1870s and 1880s, Trinity’s bells drew crowds from as far as New Jersey, Long Island, and “even,” the New York Times reported, Staten Island. According to the paper, the thousands who gathered around Trinity for the New Year’s celebration represented “all classes of New York society, from the poorest to the richest.” Together, the crowd “stood quietly enjoying the glorious night and the ringing of the bells.” As the New Year dawned, they “joined their voices, and to the accompaniment of the bells, sang loudly and impressively the hymn ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’” (A far cry from the debauchery and shenanigans of today’s celebration.)
But, by 1885, a new sound joined this heavenly chorus: the hooting of tin horns. To Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix, the rector of Trinity Church, the horns were a “horrible din” that drowned out the bells. By 1893, Dix was so aggrieved by the offending noise, he canceled the peal. (A small army of about 30 Lower East Side boys simply arrived at his home on West 25th Street equipped with horns, and proceeded to hoot their disdain).
The peal was restored the following New Year. By December 31, 1896, the New York Times reported, crowds swelled the streets of Lower Manhattan by 7 p.m. “Up and down lower Broadway the crowd wandered…and the irrepressible horn vender was in evidence at every point. As the New Year approached, the crowds became denser and denser, and there was a continuous stream of humanity parading down Broadway towards the church. At 11 o’clock, the crowds were so thick in the vicinity of the church that the cable cars, each bringing their additions to the throng, were almost entirely stalled.”
During this wall-to-wall celebration, more women took part than ever before. Women wielded more than a quarter of the tin horns that year, and, the Times noted, “to their credit, be it said, they were not lacking in ability to use them.”
But, even a celebration like that one could not hold a candle to the festivities of December 31, 1897, for New Yorkers weren’t just ringing in a New Year, they were inaugurating a whole new city. January 1st, 1898, marked the consolidation of all five boroughs of New York City into a brand new municipality: Greater New York.
And where better to celebrate the dawn of the great new city than City Hall? A hard, driving rain poured over New York that night, but the city turned out just as hard. To mark the New Year and the new city, fireworks blasted overhead, cannon fire thundered from the Battery, steamboats whistled in the harbor, skyrockets showered City Hall in a blaze of red, blue, silver and gold, and brass bands played for a crowd of 50,000.
Suddenly, on the stroke of midnight, a new flag was electrically unfurled over City Hall, and the City of New York was born.
With a new city came a new tradition. As Greater New York blossomed into the greatest city of the 20th Century, Midtown Manhattan became “The Crossroads of the World,” and Times Square began serving up a world-class New Year’s celebration. These days, more than a billion people worldwide watch the ceremony in Times Square, and who knows, some of them might even be tooting tin horns.
Is it true that you don’t set off fireworks on New Year’s Eve?
I just read that it’s not really done in the US and that Americans mainly set off fireworks on Independence Day. Here in Germany a lot of people let off fireworks leading up to midnight on NYE. I’m mainly talking about private displays in your back garden. I’m sure bigger cities organise their own fireworks displays in the US as well.
Much of the country is so cold that outdoor events aren’t as popular.
This year it was upper 40s around midnight. That’s very warm for this time of year. However, it was foggy and rainy, so not the best weather for fireworks. Although we stopped at a gas station around 7 pm and did actually hear them, which was surprising.
A couple years ago it was like -1 around midnight, snow on the ground too. Nobody’s setting off fireworks in that shit lol.
Vs New Year’s where there are tons of other activities, and fireworks also happen. Every single new years, fireworks go off at midnight everywhere I’ve lived.
Georgia
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Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
In the early 1970s, the market for fireworks was heavily regulated in many states. But not so much in Tennessee.
Back then, Glenda Tinnin and her husband ran a souvenir shop and restaurant alongside a highway in the state. Their business was doing pretty well, but then an even more sparkling opportunity lit up their entrepreneurial ambitions.
“My son, who was 12 at the time, started selling fireworks out on the front porch, and he was doing better business than we were,” Tinnin says. So they decided their roadside business should blast off in a new direction.
Glenda and her husband began selling fireworks at their store. And they put a big hand-painted sign on their storefront: Hee Haw Fireworks, which was emblazoned in red capital letters.
Julia Ritchey/NPR
Today, 49 years later, Hee Haw Fireworks has rows and rows of explosives filling their store. “We have the Death Shell, Nishiki, Excalibur,” Tinnin says. There’s also one called “One Bad Mother” and “One Bad Mother In Law” and — our personal favorite — the Mother Of All Bombs, or M.O.A.B. “All the good brand names we carry.”
Since Glenda began selling fireworks, the market for them has changed a lot. The changes really picked up the pace after 1972, when Congress set up the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Fireworks, with their history of maiming people, were one of the agency’s first targets.
Jay Zagorsky, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, says the CPSC has worked to make a whole bunch of changes to fireworks over the years.
“One, they made sure for a rocket shooting off, that the bases were stronger and longer, so that the rockets didn’t tip over, and then you had a rocket shooting along the ground at spectators,” Zagorsky says. “The second thing that they did is they made sure fuses were consistent. Because oftentimes — before [the CPSC] came along — you could light a fuse and you had no idea if it was gonna blow off in a couple of seconds or it was gonna take a long time, causing some people to walk over going, ‘Hmm, is this a dud?’ And then it would blow up in their face.”
Julia Ritchey/NPR
Zagorsky says the agency also made sure fireworks contained no prohibited chemicals, including lead. Before these regulations were imposed, fireworks would “explode in a spectacular color, but basically rain down poisonous chemicals,” he says. The agency also helped the industry standardize fireworks. “And that meant, basically, your cherry bombs and your firecrackers all had the same amount of kaboom.”
An Exploding Market
Business at Hee Haw Fireworks has been good, and, over the years, it’s been helped by the fact that residents of nearby counties and states haven’t been able to buy fireworks as easily as you can in Tennessee. “A lot of people from Kentucky and Indiana” come and buy fireworks from them, Tinnin says. “In fact, I got a man coming in today. He was actually our first customer. And he’s from Louisville, Kentucky.”
While it’s still easier to get fireworks in some states than others, the clear trend across the country has been toward greater liberalization in sale and use. Since 2000, 19 states have relaxed their fireworks laws, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.
Growing up in Massachusetts — which, today, is the only state that completely bans all forms of fireworks, including sparklers — Zagorsky remembers a guy in his neighborhood who did brisk business selling them illegally out of the trunk of his car.
“He made a fortune during the 4th of July,” Zagorsky says. “Basically the entire neighborhood showed up, like standing in line with cash in their hands, waiting to hand him money so that this illegal contraband could be bought for the week before 4th of July.”
[Editor’s note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money‘s newsletter. You can sign up here.]
But, Zagorsky says, many states and counties grew tired of their residents crossing jurisdictional lines to buy fireworks — and they realized they were losing out on potential revenue from these patriotic backyard explosions.
“If people are going to be doing these activities, and I just don’t mean fireworks, many politicians say, ‘Well, maybe we should profit a little bit off of it,‘” Zagorsky says. “Maybe we can fund some of the key services we need to provide our citizens. So if people are gonna gamble, we may as well tax gambling.If people are going to illegally smoke marijuana, maybe we should tax that. It’s the same thing for fireworks.”
There remains a patchwork of laws restricting the use and sale of fireworks in many parts of the country, including in the West, where there are drought conditions and fire risk.
But, Zagorsky says, increased product safety and the seeming inevitability of these purchases across jurisdictional lines are why we’ve seen a general kaboom in fireworks liberalization across much of the nation. These laxer laws have helped fuel another kaboom in sales.
Data from the American Pyrotechnics Association finds that the consumer fireworks industry has seen its annual revenue grow from $407 million in 2000 to $2.3 billion in 2022. “Display fireworks” — think big fireworks events on July 4th put on by professionals — accounted for an additional $400 million in revenue.
The American Pyrotechnics Association also tracks estimates of the total weight of fireworks sold. In 1976, according to their numbers, Americans purchased 29 million pounds of fireworks. In 2022, we purchased 461.7 million pounds.
In addition to laxer regulations and increased product safety, Zagorsky says, the explosive growth in fireworks sales has also been fueled by cheaper products, thanks largely to productivity growth at factories in China, where most fireworks are made.
Injuries From Fireworks
With this explosion in firework sales, you might also expect there to be an explosion in injuries from fireworks.
The American Pyrotechnics Association claims that has not been the case. “During this period of unprecedented growth, fireworks injuries have declined dramatically due to industry safety education efforts and the ever improving quality of its products,” the organization says in a release. “Over the most recent decade, this downward injury trend continues even as an increasing number of states & municipalities have relaxed their consumer fireworks laws — in fact the injury rate was almost 70% lower in 2022 compared to 2000.”
But Zagorsky says injuries have, in fact, been creeping up in recent years. One study found that emergency room visits due to injuries attributed to fireworks increased from 5727 in 2008 to 7699 in 2017 — a 34% increase. The scholars found that most of the victims were male and — surprise, surprise — the vast majority of these accidents happened in July.
“We base our reports on data from emergency rooms around the country, and what we’re seeing is that the number of deaths and injuries associated with fireworks remains high,” says a spokesperson from the agency.
Julie Heckman, the executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, counters that “the CPSC and other groups don’t consider the extreme increase in consumption.” Once you consider that many more people are using fireworks these days, she argues, “the fireworks-related injury rate is the lowest ever recorded.”
“In 1990, for every 2 million kilos of fireworks, we had one injury,” Zagorsky says. “Today for every 2 million kilos, we have 0.2 injuries. So, basically, injuries over the last 30 years with fireworks — after adjusting for the explosive growth in fireworks — has fallen by a factor of five.”
Interestingly, according to research from the National Fire Protection Agency, fires due to fireworks have also declined somewhat significantly in recent decades, even as firework sales have skyrocketed. Some of the safety regulations imposed over the years — which have, for instance, reduced the likelihood that fireworks tip over and have outlawed the most dangerous types of fireworks — may help explain why fire risks have declined.
At the same time, however, a recent report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission suggests that makers of fireworks are still skirting safety regulations. They find that “approximately 43 percent of selected and tested fireworks were found to contain illegal components that could cause severe injuries. These components include fuses that do not comply with the law, the presence of prohibited chemicals, and pyrotechnic materials overload.”
An audio version of this story ran on The Indicator. Listen to it here
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Study: Fireworks release high levels of pollution on July 4 weekend
An average of 230 Americans end up in the emergency room every day in the month around July 4 because of firework-related injuries, but pyrotechnic mishaps are not the only potential setback of this Fourth of July tradition.
A new study published this week in the journal Atmospheric Environment found that fireworks release high levels of pollution into the sky on July 4 and 5.
“When people think of air pollution, they think of other kinds of things—smoke stacks, automobile exhaust pipes, construction sites,” study author Dian J. Seidel told TIME. “I don’t think most people think of fireworks.”
As a national average, culled from 315 different testing sites, Independence Day fireworks introduce 42 percent more pollutants into the air than are found on a normal day.
Part of that increase is a spike in emissions of perchlorate, a chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency says may “disrupt the thyroid’s ability to produce hormones needed for normal growth and development.”
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Perchlorate – Department of Toxic Substances Control – CA.gov
Rocket Science
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Sources of drinking water for almost 7 million Californians and unknown millions of other Americans are contaminated with a toxic legacy of the Cold War: A chemical that interferes with normal thyroid function, may cause thyroid cancer and persists indefinitely in the environment, but is unregulated by the state or federal government.
Perchlorate, the main ingredient of missile and rocket fuel, has been detected in 58 California public water systems so far, but fewer than 15 percent of the state’s drinking water sources have been sampled. Perchlorate has also been found in Lake Mead, Nev., and the Colorado River, which supply drinking water to more than half of Southern California as well as being a major source of water for Arizona and Nevada. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found perchlorate-tainted water in 18 states and believes it exists wherever rocket fuel or rockets were made or tested – 39 states in all.
Too much perchlorate can impair proper functioning of the thyroid gland, which controls growth, development and metabolism. Developing fetuses, infants and children with thyroid impairment may suffer mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, or deficits in motor skills. In fact, improper regulation of thyroid function is the leading known cause of neurological impairment world-wide. At higher levels of exposure, perchlorate may also cause thyroid cancer and harm the immune system.
Perchlorate contamination of water and its effect on the thyroid have been known for decades, but neither California nor the federal government has established any enforceable health standard for perchlorate in drinking water.
This year (2001) the EPA was scheduled to begin nationwide water sampling and issue its fourth provisional standard, but it will be years before there is an official state or federal drinking water standard.
These standards, however, will not be adequate to protect the public, particularly children. EWG calculates that the EPA’s proposed standards would leave formula-fed infants exposed to between 7.5 and 2,000 times the safe level of perchlorate in drinking water.
Medical researchers are finding that even very low levels of perchlorate may affect the thyroid. But concerted pressure to set a looser standard is coming from a powerful alliance of chemical companies, aerospace contractors and the U.S. Air Force. In a now-infamous experiment that has prompted a federal ethics investigation, defense contractors and the Air Force have sponsored tests in which human subjects were paid to swallow daily doses of perchlorate far exceeding the amount California health officials say is safe.
If a less protective standard is set, perchlorate polluters such as Lockheed Martin and Aerojet will save millions of dollars in cleanup costs. But no matter how strict the standards are, contractors have cut deals that will stick U.S. taxpayers with almost 90 percent of the cleanup bill. With cleanup of some sites estimated to take more than 200 years, the cost to taxpayers could reach billions of dollars.
EWG urges California and the EPA to set safety standards for perchlorate in drinking water that are fully protective of public health. The standard should be no higher than 4.3 parts per billion. That level is about 7.5 times more stringent than the EPA’s current provisional standard, and about four times more stringent than California’s current action level, which is advisory only.
All human testing of perchlorate should be stopped. The U.S. military should be prohibited from lobbying to weaken environmental laws or regulations, and the corporations responsible for perchlorate contamination should pay for their fair share of cleanup.
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Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water
On March 3, 2003, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, introduced legislation that would mandate that the federal government set a drinking water standard for perchlorate by July 1, 2004. California health officials are working toward setting a state drinking water standard sometime in 2004, but the EPA is not expected to set enforceable national standards before 2008, if then.
California’s current provisional drinking water standard, which is only advisory, is 2 to 6 parts per billion (ppb). The EPA’s current draft standard is equivalent to 1 ppb. Boxer’s legislation does not specify what the standard should be but mandates that it be set at a level that will protect the most sensitive populations. EWG’s analysis of new studies, showing harmful effects from very low doses, argues that to protect children the standard should be no higher than one-tenth the EPA’s recommendation, or 0.1 ppb.
Link: New Studies Show Harm From Much Lower Doses of Perchlorate.
EWG’s analysis of the latest federal and state data shows:
- Outside of California, perchlorate contamination has been found by testing in more than 100 drinking water sources in 19 states.Link: Perchlorate contamination of drinking water sources outside of California.
- Perchlorate contamination of soil or of groundwater sources, not all of which are used for drinking water, has been found at more than 50 sites in 17 states.Link: Perchlorate contamination of soil or groundwater nationwide.
- Perchlorate is known to have been made, used or stored at more than 150 sites in 36 states. At some of these locations, water or soil contamination has already been detected by testing, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is certain that further tests would confirm contamination at all of the sites.Link: Sites of known perchlorate use in 36 states.
- Perchlorate testing is urgently needed on at least 63 military sites in 32 states where rockets, missiles or munitions have been developed, produced, tested, stored, maintained, or disposed of. To date, testing is planned at only a few of these sites.Link: Military sites where perchlorate testing is urgent.
Perchlorate is used in fireworks, safety flares, matches and car air bags, but 90 percent of it goes into solid rocket fuel for military missiles and the NASA space shuttle. American Pacific Corp. of Las Vegas and Kerr-McGee Corp. of Oklahoma City were the sole U.S. producers until 1998, when American Pacific bought out its rival.
National data is still spotty, but extensive drinking water testing is now taking place under the federal Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, which requires testing by all large water systems and some smaller ones. As the data comes in, perchlorate contamination is being found in many places where there was no record of the chemical’s use.
Once thought to affect only Air Force facilities and contractors, more recently perchlorate contamination has been found in tests at many Army and Navy sites as well, especially where munitions have been disposed of by open burning or detonation. Among known contaminated sites is the McGregor Naval Weapons Plant in central Texas, just a few miles from President Bush’s ranch. Underground plumes of perchlorate have also been found spreading from non-military industrial sites, such as an abandoned flare factory in San Martin, Calif., formerly operated by Olin Corp. of Norwalk, Conn., that has polluted more than 100 private wells.
Although the majority of known and suspected perchlorate-contaminated sites are operated by the military or contractors such as St. Louis-based Lockheed Martin, the Department of Defense and the aerospace and defense industry are stubbornly resisting the efforts of regulators to set adequate safety standards or clean up contaminated sites.
Despite volumes of new evidence showing that very low doses are harmful to fetuses, infants and children, the Pentagon and its contractors argue that the risks of perchlorate should be assessed on the basis of a single study, funded by the defense industry, on short-term exposure of a handful of adult men and non-pregnant women. Last year, Kerr-McGee and Lockheed Martin successfully sued California health authorities to reconsider the state’s provisional drinking water standard, which likely will force the state to miss a January 2004 deadline, mandated by state law, for setting an enforceable standard.
Both the Defense Department and Lockheed Martin, which is being sued by 800 residents of San Bernardino, Calif., for cancer and other illnesses they believe were caused by decades of drinking perchlorate-contaminated water, maintain that perchlorate is safe at levels 200 times higher than the EPA’s current recommendation. In fact, there is strong evidence that the EPA’s recommended level of 1 ppb is far too high.
Neither the EPA nor the state of California have taken into account the numerous common anti-thyroid chemicals which may worsen the effects of perchlorate, notably the drinking water contaminant nitrate. Neither the EPA nor California have taken note of epidemiological studies that found effects on infant thyroid hormone levels at 1 to 6 ppb.
And neither the EPA nor California have adequately considered the extra perchlorate that may be consumed by eating lettuce or other produce grown with contaminated water. Documents obtained and published by EWG in December 2002 showed that a 1997 study in San Bernardino, Calif., of leafy vegetables growing in perchlorate-contaminated water found that the crops took up and stored perchlorate and concentrated it by an average factor of 65. This high rate of bioaccumulation means that a pregnant woman who ate a two-ounce serving of the vegetables would get a dose of perchlorate more than 100 times higher than what the EPA recommends as safe in a liter of drinking water.
Link: High Levels of Toxic Rocket Fuel Found in Lettuce.
Known Health Effects
Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water: New Studies Show Harm From Much Lower Doses
Perchlorate was first discovered to affect the thyroid 50 years ago, but only recently has research focused on its effects at low levels. The trend in the findings is both clear and ominous: The more scientists look, the lower they find the threshold for adverse effects.
Perchlorate’s main effect is on the thyroid gland, which is responsible for controlling growth, development and metabolism. Perchlorate inhibits the thyroid’s ability to take up iodide, a necessary nutrient, which is important in the production of thyroid hormones. An underactive thyroid gland in adults can lead to fatigue, depression, anxiety, unexplained weight gain, hair loss, and low libido.
More serious, however, are the effects of thyroid hormone disruption in the developing fetus and child: Small changes in maternal thyroid hormone levels during pregnancy have been associated with reduced IQs in children. Fetuses, infants and children who experience more significant changes in hormone levels may suffer mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, abnormal testicular development or deficits in motor skills. In older children, depressed thyroid levels have been associated with lower motivation to learn and attention deficit disorder. (Haddow et al. 1999, Pop et al. 1999.) (well, this is very likely one of the contributors to so many children being diagnosed with A.D.D. over the last 5 decades!!)
As recently as 1998, only one study had shown any adverse effect of perchlorate at levels as low as 0.01 micrograms per kilogram of drinking water a day. More recent research has shown that even at this very low dose level, perchlorate induces significant effects on the levels of thyroid hormones in the mother, fetus and offspring. (Crofton 2001.) And similar low dose studies have found “a large number of significant effects” on brain structure and thyroid structure. (Argus 2001, EPA 2002.)
A clear trend among the most recent perchlorate studies is more profound effects were seen in laboratory animals who were exposed in utero. This is unsurprising, given that research has shown that marginal iodine deficiency has significant effects on the fetal thyroid even if no effects are seen in the mother. One study, for instance, found that the thyroids of pregnant rats were able to compensate for marginal iodide deficiency in the diet but that such compensation did not take place in the fetal offspring which showed a 50 percent decrease in iodide uptake. (Versloot et. al. 1997.)
One recent study found thyroid tumors in second-generation exposed rats at extremely young ages. In fact, out of thirty rat pups which were exposed to perchlorate both in utero and as pups, two developed thyroid tumors after just 19 weeks. (Argus 1999.) These types of thyroid tumors are extremely rare, especially when seen this early: The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) had estimated the probability of this occurring at less than two-tenths of one percent. (EPA 2002.) Although the dose tested was significantly higher than what might be consumed in drinking water, the findings are troubling because they point to the possibility of in utero programming. This phenomenon, in which fetal exposure leads to a higher susceptibility to hormone perturbation during development and adulthood, has been seen in other cases of endocrine disruption. (Prins et al. 2001, Phillips et al. 1998. Seckl 1997.)
Because iodide is concentrated not only by the thyroid gland, but also by the mammary gland, one of the questions lingering after the peer review of EPA’s 1998 provisional reference dose was whether perchlorate would be found or concentrated in breast milk. Recent technological improvements made it possible to look into this question and the results were troubling. Perchlorate was found in the milk of rats that were given very low doses of perchlorate in drinking water (0.01 mg/kg-day), leading the EPA to conclude that rat pups “are in fact exposed to significant levels of perchlorate through the maternal milk.” (Yu 2000, EPA 2002.)
Of several epidemiological studies looking at the effects of perchlorate exposure on newborn infants, only two were funded by entities that did not have a significant stake in the outcome of the results. One study, conducted by the Arizona Department of Health Services, found differences in infant thyroid hormone levels among babies in Arizona born to mothers who had consumed perchlorate-tainted Colorado River water as compared to mothers who had not been exposed to perchlorate during pregnany. (Brechner et al. 2000.)
These findings were confirmed by another recent study of California newborns which found that concentrations of perchlorate at about the same level proposed as a drinking water standard may affect infant thyroid hormone levels. They looked at the hormone levels of all infants born in California in 1996 and compared the hormone levels of infants whose mothers had drunk perchlorate-contaminated water to those whose mothers had not. The study found a statistically significant effect on infant thyroid hormone levels from perchlorate exposure by the mother of only 1 to 2 ppb. The effects were more pronounced at higher dose levels. (Schwartz 2001.)
Studies looking at the ecological effects of perchlorate contamination also raise red flags. For example, one study exposed frog embryos to perchlorate at levels found in some surface and groundwaters. The frogs were found to have inhibited forelimb emergence, significantly lower percentages of animals completing tail resorption, reduced hind limb development, and a skewed sex ratio. (Goleman et al. 2002.) The study notes: “These effects were observed at concentrations at or below concentrations reported in surface waters contaminated with ammonium perchlorate, suggesting that this contaminant may pose a threat to normal development and growth in natural amphibian populations.”
Despite all this new evidence, the Department of Defense and the aerospace and defense industry have been trying to get state and federal officials to base perchlorate risk assessments on the results of a single industry-funded human study. This study (Greer et al. 2002) was designed to characterize the effects of a 14-day exposure on adult males and non-pregnant females. How much its results can be extrapolated to the real world is severely limited by several factors.
- First, the study subjects had healthy thyroids and high iodine intake levels relative to the normal population — whereas 15 percent of U.S. women of reproductive age may have low iodide consumption. (OEHHA 2002.)
- Second, adult humans have an extensive reserve of thyroid hormones which would limit the effects of a short-term exposure, but not the harm from the lifelong perchlorate exposure that most people would experience.
- Third, the study was not conducted on the population of concern: pregnant women, children and infants. Because pregnancy puts stress on the thyroid, and the hormone reserves that exist in adults are smaller in children and virtually nonexistent in infants and neonates, these populations are much more susceptible to inhibition of iodide uptake (Delange and Ermans 1991.)
- Finally, although the lowest dose tested was designated as a no-effect level in this study, decreased iodide uptake was in fact observed. The EPA has concluded that the study was statistically underpowered to detect significant effects at the lowest dose level, due in part to the small sample size of just seven people. (EPA 2002.)
Despite these numerous and obvious flaws, the Pentagon and industry have used these results to argue for a drinking water standard of 200 ppb.
While state and federal authorities inch towards establishing the first enforceable drinking water standard for perchlorate, an array of proposed standards, action levels” and other proto-standards are circulating. Understandably, this has led to a considerable amount of confusion and frustration within the water-supply industry, which is left with contaminated water and little firm guidance on what level of perchlorate is safe to serve their customers. Unfortunately, none of the proposed standards are likely to be adequate to protect children’s health.
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is explicitly directed to draft Public Health Goals that protect public health including sensitive subpopulations “with an adequate margin of safety.” Yet in its most recent draft, OEHHA relies solely on the results of the small industry-funded human study and uses an inadequate uncertainty factor of only three to account for such considerable uncertainties as the variability between individuals, extrapolating from short-term exposure to long-term exposure, extrapolating from the study population to the population of concern and questions of whether perchlorate concentrates in breast milk. (OEHHA 2002.) Of the 35 other Public Health Goals OEHHA has developed for other contaminants, only four have used uncertainity factors of less than 30. Of those four, one is an essential nutrient (copper), one is deliberately added to water (flouride), and the other two have extensive databases on chronic human effects (lead and nitrate).
In developing its provisional reference dose, the EPA has used a wide base of short-and medium-term animal studies which look at the populations of concern, rather than relying on the single short-term human used by OEHHA. The EPA has also proposed an uncertainty factor of 300 — which, given the considerable uncertainty remaining, still may not be large enough. However, the EPA continues to assert that infant body weight and drinking water figures do not need to be used in the calculation of a drinking water standard. (EPA 2002, EPA 2003.) This is unacceptable.
Neither the EPA nor OEHHA have taken into account the numerous common anti-thyroid chemicals that may worsen the effects of perchlorate, notably the drinking water contaminant nitrate. Neither the EPA nor OEHHA seem to be concerned that epidemiological studies have found effects on infant thyroid hormone levels at about the same perchlorate concentrations which have been proposed as a drinking water standard. And neither have the EPA nor OEHHA adequately taken into consideration the extra perchlorate that may be consumed by eating food grown with contaminated water or fertilizer. (EWG 2002.) To adequately protect the health of the nation’s children a drinking water standard for perchlorate must be set no higher than 0.1 part per billion.s
Perchlorate Behavior in a Municipal Lake Following Fireworks …
by RT Wilkin2007Cited by 131 — In addition, potassium perchlorate is a key ingredient in the production of fireworks, explosives, road flares, and other minor uses ( 22).
Perchlorate: Health Effects and Technologies for Its Removal from Water Resources...
10. Conclusions
Perchlorate has been found to be widespread in drinking water sources in the United States and a few other countries. Recent studies have confirmed the presence of perchlorate in Canadian surface waters. Though, known adverse effect of perchlorate exposure on humans is hypothyrodism, detailed animal toxicity studies conducted on two generation of rats have shown to have potential adverse effects on their fetuses. Perchlorate has been found in cow’s milk and mother’s milk and hence perchlorate ingestion by infants through maternal intake is high. Therefore, perchlorate can be considered as a contaminant of concern in the near future in Canada.
The most common perchlorate treatments currently in use employ ex situ technologies. Two treatment technologies currently dominate the field of perchlorate treatment: ion exchange and biological treatment. Research demonstrated that bioreactors, mostly fluidized bed reactors operated under anaerobic conditions, could effectively reduce high concentrations of perchlorate. Selective ion exchange resins of various types have been developed to treat lower concentrations of perchlorate. Although bioreactors have been proven to be effective, the best applicable technology for removal of perchlorate remains to be ion exchange. Ion exchange resins are used for treatment of drinking water supplies and groundwater containing 10 to 100,000 μg/L perchlorate. Research is presently directed on developing technologies that could remove perchlorate to less than 10 μg/L from water sources. Such recent technologies include electrochemical reduction, catalytic reduction and use of metallic nanoparticles.
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Perchlorates and Fireworks: There is Hope
Who doesn’t love fireworks? (Aside from our dog, our kids when they were little, and apparently birds – although no surprise there really). It’s also likely that those who are responsible for ensuring water quality have mixed feelings when the sparks start flying. I don’t want to be the kill-joy, but when Island Press asked if there are any enviro-downers for fireworks, a single word popped into my mind: perchlorate.
Like other things in need of a combustive blast (think: matches, military explosives and rocket fuel), fireworks rely on a chemical called perchlorate, now known to be a powerful thyroid toxicant. In some locales (including explosives factories, military grounds where there is prolonged or repeated blasting, and yes – favored sites for firework displays) perchlorate can be found in groundwater and surface waters where it tends to persist in potentially toxic concentrations.
But there is hope! Fireworks, like other favored chemical products, may someday soon become at least a little less polluting. (Though I doubt this would be of any consolation to all those dogs cowering under the beds – it is hard to imagine the blast without the boom.) If you are curious about the chemicals that light up our Fourth, check out Andy Brunning’s excellent infographic about the Chemistry of Firework Pollution below or at Compoundchem.com. Brunning’s graphics provide a glimpse of the chemistry behind everything from Sunglasses to Neonicotinoids, Mummification, Recycling Rates of Cell Phone Metals even The Smell of Garbage – enjoy!
EPA Refuses to Regulate Chemical in Drinking Water
What happened: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially announced that it will not regulate perchlorate, a common ingredient of explosives and rocket fuel, in the nation’s drinking water supplies. This decision fails to consider scientific evidence from EPA scientists showing that perchlorate is widespread and can lead to serious harms to the brains of fetuses and young infants. This action also defies a federal court order that the EPA regulate perchlorate by setting a drinking water standard.
Why it matters: The EPA has chosen to sideline its own scientists and defy a court ruling despite the fact that there is robust evidence suggesting that perchlorate is widespread and poses substantial harm to one of our most vulnerable populations, young children. Through failing to consider the best available science in its decisionmaking, perchlorate will continue to endanger the health of millions of people across the US who are exposed.
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EPA Awards Nearly $2.5M for Research to Assess Perchlorate ...
Perchlorate, a chemical that can be found in small amounts in the environment, is manufactured for use in combustible materials, including fireworks and other explosives.
NOTE THAT THEY HERE DO NOT MENTION ROCKETS or MISSILES or the PERCHLORATE EFFECTS ON OUR ENVIRONMENT FROM WWI and WWII. It seems to me that they created the escalation in Fireworks to con US Citizens into believing that Fireworks are the sole source of the damage to humans and the environment from Perchlorate in our water.
Human exposure to high dosages of perchlorate can decrease the production of thyroid hormone, a hormone needed for normal development and body function, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kim Van Meter, assistant professor of geography at Penn State, is part of a team that aims to shed light on a potentially hazardous consequence of these mesmerizing displays.
As part of a $2.2 million project funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Van Meter will work to assess the presence of perchlorate from fireworks in lakes, rivers and streams around the country. According to Van Meter, the urgency of this research is further underscored by a recent appeals court ruling, which mandates the EPA to regulate perchlorate in drinking water due to its negative impacts on human health.
“Residual non-combusted perchlorate particles can settle on the ground or water surface and some studies have shown elevated concentrations of perchlorate in both surface and groundwaters occurring near the firework displays,” Van Meter said. “Despite these findings, there is a dearth of comprehensive data regarding the broader relationship between firework use and drinking water contamination. Our research endeavors to bridge this knowledge gap.”
Van Meter and her team will conduct field studies across diverse sites, capturing data both before and after community fireworks displays. They will consider factors such as the quantity of fireworks consumed, the dilution potential of the water source and the rate of biological perchlorate attenuation to comprehensively assess the variables at play. Additionally, the team will analyze aerial deposition patterns at both local and national levels. They will also conduct nationwide surveys of public water supply intakes and model watershed and population data to provide a comprehensive understanding of perchlorate contamination in relation to fireworks events.
“We aim to curate a robust dataset that will not only refine existing models but also expand our understanding of the temporal response of perchlorate concentrations in drinking water supplies to fireworks usage,” Van Meter said. “Importantly, the survey results will provide valuable insights into the direct impact of fireworks on drinking water sources. Furthermore, the project will culminate in the development of a predictive screening model, tailored to specific hydraulic, hydrologic and ecological conditions, as well as the intensity of fireworks usage, enabling proactive assessment of potential impacts, which can be used to inform future regulations designed to safeguard public health.”
Other researchers on the project include Andrew Jackson, Todd Anderson and Balaji Rao from Texas Tech University; John Coates from the University of California, Berkeley; Sarah Ledford from Georgia State University; Neil Sturchio from the University of Delaware; and Jacimaria Batista from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
They want to build a case for the public responsibility for the problem so that the public will carry the burden and expense of solving the problem of perchlorate in the water.
WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE LIGHTING OFF FIREWORKS?
Fireworks light up the sky over New York City in 2019. Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
The number of fireworks being lit off at night is out of control this year.
While fireworks are popular as we inch towards the Fourth of July, this year, the explosions have already been heard almost nightly for weeks in cities from Albuquerque to Providence. In fact, New York City had a 4000% increase in firework complaints in the first two weeks of June compared with just last year. Economist and Senior Lecturer of Markets, Public Policy, and Law Jay Zagorsky explores possible reasons behind the sudden increase in firework usage.
“There are two possible economic reasons behind an increase in fireworks usage: falling prices or increased supply,” writes Zagorsky. “However,” he continues, “neither of these is the culprit behind the increase in fireworks this year.”
Since the majority of fireworks shot off in the US are manufactured in China, Zagorsky looked at the price data for the first four months of 2020 to see how much importers paid for fireworks. He found that prices ended up actually rising slightly from $2.60 per kilogram to $2.63 per kilogram, debunking the falling price argument.
What’s more, that data also showed that the US imported 9 million kilograms of fireworks from China during the first four months of the year—it sure is a staggering number, but it’s actually one-third less than a year earlier.
With relaxed state restrictions that allow fireworks in some form in 49 states (only in Massachusetts are individuals are completely prohibited from owning and using any types of fireworks), it isn’t a legal reason for the increase in fireworks this year, either—instead, Zagorsky posits, the real reason is simple.
With the COVID-pandemic both shutting millions of Americans out of work and shutting down other nighttime entertainment options, it makes sense that folks are turning more to fireworks. They’re bored, and there are much lower opportunity costs for fireworks users. Opportunity costs put a dollar value on what else a person can be doing with their time—before the pandemic, many of our evenings were full of options. Now, not so much.
“There is an old quote that idle hands lead to mischief,” writes Zagorsky. “In this case, idle people lead to large amounts of illegal firework usage.”
However, Zagorsky doesn’t think these levels of fireworks usage will be the new normal. “My belief is that once the millions of unemployed people in the US go back to work, the number of illegal fireworks shot off will rapidly decrease and will once again be limited to the times around New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July.
Fireworks, by the numbers – Marketplace.org
Fireworks are expected to beat $2 billion in sales this year … Quartz
Fireworks Retailers in the US industry analysis
Fireworks retailers have enjoyed strong growth over the current period. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, fireworks retailers lost business amid social distancing measures canceling many public fireworks displays, but they enjoyed considerable growth from consumers. Growth enjoyed from consumers in 2020 was not only because of greater expenditure in pounds but because of prices. Many fireworks are imported, so supply chain woes and considerable demand led to higher prices and price-based gains. Consumers continued propping up growth as, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association, total consumer consumption in pounds increased by 75.3% from 2019 to 2022 (latest data available). Easing regulations in various states like Florida, Nebraska and Ohio have also promoted growth for fireworks retailers. Overall, revenue has been increasing at a CAGR of 5.6% to total an estimated $952.8 billion in 2024, including an estimated increase of 1.7% in 2024 alone.
Children, veterans and family pets can suffer because of Fireworks…
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Everyone loves fireworks. In theory that’s probably true, but in reality, fireworks are troublesome for many of our friends and neighbors.
Jess Bayles’ 7-year-old son is one of several young children in Meeker with noise-sensitivity related to autism.
“If we know they’re coming, we can warn him, someone can hold him, and he has noise-canceling headphones,” Bayles said. That’s how they deal with planned fireworks displays. Illegal fireworks present a different problem.
“A week or two ago someone was shooting off mortars near our house. It was at bedtime and it took an extra hour and a half to get him to bed.” Bayles said it’s not the initial shock that’s hardest on her son, it’s the increased anxiety and the hours it takes for him to get back to his “baseline” where he feels safe again.
Children and adults with autism or other noise-sensitivity issues are not the only residents who struggle with fireworks — particularly the unscheduled ones. Veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be triggered by fireworks. An article on the U.S. Marine Corps Community Services website (https://usmc-mccs.org/articles/fireworks-and-ptsd-how-to-raise-awareness/) says increasing awareness and having a conversation about the impact of fireworks on veterans is important.
“Although not every individual who lives with PTSD may be affected, many veterans are stepping up to raise awareness of those who might be,” the article states, adding that veterans affected can “mentally prepare” for planned community displays, but unanticipated fireworks can “set them on edge.”
Being the mother of a son who was born with Spina Bifida, I would like to add another group of persons who are affected by fireworks. Those who have neurological issues, especially those who have a shunt inserted in their brain to drain hydrocephalus. My son does not handle loud noises well at all due to in large part to his shunt. Some also have issues with flashing lights. There are many medical issues that cause negative reactions to FIREWORKS.
Fireworks are also hard on family pets. One report from 2015 says there is a 30% increase in the number of missing pets around the Fourth of July.
Pet owners can plan ahead for scheduled fireworks displays. Meeker veterinarian Stacy Hudleson says there are steps pet owners can take to prepare.
“There are some easy things; playing fans, radios, etc., to lessen the sound of the fireworks. I put my dogs in the downstairs bedroom, lights off, with fan and radio on. And I use sedatives, and there are some oral meds that work quite well for dogs.”
As for those unscheduled, unplanned fireworks, it’s a good idea to know what’s legal and illegal in the State of Colorado (or the state where you reside) before you get out the matches and set off your own private fireworks show.
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Fireworks: Impacts on Pets and Wildlife
Posted in: Uncategorized
Questioning our Traditions
If you’re like me and millions of other Americans, you are settling in for the evening and preparing for the work week ahead. For my family, it’s like any other Sunday night, my husband is watching tv, the four dogs are littered around our small living room, occupying their favorite spaces and I’m holding onto every sweet little morsel of weekend I have left. I tend to be someone who is constantly on the move, so these evenings are a welcomed excuse to slow down and enjoy the peace. Unfortunately, for the next week and periods afterwards, my evenings won’t be so calm or peaceful. It’s July 1st and another American ritual is just a few days away: The 4th of July, the celebration of the birth of America aka Independence Day.
As a child, I loved this holiday, because America and I have something in common, it’s OUR birthday and for me that meant not only cake, but fireworks too. I loved deciding where we would go to watch them, arguing with my brother about who had the best displays, listening to the loud explosions with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA” playing in the background and watching friends and family blow stuff up.
And while, as an adult, my love for my country has remained strong, my love for fireworks has changed. As I’m writing this, the whole typical Sunday night that I had described above has done a 180. My neighbors have started their personal fireworks display. There is no guaranteed start or end time and there’s no rhyme or reason to the frequency of the explosions. My 4 dogs have gone from their peaceful Sunday lull to panting, shaking, barking, and hiding. My timid, gun-shy, rescued foxhound won’t leave the doorway to go outside and, sadly, it will take us weeks to get her comfortable going out there alone again. Every sound is now suspect. The ice maker on the fridge, the tv, the microwave, and all of the everyday sounds that our pets have become used to have now become terrifying.
The Truth About Fireworks
At this point, I can’t help but wonder, if my domesticated dogs are feeling this way, how are the local wildlife dealing with it? My guess by the deafening silence on this warm summer night, not well. Research shows that fireworks have a profound effect on wildlife. Birds and small mammals will abandon their nests in fear, they can become disorientated and never return to their homes. As a result, their babies could face starvation or fall victim to predators. Wildlife shelters notice an uptick in calls as deer and other animals flee into roadways to escape the perceived danger.
The debris left behind from the fireworks can entangle wildlife and poison them if ingested. Chemicals in the fireworks add toxins to the air and water that humans and animals both inhale and drink. Fireworks have also been the cause of forest fires. The 2017 Eagle Creek Fire in Oregon burned over 48,000 acres and was unable to be contained for almost 3 months. The blaze was started by a firecracker.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way! The obvious best course of action is refraining from purchasing or using personal fireworks. However, if your holiday is just not complete without the sweet sound of explosions, join your friends and neighbors in a community sanctioned event. As always, some things are just beyond our control. So, if you find yourself living next to Joe-Bob Firecracker who’s been itching to blow up his mother’s prized watermelon, here’s what you can do to help our furry friends get through the war:
Remove or cover bird baths and feeders well before sundown, this will not only protect their food and water sources, it will also discourage birds from coming into the area. When the “rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air” cease, check the area for debris and clean surfaces or feeders that may have collected dust or other toxins during the festivities. This will help reduce the risk of fire or accidental ingestion by wildlife.
You can help your pets by keeping calm. They know when you are upset and that can make them upset. Closing the blinds and windows if possible can be helpful. Both cats and dogs can benefit from safe hiding spaces in your home to retreat to. Sound therapy, and pheromone wall plugins specially designed for each species can be effective when used properly. If all else fails, consult your veterinarian to see if medication is a proper course of action for your pet.
It certainly is possible to enjoy one of the best holidays of the year, while still respecting the needs of our furry neighbors. I hope this information has helped you, and that you have a fantastic, safe, and mindful Fourth of July.
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THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS FROM A VERY EXCELLENT WEBSITE. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU CHECK IT OUT. GIVE THEM SOME CUDOS AND/OR HELP THEM OUT WITH A DONATION. THIS PERSON OR PERSONS HAS DONE AN EXCELLET JOB OF RESEARCH. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE VIDEOS YOU HAVE TO VISIT THEIR WEBSITE. I HAVE ADDED THREE VIDEOS TO THIS ARTICLE. CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO VISIT THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE AND VIEW THE POSTED VIDEOS.
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FIREWORKS ARE CHEMTRAILS: Death to Pollinators
Why do you think July 4th is so heavily promoted? Why do you think we now shoot fireworks on Memorial Day, Labor Day and New Years too? Getting us to help seal our own fate is part of the plan…
The military secretly spraying sh*t in the sky from planes is nothing new. Here’s a two-minute video from WWII:
A 53 second video
55 subscribers
They have also been dropping things on us our entire lives; fibers, lice, ticks, goo, harmful bacteria: (2 minute video)
So it should be of no surprise that was has been done is being done because it never stopped being done. Anyone who claims they’re not geoengineering because “they would tell us first” or “they would need permission from Congress” – dude, they never asked to do any of the prior 75+ YEARS worth of spraying experiments, why would they start now? Do you think it’s fluke that military documents are Classified for at least 30+ years when the average lifespan is under 80? Nobody can ever be held accountable because by the time it comes to light, they’re dead. With that being said…
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE VIDEO:
In simple terms: spraying toxins into the sky to block the sun to save the planet.
(22 second video)
The correct terminology for these programs includes Solar Radiation Management (SRM), Stratospheric Aerosol Injections (SAI), Solar Geoengineering and a list of others. “Chemtrails” is a slang term that was not invented by conspiracy theorists and was actually created by the United States Air Force. Here’s their 1990s US Air Force Academy Booklet Called “Chemtrails”.
And one of the reasons we know the military is who is currently spraying is because the unmarked spray planes are not on radar while emitting massive plumes while flying illegally close and flying illegal flight patterns. If you or I did this we would be taken out of the sky in moments for “National Security” reasons. If a normal pilot did this his license would be pulled and he may face criminal charges. (27 second video)
I’m oddly crabby today (more on that in a moment) so we aren’t going to dive into geoengineering much in this piece, but if you want to learn more about the programs, I have written a wealth of content on this topic including:
- 1992 Chemtrails Document: Should we Spray Sulfuric Acid or Dust?
- 1985: NASAs Chemtrail Releases (Barium, Strontium, Aluminum)
- Chemtrails: Fake Snow vs Blowtorch
- Chemtrails: TREES DYING IN MASS – Meet Your New Mechanical Trees
- Chemtrails: BEES DYING IN MASS – Meet Your New Robot Bees
- Chemtrails are a Hoax: THE GREATEST PSYOP IN HISTORY
- Chemtrails: Drought & Storms will Make People BEG US for GeoEngineering to Save Them (2009)
- Chemtrails, The CIA an Insurance Company and the Memo They Want Scrubbed
- STEALING THE SUN: March 2023 vs March 2024 Daily Comparison
- Cloud Seeding is TOXIC AF & Blocks the Sun: the Truth About the Chemicals Being Sprayed in OUR AIR
- Whooping Cough Chemtrails: The Church of Scientology Goes to War Against the CIA
- Chemtrails Government Document – “Target: Neighborhoods, 30 Minutes a Day”
- Congress Chemtrails Testimony: When We Start Spraying, No More Blue Skies, Only White
- Chemtrails Video: Military Whistleblower Kristen Meghan Testimony
- Chemtrails Video: UK Pilot Testimony
- Chemtrails 2024: Government Using Frequency to MOVE CLOUDS TO BLOCK THE SUN – 100% Proof the Arctic Freeze was Man-Made
- Chemtrails Video: Arizona Town Hall
- Chemtrails: Rip Out Forests and Spray Chemicals- Council on Foreign Relations Meeting
- Chemtrails: CLASSIFIED PLANE FUEL – FOIA Request DENIED
- Poisoning the Ocean to Stop Climate Change
- Spray the Sky with PISS: New Chemtrail Patent
- Chemtrails: Is the Government Secretly Spraying SOAP to Increase Car Accidents?
- Chemtrails Video: California Meeting #1
- Solar Eclipse Chemtrails: What Were They Trying to Hide?
- Chemtrails: You Can HIRE NASA to Release Your HAZARDOUS PAYLOAD into the SKY
- Chemtrails Video: California Meeting #2 (first half)
- Chemtrails Video: California Meeting #2 (second half)
- Military Dropping Chaff to Cause Power Outages
DEATH AND EXTINCTION
Aluminum nanoparticles are killing trees like never before. Decades ago Monsanto patented aluminum-resistant seeds. Is that just a fluke too? (2:14 video)
Anyone who looks around can see the mass extinction: (2 minute video)
Which brings us to:
INGREDIENTS IN “CHEMTRAILS”
The most common ingredients, which are coming down in our rain and snow samples, include:
- Aluminum and Trimethyl Aluminum (TMA)
- Barium
- Strontium
- Titanium
OTHER INGREDIENTS
Keep in mind, when water tests are ran they typically are not testing for every single ingredient, so a test not showing Graphene does not necessarily mean it did not contain Graphene.
- Arsenic
- Thorium.
- Cesium
- Polymer Fibers
- Lead
- Lithium
- Mercury
- Graphene
- Sulfur / Sulfuric Acid / Sulfur Dioxide
- Ethylene dibromide
- Nano-aluminum coated fiberglass
- Unidentified bacteria
- Uranium
- Yellow fungi mycotoxins
- Bacilli and molds
- Calcium
- Chromium
- Copper
- Silicon
- Selenium
A while back I made a simple color chart. The colors will vary based on the method of release.
Now let’s discuss fireworks:
The identical ingredients used in GeoEngineering are used in fireworks:
Firework Colors Explained:
- Red: Strontium (Sr) and Calcium (Ca)
- Orange: Strontium (Sr) and Calcium (Ca)
- Yellow: Sodium (Na) as well as Aluminum (Al) and magnesium (Mg) can produce yellow and white sparks.
- Green: Barium (Ba)
- Blue: Copper (Cu) compounds produce blue colors in fireworks. Copper chloride (CuCl2) is a common blue pigment used in fireworks.
- Purple: A combination of strontium (Sr) and copper (Cu) can produce a lavender or purple color.
- Silver/White: Aluminum (Al), magnesium (Mg), and titanium (Ti) are used to produce silver and white sparks in fireworks.
- Gold: Sodium (Na) creates a super bright gold or yellow color in fireworks
Here’s why I’m crabby: it’s currently 11:30pm on July 3rd, 2024 and my neighborhood sounds like a shooting range from all of the fireworks. I don’t mind the gun range but the firework situation is so depressing because we have so few bees left in Detroit. On a good day I count a maximum of five at one time. On a slow day I will see zero-to-only one. Meanwhile my plants are loaded with pollen. In prior years, our lavender and field flowers were bee magnets; you’d see hundreds of bumbles, masons, sweat bees even wasps and butterlies, all mingling as they zip from flower to flower. Now it’s so bad I have been forced to hand-pollinate my produce using a little paint brush. To make matters worse, while people are shooting off fireworks we are being blasted with frequency: (25 second video)
It looks like they’re pushing the “clouds” to the West, which is strange because they usually push them to the East so when the sun rises they have a barracade in place to block it (these pics are all from today, July 3rd):
Then they use frequency to move the barracade as the sun moves:
If needed they spray a bit:
Then use frequency to expand it:
Point being, everyone is shooting fireworks, completely oblivious to the ecosystem collapase in their own back yard and the dangerous levels of frequency being blasted over their heads. And I’m not sure why they’re pushing those “clouds” West (toward Ohio) right now. They must have something planned for July 4th. Let’s all pay attention to the sky tomorrow.
FIREWORKS ARE CHEMTRAILS
In closing, I made a 6 minute video:
My friends, fireworks are literally the identical ingredients to chemtrails. Every time we purchase these products we are handing money to China in exchange for their chemicals which have no oversight therefore we do not truly know what we are releasing into our atmosphere. When we explode these metals and chemicals into the sky we are assisting in our own death and helping the Agendas. They have already patented mechanical trees and robot bees. When we shoot fireworks we are killing our pollinators, our trees, our fish, poisoning our soil, polluting our land… sealing our own fate is not patriotic. Please consider finding a way to celebrate without shooting off fireworks if possible, do it for the bees, for without them, everything collapases.
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NEXT READ:
Gov Using Frequency to BLOCK THE SUN! 2024 ARCTIC FREEZE was MAN-MADE! Undeniable PROOF
They tell us these are normal clouds that have been around forever and we are just too stupid to remember them:
Chemtrails & GeoEngineering: Rip Out Forests + Make Chemical Clouds to Block the Sun
Gee, I wonder why The Counsel on Foreign Relations scrubbed this document…
Chemtrails: FAKE SNOW vs BLOWTORCH, FIRE PIT, GAS STOVE & MICROWAVE
People all over the word have become so highly suspicious of their snow that they have begun running DIY experiments in effort to figure out WTF is being dumped on us. What they have discovered is alarming, to say the least. But, before we can look at their investigations, let’s discuss artificial snow in general:
CHEMTRAILS: NASAs 1985 Document ☣️ Lithium & Barium Releases into the Atmosphere
Although they tell us, “Chemtrails aren’t real”, and, “the government isn’t intentionally releasing anything into the sky”, almost 40 years ago, NASA published a document called Astronautics and Aeronautics for 1985, which outlined the creation of their program that intentionally released chemicals into the sky… the exact same chemicals that are still…
Military CAUSING POWER OUTAGES Dropping Chaff: Blackouts as a WEAPON
Well, let’s start here: Listen to these four meteorologists explain chaff on television (and do their best to minimize it): (43 second video) (41 second video) (40 second video) (31 second video) WHAT IS CHAFF? As the meteorologists stated, chaff is a military radar countermeasure that looks like rain on radar:
Air Force Chemtrail Whistleblower Kristen Meghan Presentation
This is a completely fantastic presentation by the first woman from the US Air Force to come forward and publicly blow the whistle on the Chemtrail program. It’s only 21 minutes long, and worth every minute. NEXT READ:
10 Hour BLACKOUTS Being PERMANENTLY Tested to “Conserve Electricity”
I was going to publish another Chemtrail Government Hearing for you, but I have an amazing post coming out this Sunday on the topic, and I’m trying not to beat a topic to death, per say, so let’s look at today’s government insanity, PERMANENT BLACKOUTS, in the name of
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Crowd-Pleasing Fireworks Are Not So Pleasing to the Planet
What Are Fireworks?
In order to understand the damaging effects a firework has on the environment, it is necessary to first understand what fireworks really are.
The most basic component that all fireworks have is black powder, also known as gunpowder. When black powder – which is made from a mixture of 75% potassium nitrate, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulphur – is placed inside a shell and ignited with a fuse, a loud, gaseous, and hot chemical reaction is created, essentially an explosion.
Exploding black powder does not seem very entertaining to watch, at least not to some. Mineral elements are mixed with black powder, providing colour to these explosions. Some colours simply require one element to produce the targeted colour. For example, only strontium is needed to make red, sodium for yellow, and barium for green. Other colours, such as orange, require a combination of mineral elements which are strontium and sodium, or purple necessitates a mix of strontium and copper. Additional chemicals, such as carbon, sulphur, aluminium, and manganese, are added to the fireworks, functioning as stabilisers, oxidisers, and extra colours.
Trained experts designing and handling fireworks, known as pyrotechnicians, measure the correct amount of black powder, mineral elements, and other chemicals, and arrange these compounds under a specific order to provide the firework with a particular shape and colour. Pyrotechnicians also calculate the altitude of each firework so that explosions happen at the right time and location. After everything is neatly calculated and wrapped together in a shell, a fuse is attached to the shell, and when lit, the chemical mixture reacts with the fuse’s heat, and exploding fireworks ensue.
So now what? Fireworks explode, but where do all these chemicals go? One thing is for sure: what goes up must come down.
Still Up in the Air: The Environmental Impact of Fireworks
Chemicals from fireworks do not just disappear into thin air. When burned and exposed to oxygen, substances undergo a chemical reaction called combustion. This chemical reaction produces two results: Short-lived entertainment and toxic atmospheric pollutants.
The temporary enjoyment of fireworks releases a host of contaminants that affect air quality and can contribute to climate change, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, and particulate matter.
During the five-day celebration of Diwali in India – the world-famous festival of lights – about 50,000 tons, or 100 million pounds, of fireworks explode, causing a toxic haze to cover cities.
Toxic hazes, also known as particle pollution, are created by particulate matter (PM), a combination of minuscule solid and liquid substances found in the air and considered the most hazardous air pollutant due to its ability to affect people’s lungs and heart, along with causing environmental damage. In the case of India, PM found in the country’s air increased up to 35 times on celebration days when fireworks were present compared to normal days.
Specifically, the city of Delhi had the highest amount of particulate matter back in 2017 when fireworks were used during Diwali, with an hourly PM2.5 concentration of 900 μg/m3.
PM2.5 are inhalable fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. The measure (μg/m3) means one microgram of pollutant per cubic metre and micrograms are smaller than milligrams but larger than nanograms. As a comparison, the average strand of human hair is 70 micrometers in diameter, approximately 30 times larger than a fine particle with two-point-five micrometers in diameter.
In the case of Delhi, there were 900 micrograms of fine particles in one cubic metre of air in an hour during the firework-filled festival – a lot considering the World Health Organization air quality guidelines state that the average concentration of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic metre of air in a year.
Similar situations occurred in other parts of the world. In central London, for example, a study shows increased particle pollutant concentration during nights with fireworks – all thanks to the toxic elements and metals emitted from firework combustion.
Aside from larger concentrations of particulate matter, firework activity also increases harmful gaseous concentrations, carbon monoxide (toxic by hindering a living organism’s ability to transport oxygen throughout its body), and nitric oxide (toxic by inhalation and skin absorption). The festival of Diwali in India is one example where there was a large spread of these two gases.
Another occasion where there were increases in carbon monoxide, nitric oxide as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) was a firework event organised in celebration of Independence Day on July 4th in the United States. Researchers discovered that, when fireworks took place in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, the atmospheric concentration of carbon monoxide increased by 32%, carbon dioxide grew by 17%, and nitric oxide fluctuated a bit before “doubling overnight.”
All these atmospheric pollutants produced by firework activity end up affecting the planet, resulting in changes in air temperature, humidity, air visibility, and other factors. During firework displays, it was found that atmospheric heat content becomes greater, surface air temperature is elevated, and air visibility can decrease as much as 92%.
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A Horror Show for Animals
Imagine being an animal, comfortably sleeping in your habitat, and suddenly being awakened by hearing a sequence of booming noises and witnessing unexpected bright flashes out of nowhere, yet unable to escape – a horrifying experience. Unfortunately, this is the reality for many animals.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, animals “become … frightened by the noise and commotion of fireworks,” resulting in them becoming lost, abandoning their habitats, and suffering from health consequences, whether it be stress or getting hit by a vehicle.
A study using GPS trackers conducted in three European countries – Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands – shows fireworks’ effects on Arctic migratory geese during the New Year’s Eve celebration. The research revealed that the geese flew away from their sleeping sites in response to the fireworks. They never returned.
Likewise, the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics used weather radars to detect how birds, mainly waterfowls, react to New Year’s Eve fireworks. The radars showed that thousands of birds flew up to altitudes of 500 metres in the air after the explosions.
Compared to humans, animals are more sensitive to high-frequency noise, driving them to leave their young and disrupting their breeding and feeding behaviours. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty (RSPCA) notes that the loud noises emitted from fireworks “are unpredictable and out of an animal’s control.”
“Being unpredictable, as well as intermittent and relatively infrequent, also makes it unlikely that animals will acclimatise to fireworks noise.”
In an extreme case, hundreds of birds, primarily starlings, were found dead on the streets of Rome, Italy, after the 2021 New Year’s Eve firework event. What was the cause of these deaths? The International Organisation for the Protection of Animals (OIPA) believes it to be “related to a particularly loud display of firecrackers and fireworks.”
Aside from deafening noises and disruptive lights, the aftermath of a firework display consists of debris, such as shells and heavy metals, littered across the ground, providing opportunities for animals to accidentally ingest these hazardous materials and potentially leading to illnesses. And it doesn’t stop there.
Fireworks also pose a threat of starting fires – hence the word “fire” in fireworks. In areas already susceptible to wildfires or when conditions are hotter and drier, embers and sparks produced from ignited fireworks have a higher chance of creating a flame that can lead to a destructive wildfire, consequently harming wildlife and their habitats. And while climate change has already increased the risk of longer and more frequent wildfires, fireworks only add to the potential threats. During the 2021 Fourth of July celebration in the US state of Utah, a wildfire started following a firework show in the city of Centerville – an area already prone to wildfires – leading to the evacuation of almost 100 households.
While spectators are left with feelings of amazement and satisfaction, firework displays leave wild animals feelings of trauma and oftentimes injuries. Wildlife rehabilitation centres have increased patients and calls of reported wildlife sightings on roads following firework-filled celebrations.
Bad for Soil, Worse for Waterbodies, Worst for the Ecosystem
It is already established that fireworks pollute the air and traumatise wildlife. What’s next? Ever think about how fireworks harm the planet’s surface and its abundant ecosystems?
Perchlorate, a chemical compound, is often added to fireworks, working as an oxidiser to facilitate their upward propulsion. Though, this chemical can affect the function of the thyroid gland in large amounts. When fireworks burst into their colourful lights, chemical debris is left scattered across the ground. Perchlorate is one of them and it is often associated with contaminating soil and water. This chemical remains in the environment for long periods, easily absorbed by neighbouring flora. When it ends up in waterbodies, it can also affect fish development.
Scientists with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Park Service studied perchlorate levels associated with fireworks found in soil, surface water, and groundwater at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the US. They discovered that perchlorate was found in soil where fireworks occurred and where debris settled. There were also increased levels of this chemical in surface water and groundwater because of past fireworks activities nearby.
Similar research took place in Kerala, India, where investigators collected water and soil samples after fireworks were launched. It revealed that both samples had concentrations of perchlorate. It seems that wherever fireworks occur, perchlorate follows.
Chemicals found in soil and water are one problem, but fireworks can also contribute to microplastic pollution in water – plastic particles 5mm in diameter and less. The River of Thames in England had an enormous (and rather shocking) increase in microplastic content following the New Year’s Eve firework show.
“Whilst we expected an increase in microplastics’ presence, we did not expect over a 1000% increase from the sample taken on the 30th December 2019 to the one taken 6 hours after the firework display on the 1st January 2020 roughly 24 hours later,” describes Ria Devereux, one of the researchers of this investigation which took samples of water from the river to examine the concentration of microplastics.
As explained earlier, fireworks release a number of emissions into the atmosphere, including particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, and nitric oxide, to name a few. PM and nitric oxide can stay in the atmosphere for a longer duration, causing these contaminants to be carried over to different regions. When PM, nitric oxide, along with sulphur dioxide, are transported by wind and then mixed with oxygen, water, and other chemicals, acid rain arises. This harms ecosystems, especially ones in aquatic and forested conditions.
Particulate matter from fireworks can land on soil and water as well, altering nutrients in the soil and resulting in surface water becoming more acidic, with severe consequences on ecosystems. Similarly, atmospheric sulphur components, such as sulphur dioxide, are able to damage leaves and disrupt the growth of trees and plants.
A Greener Alternative?
There is no hiding that fireworks are not the best for the environment. The short spectacle that happens worldwide at countless holidays and festivals leaves potent and long-lasting footprints on the planet. Thus, there needs to be a call for change to minimise these effects, especially when climate change is in the limelight.
Some countries have decided to take political routes, implementing policies to reduce the environmental impacts of fireworks.
The city of Zhengzhou in China enforced a policy prohibiting fireworks in 2016 so that air pollution could improve. In 2018, the firework prohibition policy was reinforced, expanding into other regions, which in turn, had considerable improvements in the Air Quality Index, progressing from the category of Unhealthy for Sensitive People to the Moderate one. Besides Zhengzhou, Beijing decided to ban the use of fireworks before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics took place. This ban “helped China’s capital record its cleanest air for a Lunar New Year,” as reported by the National Post.
For those who desire firework-related entertainment, greener alternatives are on the rise.
Canadian cities located in the province of Alberta, like Banff and Canmore, replaced fireworks with special effects pyrotechnic displays, which are quieter and have a lower altitude, in order to protect wildlife. The town of Collecchio in Italy also switched from standard fireworks to silent fireworks to help reduce stress on local wild animals. Although these fireworks do not have the traditional loud bang, they still have their colourful and illuminated displays, making them a great and more environmentally friendly alternative. (BUT, the noise is only a small part of what is wrong with FIREWORKS. It does not address any of the chemical and particulate issues. And what do we know about the process and ingredients used to create silent fireworks?)
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Another better option is a drone display, similar to the one presented at the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Laser spectacles can replace fireworks, too, as they reduce the risk of wildfires and do not increase air pollution. Salt Lake City in Utah, the United States, has been substituting some of the city’s fireworks with lasers during the Fourth of July holiday to reduce environmental damage, and these lasers still have the same level of spectacle as fireworks. (However, LASERS are not good for the atmosphere either, just because you don’t see or hear the damage being done, does not mean there is no reason for concern.)
The government administers many of these policies and greener alternatives. As an everyday person, it may seem challenging to voice just how harmful fireworks are. There is really no need to fret. Even the smallest actions like writing to local government and politicians, spreading information through word-of-mouth or on social media, and signing petitions are all steps towards creating awareness of the impacts that fireworks pose on the planet.
With the slew of problems that climate change bring existing at the front line of this world, it is vital to take all necessary actions to strive for a greener and healthier planet, including taking action on the dazzling but damaging fireworks.
This fascinating documentary follows top experts from Europe, Japan and the US on a scientific investigation into this most surprising organism.