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Results of a leak that happened in 1997: "amid heavy rains, a dam broke atop one of two gypsum stacks at the Mulberry Phosphates plant on State Road 60, unleas
by antattack 6y ago
Results of a leak that happened in 1997:
"amid heavy rains, a dam broke atop one of two gypsum stacks at the Mulberry Phosphates plant on State Road 60, unleashing a 56-million gallon spill of the acidic wastewater into the Alafia River. The pollution killed everything in its path for 42 miles, eventually rolling into Hillsborough Bay. The death toll included more than 1 million baitfish and shellfish and 72,900 gamefish near the river’s mouth, 377 acres of damaged trees and other vegetation along the riverbank, and an unknown number of alligators. When state officials hit the company with a multimillion-dollar fine for the damage done, it declared bankruptcy and shut down."
https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/florida-phosphate https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/f...
- voisin 6y ago> When state officials hit the company with a multimillion-dollar fine for the damage done, it declared bankruptcy and shut down. This makes me furious. The employees and directors all go about their lives elsewhere with nary a scratch despite causing such a disaster. This is the problem with capitalism. Privatize profits, socialize losses. The only solution is to force companies to put up bonds or insurance sufficient to ensure this kind of devastation is properly paid for by private parties.
- mc32 6y agoIf it’s enabled by capitalism, how do we explain Chernobyl, or the fouling of soil by China’s rate earth mining, etc? Have the management and employees of Soviet era enviro disasters gone to jail?
- BobbyJo 6y agoYeah, I think people conflate 'capitalism' and 'insufficient regulation'. Capitalism is a framework that requires regulation, even more so than communism or socialism, since the regulations are what defines how the markets work.
- voisin 6y agoI think “insufficient regulation” is an almost necessary byproduct of capitalism. The search for profits leads to regulatory capture in every capitalist society I am aware of. I think this is because it is easier and cheaper to do things like lobby and have a revolving door with regulators and private industry than it is to actually compete with others. Competition is hard.
- koheripbal 6y agoThis is like saying that using hammers leads to eye injuries because people taking shortcuts don't wear their safety goggles. Regulations are the safety goggles of society. The hammer is not to blame.
- BobbyJo 6y agoIt's a necessary byproduct of any system run by people, which is why relying on a framework where able is preferable. That's why the US legal system relies so heavily on precedence: creating and agreeing on new law, and reconciling it with existing law, is cumbersome and slow, so make sure no one already did the work. The benefit of both of those things is consistency. Completely independent problem from capitalism, and it gets worse the more involved the government is in economic activity.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoThey didn't say that capitalism caused the problems, they said that capitalism allowed the shirking of responsibility.
- koheripbal 6y ago...which is also wrong. Because if you read the article, the insurance company footed the bill for the cleanup.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoI'm going to guess the actual cost far out weighs the multimillion dollar fine levied against the company, which their insurance paid.
- koheripbal 6y agoAnd I'm going to guess your guesses are based upon your existing world view, which you are just reinforcing with no additional data. That's how biases are formed.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoThe fines were described as being in the millions, what do you think the cost of this evacuation alone is? Hell, just the cost of the one employee constantly checking the levels for ~20 years is around a million. I don't have the exact data, but I have reasons for my guess. Besides, you're criticizing me for the same thing you did by saying the insurance paid for the cleanup rather than the fine.
- koheripbal 6y agoYou just doubled down on your guesses with more guesses.
- 6y ago
- cortic 6y agoThe owners of Chernobyl (the government) didn't declare bankruptcy and piss off, they spent massive moneys containing the problem. So, socialize profits, socialize losses. Trying to stop catastrophes from happening needs regulation and incentives, both of these things are broken in capitalism by its nature. But its not impossible to have regulation and incentives in either capitalist or socialist projects.
- indymike 6y agoCounting on government to hold itself liable for environmental damage is a proven bad default.
- natmaka 6y agoThe USSR government collapsed a few years after the Chernobyl disaster and didn't foot the bill of most of its costs. It now costs huge amounts of money to Belarus, which gov has nothing to do with USSR nuclear projects. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53727243 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53727243 The European Union gave (and, until now, gives) huge amounts of money in order to contain the problem, for example the sarcophagus. https://time.com/5255663/chernobyl-disaster-book-anniversary/ https://time.com/5255663/chernobyl-disaster-book-anniversary...
- ohyeshedid 6y agoBoth examples of socialized losses.
- jonnycomputer 6y agoX is enabled by Y does not preclude X being enabled by Z. That's only when its an if and only if, but that isn't the case here. Capitalism and Soviet Communism are neither the only alternative social structures, nor some kind of logical negations of each other. tl;dr would be: logical fallacy!
- jonnycomputer 6y ago>If it’s enabled by capitalism, how do we explain Chernobyl I don't know why I'm being treated like this for posting an obvious truth. Both capitalism and communism have both been root causes for environmental disasters. The question posed is not some clever rebuttal to blaming capitalism, but a simple mistake of reasoning. I guess I'm sorry to have been the one to point it out.
- darkerside 6y agoThis seems like mostly schadenfreude. What does it matter to you if they pay or we all do, assuming that we have more than enough as a society to pay for it, i.e. the benefits of capitalism outweigh the losses. The only impact is potential moral hazard, but that could be prevented with loss of licenses, etc.
- capableweb 6y ago> What does it matter to you if they pay or we all do Because when you know you'll be held personally responsible, you'll act accordingly. If you feel like you can act any way you want without repercussion, then you'll automatically take more risks. Usually this is the way we justify the salaries of CEOs as well, "they are the ultimate responsible for everything in the company, so high salary is needed for that big risk".
- darkerside 6y ago> The only impact is potential moral hazard, but that could be prevented with loss of licenses, etc.
- capableweb 6y agoRepeating what you've already written (or outright copying it verbatim / quoting yourself) is hardly a effective strategy of making yourself better understood via the internet. You'll do better by expanding or simplifying your point of view instead.
- darkerside 6y agoIt seemed like you missed the part where I pointed out that there are other ways than monetary to prevent undesirable behavior. These people can be jailed or lose the ability to work in this industry. The situation is not an indictment of capitalism, it's an example of a poorly handled situation.
- 6y ago
- roenxi 6y agoI feel compelled, from the tone of the comment, to point this out: Limited liability isn't some surprise side effect of a corporation's legal structure, it is often right there in the name (Ltd, LLC, Pty Ltd, etc). Yes that structure lets people get away with harmful shenanigans. The system is biased towards optimism. Feature, not bug. The benefits and strengths of this have so far completely outweighed the costs to the point where the argument against limited liability no longer has a leg to stand on. The bonds and insurance idea is a much better way to play the situation.
- voisin 6y agoLimited Liability refers to the suppliers of capital, which often differ from the employees and directors that are responsible for the issues like in the article. I am fine with this since there is no moral hazard, but the parties involved / responsible should not be able to take their bonuses, click bankrupt and restart elsewhere under a new name. Society needs more protection, clearly.
- owl_troupe 6y agoThis is an accurate description of limited liability. It does not blanketly shield corporations from liability, only shareholders (and there are exceptions to this as well). In fact, in Florida--as well as many other jurisdictions in the US--there is a special category of torts that cover liability for ultrahazarous activities and apply strict liability. There are cases that have specifically dealt with the impoundment of large quantities of water. Bunyak v. Clyde J. Yancey & Sons Dairy, Inc., 438 So.2d 891 (Fla. App. 2 Dist. 1983). Cities Service Co. v. State, 312 So.2d 799 (Fla. App. 2 Dist. 1975).[1] Note the facts the latter case, Cities, dealt with: >The appellant, Cities Service Company (Cities Service), operates a phosphate rock mine in Polk County. On December 3, 1971, a dam break occurred in one of Cities Service's settling ponds. As a result, approximately one billion gallons of phosphate slimes contained therein escaped into Whidden Creek and thence into the Peace River, thereby killing countless numbers of fish and inflicting other damage. >Appellee, The State of Florida (State), filed suit against Cities Service seeking injunctive relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages arising out of the dam break. It is absolutely true that the way that corporations have escaped liability for these activities is to "socialize losses" as an OP has aptly stated. In this situation, the prior owner went bankrupt and handed this major liablity to the state to maintain for years and when it breaks, the state (possibly federal) taxpayers and the environment will bear the loss. [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1849457/cities-service-company-v-state/ https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1849457/cities-service...
- js2 6y ago> The only solution is to force companies to put up bonds or insurance sufficient to ensure this kind of devastation is properly paid for by private parties. Agreed, but in this case, it apparently was paid for by insurance. The next sentence in the paragraph antattack quoted is: "(Its insurance company wound up footing the bill.)" It's still horrible from an environmental perspective, but at least Florida taxpayers didn't pay the cleanup bill.
- sanguy 6y agoHunt them down. Make them drink it.
- IAmEveryone 6y agoNo after-the-fact mechanism works against risks that take decades to materialise. Responsibility always dilutes faster than environmental toxins. Evidence is lost. Most senior decision-makers have died. Shareholders changed ten times over, etc... That, plus misplaced optimism and time discounting combine to render even the strongest signal (i. e. the death penalty) blunt as to actually changing behaviour. These disasters need to be stopped in the planning & licencing phase. For that, you'd need a state government that actually cares, and an EPA that isn't completely gutted every four to eight years.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- daniellarusso 6y agoDon’t forget what happened in the early 2000s, hauling it and dumping in the Gulf of Mexico: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2003/07/17/barge-sets-out-to-haul-off-phosphate-waste/?outputType=amp https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2003/07/17/barge-sets-out-t...
- jonnycomputer 6y agoRecently, during a rainstorm, a pesticide leaked from containers in a parking lot into the creek, killing all the amphibians in the creek for miles. And life goes on, just a little less nice than it used to be. i.e. its not just the big disasters that matter, but the countless little ones too.