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I saw this video yesterday and one thing I wondered was, why isn't the company legally, and thus financially and criminally, held responsible for this disaster?
by bmitc 5y ago
I saw this video yesterday and one thing I wondered was, why isn't the company legally, and thus financially and criminally, held responsible for this disaster? If I as an individual dump a bunch of toxic waste, especially something that kills thousands of animals, then I would be held responsible in a vice grip-like manner. I never understand why if something is done by a company, or individual with large wealth, but at massive scale, they can simply get away with it.
- gruez 5y ago>I never understand why if something is done by a company, or individual with large wealth, but at massive scale, they can simply get away with it. because limited liability. The solution, obviously is to recognize that they have limited liability and not extend them "credit". In this case the "credit" is letting them do environmental damage on the expectation that they'll "pay back" remediation costs. Force them to pay a deposit upfront prior to a mining permit being granted. see also: "It Pays to Not Pay Your Debts" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-14/it-pays-to-not-pay-your-debts https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-14/it-pay...
- bmitc 5y agoThat seems to just partly explain the mechanism by which these companies get away with things.
- reddog 5y agoBecause the company in the video -- Atlantic Richfield Company, aka ARCO -- acquired the pit in 1977 only to shut it down in 1982 after discovering what a white elephant it was. The company that actually dug the thousands of miles of tunnels and later the pit was Anaconda Copper (one of the most rapacious, amoral corporations to ever exist) which went belly up in 1983. Anaconda Copper made fortunes for the usual suspects like the Rockefellers and Rothschilds throughout the 20th century. Good luck clawing any restoration money back from them after its been laundered through generations. If you ever find yourself driving though Butte I highly recommend a stop to see the Berkely pit, the access towers, the enviromental devestation and the excellent mining museum. Its facinating.
- Schroedingersat 5y agoThen we hold the people who profited off of Anaconda responsible for it rather than shrugging and going 'oh well, the laws they wrote say we just have to let them keep doing it.' Easy fix to get it done, the rockefellers and rothschilds are visiting the bottom of the pit naked in 2025. Their choice as to whether it is still full of poison.
- hoseja 5y agoThey literally own/control the state violence apparatus.
- bmakdbd 5y agoAnaconda Copper: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Copper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Copper
- jonas21 5y agoWho said they simply get away with it? BP is responsible for cleaning up the site, at an estimated cost of $150M. They're responsible because they bought ARCO, which had acquired the site from the original mining company. They're the ones who built the water treatment plant that's shown in the Tom Scott video that someone linked to, and either they or Montana Resources (a mining company) are paying for everything shown in this video too.
- andrewstuart 5y agoWhat does "cleaning up" mean? Wouldn't that mean moving the toxic stuff to some other part of the environment?
- londons_explore 5y agoNearly everything toxic can be made non-toxic. Sometimes it's just expensive or hard to do. Sounds like the issues here are heavy metals and sulfuric acid. Both of those are treatable. Presumably just paying this guy is cheaper tho.
- drjasonharrison 5y agoHere the open pit mine creates a huge surface area for the oxidation of metals and then the combination of rainfall and metals. In a working mine, this is the function of a closed loop leaching field.
- readme 5y ago>Wouldn't that mean moving the toxic stuff to some other part of the environment? sounds like we have a problem here
- drjasonharrison 5y agoThe Britannia copper and zince mine in British Columbia Canada, between Vancouver and Whistler, hosts of the 2010 Olympics, was ignored as a source of heavy metals into the ocean. A waste treatment plant, water capture and treatment, and deeper discharge into the ocean led to improved water quality and copper extraction. https://mineclosure.gtk.fi/britannia-mine-british-columbia-canada/ https://mineclosure.gtk.fi/britannia-mine-british-columbia-c... Someday we will process our landfill for their precious metals. Before that we should use insitu remediation to extract currently "unprofitable to extract" metals from closed mines.