Airborne toxic event: East Palestine, Ohio

[Winehole23]

Im amazed its not a bigger scandal, the replies on this thread seem to confirm resignation.. politics has real consequences that go well beyond making fun of the other side, but apparently thats the only thing people care for these days...

One of the reasons people admire and envy corporate wealth in this country is because it confers relative legal impunity for deadly and sociopathic conduct. People getting poisoned and killed in entirely avoidable industrial accidents is part of the logic of the system -- in principle, all our lives are disposable to serve the privileges of ownership and the convenience of their customers. Any notion of public safety has been submerged by the companies who write regulations and pay for political campaigns (muh profits! muh shareholders!) If they can get us fixated on blaming Rs or Ds for systemic problems, they've basically won the game.

[Winehole23]

Plastics are booming and will continue to.

Over the last decade, with the rise of fracking and the subsequent boom in U.S. oil and gas production, fossil fuel companies have turned to plastic production as a way to capitalize on cheap (until recently) oil and gas. Researchers at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, projected that global plastics production would roughly quadruple from 407 million tonnes a year to 1,600 million tonnes in 2050.The consequences of the growth are felt most acutely by communities on the front lines of fossil fuel production and refining — such as the Gulf Coast, which has seen a massive buildout of petrochemical facilities — and in towns like East Palestine that reside along pipeline and railroad routes.

https://grist.org/transportation/ohi...tine-plastics/

[baseline bum]

Im amazed its not a bigger scandal, the replies on this thread seem to confirm resignation.. politics has real consequences that go well beyond making fun of the other side, but apparently thats the only thing people care for these days...

Because there's little difference between the two parties on holding corporations accountable and it would likely take violent revolution and writing a good cons ution to change it in a nation where speech is mostly limited to those with money.

[Adam Lambert]

Easier to distract us by inventing scandals like rapist trannies invading your daughter's bathrooms.

[lefty]

Government trying to distract people from that accident with fake chinese balloons or UFO reveals

[Spurs Homer]

Keep voting republican!

Trump De-regulated everything

stop crying now- it was a yuuuge win because team red de-regulated everything and told you to your face-

the rich/powerful/corporations/ will get richer and the planet will keep getting destroyed and YOU are expendable!

yay!

You cheered for trumps - win!

keep voting republican- keep getting ed

people who are not BILLIONAIRES- and still vote republican are like chickens voting for colonel sanders

[boutons_deux]

...

[Winehole23]

Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said air quality testing shows it is the same as it was before. But Tiffani Kavalec, chief of Division of Surface Water for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA), said they’re watching the cloud and how it could affect water systems.


“We know that there is a plume moving down the Ohio River,” Kavalec said.


Kavalec said water systems are being shut down as that plume goes over an area and testing is taking place to make sure the water is safe.

https://www.wyso.org/2023-02-14/ohio...rink-the-water

[SpursforSix]

One of the reasons people admire and envy corporate wealth in this country is because it confers relative legal impunity for deadly and sociopathic conduct. People getting poisoned and killed in entirely avoidable industrial accidents is part of the logic of the system -- in principle, all our lives are disposable to serve the privileges of ownership and the convenience of their customers. Any notion of public safety has been submerged by the companies who write regulations and pay for political campaigns (muh profits! muh shareholders!) If they can get us fixated on blaming Rs or Ds for systemic problems, they've basically won the game.

In a nuts . The big corps have so much influence now that it doesn't matter what the average Joe says or does. Most politicians at the higher level have had to suck someone's . They're just trying to make money and have a job. There's nothing inherently altruistic about being a senator or congressman.

[koriwhat]

Keep voting republican!

Trump De-regulated everything

stop crying now- it was a yuuuge win because team red de-regulated everything and told you to your face-

the rich/powerful/corporations/ will get richer and the planet will keep getting destroyed and YOU are expendable!

yay!

You cheered for trumps - win!

keep voting republican- keep getting ed

people who are not BILLIONAIRES- and still vote republican are like chickens voting for colonel sanders

[Winehole23]

In a nuts . The big corps have so much influence now that it doesn't matter what the average Joe says or does. Most politicians at the higher level have had to suck someone's . They're just trying to make money and have a job. There's nothing inherently altruistic about being a senator or congressman.

Not inherently, no.

But the government can serve the public weal, when it decides to. Consider the CARES Act, Project Warp Speed and the ACA child credit. Our government kept our heads above water during the global demand shock and social dislocations that accompanied the onset of COVID, and delivered powerful (though not durable) protection against it. Besides protecting corporate profits and the corresponding counterstream of campaign cash, we the people qua government can solve problems collectively that individually we could not. It's sort of what government is for.

[Winehole23]

That said, where's our Warp Speed 2.0? COVID is making our toolbox passé.

[Winehole23]

[Winehole23]

Apparently, train fires can be hard to detect. Good thing 32N was only carrying non-hazardous materials.

The National Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate the incident. Tuesday, it released a statement saying the rail car that started the derailment has been identified and an overheated wheel bearing is being probed as a potential cause.

Surveillance video from a residence showed what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment.

A video captured by a security camera at Butech Bliss, an industrial equipment company in Salem that is about 20 miles before the derailment site, showed what appears to be a fiery axle.

A company representative said the video was captured at 8:12 p.m. on Feb. 3, which was about 43 minutes before a Norfolk Southern train went off the tracks in East Palestine at 8:55 p.m.

https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news...erailed-train/

[pgardn]

There have to be other lines of business besides the transport of toxic materials while not giving a that hedge fund managers can manage.
There needs to be an example set here. If you deregulate and poison a city, the funds that control that business are going bankrupt. The government can do better than this and can pay off the damages.

[SpursforSix]

There have to be other lines of business besides the transport of toxic materials while not giving a that hedge fund managers can manage.
There needs to be an example set here. If you deregulate and poison a city, the funds that control that business are going bankrupt. The government can do better than this and can pay off the damages.

Not enough money for that. This is a billion dollar problem on it's own. They'll never punish BigCorp enough to make it not worth it. I think by this point, regardless of political affiliation, we all know that corporations will us all the way.

[Winehole23]

DeWine, a second-term Republican, said he had been contacted after the disaster by President Joe Biden, who, he said, offered any necessary federal assistance. Said DeWine at the Tuesday news briefing: “Look, the president called me and said, ‘Anything you need.’ I have not called him back after that conversation. We will not hesitate to do that if we’re seeing a problem or anything, but I’m not seeing it.”

https://www.marke ch.com/story/oh...aster-adf4c949

[Winehole23]

whew, what a relief

[SpursforSix]

https://www.marke ch.com/story/oh...aster-adf4c949

The more troubling question is what do we not know. It doesn't take a train derailment to poison tens of thousands of people. Dupont and Monsanto have been doing this for years. Not to mention BigPharma.

[Winehole23]

Texas related

https://grist.org/project/accountabi...act-pollution/

[Winehole23]

The more troubling question is what do we not know. It doesn't take a train derailment to poison tens of thousands of people. Dupont and Monsanto have been doing this for years. Not to mention BigPharma.

Probably longer

“These companies got away with poisoning people for more than a half century,” Rouda said.

https://minnesotareformer.com/2022/1...ic-government/

[Winehole23]

[Winehole23]

Once these chemicals get into the groundwater, not much can be done. This is a map of contamination in St. Paul, MN.

There are currently about 3,000 product liability lawsuits over toxic PFAS effects pending nationwide, each involving similar allegations that the companies failed to warn about the long-term health risks from exposure to the chemicals.

https://www.aboutlawsuits.com/3m-pfa...on-settlement/

[Winehole23]

https://response.epa.gov/sites/15933...20do ent.pdf

[Winehole23]