Posted by Water in Alabama’s streams and rivers causes cancer.
The acceptable rate, according to Alabama environmental law, is that about one in 100,000 Alabamians exposed to the risk will get cancer from Alabama water, because, in Alabama, industries are permitted to put 58 chemicals in the water that are known carcinogens. Chemicals such as benzene, arsenic, and DDT.
Every other state in the southeast, save one, allows for a one in a million risk of cancer from water. Tennessee and Alabama have rates ten times higher, allowing for an acceptable rate of risk that ten in one million people may get cancer from their state’s water.
| Tomorrow, Alabama finds out what a human life is worth to the agency charged with the responsibility of protecting it. |
A coalition of groups has presented petitions asking the state to adopt more protective recommendations from the Environmental Protection Agency, as most of our neighboring states have already done. Adam Snyder, director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, has said, “The goal is to improve the regulations at ADEM and get them to comply with their own policies. We want them to meet the recommended standards that EPA has produced,” and added that “existing laws do not protect the residents of Alabama as well as they deserve.”
The mission of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, i.e. ADEM, (and Alabama Environmental Management Commission) is “to protect and improve the quality of Alabama’s environment and the health of all its citizens.”
Yet, a sub-committee of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission (which oversees ADEM) has met to consider the petitions and is recommending that the larger board reject the petitions. In written comments submitted to the subcommittee, Alabama Power Co., the Business Council of Alabama and the Alabama Coal Association argued that the “10-in-a-million guideline was good enough for Alabama.”
| The goal is to improve the regulations at ADEM and get them to comply with their own policies. |
Many people disagree and believe that Alabamians deserve better. Such as The Birmingham News. The Huntsville Times.
ADEM’s recently reported failure to warn Lincoln residents of environmental hazards it had known about for three years does not inspire confidence in ADEM’s regard for our well-being; it was the U.S. EPA who began to warn residents in recent weeks of lurking dangers from an abandoned foundry. Tomorrow comes an opportunity for ADEM to live up to its mission.
Tomorrow, the Environmental Management Commission will meet to consider the petitions. Tomorrow, in the words of the Daily Home, “ADEM has a chance to send a message that it will, in fact, protect the people of this state.”
Tomorrow, “Alabama finds out what a human life is worth to the agency charged with the responsibility of protecting it. The answer will come when the ADEM board votes ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ on the standards.”
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Problem is that while ADEM can set standards, effective enforcement is lacking. I notice in the commentary above, none of the elected leadership on any level, has made any comment or appeared to have any interest. The two major parties have not shown any interest on their web sites in the problem, either. Until someone is interested in harnessing the big mules, don’t look for any changes.
umm.. free markets or something.
I’ve visited Lincoln, looking for Fort Strother (found the historical marker), retracing Jackson’s campaign against the Creeks.
That said, I like water. I don’t like polluters (especially the ones I have to pay for). I think that it would be better for the State (and Feds) to ‘nip it in the bud’ and not wait until they have to remediate a site and send the soil to a toxic dump.
Here’s a good Daily Home (kudos to reporter Atchison) write up:
“The facility is hot,” said Leonardo Ceron, who works with the EPA Emergency Response and Removal Branch and who is also the federal on-scene coordinator for the old Lincoln Metals Corporation/Heartland Faucet site…
Sometime during March 2001, Heartland Faucet declared bankruptcy, and in November Silvercrown Investments purchased the company out of bankruptcy.
According to the Talladega County Revenue Commission office, taxes on the property have not been paid in the past seven years.
Because the foundry has not been in operation for several years, owners of the property and those responsible for the ground contamination are more difficult to locate.
“We have a corporation that has taken some responsibility,” Ceron said Friday.
He said the EPA will attempt to have the owners pay for the lead contamination cleanup.
If the owners refuse to pay or are unable to pay for the cleanup, EPA Superfunds could fund the cleanup.
If forced, EPA could file suit in federal court seeking an order for the owners or those responsible for the contamination to repay the government for the cleanup.
Ceron said the process of cleaning up the lead contamination will begin soon. The cleanup process should begin before the end of September and will take about two to three months to complete — “if we don’t encounter any problems,” he said…
http://www.dailyhome.com/news/2007/dh-talladegacounty-0610-datchison-7f09w5026.htm
Here’s an EPA site:
http://oaspub.epa.gov/enviro/fii_query_dtl.disp_program_facility?pgm_sys_id_in=ALR000031880&pgm_sys_acrnm_in=CERCLIS
Oh, Dan, I was an economics major in college. If you really believe that the free market — which assumes free and full access to information and influence for all players — is operating in Alabama, then I have some swampland to sell you.
I must’ve forgotten my sarcasm tags.
Dan I thought you forgot the tag.
Thanks, Dan. I feel much better. :)
I assumed you were being sarcastic, Dan. I happen to be an enthusiastic free marketeer, but environmental concerns are one of the few areas where (IMHO) the market on an aggregate level does a poor job of including the true cost of externalities into the prices of their products. Often, by the time market forces cajole businesses to clean up their emissions or to use safer chemicals the damage is done and may be expensive, time consuming, or even impossible to repair.
Or the business(es) in question may have gone under by clean-up time, leaving the mess for the taxpayers. Profits to shareholders, big expense for the general public.
Shouldn’t that be “an agency tasked with protecting it” ? I’m guessing ADEM doesn’t also run the state Police Force…
Wow – mooncat, Brian and me agree on a subject for substantially the same reason. How can ADEM possibly ignore that!
Aside – maybe I’ll start using fancy words like externalities instead of quoting Barney Fife.
[...] April 2, 2008 by stetson23 Say what you will about the Massholes, they are getting one right here. Whether you hate them because of out-of-date insults or because of their native traditions of finely-crated hair helmets, this federal petition helps to further expose the inept bumbling and utterly inexcusable death of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Washington Post may say that the EPA is “punting” on important matters like global warming, they are punting in the sense of B.J. Sander, one of the worst punters in the history of the NFL. This leads to results like Conan the Barbarian fighting the EPA (and his own state GOP buddies) to try to get some tailpipe emission regulations. Terrible. How about Alabama’s environmental protection agency? Don’t even ask. More on ADEM here. [...]