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> they weren’t informed about the real dangers of what was being spread. I wonder how many of them would even care. This week the EPA dismantled the Clean Wate

> they weren’t informed about the real dangers of what was being spread. I wonder how many of them would even care. This week the EPA dismantled the Clean Water Rule. The primary backers for this were farmers and developers.

gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
I guess they would care if their land becomes worthless as a result.
- behringer 7y ago
  They didn't care about selling their crops when they elected Trump they certainly won't care about their land. They'll just do as Fox tells them to do at any price.
rayiner 7y ago
> I wonder how many of them would even care. This week the EPA dismantled the Clean Water Rule. This week, the EPA rolled back an Obama-era executive order interpreting the Clean Water Act. Hard to see how rescinding a three year old executive order could “dismantle” a 47-year old statute. The Obama-era interpretation was ridiculous on top of everything else. The Wikipedia article is actually pretty good: > The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law regulating water pollution in the United States. The language of the Clean Water Act describes itself as pertaining to ‘Waters of the United States’. These the act defines as ‘navigable waterways’, which connects the act to constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, in 2001 and 2006, interpreted the law to include waters not presently navigable that were formerly navigable that might be readily dredged to be restored to navigation or be made available for navigation. The scope of these decisions cast into doubt lower court decisions interpreting the act’s authority to extend regulatory authority to streams, wetlands, and small bodies of water not navigable in the sense of the interstate commerce clause. So the Clean Water Act says the EPA can regulate ”the waters of the United States,” which is defined consistent with “navigable waters,” contemporaneous with Congress’s Commerce Clause authority over navigable waterways. The Obama EO extended it to include even small bodies of waters like ponds, such that farmers would have to get EPA permits to make modifications on their own land that was nowhere near navigable waters. Maybe we need a law that requires permitting of everything that could affect any body of water no matter how small, because it’s true that pollution can flow from such waters into navigable waters. Maybe there is a way to even make such a law constitutional (e.g. setting up state regulation of water bodies that fall outside the commerce clause). But the Clean Water Act is not that law, and the permitting framework under the CWA is not appropriate for farmers doing work on land far from rivers and lakes. So just because farmers supported rolling back this rule, why would you assume they’d be okay with radioactive materials polluting their land? Is there any room in our politics to acknowledge that agencies sometimes overreach, and just because you want to push back on that overreach doesn’t mean you want get rid of the agency or long-standing laws entirely?
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > Is there any room in our politics to acknowledge that agencies sometimes overreach Yes, but what we're seeing under the current Trump administration isn't a "sometimes" thing. It's become an effort to systemically rollback as many regulations as they could in order to allow for greater profits. They have gutted anybody of power within the EPA and replaced then with pro-corporate drones and climate change deniers. > The new rules make it easier to take out protections for threatened animals and plants and allow federal agencies to conduct economic assessments when deciding whether to protect a species from things like construction projects in a critical habitat. The rules also remove tools used by scientists to predict future harm to species from climate change. [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/24/5-major-trump-climate-rollbacks-you-might-have-missed-in-2019.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/24/5-major-trump-climate-rollba... > The White House and the EPA had tried to stop the report from being published. [2] [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemicals-idUSKBN1ZL0F8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemical... [3] https://www.voanews.com/usa/trumps-epa-moves-loosen-radiation-limits https://www.voanews.com/usa/trumps-epa-moves-loosen-radiatio... Note that these are just from the past few weeks. There has been much more over the past few years that you can google if you'd like to dig it up.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Trump has rolled back a lot of things, yes, but a lot of the Obama-era rules were vast overreaches. Ask yourself how agencies like the EPA managed to find new sources of authority, like the authority to regulate ponds on farms, in 47-year old statutes? Congress did not create the EPA as an agency that has plenary authority to regulate environmental issues. Such an agency would not be constitutional, because it would involve wholesale delegation of Congress’s legislative powers to the executive branch. Instead, the Clean Water Act, Solid Waste Disposal Act, Clean Air Act, etc., created specific programs to address specific types of environmental harms. The EPA is only supposed to be administering the programs Congress created. Congress should be updating these laws to address new types of issues, but it’s not. It’s not because Republicans don’t care about these issues, and Democrats aren’t willing to spend the political capital to make these issues a priority. Whatever the reason, however, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for agencies like the EPA to creatively interpret statutes to expand their powers into new areas.
waffle_ss 7y ago
The "farmers" backing the EPA rule change are the industrial CAFO operations that produce open-air manure lagoons (literal lakes of shit) that cause all kinds of environmental hazards. They can afford to care less because they typically don't live on-site like traditional farmers did. Hell when it comes to hogs they might not even be citizens - the largest hog producer, Smithfield, is owned by the Chinese now. If you can find an actual farmer - an endangered species as the industry consolidates into corporate CAFOs - I can promise you that they have no interest in drinking poison from their wells.
- dchichkov 7y ago
  Is seems, this also affects public roads. Here is, for example, methodology of application of these waste products to road surfaces in California: https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-system-information/documents/preliminary-investigations/brine-application-pi-a11y.pdf https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innov... Doesn't seem there is much there on controlling amounts of lead, cadmium and radium in the material. No on the gradual accumulation on the road. As per the following paper, not much research had been done on the health effects of applying it on the roads and risks of dust particles lifted by vehicles being inhailed. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325460511_Environmental_and_Human_Health_Impacts_of_Spreading_Oil_and_Gas_Wastewater_on_Roads https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325460511_Environme... And from its abstract: "Currently, state-by-state regulations do not require radium analyses prior to treating roads with O&G wastewaters.". So it looks like there is a loophole that doesn't specifically disallow to accumulate unlimited amounts of radioactive material with 1600 years decay half-life on public roads.
  - labawi 7y ago
    > methodology of application of these waste products Linked document is interesting, however it is "Brine Application Equipment and Methodology" - methodology of deicing paved roads. Only mention of toxic or waste is an aside of brine use motivation - granular material in California is for some reason regulated as toxic waste. Mentioned in the document are NaCl, MgCl₂, CaCl₂ brines and beet juice, and in the survey section, some agencies also report use or discontent with proprietary deicing products. Going by the second document, O&G wastewater use on roads is not permitted in California. In the 13 states that do allow its use, the study mostly mentions use on unpaved roads as a dust suppressant in lieu of salt brine (neither a particularly good idea IMO).

gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago

I guess they would care if their land becomes worthless as a result.

behringer 7y ago
They didn't care about selling their crops when they elected Trump they certainly won't care about their land. They'll just do as Fox tells them to do at any price.

rayiner 7y ago

> I wonder how many of them would even care. This week the EPA dismantled the Clean Water Rule. This week, the EPA rolled back an Obama-era executive order interpreting the Clean Water Act. Hard to see how rescinding a three year old executive order could “dismantle” a 47-year old statute. The Obama-era interpretation was ridiculous on top of everything else. The Wikipedia article is actually pretty good: > The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law regulating water pollution in the United States. The language of the Clean Water Act describes itself as pertaining to ‘Waters of the United States’. These the act defines as ‘navigable waterways’, which connects the act to constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, in 2001 and 2006, interpreted the law to include waters not presently navigable that were formerly navigable that might be readily dredged to be restored to navigation or be made available for navigation. The scope of these decisions cast into doubt lower court decisions interpreting the act’s authority to extend regulatory authority to streams, wetlands, and small bodies of water not navigable in the sense of the interstate commerce clause. So the Clean Water Act says the EPA can regulate ”the waters of the United States,” which is defined consistent with “navigable waters,” contemporaneous with Congress’s Commerce Clause authority over navigable waterways. The Obama EO extended it to include even small bodies of waters like ponds, such that farmers would have to get EPA permits to make modifications on their own land that was nowhere near navigable waters. Maybe we need a law that requires permitting of everything that could affect any body of water no matter how small, because it’s true that pollution can flow from such waters into navigable waters. Maybe there is a way to even make such a law constitutional (e.g. setting up state regulation of water bodies that fall outside the commerce clause). But the Clean Water Act is not that law, and the permitting framework under the CWA is not appropriate for farmers doing work on land far from rivers and lakes. So just because farmers supported rolling back this rule, why would you assume they’d be okay with radioactive materials polluting their land? Is there any room in our politics to acknowledge that agencies sometimes overreach, and just because you want to push back on that overreach doesn’t mean you want get rid of the agency or long-standing laws entirely?

hanniabu 7y ago
> Is there any room in our politics to acknowledge that agencies sometimes overreach Yes, but what we're seeing under the current Trump administration isn't a "sometimes" thing. It's become an effort to systemically rollback as many regulations as they could in order to allow for greater profits. They have gutted anybody of power within the EPA and replaced then with pro-corporate drones and climate change deniers. > The new rules make it easier to take out protections for threatened animals and plants and allow federal agencies to conduct economic assessments when deciding whether to protect a species from things like construction projects in a critical habitat. The rules also remove tools used by scientists to predict future harm to species from climate change. [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/24/5-major-trump-climate-rollbacks-you-might-have-missed-in-2019.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/24/5-major-trump-climate-rollba... > The White House and the EPA had tried to stop the report from being published. [2] [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemicals-idUSKBN1ZL0F8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemical... [3] https://www.voanews.com/usa/trumps-epa-moves-loosen-radiation-limits https://www.voanews.com/usa/trumps-epa-moves-loosen-radiatio... Note that these are just from the past few weeks. There has been much more over the past few years that you can google if you'd like to dig it up.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Trump has rolled back a lot of things, yes, but a lot of the Obama-era rules were vast overreaches. Ask yourself how agencies like the EPA managed to find new sources of authority, like the authority to regulate ponds on farms, in 47-year old statutes? Congress did not create the EPA as an agency that has plenary authority to regulate environmental issues. Such an agency would not be constitutional, because it would involve wholesale delegation of Congress’s legislative powers to the executive branch. Instead, the Clean Water Act, Solid Waste Disposal Act, Clean Air Act, etc., created specific programs to address specific types of environmental harms. The EPA is only supposed to be administering the programs Congress created. Congress should be updating these laws to address new types of issues, but it’s not. It’s not because Republicans don’t care about these issues, and Democrats aren’t willing to spend the political capital to make these issues a priority. Whatever the reason, however, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for agencies like the EPA to creatively interpret statutes to expand their powers into new areas.

waffle_ss 7y ago

The "farmers" backing the EPA rule change are the industrial CAFO operations that produce open-air manure lagoons (literal lakes of shit) that cause all kinds of environmental hazards. They can afford to care less because they typically don't live on-site like traditional farmers did. Hell when it comes to hogs they might not even be citizens - the largest hog producer, Smithfield, is owned by the Chinese now. If you can find an actual farmer - an endangered species as the industry consolidates into corporate CAFOs - I can promise you that they have no interest in drinking poison from their wells.

dchichkov 7y ago
Is seems, this also affects public roads. Here is, for example, methodology of application of these waste products to road surfaces in California: https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-system-information/documents/preliminary-investigations/brine-application-pi-a11y.pdf https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innov... Doesn't seem there is much there on controlling amounts of lead, cadmium and radium in the material. No on the gradual accumulation on the road. As per the following paper, not much research had been done on the health effects of applying it on the roads and risks of dust particles lifted by vehicles being inhailed. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325460511_Environmental_and_Human_Health_Impacts_of_Spreading_Oil_and_Gas_Wastewater_on_Roads https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325460511_Environme... And from its abstract: "Currently, state-by-state regulations do not require radium analyses prior to treating roads with O&G wastewaters.". So it looks like there is a loophole that doesn't specifically disallow to accumulate unlimited amounts of radioactive material with 1600 years decay half-life on public roads.
- labawi 7y ago
  > methodology of application of these waste products Linked document is interesting, however it is "Brine Application Equipment and Methodology" - methodology of deicing paved roads. Only mention of toxic or waste is an aside of brine use motivation - granular material in California is for some reason regulated as toxic waste. Mentioned in the document are NaCl, MgCl₂, CaCl₂ brines and beet juice, and in the survey section, some agencies also report use or discontent with proprietary deicing products. Going by the second document, O&G wastewater use on roads is not permitted in California. In the 13 states that do allow its use, the study mostly mentions use on unpaved roads as a dust suppressant in lieu of salt brine (neither a particularly good idea IMO).