Trust the EPA

[Nightshade]

...like the democrats want you to and you get this:

SHIPROCK, N.M. — Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, made famous from the Oscar-winning movie bearing her name, on Tuesday accused the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of lying about how much toxic wastewater spilled from a Colorado mine and fouled rivers in three Western states.

Her allegation came during a visit to the nation's largest American Indian reservation, where she saw the damage and met with Navajo Nation leaders and farmers affected by last month's spill, which was triggered by an EPA crew during excavation work.

Brockovich said she was shocked by the agency's actions leading up to the release of waste tainted with heavy metals and its response afterward.

"They did not tell the truth about the amount. There were millions and millions of gallons," she said while speaking to a crowd of high school students in Shiprock, New Mexico.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/erin-b ... ar-AAe4tMV

[callmeslick]

well, based on track record, I trust them way more than the ★■◆●-weasels who created those toxic sites the EPA was attempting to clean up.

[Ferno]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/PRATT

[woodchip]

well, based on track record, I trust them way more than the ★■◆●-weasels who created those toxic sites the EPA was attempting to clean up.

Ah lets see, the mine went out of business in 1923. Don't think there was a EPA back then. So what happened in the intervening time from 1923 to when the EPA took control...were there spills? Or was this the first and only spill, all while under EPA control? If there were no spills until the EPA took control, then why would you trust them more?

[callmeslick]

um, the mine was OWNED since then, so the OWNERS were responsible for clean up. About 20 attempts have been made to give this and several other mines in the region Superfund status, which allocates the necessary resources to do a thorough clean up. Always blocked by the mining interests in Congress.

[woodchip]

Even if what you say is true, the accident didn't happen until the EPA took control. Stop trying to dance around the issue.

[callmeslick]

Even if what you say is true, the accident didn't happen until the EPA took control. Stop trying to dance around the issue.

the 'issue', if you will, is that the EPA fecked up on this attempt, but has been involved in literally THOUSANDS of mine waste cleanups, nationwide, for decades. They have one bad outcome(and no doubt some more, to be fair) and you are ready to jump up and down suggesting that they are a bad thing for the nation? Seriously, what drugs are you on? Since our childhoods, Woody, your air is cleaner, your water is FAR cleaner, and a lot of toxins have been cleaned up from the land. This is a bad thing in WoodyWorld? Really? Get a grip.


by the way, and I base this remark on anglers observations from the region itself, the pictures look FAR worse than the reality. Very little loss of biomass in the river, comparatively little of the overall waste stash made it into the stream compared to what is dammed up. But, it makes a nice, sensational photo display for both the anti-EPA goofballs and the equally goofy enviromental activist community to show an orangish-tan mess flowing downstream.

[callmeslick]

to amplify.....who should be trusted if NOT the EPA, or some other government entity?

Ask the folks in North Carolina. Do they think Duke Power was trustworthy?
Ask the folks in the Marcellus Shale region with so much methane in the well water you can light it on fire.
Ask the folks near the Gulf or in coastal Alaska about 'trusting' the oil companies.
Check in with the folks in Oklahoma, now an earthquake hotbed. Trusting those frackers to look out for you?

on and on. To return to the original post.....if not the EPA, who is responsible to be the steward of the public good on environmental issues?

[Lothar]

the EPA fecked up on this attempt, but has been involved in literally THOUSANDS of mine waste cleanups

Kind of like how if Bush or Obama mispronounce something, it becomes a big story for viewers of MSNBC and FOX News. Because it's not the real issue, it's just an excuse to vent. If you already hate it, every mistake is a reason to vent all of the hate at once.

I think there's room for real criticism of the EPA, sometimes making decisions that are economically costly with little if any measurable environmental benefit. But "they were trying to clean up leftover toxic waste from a century ago and the crew screwed up", despite both the ugliness of the pictures and the danger posed to some who live downstream, isn't a reason to criticize the whole agency. And we do need government-level protection of the environment, because the environment belongs to the public and individual private agencies don't have the proper incentives to not screw it up without outside intervention.

[callmeslick]

thanks, Lothar, for injecting an adult perspective.

[Tunnelcat]

I see the EPA overlooks this little "problem" too. So what if a few farmers and cattle ranchers lose the usefulness of their land to drilling waste spills, all because oil company mineral rights are tantamount to their landowner surface rights and oil company profits are more important. Eh, spills happen on the road to riches.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015 ... -drilling/

Don't think the EPA has it's priorities up it's collective butt, read this gem:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/05/e ... il-spills/

[callmeslick]

both steaming piles of hysterics, TC.

The first one is an ongoing problem of regulation blockage in favor of gas and oil extraction. In other words, EPAs hands get tied, in a very real sense like the mine waste issues.
The second one is sourced in a truly moronic blog. As pointed out by the EPA chief, the blog misrepresents the program altogether, and then the article dances around that reality with the semi-creepy, 'we'll be watching what they really are doing' or some such.


Once again, I ask: who do you WANT looking after this stuff? It seems like what you are complaining about is the lack of teeth and funding given to the EPA, more than the actual track record.

[snoopy]

I can just see how this went down:

1980:
EPA: Clean that mine up, owner dudes!
Owners: No way, that place is a toxic spill waiting to happen. I'm not touching it.

2000:
EPA: Clean that mine up, owner dudes, or else!
Owners: No way, that place is a toxic spill waiting to happen. I'm not touching it.
EPA: We don't want to have to take the property from you!

2015:
EPA: See owner guys, we took your mine
Former Owners: Good luck with that cleanup...
EPA: Ooops
Former Owners: Told you so.

[callmeslick]

very cute, Snoopy, but incorrect. More like 1980--we need Superfund status to be able to handle a mess this big. Congress--sorry, no
continue every two years to present and then the current mess ensues.