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The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

propublica.org

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Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#111

Post by scottyah »

vineyardmike wrote: post #69
NittLion78 wrote: post #21

As I've said for years, any time you see a glittering urban core full of glass towers, steel bridges, and classic old stone architecture, somewhere there's a Mordor nearby that made all that happen.

Eh, not really. Boston area has no big chemical/hard industrial industry, and nothing on that map. Neither does seattle (but the map shows some small process in areaa). Id wager a lot of modern "intellectual" cities (where knowledge worker industries dominate) can be devoid of such processes. Tourism cities too - eg, Vegas and Miami don't have such a history and their maps are clean. Obviously SFBay is a notable exce…

All that stuff is still being made and polluting, "mordor" is just further away.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#112

Post by azinman2 »

riversflow wrote: post #109
vineyardmike wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between a person driving a car, and a factory spewing off a criminally high level of carcinogenic chemicals. > A lot of the things we rely on every day have toxic byproducts And we should stop and fix that. Why do we accept this as ok? > by your logic you should give up your car because someone moved in to the lot next to you and built a house. My logic says we should phase out cars that we know…

>And we should stop and fix that. By exporting it to a poorer country? Because that's what happens.

That happens because the incentives and supply chain machinery allow it to. Externalities are never priced in regardless of where things are made. Price in externalities, regardless of origin, and things would change. That's just one example of a potential solution, and one that many are trying to do with carbon taxes/credits.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#113

Post by azinman2 »

dontcare007 wrote: post #49
lettergram wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gonna have to side with city zoning being the wrong party here. It’s really the people who represent the tax base that should be protecting said tax base.

Yep, a failure on the part of the beaurocrats to deny the zoning changes.

Houston is imfamous for not having zoning. That's how you get an industrial plant next to a school next to a mall next to housing next to a cattle feed lot.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#114

Post by LorenPechtel »

sokoloff wrote: post #94
vineyardmike wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The engineers didn't set out to create processes that resulted in toxic by-products, your statement is not helpful at all. if the engineers did not set out to create a process free from polluting carcinogens, then they did something wrong.

When you have a campfire (or fire in your fireplace), you are releasing polluting carcinogens. When you heat olive oil to the smoke point, you are releasing carcinogens. If/when you do those things, are you also doing something wrong?

Exactly. My former employer had repeated battles with the EPA over his supposed refusal to improve emissions. Never mind that we had already done everything technologically feasible, they only saw the pattern of improvement and then stopping. And they kept comparing us to a competitor that we kept telling them had to be faking the numbers. Took them 10 years to figure out we were right--and we spent more on compliance than their penalty when their non-compliance was finally discovered.

Other than mixing our own colors everything involved was available at the local hardware store. We were simply staining wood, the issue was the solvent evaporating while drying.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#115

Post by kingsloi »

apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #56
leereeves wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a lot in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and around Chicago too. What I'm wondering is why the shaded areas around the hot spots on the Gulf Coast are so much bigger than the shaded areas around hotspots elsewhere.

Looks like they're oil refineries and related industry, which makes sense given how much oil is pulled from the Gulf. Pennsylvania has a bunch of metal processing industries. Given Pittsburgh's reputation for steel production, that makes sense too. Looks like a big blend of different industries in Chicago. That one I can't explain.

I just launched a non-profit, part of is it high quality air quality monitoring for Gary, IN. I'm looking to install it at/near the nearest residential area near USS Gary Works.

I've only been able to afford a 3 month rental of AQMesh's sensor, hopefully it'll trigger enough interest to get a few of these bad boys around Gary/Chicagoland.

If you drive past 80/94 or 90, there's a real rotten egg smell, or Hydrogen Sulfide. It's been known for a long, and is a common complaint in NWI https://web.archive.org/web/20210204024942/https://www.wbez....

When the sensor is up and running, I'll be adding the data to the air quality site I run https://millerbeach.community

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#116

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

sokoloff wrote: post #94
vineyardmike wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The engineers didn't set out to create processes that resulted in toxic by-products, your statement is not helpful at all. if the engineers did not set out to create a process free from polluting carcinogens, then they did something wrong.

When you have a campfire (or fire in your fireplace), you are releasing polluting carcinogens. When you heat olive oil to the smoke point, you are releasing carcinogens. If/when you do those things, are you also doing something wrong?

> When you have a fire in your fireplace, you are releasing polluting carcinogens. When you do that, are you also doing something wrong?

Yes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51581817

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/property/1430579/wood-b...

For the reasons that you set out. It's fairly straightforward.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#117

Post by azinman2 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
kybishop wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence to back up this claim? I'm aware CA puts many warning stickers on various products... but isn't it possible that profit-seeking corporations are, in fact, using cancer-causing materials simply because they're cheaper?

People don't seem to change their behaviour due to those warnings. Nobody's going into a coffee shop, seeing that warning sticker and thinking 'ah whoops better get out of here' are they? The warning 'cancer-causing' has no effect.

I absolutely pay attention to Prop 65 when I buy products and will find alternatives. I also try to find out _why_ there's a prop 65 warning and then decide how much I care (e.g. if an SSD has it, I don't care because I know I'm handling it so little and it shouldn't be offgasing anything; where as with food or things I'm always touching, then I care very much).

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#118

Post by LorenPechtel »

francisofascii wrote: post #90
dantheman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same when people move next to the airport and then complain about noise. In general this can be solved with an extension of property rights, the industrial zone/airport/music venue etc can own the rights to "pollute" the neighboring areas, much like buying air rights in a city. Then it's clear when you purchase / rent / what level of noise / pollution you can expect. This allows market forces to work, if aft…

The right to pollute should never be granted in perpetuity. If anything, it should be a recurring cost that increases or decreases based on the how much polluting is occurring. That way the markets work in incentivizing less polluting.

Yup. For the most part I would like to see current pollution regulations tossed wholesale.

Instead, put a price tag on each pollutant. The charge is applied at the point in the supply chain where the pollutant is created or extracted and is rebated to anyone who destroys the pollutant (although they may be charged for other pollutants created in the process.) Think of the oft-proposed carbon tax, just much, much broader.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#119

Post by azinman2 »

Tagbert wrote: post #27
kybishop wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence to back up this claim? I'm aware CA puts many warning stickers on various products... but isn't it possible that profit-seeking corporations are, in fact, using cancer-causing materials simply because they're cheaper?

CA looks a lot like the boy who cried “wolf”. When the risk is infinitesimal and the warning placed on so many items, what is the value of that warning?

What makes you think the risk is infinitesimal?

I think the reality is we have so many terrible chemicals all around us that it feels like an over reaction, when it's actually the exact opposite -- manufacturers have made many a deal with the devil.

Re: The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones”

#120

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

kaiju0 wrote: post #37

This is a pretty typical growth pattern. Industrial zone establishes and city is set far away in a safe area. City expands and resident need cheap housing. The cheap housing is built near the industrial zone as that is how economic forces work. People then see this and say they built industrial next to the poor people when the opposite occurred. Now the industry is giving cancer to poor people and needs to be punishe…

> Now the industry is giving cancer to poor people ... Who is right and who is wrong?

Are you suggesting that this question is somehow hard to answer? I don't think it is.

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