4 ms·

It's been one of the dominant news items in Flanders for the past year, to the extent that I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned in the English-speaking med

It's been one of the dominant news items in Flanders for the past year, to the extent that I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned in the English-speaking media until now. Entire towns have been placed under emergency health orders: don't eat the garden vegetables or chicken eggs, don't even drink the well water. For a long time after the contamination was discovered, 3M was denying responsibility, saying it wasn't coming from their factory, and thus they wouldn't pay for remediation, even when it was totally obvious.

cwilkes 5y ago
How were they denying it? That somehow PFAs were magically springing out of the ground that just so happened to be next to a factory of their’s? There can’t be that many factories pumping out these chemicals in that area.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > How were they denying it? "It's not us", "we have no idea", "our tests show we're clean" works for a shockingly long time in modern Western societies - the government has to prove that it is indeed 3M or whoever else who causes the pollution, and government agencies usually tend to take time until an investigation is complete. And even then, offenders can file a lawsuit... and until that lawsuit is finished and unappealable, it can take many years if not decades. And during that time, everyone claiming that a specific company is an offender is under severe risk of a defamation lawsuit. We definitely need reforms both in staffing of regulatory agencies as well as in defamation lawsuits in cases of environment or labor offenses.
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    The companies can also try to do creative things through bankruptcy courts to avoid any negative consequences, like Johnson & Johnson is doing right now: > J&J, which also makes products such as Tylenol and Band-Aid, assigned legal liability for the complaints to the spinoff company, which immediately filed for bankruptcy — a maneuver dubbed the "Texas two-step." https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wins-court-battle-bankruptcy-baby-powder https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wi...
    - mindslight 5y ago
      FWIW this is the exact kind of thing that the plebs are told that bankruptcy courts will see right through - as an individual you have to be very worried about "piecing the corporate veil" of an LLC or corporation, to the extent that setting up an LLC doesn't actually make sense for many business activities. Yet a large company can pay enough lawyers and buy a corrupt Texas law to openly abuse the dynamic with impunity. It's bad enough that large entities can set up such fine-grained liability shields a priori while common individuals effectively cannot, but allowing them to be created a posteri is a slap in the face.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    (This is an American perspective, but) I wonder how much a punitive strict liability regime could help with such stonewalling. Say after an environmental problem is discovered and publicized, the clock starts ticking on a hefty amount of penalty per day (irrespective of remediation costs and other tortious damages) for whomever is eventually found responsible for causing it. So the strategy of deny deny deny would end up accruing a very large penalty for willful pollution that could have been stopped earlier if the offender had chosen to act in good faith.
- flyingfences 5y ago
  They are in an industrial park in the outskirts of Antwerp, the second-largest port in Europe. There was a chance it could have come from someone else. But theirs was the factory specifically making the stuff in bulk, so the chance it wasn't them was very, very small.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    To clarify this a bit. Belgium is a chemical production powerhouse, the port of Antwerp is brimming with chemical plants so "plausible" deniability.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Lawyers did their jobs and sought alternative explanation where possible, exhausting the explanations until it wasn't reasonable or plausible. 3M is a huge corporation, and corporations run on algorithms coded as laws, regulations, and company rules, which are executed by employees. It's not surprising or even noteworthy for 3M to deny culpability until they can't. Not that it's good or right or ethical, but corporations are rule based non human entities that shouldn't be viewed as equivalent to or extensions of humans. They often behave inhumanely and despicably because the rules allow them to do so. That's a failure of the rules and system in which they operate. Bad actors, like the Sackler family, can direct a corporation down a legitimately evil path, but usually the negative externalities aren't the fault of companies. If 3M takes responsibility and cleans it up, or puts resources into figuring out how, I would see that as a good thing. If they shuffle things around, draw out the resolution, screw people over, then they'd be joining Nestlé and their ilk. We need better corporate models and incentives. "What we can get away with" is not a great lower limit on behavior, but since it's what we have, we should assume that and account for it when regulating business.
    - walterbell 5y ago
      > corporations are rule based non human entities that shouldn't be viewed as equivalent to or extensions of humans. Thanks for this phrasing. Any books, essays or videos that you would recommend on this perspective? How about the Citizens United ruling in the U.S.? > We need better corporate models and incentives. "What we can get away with" is not a great lower limit on behavior, but since it's what we have, we should assume that and account for it when regulating business. What are some best practices or successful case studies for this approach? Could smart contracts and DAOs be regulated?
- flavius29663 5y ago
  - adamsmith143 5y ago
    This is really irrelevant and not helpful to the discussion. You are also ignoring the fact that there are totally possible natural sources for a virus like this while there are no possible natural sources of PFAS chemicals.
    - flavius29663 5y ago
      > no possible natural sources of PFAS chemicals There are other possible sources for chemicals, that are not 3M. I don't think 3M was saying they are natural, lol.
- vkou 5y ago
  > How were they denying it? They ask the government to prove that it's all because of them, and nobody but them. Then challenge and obstruct every step of that process. We don't have magical Stark Trek tricorders, which beep when you stand next to the poisoned river, and beep louder when you point them at the PFAS factory. We have tests that take time to run, that can infer facts about the world - but we need to justify performing them, and then need to reason and argue that their results mean what they mean.
sjcoles 5y ago
There is some news about it but it tends to be pretty local. The US is gigantic. Where I live there is tons of PFAS in the ground from air force fire fighting practice at a nearby airport. In the past few years its only recently got attention after being detected in ground water samples.
DoneWithAllThat 5y ago
Link to proof of… any of this? I searched around (not just in English language sites) and all I could find was some news reports from November of 2021 that a study was being conducted. Link to the town health orders?
- potta_coffee 5y ago
  This may not be the story the parent poster is referring to but here's an area near me under similar circumstances. As far as I'm aware of, this has happened in other places in the country. I've heard of similar contamination near military bases in Hawaii and also in Okinawa Japan. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/18/cdc-study-shows-airway-heights-residents-near-cont/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/18/cdc-study-show... Edit: I just realized the question was about a different comment. Leaving this here because I still think it's somewhat relevant and interesting. Apologies.
- desdiv 5y ago
  >Only now have measures been taken, as people living within a radius of 15km from Zwijndrecht being advised not to consume eggs laid in their own or anyone’s else’s gardens, whilst pregnant women and children also have to watch out for vegetables from one’s own garden.[0] [0] https://www.brusselstimes.com/175561/3m-zwijndrecht-oosterweel-pfos-pfas-flemish-parliament-committee-ovam-pollution https://www.brusselstimes.com/175561/3m-zwijndrecht-oosterwe...
- flyingfences 5y ago
  for example: https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20210622_94694594 https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20210622_94694594

cwilkes 5y ago

How were they denying it? That somehow PFAs were magically springing out of the ground that just so happened to be next to a factory of their’s? There can’t be that many factories pumping out these chemicals in that area.

mschuster91 5y ago
> How were they denying it? "It's not us", "we have no idea", "our tests show we're clean" works for a shockingly long time in modern Western societies - the government has to prove that it is indeed 3M or whoever else who causes the pollution, and government agencies usually tend to take time until an investigation is complete. And even then, offenders can file a lawsuit... and until that lawsuit is finished and unappealable, it can take many years if not decades. And during that time, everyone claiming that a specific company is an offender is under severe risk of a defamation lawsuit. We definitely need reforms both in staffing of regulatory agencies as well as in defamation lawsuits in cases of environment or labor offenses.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  The companies can also try to do creative things through bankruptcy courts to avoid any negative consequences, like Johnson & Johnson is doing right now: > J&J, which also makes products such as Tylenol and Band-Aid, assigned legal liability for the complaints to the spinoff company, which immediately filed for bankruptcy — a maneuver dubbed the "Texas two-step." https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wins-court-battle-bankruptcy-baby-powder https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wi...
  - mindslight 5y ago
    FWIW this is the exact kind of thing that the plebs are told that bankruptcy courts will see right through - as an individual you have to be very worried about "piecing the corporate veil" of an LLC or corporation, to the extent that setting up an LLC doesn't actually make sense for many business activities. Yet a large company can pay enough lawyers and buy a corrupt Texas law to openly abuse the dynamic with impunity. It's bad enough that large entities can set up such fine-grained liability shields a priori while common individuals effectively cannot, but allowing them to be created a posteri is a slap in the face.
- mindslight 5y ago
  (This is an American perspective, but) I wonder how much a punitive strict liability regime could help with such stonewalling. Say after an environmental problem is discovered and publicized, the clock starts ticking on a hefty amount of penalty per day (irrespective of remediation costs and other tortious damages) for whomever is eventually found responsible for causing it. So the strategy of deny deny deny would end up accruing a very large penalty for willful pollution that could have been stopped earlier if the offender had chosen to act in good faith.
flyingfences 5y ago
They are in an industrial park in the outskirts of Antwerp, the second-largest port in Europe. There was a chance it could have come from someone else. But theirs was the factory specifically making the stuff in bulk, so the chance it wasn't them was very, very small.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  To clarify this a bit. Belgium is a chemical production powerhouse, the port of Antwerp is brimming with chemical plants so "plausible" deniability.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Lawyers did their jobs and sought alternative explanation where possible, exhausting the explanations until it wasn't reasonable or plausible. 3M is a huge corporation, and corporations run on algorithms coded as laws, regulations, and company rules, which are executed by employees. It's not surprising or even noteworthy for 3M to deny culpability until they can't. Not that it's good or right or ethical, but corporations are rule based non human entities that shouldn't be viewed as equivalent to or extensions of humans. They often behave inhumanely and despicably because the rules allow them to do so. That's a failure of the rules and system in which they operate. Bad actors, like the Sackler family, can direct a corporation down a legitimately evil path, but usually the negative externalities aren't the fault of companies. If 3M takes responsibility and cleans it up, or puts resources into figuring out how, I would see that as a good thing. If they shuffle things around, draw out the resolution, screw people over, then they'd be joining Nestlé and their ilk. We need better corporate models and incentives. "What we can get away with" is not a great lower limit on behavior, but since it's what we have, we should assume that and account for it when regulating business.
  - walterbell 5y ago
    > corporations are rule based non human entities that shouldn't be viewed as equivalent to or extensions of humans. Thanks for this phrasing. Any books, essays or videos that you would recommend on this perspective? How about the Citizens United ruling in the U.S.? > We need better corporate models and incentives. "What we can get away with" is not a great lower limit on behavior, but since it's what we have, we should assume that and account for it when regulating business. What are some best practices or successful case studies for this approach? Could smart contracts and DAOs be regulated?
flavius29663 5y ago
- adamsmith143 5y ago
  This is really irrelevant and not helpful to the discussion. You are also ignoring the fact that there are totally possible natural sources for a virus like this while there are no possible natural sources of PFAS chemicals.
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    > no possible natural sources of PFAS chemicals There are other possible sources for chemicals, that are not 3M. I don't think 3M was saying they are natural, lol.
vkou 5y ago
> How were they denying it? They ask the government to prove that it's all because of them, and nobody but them. Then challenge and obstruct every step of that process. We don't have magical Stark Trek tricorders, which beep when you stand next to the poisoned river, and beep louder when you point them at the PFAS factory. We have tests that take time to run, that can infer facts about the world - but we need to justify performing them, and then need to reason and argue that their results mean what they mean.

sjcoles 5y ago

There is some news about it but it tends to be pretty local. The US is gigantic. Where I live there is tons of PFAS in the ground from air force fire fighting practice at a nearby airport. In the past few years its only recently got attention after being detected in ground water samples.

DoneWithAllThat 5y ago

Link to proof of… any of this? I searched around (not just in English language sites) and all I could find was some news reports from November of 2021 that a study was being conducted. Link to the town health orders?

potta_coffee 5y ago
This may not be the story the parent poster is referring to but here's an area near me under similar circumstances. As far as I'm aware of, this has happened in other places in the country. I've heard of similar contamination near military bases in Hawaii and also in Okinawa Japan. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/18/cdc-study-shows-airway-heights-residents-near-cont/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/18/cdc-study-show... Edit: I just realized the question was about a different comment. Leaving this here because I still think it's somewhat relevant and interesting. Apologies.
desdiv 5y ago
>Only now have measures been taken, as people living within a radius of 15km from Zwijndrecht being advised not to consume eggs laid in their own or anyone’s else’s gardens, whilst pregnant women and children also have to watch out for vegetables from one’s own garden.[0] [0] https://www.brusselstimes.com/175561/3m-zwijndrecht-oosterweel-pfos-pfas-flemish-parliament-committee-ovam-pollution https://www.brusselstimes.com/175561/3m-zwijndrecht-oosterwe...
flyingfences 5y ago
for example: https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20210622_94694594 https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20210622_94694594