Reply With Quote
I think it is a combination of being asleep at the switch, under-resourced due to budget cuts, regulations have not caught up with industry, and the laws were designed, quite deliberately, to be toothless.
Who is in the WH makes no difference to the decades long regulatory capture, and nobody in the WH will ever end the regulatory capture.
America is owned, operated by and exists to enrich/protect the UCA and 1%, is ed and un able. Then add in the 5 extreme activist Repug SCOTUS gang of mother ers who are yet again (after Citizens United) about to overturn decades of stare decisisand stop Obama's recess appointments to allow the Senate Repugs to keep going with their FRAUDULENT "nobody's home, no quorum" sessions.
Did I forget to mention that America is ed and un able?
I think it is a combination of being asleep at the switch, under-resourced due to budget cuts, regulations have not caught up with industry, and the laws were designed, quite deliberately, to be toothless.
Company Behind West Virginia’s Chemical Spill Files For Bankruptcy
heard on NPR that tanks were built in 1950s
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...es-bankruptcy/
"Freedom" to socialize the losses: chemical company declares bankruptcy
This company lacks the assets to clean up their own messes. So have filed for bankruptcy.
A real winner here.
To all this can be added the fact that Freedom Industries was cofounded by an individual named Carl Lemley Kennedy II. As the Charleston Gazette has reported, Kennedy filed for personal bankruptcy in 2005 after he was hit with federal charges of tax evasion and failure to remit employee withholding taxes. He is reported to have admitted to diverting more than $1 million that should have gone to the Internal Revenue Service.Kennedy's involvement in Freedom Industries, the Gazette notes, does not seem to have been affected by the fact that he had once pleaded guilty to selling cocaine in connection with a scandal that involved the mayor of Charleston. The paper quotes the current mayor, who is said to have known Kennedy since the 1980s, as an "edgy guy."
Another remarkable aspect of the story reported by the Gazette is that Freedom Industries was struggling in 2009, and its Elk River facility was able to go on functioning only after the Army Corps of Engineers dredged that portion of the river using federal stimulus funds.
To summarize: a tax evader and drug dealer helped to establish a largely unregulated chemical company that benefitted from the federal stimulus but apparently did little in the way of preventive maintenance and set the stage for large-scale drinking water contamination.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...y?detail=email
Name one chemical spill caused by "ecoterrorists". Ever.
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philp...rts-killing-usLate last year, US Department of Agriculture chief Tom Vilsack boasted that US agriculture exports had hit an all-time high in fiscal 2013, and hailed "historic work by the Obama Administration to break down barriers to US products and achieve new agreements to expand exports." Underlying Vilsack's glee is the idea that growing huge amounts of food here and selling a big chunk of it overseas bolsters the US economy and stabilizes rural America.
Agricultural exports cause $36 billion in annual healthcare costs, along with about 5,100 premature deaths.
That kind of thinking has driven agriculture policy at least since the days when Richard Nixon's ag secretary Earl Butz exhorted farmers to scale up operations and plant "fencerow to fencerow" in order to supply foreign markets.
But a new paper (PDF) from Harvard suggests massive ag exports might not be the economic boon imagined by USDA secretaries. The researchers looked at a single farm pollutant, ammonia (NH3), which makes its way into the air from fertilizer applied to farm fields and from the manure that ac ulates on livestock farms. Once it enters the atmosphere, as Erik Stokstad explained in an excellent (pay-walled) news item in Science, it "reacts with other air pollutants to create tiny particles that can lodge deep in the lungs, causing asthma attacks, bronchitis, and heart attacks."
The Harvard team found data on the ammonia emissions associated with various major crops and meat products between 2000 and 2009, calculated what percentage of each commodity goes to exports, and figured out what share of total ag-based ammonia emissions come from growing food for export.
Having calculated the total, they set about figuring out the public-health costs associated with all of that export-driven ammonia billowing about in the air we breathe. The results, as our friends at UpWorthy might say, will astonish you—but not in a warm and fuzzy way. They calculated that our agricultural exports cause $36 billion in annual ammonia-realted healthcare costs, along with about 5,100 premature deaths.
Now, $36 billion might seem somewhat modest compared to the total value of US ag exports, which as Vilsack recently announced, have surged to a record. But the headline export numbers are raw—they don't account for how much farmers spent to produce their export-bound bounty. When the researchers looked at the 2000-2009 period and averaged total exports minus production costs, they found that the net value of US ag exports came in at about $23.5 billion annually (see chart above).
Thousands of deaths aside, simple math—$23 billion in gains vs. $36 billion in costs—suggests that the US policy of pushing ag exports is a net economic loser. And as the authors make clear, ammonia emissions are only one of the hidden costs associated with large-scale agriculture. Others include eutrophication (fertilizer-fed dead zones in lakes and deltas), loss of biodiversity, and greenhouse-gas emissions, including another by-product of excess fertilizer and manure, nitrous oxide.
What Freedom Industries’ Bankruptcy Really Means For Those Harmed By The Chemical Spill
The bankruptcy has many wondering what exactly this will mean for the more than 25 lawsuits that have been filed against the company, and for the people who have been harmed by Freedom Industries’ spill.
Those who claim injury from the spill are not just those who have drank, cooked or bathed in the water — not just those who have become nauseous, developed rashes, or gone to the emergency room. Business owners, too, have lost profits after being forced to close for days on end. Workers at those businesses have lost wages. And West Virginia’s capital city of Charleston has said it has lost more than $120,000 in tax revenue over the course of the week following the disaster.
In its bankruptcy filing, Freedom Industries listed a maximum of $10 million in liabilities, or potential debts. But that $10 million is dubious — the company’s debts already include $6 million in combined debts to both the IRS and other creditors, with no lawsuits mentioned.
Now that they’ve filed for bankruptcy, however, lawyers may begin dropping their lawsuits against Freedom, according to Lutter.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ptcy-bad-news/
[Freedom Industries President Gary] Southern said money isn’t the solution to lift the stigma on his company for its suppliers and customers. He said the spill was causing “perception problems” for the firm.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/22/1271640/-Company-that-contaminated-WV-water-supply-reaches-bankruptcy-deal-bemoans-perception-problem?detail=email
No, seriously, name one chemical spill caused by ecoterrorism.
This is the kind of thing that I mean when I say your ability to think critically sucks ass.
I wonder if (group I don't like) did (something bad). This might be reasonable if the group had a pattern of committing that kind of attack. Ecoterrorists do some stupid things, but tend not to do things that cause potentially toxic chemical spills as far as I know.
Your confirmation bias destroys any credibility you might have, even when you might get something right, and what boggles my mind is that you are too stupid or lazy to even try to overcome this weakness, when it is pointed out to you.
Why is that?
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin saying "it's your decision" to drink the water or not
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/wva-o...w-2nd-chemicalThe company at the center of the West Virginia water crisis immediately knew a second chemical leaked from its plant into the Elk River, and told its workers in an email, according to a state environmental official. However, Freedom Industries did not let state government officials know about the second chemical until days after the spill. And state environmental department official Mike Dorsey said most company employees did not skim far enough into the email to see that information.
It's unclear who sent the email or how many of the company's 51 employees it reached.
"The explanation I was given was that they had the information on the very first day," said Dorsey, chief of the state environmental agency's homeland security and emergency response division. "It was in an email that was being shared among company employees, but no one read far enough down the page to see that."
Freedom Industries President Gary Southern showed Dorsey the email Wednesday.
"(Southern) remarked that it should've been brought to his attention but wasn't," Dorsey wrote in an email Friday.
West Virginia scientist detects formaldehyde in water sample taken from restaurant
A West Virginia environmental scientist said he found traces of formaldehyde in water sample taken from a restaurant.
“It’s frightening, it really is frightening,” said Scott Simonton, a Marshall University scientist and member of the state Environmental Quality Board. “What we know scares us, and we know there’s a lot more we don’t know.”
Simonton said methanol, which is a main component of the 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol that leaked earlier this month into the Elk River, breaks down into the carcinogenic chemical formaldehyde.
“Your level of what risk you will accept is up to you, I can only tell you what mine is and I’m not drinking the water,” Simonton said, adding that his family won’t drink or cook with the water. “The formaldehyde had me personally a little freaked out.”
He told a joint legislative committee on water resources that he found traces of formaldehyde in water samples taken from the restaurant Vandalia Grille in Charleston.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/2...e+Raw+Story%29
http://influenceexplorer.com/politic...1f9ae4dbdaaeb3
The Gov stepped in after the previous one, but there is where the money comes from.
I wonder how much money the coal companies will give him if/when he actually decides to run for election/re-election?
Where is Wild Cobra when you need him?
Usually when you mention anything to do with air pollution he is all over it.
Up To 82,000 Tons Of Toxic Coal Ash Spilled Into North Carolina River From ‘Antiquated’ Storage Pit
A stormwater pipe under an unlined coal ash pond at a shuttered plant in Eden, North Carolina, burst Sunday afternoon — draining tens of thousands of tons of coal ash into the Dan River.
Duke Energy, which owns the Dan River Steam Station, retired since 2012, estimates that 50,000 to 82,000 tons of coal ash and up to 27 million gallons of water were released from the 27-acre storage pond. The leak has at least temporarily been stopped, while Duke works on a more permanent solution. Coal ash is a toxic waste byproduct from burning coal, usually stored with water in large ponds.
The closest community at risk from the spill is Danville, Virginia, which takes its water from the Dan River about six miles downstream of the pond. No water quality issues have been reported so far.
“This is the latest, loudest alarm bell yet that Duke should not be storing coal ash in antiquated pits near our state’s waterways,” Frank Holleman, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) told the Charlotte Business Journal.
SELC and others have been calling for Duke to remove ash from earthen basins such as the one at Dan River to more secure lined ponds to protect local water sources. Duke has 14 coal-fired power plants in the state, 7 of which have been retired.
In addition to air pollution, coal-fired power plants generate millions of tons of waste every year contaminated with toxic metals including lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and selenium — more than two-thirds of which is dumped into landfills, storage ponds, or old mines.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ned-dan-river/
Duke Energy probably owns all NC Repugs who control the state. Don't expect much investigation and fines.
maybe that was the clean up planstoring coal ash in antiquated pits near our state’s waterways
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/us...lina.html?_r=0At the Dan River plant, the waste pond was expanded more than 40 years ago over an older storm water drainage pipe. That pipe, which empties into the river, collapsed last weekend, draining the pond above.
River Contaminated With High Levels Of Lead, Arsenic, Mercury After NC Coal Ash Spill
So far, initial reports indicate that Danville, Virginia’s water supply is reportedly safe from the toxic slurry of coal ash that had spilled into a river upstream four days earlier.
But a lab analysis of Dan River’s water, conducted by Waterkeeper Alliance, show sobering findings. As opposed to “background” water tests Duke Energy allegedly collected,Waterkeeper’s analysis found the water immediately downstream of the spill with high levels of mercury, arsenic, lead, and other toxins.
Waterkeeper reported that the 0.129 mg/L for lead concentration alone is 50 times greater than the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation for wildlife and 1000 times the maximum for drinking water.
“Our sample crew on the Dan River today reports that there is still coal ash waste dripping out of the pipe,” Donna Lisenby, Global Coal Campaign Coordinator for Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a press release. “Waterkeeper Alliance is very concerned that neither Duke Energy nor government officials have released any heavy metal test results from the ash being discharged into the Dan River.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...senic-mercury/
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the water crisis affecting West Virginia is just another example of industry putting profit over people.
Rockefeller said he doesn’t think the water in the counties affected is safe to drink.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “And even if some expert group told me it was safe, I don’t think I’d believe it.
Rockefeller said he may sound cynical, but he adds, that comes after 50 years of public service and seeing the way corporations operate.
Read more: http://wchstv.com/newsroom/eyewitnes...07_23057.shtml
Environmentalists say N.C. river is 'toxic soup' after coal ash spill
Activists said they believed the state and Duke Energy's results, but questioned why testing wasn't being done closer to the spill site.
"To me it sounds like they're cutting Duke a break by going downstream where there's going to be a dilution factor," said Amy Adams, the North Carolina campaign coordinator at environmental group Appalachian Voices.
Adams and others said they didn't need to look further than the inches-thick stew of coal ash floating down the river to know that environmental damage had been done.
"There's a layer of very fine toxic coal ash around the Danville intake, and as you go up the river, it becomes 2, 4, 8, up to 10 to 12 inches of ash on the surface, and it's slowly moving downriver," she said.
Duke Energy has also gotten in trouble for its coal ash storage before. Last year, North Carolina residents sued the company for continued coal ash contamination around the state. And a study published in August (PDF) found that Duke’s coal ash kills nearly one million fish a year in one North Carolina lake alone.
Given the company’s history of previous incidents in the state, environmentalists say they were surprised by the size of this week’s spill, but not surprised that it happened.
“There’s one surefire way to fix this: remove the coal ash from unlined pits near surface water,” said Amy Adams. “Every single one is a ticking time bomb.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/article...lashspill.html
standing assumption: the corporatocracy is lying.
Poisoned the water. Again.
Duke can afford it. Probably already estimated the clean up and litigation cost due to negligence. They might have underestimated the litigiousness when they made the calculation 40 years ago.
Was it really cheaper than safety?
Quien sabe?
A question is why Duke built a non-lined/non-reinforced pond for poison over a rainwater drain pipe AND so close to a major river. The answer, as always, certainly contains "it was cheaper".
Saw this clever quote:
"When there is a huge solar energy spill, it's called having a nice (sunny) day"
True story.
When Duke was running the Enron/rape California scam with WuBullya, a Duke electrical plant worker here in S.D. was ordered to shut off equipment.
Even tho the state was in the midst of a **power shortage**.
He knew this was b.s., do ented all the times he was ordered to shut off and who told him.
Went to the Fed Whistleblower program.
Long/short he ended up having his life threatened, not a damn thing was done and no one got in trouble but him.
Forced to resign.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
