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> In May 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled not to place regulations on the amount of perchlorate that can be allowed in drinking water.

> In May 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled not to place regulations on the amount of perchlorate that can be allowed in drinking water. Predictable. Just 150 days left to vote.

ianlevesque 6y ago
I don’t get it. Do these people not live in the same country as everyone else? Breathe the same air and drink water? It’s madness.
- vermontdevil 6y ago
  See Flint as an example. They know this stuff is bad but they are confident their wealthy town or county will not allow it to impact the drinking water supply. It'll be "someone else most likely poorer areas" problem.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Flint is an example of what exactly? https://reason.com/2019/07/30/flint-water-crisis-democrat-debate-infrastructure/ https://reason.com/2019/07/30/flint-water-crisis-democrat-de... > Many in the media have parroted the absurd claim that the water crisis was caused by austerity, as if the government cared more about saving pennies than saving lives. The truth is exactly the opposite: Keeping DWSD as Flint's water provider was a cheaper option, but one that would have created zero new infrastructure jobs
    - monadic2 6y ago
      This is what degrading all understanding of a political economy down to jobs and a stock market price does. Btw, it’s absolutely unacceptable to justify the degradation of water quality with jobs. Regardless the reasoning it was entirely irresponsible given the infrastructure in the area. Anyway it’s not like there’s any shortage of examples that austerity leads to loss of life.
  - serf 6y ago
    >They know this stuff is bad but they are confident their wealthy town or county will not allow it to impact the drinking water supply. that is the strangest re-telling of the Flint water-quality story that i've ever heard. Nearly everything indicates that the steps in Flint were cost-saving measures that the citizens either 1) didn't know about, 2) were told that there wouldn't be problems, and 3) were promised health concerns wouldn't be a factor. Where exactly does this 'wealthy town that's overly confident" narrative fit? That hasn't been my perception at all with Flint.
    - SECProto 6y ago
      Flint is not a wealthier town. They are one of the "someone else's problem" poorer places that the wealthier towns don't care about.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Flint's water problems were not inflicted by some nearby or upstream wealthier town. They were inflicted by Flint city (mis-)management. Even as detailed by the left-leaning NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378/lead-laced-water-in-flint-a-step-by-step-look-at-the-makings-of-a-crisis https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378...
        SECProto 6y ago
        Yes, but the whole issue was caused by them switching to a new water source because it was cheaper. And old lead pipes that hadn't been replaced. And inadequate water treatment to prevent these conflicts. Root cause would be mismanagement, but even more root is trying to spend less money without properly assessing dangers.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Yes, but none of that is related to someone else foisting their pollution off onto a poor area. It's entirely an own-goal.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Meanwhile Reuters finds 3,810 U.S. areas with lead poisoning double Flint’s https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lead-map-idUSKBN1DE1H2 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lead-map-idUSKBN1DE1H... Also ran: Chrome-6 https://www.ewg.org/release/ewg-brockovich-carcinogen-found-tap-water-200-million-americans https://www.ewg.org/release/ewg-brockovich-carcinogen-found-... Cheers!
- rayiner 6y ago
  The EPA declined to regulate perchlorate because, among other things, it’s not found in very many water systems and is naturally occurring in the southwest. (When the EPA tested thousands of systems in 2011, under the Obama administration, just 0.62% had perchlorate levels about the EPA recommended limit: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-2603/drinking-water-regulatory-determination-on-perchlorate. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-26...) Instead, EPA has been pursing less formal measures to reduce perchlorate in the specific drinking water systems where it has been found: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-notes-successes-reducing-perchlorate-drinking-water https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-notes-successes-reducin... As one of “those people” who thinks it’s harmful to have a national regulation where a more local one will do, I don’t see the problem with this. There are many kinds of pollution that are national in nature, but drinking water is actually fairly localized. There is no evidence perchlorate pollution migrates great distances, so why do we need an nationwide regulation? It should be noted that drinking water systems are almost entirely run by public entities, and already face massive funding challenges. When the EPA sets maximum allowable levels of a pollutant, it triggers a huge bureaucratic framework that everyone must follow. Is it unreasonable to decide that we don’t need to force everyone to go that far for a chemical that appears in possibly concerning levels in less than 1% of systems? This is an excellent example of how even the slightest push back on the notion that the federal government should regulate anything and everything is treated by the media as a crisis of epic proportions. You didn’t know what perchlorate was before this article, and it doesn’t affect 99% of water systems out there, but the EPA declining to create nationwide monitoring and enforcement framework for the chemical is somehow “madness.”
  - ianlevesque 6y ago
    Your confidence that underfunded local governments have the expertise to know which chemicals they should ignore and for what reasons is...well "optimistic" is the nicest word I could find.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Except that’s not what’s happening. EPA has set a recommended perchlorate standard, at 15 micrograms per liter. In 2011, it studied thousands of public water systems to look at perchlorate levels: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-2603/drinking-water-regulatory-determination-on-perchlorate https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-26.... Just 0.62% of those systems had perchlorate levels above 15 micrograms per liter. 96% were under 4 micrograms per liter. The EPA isn’t leaving it to local governments whether to test or to decide what the levels should be. They’re concluding that, based on testing they already did, there is no need to require formal monitoring of perchlorate in every water system just because a tiny minority of systems have concerning levels of the chemical. And it’s handling those exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
- monadic2 6y ago
  It’s a death cult. Americans have internalized the loss of life essential to our way of life and will die to support it.
- awalton 6y ago
  Drink tap water? Breathe unfiltered city air? Who do you think they are, working class plebs? These people can afford to live in their third homes on the side of mountains and get Fiji water shipped in where their servants unpack and stock their fridges for them. They get to places in cars with "Bioweapon Defense grade air filtration," and private aircraft. So, no. They don't really live in the same environment as everyone else. Why would they care about its destruction?
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  > Do these people not live in the same country as everyone else? Breathe the same air and drink water? "Freedom" is more important, apparently. /s
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
Are EPA's regulations the only ones that matter regarding water quality? For (absurd) example, does this ruling mean that I could give a child a glass of "water" that's 50% perchlorate, and because of EPA's ruling I'm legally untouchable?
- henryfjordan 6y ago
  In your example, I think you'd have to be some sort of water utility for the EPA regulations to apply to you. Knowingly handing a kid a tainted glass of water would be handled under other criminal laws (murder?). Pumping that same water through a pipe to the whole city? EPA regulations!
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    Corporate veil is a bitch.

ianlevesque 6y ago

I don’t get it. Do these people not live in the same country as everyone else? Breathe the same air and drink water? It’s madness.

vermontdevil 6y ago
See Flint as an example. They know this stuff is bad but they are confident their wealthy town or county will not allow it to impact the drinking water supply. It'll be "someone else most likely poorer areas" problem.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Flint is an example of what exactly? https://reason.com/2019/07/30/flint-water-crisis-democrat-debate-infrastructure/ https://reason.com/2019/07/30/flint-water-crisis-democrat-de... > Many in the media have parroted the absurd claim that the water crisis was caused by austerity, as if the government cared more about saving pennies than saving lives. The truth is exactly the opposite: Keeping DWSD as Flint's water provider was a cheaper option, but one that would have created zero new infrastructure jobs
  - monadic2 6y ago
    This is what degrading all understanding of a political economy down to jobs and a stock market price does. Btw, it’s absolutely unacceptable to justify the degradation of water quality with jobs. Regardless the reasoning it was entirely irresponsible given the infrastructure in the area. Anyway it’s not like there’s any shortage of examples that austerity leads to loss of life.
- serf 6y ago
  >They know this stuff is bad but they are confident their wealthy town or county will not allow it to impact the drinking water supply. that is the strangest re-telling of the Flint water-quality story that i've ever heard. Nearly everything indicates that the steps in Flint were cost-saving measures that the citizens either 1) didn't know about, 2) were told that there wouldn't be problems, and 3) were promised health concerns wouldn't be a factor. Where exactly does this 'wealthy town that's overly confident" narrative fit? That hasn't been my perception at all with Flint.
  - SECProto 6y ago
    Flint is not a wealthier town. They are one of the "someone else's problem" poorer places that the wealthier towns don't care about.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Flint's water problems were not inflicted by some nearby or upstream wealthier town. They were inflicted by Flint city (mis-)management. Even as detailed by the left-leaning NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378/lead-laced-water-in-flint-a-step-by-step-look-at-the-makings-of-a-crisis https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378...
      - SECProto 6y ago
        Yes, but the whole issue was caused by them switching to a new water source because it was cheaper. And old lead pipes that hadn't been replaced. And inadequate water treatment to prevent these conflicts. Root cause would be mismanagement, but even more root is trying to spend less money without properly assessing dangers.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Yes, but none of that is related to someone else foisting their pollution off onto a poor area. It's entirely an own-goal.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Meanwhile Reuters finds 3,810 U.S. areas with lead poisoning double Flint’s https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lead-map-idUSKBN1DE1H2 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lead-map-idUSKBN1DE1H... Also ran: Chrome-6 https://www.ewg.org/release/ewg-brockovich-carcinogen-found-tap-water-200-million-americans https://www.ewg.org/release/ewg-brockovich-carcinogen-found-... Cheers!
rayiner 6y ago
The EPA declined to regulate perchlorate because, among other things, it’s not found in very many water systems and is naturally occurring in the southwest. (When the EPA tested thousands of systems in 2011, under the Obama administration, just 0.62% had perchlorate levels about the EPA recommended limit: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-2603/drinking-water-regulatory-determination-on-perchlorate. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-26...) Instead, EPA has been pursing less formal measures to reduce perchlorate in the specific drinking water systems where it has been found: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-notes-successes-reducing-perchlorate-drinking-water https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-notes-successes-reducin... As one of “those people” who thinks it’s harmful to have a national regulation where a more local one will do, I don’t see the problem with this. There are many kinds of pollution that are national in nature, but drinking water is actually fairly localized. There is no evidence perchlorate pollution migrates great distances, so why do we need an nationwide regulation? It should be noted that drinking water systems are almost entirely run by public entities, and already face massive funding challenges. When the EPA sets maximum allowable levels of a pollutant, it triggers a huge bureaucratic framework that everyone must follow. Is it unreasonable to decide that we don’t need to force everyone to go that far for a chemical that appears in possibly concerning levels in less than 1% of systems? This is an excellent example of how even the slightest push back on the notion that the federal government should regulate anything and everything is treated by the media as a crisis of epic proportions. You didn’t know what perchlorate was before this article, and it doesn’t affect 99% of water systems out there, but the EPA declining to create nationwide monitoring and enforcement framework for the chemical is somehow “madness.”
- ianlevesque 6y ago
  Your confidence that underfunded local governments have the expertise to know which chemicals they should ignore and for what reasons is...well "optimistic" is the nicest word I could find.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Except that’s not what’s happening. EPA has set a recommended perchlorate standard, at 15 micrograms per liter. In 2011, it studied thousands of public water systems to look at perchlorate levels: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-2603/drinking-water-regulatory-determination-on-perchlorate https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/02/11/2011-26.... Just 0.62% of those systems had perchlorate levels above 15 micrograms per liter. 96% were under 4 micrograms per liter. The EPA isn’t leaving it to local governments whether to test or to decide what the levels should be. They’re concluding that, based on testing they already did, there is no need to require formal monitoring of perchlorate in every water system just because a tiny minority of systems have concerning levels of the chemical. And it’s handling those exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
monadic2 6y ago
It’s a death cult. Americans have internalized the loss of life essential to our way of life and will die to support it.
awalton 6y ago
Drink tap water? Breathe unfiltered city air? Who do you think they are, working class plebs? These people can afford to live in their third homes on the side of mountains and get Fiji water shipped in where their servants unpack and stock their fridges for them. They get to places in cars with "Bioweapon Defense grade air filtration," and private aircraft. So, no. They don't really live in the same environment as everyone else. Why would they care about its destruction?
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
> Do these people not live in the same country as everyone else? Breathe the same air and drink water? "Freedom" is more important, apparently. /s

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

Are EPA's regulations the only ones that matter regarding water quality? For (absurd) example, does this ruling mean that I could give a child a glass of "water" that's 50% perchlorate, and because of EPA's ruling I'm legally untouchable?

henryfjordan 6y ago
In your example, I think you'd have to be some sort of water utility for the EPA regulations to apply to you. Knowingly handing a kid a tainted glass of water would be handled under other criminal laws (murder?). Pumping that same water through a pipe to the whole city? EPA regulations!
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  Corporate veil is a bitch.