The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by convolvatron » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #41

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…

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…

aren't you assuming we spend the money to adequately track the problem and hold the correct people responsible? that's certainly not the case now in the US. maybe you can fix that by creating a market somehow?

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

#62

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

nawgz wrote: post #54

chrisseaton wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you use words like "when people now see articles like this" to completely dismiss its very point I think you're misreading my comments. I'm not dismissing the article. It's the opposite. I'm saying that my fear is that other people will unfortunately dismiss the article, due to fatigue of being warned that things cause cancer.

You are strongly whitewashing your own comments. Your first comment - as mentioned re: personal agendas - was about 75% dedicated to to railing against California. The other 25% was where you expressed your opinion of the article: "probably nobody cares" Please write more carefully if you mean what you say when pressed, because these thoughts are not without merit, but the top level comment was completely off-topic a…

> derogatory to the article

I’m really not sure how you managed to take that away from the top level comment! I didn't say anything derogatory about it if you re-read it. I think you're possibly bringing in some kind of preconception.

The article is important but its impact is watered down by people making ‘cancer-causing’ a daily warning. That was the point.

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

#63

Post by SinParadise » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

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…

The welfare of persons is always in the right.

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

#64

Post by deanCommie » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

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…

Who do you think is setting up these neighbourhoods? A lot of times it's the industrial companies as well looking to diversify their investments.

But not always, let's not paint them with the same brush. Zoom out on the problem broader.

Why are industrial companies polluting land that they don't own? Well, because this was all established in an age when we considered pollution out of sight and out of mind. If it's not an oil barrel lying in a ditch, but some happy vapor going out into the atmosphere, who cares?

So the lack of government regulation of pollution on land not owned by the companies is the problem.

In 21st century sensibilities about externalities, an industrial plant should not be able to pollute land it doesn't own. And if there is no way to avoid that, the government should set it up as an isolation zone not zoned for residential, and force the company to price that into their economics.

By the way this is what the rest of the developed world does. The US, with it's obsession with profits, and deregulation, and "letting the free market" decide doesn't, and now has the worst correlation between health outcomes and socioeconomic class of any developed country.

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

#65

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

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 and needs to be punished. Who is right and who is wrong?

Yeah, if your industrial process causes cancer you need to re-engineer the process to be safer and polluting less, even if you were there first.

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

#66

Post by actually_a_dog » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This works, if you have 20 coffee shops, and one of them has "there's asbestos in this building" warning. If you have warnings literally everywhere, for minor things, that noone really cares about, because the risks are miniscule, people will start ignoring even the dangerous but identical-looking signs. "this item causes cancer" ... are we talking about asbestos, or are we talking about a roasted potato? If the labe…

I was going to suggest that asbestos was a bad example, because, in most cases, as long as it's left undisturbed, it's completely safe. The only risk from asbestos is from breathing it into one's lungs. If it's not in the air, it's not a problem.

But, then I thought: hmm... maybe his is a great example. People are terrible at assessing risks. The word 'asbestos' is likely to cause a greater reaction than is warranted. It's the opposite side of the coin from peoples' reactions to those prop 65 signs.

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

#67

Post by htek » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

Jesus, this story is going to have all the bad takes. People's main takeaway from the article is, "it's just the way cities grow," "it's the zoning board's fault," "people moved near a cancer cluster, it's their fault," "you should be able to pollute an area you pay for."

Seriously? The problem is the government allowing private corporations to poison the environment to benefit the bottom line of the corporations. I don't care if someone moved next door to an industrial plant or a pig farm, if they are spewing toxins into the air we breathe, the water we drink, the ground someone else will eventually purchase, they are responsible for damaging the environment as well as harming, and in the long run, killing people and that should absolutely be illegal and stopped. We're not talking about a bad smell or loud noise, we're talking about people getting leukemia or Parkinson's and so on. Are you sociopaths?

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

#68

Post by lettergram » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #57

dontcare007 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That completely lets the companies off the hook for dangerous and unnecessary pollution. Even if nobody was around, they should have an ethylene oxide scrubber. That is a major source of teratogenic emissions per the article. Also, it strikes me as extremely speculative on your part that this is a zoning issue. How do you know that these plants didn't shift product mixes or expand after there were established communi…

I’m responding to a post which mentioned zoning issues. Generally, this is an article about “sacrifice zones” - I’m confused.

Putting zoning aside, companies have no motives outside of growth and profit. That’s why governments exist to protect the population they represent. From people, companies, foreign invaders, etc.

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

#69

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

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 exception to the knowledge-worker idea, but SV was founded on horribly toxic silicon refining which, while mostly gone, has a terrible history of poisoning the ground.

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

#70

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #39

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…

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.

[deleted]