11 ms·

A small town, a chemical plant and the residents' desperate fight for clear air

99 points by 1_player 8y ago

zubairlk 7y ago
I find it really hard to digest such stories coming from the the first world with so many regulations/laws/a functioning system/educated people etc. Imagine the state of the 3rd world developing countries..
- King-Aaron 7y ago
  I find it interesting that there's a disproportionately large amount of these kinds of stories that come out of the US (compared to other western countries). As you said, there should be enough educated/financially able/motivated people in these areas that would mobilize and do something about it.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    My theory is they probably work full-time, and do not have the time or monies to lobby at the state and local level.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Tells a lot about regulations and their enforcement in the US I think.
  - ajxs 7y ago
    > ...there should be enough educated/financially able/motivated people in these areas that would mobilize and do something about it. I beg to differ with this point. If you're an educated person not looking to work in a blue collar job your economic prospects in areas like this are limited. The technically inclined and the otherwise ambitious move away to seek better opportunities elsewhere. I lived in a small industrial city for a while many years ago and saw this phenomena for myself. Those who were able left in their teens to major economic centers for tertiary education and considered going back home worse than a death sentence. What was left in the wake of this phenomena was a creeping ghetto, an economic wasteland that only begat more poverty.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      I think you're being a little too extreme. A lot of people leave for the money and would return if they could but they can't because there's no money.
      - germinalphrase 7y ago
        Which... is pretty much what he’s saying? If all those who can command a higher wage leave (and don’t return), the local economy becomes hollow and a creeping ghetto sets in.
        dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        I read it as more of a "they actually like it better in the rich cities" which many people do not. Specifically the sentence "the people who could left in their teens to major economic centers for tertiary education and considered going back home worse than a death sentence." If a nuke were dropped on SF tomorrow there's a large number of people who would be like "welp, I'm out of a job but this is a perfect opportunity to move back to BFE". The same goes for every major city. There's a reason all (for smaller than average values of "all) the wall street types move either upstate or to Florida once they've become rich enough that they can either let their career coast or retire.
        Spooky23 7y ago
        It’s worse than that... whole states are experiencing brain drain. As agriculture continues its consolidation, significant parts of the country are losing anyone who can leave.
  - sgift 7y ago
    > I find it interesting that there's a disproportionately large amount of these kinds of stories that come out of the US (compared to other western countries). From what I gathered this is rooted in the difference between the regulatory principles of the US and most other Western countries. In Europe you usually have to proof first that whatever you do will be reasonably safe, then you can do it. In the US you can do many things without someone checking first, but if it's later shown that you harmed someone you have to pay damages and/or people will be send to prison.
  - mac01021 7y ago
    Not many countries are anywhere near as big as the US, and those that are mostly have similar issues. I think a part of the problem is that, for someone in a little town like the one in the article, regulatory authorities and the federal legislature are peopled largely with individuals who reside a thousand miles away. That just can't happen in basically any European country.
    - moorhosj 7y ago
      This seems like a bit of a cop-out. States and municipalities have regulatory power and are much closer to citizens. Many states are roughly the size of European countries.
      - mac01021 7y ago
        Perhaps the state of LA has the power to stop this pollution, but the residents lobbying for help from regulators， as depicted in the article, seem to be focusing their attention on the federal EPA. Unless I accidentally skipped a paragraph that talked about lobbying at a regional level. If the state doesn't lack the teeth to fix this, why would they choose to compete for federal attention with an order of magnitude more people?
        moorhosj 7y ago
        ==If the state doesn't lack the teeth to fix this, why would they choose to compete for federal attention with an order of magnitude more people?== I'm not sure, Louisiana does have a Department of Environmental Quality [1]. In Illinois we had a similar issue play out this year. The Governor is the one who ended up banning the plant's use of ethylene oxide [2]. It looks an obscure state law allowed for that action: "Invoking rarely used authority in state law, Illinois EPA Director John Kim prohibited Sterigenics from pumping ethylene oxide gas into massive chambers used to sterilize medical equipment, pharmaceutical drugs, spices and food." [1] https://deq.louisiana.gov/ https://deq.louisiana.gov/ [2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-pritzker-sterigenics-shutdown-willowbrook-20190215-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-pr...
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    The US is big enough for the wealthier people to move away to nicer areas.
- hef19898 7y ago
  It was the same in the heavily industrialized parts of Germany till the 80s or so. There was a documentary covering the history of these sites. And the oral history part of it was just shocking. Like certain departments being known as the "blood pissers" because basically everyone working there for too long got bladder cancer. Or the fact that it was normal that people just vanished during their shift because they fell into melted iron and nobody realized until shift end. But what even shocked me more than these stories was how people thought about them. Somewhere between pride and it-is-just-like-that. From all levels, workers, managers, chemists with PhDs, their families...
  - paganel 7y ago
    > It was the same in the heavily industrialized parts of Germany till the 80s or so Like you very well pointed out, most of that industry and the associated pollution has moved further East. As a citizen of such an Eastern European country I was unpleasantly surprised to feel the air suddenly tasting "chemical" as I was driving on a highway in Transylvania, near a town called Sebes. Sure enough, I then soon found an article of the local residents complaining about a chemical company polluting the air they breath (in here [1], article in Romanian, unfortunately). The culprit is an Austrian (not German, but closed enough) company called Kronospan, and on its wiki page [2] one can see that its latest investment was made in Belarus, presumably only a dictatorship still allows this sort of thing to go unchecked. The same wiki page also details some pollution-related incidents for which the company was responsible in Wales in the early 2000s, that is in another relatively poor area like the Southern US states mentioned in the article. [1] https://casajurnalistului.ro/kronospanik/ https://casajurnalistului.ro/kronospanik/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronospan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronospan
    - mauvehaus 7y ago
      Industries moving as local populations wise up to the health problems they cause has been going on for a long time. The book Toms River[0] briefly covers the history of the synthetic dye industry from its inception in Germany, moving to Cincinnati, OH, and subsequently to Toms River, NJ (then a sleepy backwater location). The book is highly worth a read, and I was thinking about some of the outcomes in the book when I read the article and comments on Scientists Rise Up Against Statistical Significance[1] here. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445827
- stevenwoo 7y ago
  Lousiana is particularly bad, but there is a huge stretch of I-10 in Texas from east Houston to the border leading into Lousiana that is lined with chemical plants that make things worse - I drove it about 30 years ago. It took 10 weeks after a river turned completely black from dumping for officials in Texas to do anything. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/17/texas-attorney-general-sues-inland-recylcling-and-remediation/ https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/17/texas-attorney-gener... Also in Texas - large companies have eminent domain rights on private property - this probably is going to lead to pipelines through the Hill Country (near Austin) in a few years in spite of most of the open space there being in individual owner's hands. https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/permian-highway-pipeline-oil-industry-landowners/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/permian-highway-pipeli...
juskrey 7y ago
In fact, due to sheer randomness there will be small towns with extraordinary (hight or low) cancer rates. Of course there will be great temptation to explain this with nearest plant (or healing springs) etc, where the truth may or may not be there at all.
- bsder 7y ago
  While something may very well be random chance, that does not mean we shouldn't investigate. The only way to differentiate whether something is causal or random is to examine it.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  The more standard deviations from average, the fewer towns you expect. By the time you hit a 50x rate for a reasonably large population, the expected number of towns this bad is zero. And look at the map, the whole area around it is spiked to a lesser extent. It's not random.
  - juskrey 7y ago
    Standard deviation does not "work" here. What I mean is that for rare 1:10000 diseases 1 patient per population of 100 people is x100 higher rate comparing to 1 patient per city of 10000 people. Obviously sometimes you have sick people in small villages. The obvious mistake is to calculate the rate per village inhabitant, which is made exactly on the poster.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      That's what I was getting at with "reasonably large population". You're right that for a rare disease 10000 is not enough to make standard deviation work. But when you're talking about "cancer", all of it, it's much more than you need for very strong statistical significance.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Not really. Almost all cancer clusters can be traced to a source. Sometimes natural like radon gas, but usually industrial. If you’re going to live near a military base, semiconductor manufacturer (especially older ones), or defense/aviation contractor, don’t drink the water. Industrial sites just dumped chemicals in site or in poorly engineered dumps nearby. The military likes to setup burn pits with all sorts of nasty things or just dump stuff as well. Look at maps of brownfield/superfund sites in places like Burlington, MA, around Stanford in California, Bethpage, NY, Endicott, NY and similar sites. Chemical plumes in groundwater and cancer clusters are common themes.
jstewartmobile 7y ago
This is a common story throughout the southeast. Europeans, Japanese--and other countries smart enough not to further pollute their own countries--export it to the southeastern US, where everyone is either so focused on JOBS! MONEY! that they'll roll the dice with cancer, or just so beat-down that they can't put up an adequate defense. Here's a similar case from 2016 in Mississippi: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/25/did-the-epa-prosecute-and-jail-a-mississippi-lab-owner-because-of-her-activism/ https://theintercept.com/2016/11/25/did-the-epa-prosecute-an...
- njepa 7y ago
  Southeast Europe is polluted as well, however mainly from coal. I think will see more and more of these articles about the West as the trajectory of our societies are changing. We even have emerging gambling problems in Sweden these days, which no one here cares much about.
  - LoSboccacc 7y ago
    Italy is a cesspit as well, with half the coast having above limit pollutants: https://www.legambiente.it/golettaverde-map/index.html?anno=2018 https://www.legambiente.it/golettaverde-map/index.html?anno=... and all the industrialized areas going routinely over air pollution limits with noticeable incidence on health risks: https://iglicinidicetta.blogspot.com/2017/10/le-44-aree-invivibili-piu-inquinate.html https://iglicinidicetta.blogspot.com/2017/10/le-44-aree-invi...
- hef19898 7y ago
  And the real nasty stuff is moved to east Asia and former Soviet republics. Or India. The Simpsons episode in which Mr. Burns is moving his plant to India and than back after Homer is launching a union, sadly, describes it pretty well. Still, the move of the dirty production or the at least the clean up of it happened not so long ago in (West) Germany. I still remember the colourful water that came out my grand parents well till the early 90s. Apparently it doesn't help to have a brown coal power plant and an aluminium factory in the neighborhood.
- moorhosj 7y ago
ajxs 7y ago
The re-framing of this story within the narrative of American racial conflict feels remarkably cheap. Don't misinterpret this as a lack of sympathy for those residents, I feel quite the opposite. I feel strongly about this in particular, that air and water quality is a major issue. One where those impacted are particularly powerless to protect themselves. However I feel that pushing the racial component of the story cheapened an otherwise good article. Whether the people impacted are predominantly African-American is likely incidental. This is likely the effect, and not the cause. Economically marginalised individuals of all backgrounds are most likely to be impacted by this kind of pollution. If you make any environment unpleasant, people with the means to leave will do so, selecting for the most marginalised populations. Regardless, this is ridiculous... How is this acceptable within the first world?
- wccrawford 7y ago
  I don't feel the same way. It wasn't just 1 person in the article saying that, and even quoted a scientist as saying it was largely a racial problem. They disagree with you that the racial component is incidental.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  It's Louisiana. Beneath the Southern charm is still the same layer of active malice that gets facilities like this placed right next to black neighborhoods.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  It’s easy to interpret that way without context. Black and Hispanic communities are always targeted for nasty development because they lack the political power to effectively resist and racist attitudes make it easy to explain things away. It’s really easy to see this as FHA published maps with lending guidelines in the mid 20th century. The redline area (is don’t write mortgages) are black neighborhoods in most cities. If you look at the zoning map, those redline areas usually align with shared residential/industrial zoning.
  - ajxs 7y ago
    I disagree with this completely. If it was overall cheaper to build industrial infrastructure in so-called "white communities", companies would be doing it. This kind of capitalism largely concedes no such moral imperatives. Also, I am absolutely unconvinced that the zoning process is even remotely that simple. Reducing this to even the most ( unrealistically ) simple model, you end up with a chicken vs egg dilemma. If you put industrial zones in close proximity with areas of high socio-economic status, the economically mobile population living there will move away leaving an impoverished area behind. This is a gross oversimplification, but you should be able to see the problem. The relationship between undesirable industrial areas and poverty is indeed systemic, but it's not predatory.
velacity 7y ago
This is the same Conglomerate that was responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed at least 3000 people in India in the 1980s.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
swayvil 7y ago
The murderer of your loved-one stands right in front of you. He did it, he's gonna do it again, nobody's gonna stop him, nobody's gonna punish him. What do you do? Well you get some buddies and some guns and do some damage, obviously. I don't think that this is unreasonable or unrealistic. Am I crazy?
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  The most common justifications for murder are morality-based. "He deserved it" or "she was cheating on me" etc. Not saying you are right or wrong in this case, but in general you want to check in with some objective observers rather than taking the law upon yourself. It's also worth remembering that quite a few industries have death as a side effect. If there is an obvious and economical way to make things safer, and someone cuts corners, then sure, they are culpable. Otherwise, it's just a cost people have implicitly accepted and rage shouldn't be directed at one person. Speaking generally here.
  - jadell 7y ago
    So you round up a judge and jury to check in with some objective observers. And it so happens that all those people are friends or business associates of the murderer. Maybe the murderer is even giving them a portion of the money he takes out of the victims' wallets. Now what?
    - jeffdavis 7y ago
      Well, there's a time for everything I guess. Might want to double check with your spiritual advisor or village elder first though -- in case you are not seeing clearly.
  - swayvil 7y ago
    I think that the most common justification for murder is "the law demands" or "for god and country" or "it's not murder, it's execution". I mean, not to get semantic about it.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago

99 points by 1_player 8y ago

I find it really hard to digest such stories coming from the the first world with so many regulations/laws/a functioning system/educated people etc. Imagine the state of the 3rd world developing countries..

King-Aaron 7y ago
I find it interesting that there's a disproportionately large amount of these kinds of stories that come out of the US (compared to other western countries). As you said, there should be enough educated/financially able/motivated people in these areas that would mobilize and do something about it.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  My theory is they probably work full-time, and do not have the time or monies to lobby at the state and local level.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Tells a lot about regulations and their enforcement in the US I think.
- ajxs 7y ago
  > ...there should be enough educated/financially able/motivated people in these areas that would mobilize and do something about it. I beg to differ with this point. If you're an educated person not looking to work in a blue collar job your economic prospects in areas like this are limited. The technically inclined and the otherwise ambitious move away to seek better opportunities elsewhere. I lived in a small industrial city for a while many years ago and saw this phenomena for myself. Those who were able left in their teens to major economic centers for tertiary education and considered going back home worse than a death sentence. What was left in the wake of this phenomena was a creeping ghetto, an economic wasteland that only begat more poverty.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    I think you're being a little too extreme. A lot of people leave for the money and would return if they could but they can't because there's no money.
    - germinalphrase 7y ago
      Which... is pretty much what he’s saying? If all those who can command a higher wage leave (and don’t return), the local economy becomes hollow and a creeping ghetto sets in.
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        I read it as more of a "they actually like it better in the rich cities" which many people do not. Specifically the sentence "the people who could left in their teens to major economic centers for tertiary education and considered going back home worse than a death sentence." If a nuke were dropped on SF tomorrow there's a large number of people who would be like "welp, I'm out of a job but this is a perfect opportunity to move back to BFE". The same goes for every major city. There's a reason all (for smaller than average values of "all) the wall street types move either upstate or to Florida once they've become rich enough that they can either let their career coast or retire.
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        It’s worse than that... whole states are experiencing brain drain. As agriculture continues its consolidation, significant parts of the country are losing anyone who can leave.
- sgift 7y ago
  > I find it interesting that there's a disproportionately large amount of these kinds of stories that come out of the US (compared to other western countries). From what I gathered this is rooted in the difference between the regulatory principles of the US and most other Western countries. In Europe you usually have to proof first that whatever you do will be reasonably safe, then you can do it. In the US you can do many things without someone checking first, but if it's later shown that you harmed someone you have to pay damages and/or people will be send to prison.
- mac01021 7y ago
  Not many countries are anywhere near as big as the US, and those that are mostly have similar issues. I think a part of the problem is that, for someone in a little town like the one in the article, regulatory authorities and the federal legislature are peopled largely with individuals who reside a thousand miles away. That just can't happen in basically any European country.
  - moorhosj 7y ago
    This seems like a bit of a cop-out. States and municipalities have regulatory power and are much closer to citizens. Many states are roughly the size of European countries.
    - mac01021 7y ago
      Perhaps the state of LA has the power to stop this pollution, but the residents lobbying for help from regulators， as depicted in the article, seem to be focusing their attention on the federal EPA. Unless I accidentally skipped a paragraph that talked about lobbying at a regional level. If the state doesn't lack the teeth to fix this, why would they choose to compete for federal attention with an order of magnitude more people?
      - moorhosj 7y ago
        ==If the state doesn't lack the teeth to fix this, why would they choose to compete for federal attention with an order of magnitude more people?== I'm not sure, Louisiana does have a Department of Environmental Quality [1]. In Illinois we had a similar issue play out this year. The Governor is the one who ended up banning the plant's use of ethylene oxide [2]. It looks an obscure state law allowed for that action: "Invoking rarely used authority in state law, Illinois EPA Director John Kim prohibited Sterigenics from pumping ethylene oxide gas into massive chambers used to sterilize medical equipment, pharmaceutical drugs, spices and food." [1] https://deq.louisiana.gov/ https://deq.louisiana.gov/ [2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-pritzker-sterigenics-shutdown-willowbrook-20190215-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-pr...
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  The US is big enough for the wealthier people to move away to nicer areas.
hef19898 7y ago
It was the same in the heavily industrialized parts of Germany till the 80s or so. There was a documentary covering the history of these sites. And the oral history part of it was just shocking. Like certain departments being known as the "blood pissers" because basically everyone working there for too long got bladder cancer. Or the fact that it was normal that people just vanished during their shift because they fell into melted iron and nobody realized until shift end. But what even shocked me more than these stories was how people thought about them. Somewhere between pride and it-is-just-like-that. From all levels, workers, managers, chemists with PhDs, their families...
- paganel 7y ago
  > It was the same in the heavily industrialized parts of Germany till the 80s or so Like you very well pointed out, most of that industry and the associated pollution has moved further East. As a citizen of such an Eastern European country I was unpleasantly surprised to feel the air suddenly tasting "chemical" as I was driving on a highway in Transylvania, near a town called Sebes. Sure enough, I then soon found an article of the local residents complaining about a chemical company polluting the air they breath (in here [1], article in Romanian, unfortunately). The culprit is an Austrian (not German, but closed enough) company called Kronospan, and on its wiki page [2] one can see that its latest investment was made in Belarus, presumably only a dictatorship still allows this sort of thing to go unchecked. The same wiki page also details some pollution-related incidents for which the company was responsible in Wales in the early 2000s, that is in another relatively poor area like the Southern US states mentioned in the article. [1] https://casajurnalistului.ro/kronospanik/ https://casajurnalistului.ro/kronospanik/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronospan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronospan
  - mauvehaus 7y ago
    Industries moving as local populations wise up to the health problems they cause has been going on for a long time. The book Toms River[0] briefly covers the history of the synthetic dye industry from its inception in Germany, moving to Cincinnati, OH, and subsequently to Toms River, NJ (then a sleepy backwater location). The book is highly worth a read, and I was thinking about some of the outcomes in the book when I read the article and comments on Scientists Rise Up Against Statistical Significance[1] here. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445827
stevenwoo 7y ago
Lousiana is particularly bad, but there is a huge stretch of I-10 in Texas from east Houston to the border leading into Lousiana that is lined with chemical plants that make things worse - I drove it about 30 years ago. It took 10 weeks after a river turned completely black from dumping for officials in Texas to do anything. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/17/texas-attorney-general-sues-inland-recylcling-and-remediation/ https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/17/texas-attorney-gener... Also in Texas - large companies have eminent domain rights on private property - this probably is going to lead to pipelines through the Hill Country (near Austin) in a few years in spite of most of the open space there being in individual owner's hands. https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/permian-highway-pipeline-oil-industry-landowners/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/permian-highway-pipeli...

juskrey 7y ago

In fact, due to sheer randomness there will be small towns with extraordinary (hight or low) cancer rates. Of course there will be great temptation to explain this with nearest plant (or healing springs) etc, where the truth may or may not be there at all.

bsder 7y ago
While something may very well be random chance, that does not mean we shouldn't investigate. The only way to differentiate whether something is causal or random is to examine it.
Dylan16807 7y ago
The more standard deviations from average, the fewer towns you expect. By the time you hit a 50x rate for a reasonably large population, the expected number of towns this bad is zero. And look at the map, the whole area around it is spiked to a lesser extent. It's not random.
- juskrey 7y ago
  Standard deviation does not "work" here. What I mean is that for rare 1:10000 diseases 1 patient per population of 100 people is x100 higher rate comparing to 1 patient per city of 10000 people. Obviously sometimes you have sick people in small villages. The obvious mistake is to calculate the rate per village inhabitant, which is made exactly on the poster.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    That's what I was getting at with "reasonably large population". You're right that for a rare disease 10000 is not enough to make standard deviation work. But when you're talking about "cancer", all of it, it's much more than you need for very strong statistical significance.
Spooky23 7y ago
Not really. Almost all cancer clusters can be traced to a source. Sometimes natural like radon gas, but usually industrial. If you’re going to live near a military base, semiconductor manufacturer (especially older ones), or defense/aviation contractor, don’t drink the water. Industrial sites just dumped chemicals in site or in poorly engineered dumps nearby. The military likes to setup burn pits with all sorts of nasty things or just dump stuff as well. Look at maps of brownfield/superfund sites in places like Burlington, MA, around Stanford in California, Bethpage, NY, Endicott, NY and similar sites. Chemical plumes in groundwater and cancer clusters are common themes.

jstewartmobile 7y ago

This is a common story throughout the southeast. Europeans, Japanese--and other countries smart enough not to further pollute their own countries--export it to the southeastern US, where everyone is either so focused on JOBS! MONEY! that they'll roll the dice with cancer, or just so beat-down that they can't put up an adequate defense. Here's a similar case from 2016 in Mississippi: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/25/did-the-epa-prosecute-and-jail-a-mississippi-lab-owner-because-of-her-activism/ https://theintercept.com/2016/11/25/did-the-epa-prosecute-an...

njepa 7y ago
Southeast Europe is polluted as well, however mainly from coal. I think will see more and more of these articles about the West as the trajectory of our societies are changing. We even have emerging gambling problems in Sweden these days, which no one here cares much about.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  Italy is a cesspit as well, with half the coast having above limit pollutants: https://www.legambiente.it/golettaverde-map/index.html?anno=2018 https://www.legambiente.it/golettaverde-map/index.html?anno=... and all the industrialized areas going routinely over air pollution limits with noticeable incidence on health risks: https://iglicinidicetta.blogspot.com/2017/10/le-44-aree-invivibili-piu-inquinate.html https://iglicinidicetta.blogspot.com/2017/10/le-44-aree-invi...
hef19898 7y ago
And the real nasty stuff is moved to east Asia and former Soviet republics. Or India. The Simpsons episode in which Mr. Burns is moving his plant to India and than back after Homer is launching a union, sadly, describes it pretty well. Still, the move of the dirty production or the at least the clean up of it happened not so long ago in (West) Germany. I still remember the colourful water that came out my grand parents well till the early 90s. Apparently it doesn't help to have a brown coal power plant and an aluminium factory in the neighborhood.
moorhosj 7y ago

ajxs 7y ago

The re-framing of this story within the narrative of American racial conflict feels remarkably cheap. Don't misinterpret this as a lack of sympathy for those residents, I feel quite the opposite. I feel strongly about this in particular, that air and water quality is a major issue. One where those impacted are particularly powerless to protect themselves. However I feel that pushing the racial component of the story cheapened an otherwise good article. Whether the people impacted are predominantly African-American is likely incidental. This is likely the effect, and not the cause. Economically marginalised individuals of all backgrounds are most likely to be impacted by this kind of pollution. If you make any environment unpleasant, people with the means to leave will do so, selecting for the most marginalised populations. Regardless, this is ridiculous... How is this acceptable within the first world?

wccrawford 7y ago
I don't feel the same way. It wasn't just 1 person in the article saying that, and even quoted a scientist as saying it was largely a racial problem. They disagree with you that the racial component is incidental.
ocschwar 7y ago
It's Louisiana. Beneath the Southern charm is still the same layer of active malice that gets facilities like this placed right next to black neighborhoods.
Spooky23 7y ago
It’s easy to interpret that way without context. Black and Hispanic communities are always targeted for nasty development because they lack the political power to effectively resist and racist attitudes make it easy to explain things away. It’s really easy to see this as FHA published maps with lending guidelines in the mid 20th century. The redline area (is don’t write mortgages) are black neighborhoods in most cities. If you look at the zoning map, those redline areas usually align with shared residential/industrial zoning.
- ajxs 7y ago
  I disagree with this completely. If it was overall cheaper to build industrial infrastructure in so-called "white communities", companies would be doing it. This kind of capitalism largely concedes no such moral imperatives. Also, I am absolutely unconvinced that the zoning process is even remotely that simple. Reducing this to even the most ( unrealistically ) simple model, you end up with a chicken vs egg dilemma. If you put industrial zones in close proximity with areas of high socio-economic status, the economically mobile population living there will move away leaving an impoverished area behind. This is a gross oversimplification, but you should be able to see the problem. The relationship between undesirable industrial areas and poverty is indeed systemic, but it's not predatory.

velacity 7y ago

This is the same Conglomerate that was responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed at least 3000 people in India in the 1980s.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

swayvil 7y ago

The murderer of your loved-one stands right in front of you. He did it, he's gonna do it again, nobody's gonna stop him, nobody's gonna punish him. What do you do? Well you get some buddies and some guns and do some damage, obviously. I don't think that this is unreasonable or unrealistic. Am I crazy?

jeffdavis 7y ago
The most common justifications for murder are morality-based. "He deserved it" or "she was cheating on me" etc. Not saying you are right or wrong in this case, but in general you want to check in with some objective observers rather than taking the law upon yourself. It's also worth remembering that quite a few industries have death as a side effect. If there is an obvious and economical way to make things safer, and someone cuts corners, then sure, they are culpable. Otherwise, it's just a cost people have implicitly accepted and rage shouldn't be directed at one person. Speaking generally here.
- jadell 7y ago
  So you round up a judge and jury to check in with some objective observers. And it so happens that all those people are friends or business associates of the murderer. Maybe the murderer is even giving them a portion of the money he takes out of the victims' wallets. Now what?
  - jeffdavis 7y ago
    Well, there's a time for everything I guess. Might want to double check with your spiritual advisor or village elder first though -- in case you are not seeing clearly.
- swayvil 7y ago
  I think that the most common justification for murder is "the law demands" or "for god and country" or "it's not murder, it's execution". I mean, not to get semantic about it.
alexandercrohde 7y ago