Effects of Pollution on Border Patrol Agents

This study examines the longterm health effects of pollution in the New River on United States Border Patrol agents who work near the river. Literature is reviewed in this chapter to provide a conceptual context for this examination. The literature reviewed in this chapter is relevant to water pollution generally and the effects of such pollution on the environment surrounding bodies of polluted water.

Water Pollution in An Historical context

With respect to a concern for the environment, it is probably fair to state that most people think that environmental awareness is a relatively recent phenomenon, dating at most back to the first Earth Day in 1970 (DiSilvestro, 1990, p. 5). Among Americans, it is also probably fair to state that most of them think that a concern for the environment is an American phenomenon (Vig and Kraft, 1990, pp. 911). While it is true that environmental protection actions have become more numerous and more effective in recent decades, it is not true that concerns for the protection of the environment did not exist far earlier. It is also true that effective environmental cleanup and protection actions were effected in countries such the United Kingdom well before most of the body of environmental law now existing in the United States was enacted. Environmental degradation in the United States, however, does have a long history. It is said, for example, that "many Europeans in the 1700s believe

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