Nick Alvarez

A well-known story cautions that if a frog is placed in water that is heated up gradually, it will not notice that it is being boiled alive. This concept proves analogous to humans’ reactions to our increasingly polluted surroundings. In this project, I explore communities' response to a handful of Superfund sites in New York and New Jersey. Hundreds of ecologically compromised locations in the United States have been officially listed for remediation by the EPA. While some sites are visited and responsibly treated for possible future use, other locations—many in our communities—remain untreated or are treated inadequately. Although these sites are present, harmful, and worrisome, they are often hidden in plain sight. Ask yourself: Why are we so comfortable living in close proximity to chemical waste? Perhaps it is because there are few visible signs of contamination. Even knowing a site is toxic may not be enough to alarm us—after all, "seeing is believing." Or maybe we already feel resigned to the existential threat of global toxicity, so that even acknowledging the issue is too much of a mental burden to carry.