Comments on: Alabama Water: Questions and Cancers

by: “Shameful Dereliction of Duty” « hold on to the feeling

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:42:53 +0000

[…] 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 Whether you hate them because of out-of-date insults or because of their native traditions of finely-crated hair helmets, this federal petition helps to further expose the inept bumbling and utterly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. […]

by: Reactionary

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:36:22 +0000

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.

by: Lurker

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:43:31 +0000

Shouldn’t that be “an agency tasked with protecting it” ? I’m guessing ADEM doesn’t also run the state Police Force…

by: mooncat

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:25:51 +0000

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.

by: Brian

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:13:34 +0000

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.

by: Kathy

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:58:37 +0000

Thanks, Dan. I feel much better. :)

by: walt moffett

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:51:46 +0000

Dan I thought you forgot the tag.

by: Dan

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:12:14 +0000

I must’ve forgotten my sarcasm tags.

by: Kathy

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:01:51 +0000

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.

by: Reactionary

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:28:09 +0000

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