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It's high time for a big awareness campaign for things like this: cleaning up our water should be an immediately funded government project. Needs a interactive

It's high time for a big awareness campaign for things like this: cleaning up our water should be an immediately funded government project. Needs a interactive map with historical data, sort of like https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map does for historic grid energy cleanliness. Surely, clean water—something we all need—should be an apolitical bipartisan issue, right? ...right?

deciplex 3y ago
> Surely, clean water—something we all need—should be an apolitical bipartisan issue, right? ...right? Unless there's a way to get very rich from doing it, it won't get done in the contemporary US.
kapperchino 3y ago
[flagged]
phpisthebest 3y ago
Like with many things the goal may be bipartisan, but how to get there will not be Republicans will reject any funding methods that add to the national debt, or taxes businesses Democrats will reject any funding methods the come with strings attached to reduce or pull funding from other programs, or that does not excessively and punitively tax business and "the rich" So with such an impasse nothing will get done
- luddit3 3y ago
  Seems like all those corporations should be paying for cleaning up their mess. Why would we pull funding from other programs. That would be socializing the the cost while the few reap the reward.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  What would be more productive, then, would be awareness campaigns for filters that can be bought and used at home to reduce said chemicals and ideally dispose of them in ecologically safe ways.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    At the end of the day I do not believe this is a national matter in the first place, No where in the Constitution does congress have the authority to regulate drinking water in the first place, outside the bastardization of the commerce clause So it should be left up to state regulators to set what they feel are the best for their states. EPA could play a role in ensuring One state does not pollute another state, but there are and should be limits on what is a "federal issue" even if people today seem to think everything should be under the umbrella of the federal government.
    - pierat 3y ago
      You ignored my other comment regarding how clean water is indeed a Constitutionally mandated power. Having a safe and secure access and usage of water is definitely part of the "general welfare" within Art 1 Sec 8. And no, water doesn't have to be explicitly listed. "General welfare" is a much wider term, that can encompass more and more, as minimum humanity standards increase. "General welfare" is also a way that the EPA can run, and actually mandate strong changes to reverse massive pollution, and act strongly against climate change. Having high humidity and heat can and will make areas unlivable for humans. (And I do agree that the commerce clause being used everywhere is a load of garbage in much of its applications.) Given that in Article 1 Section 8 is the following: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" highlight: "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare"
      - phpisthebest 3y ago
        I already address the wrong interpretation of General Welfare here [1] it is a common tactic by Authoritarians to expand the scope of the federal government to be unlimited, when clearly the purpose of the constitution was to limit the government, If your understanding of that clause is correct then there is no reason to go on and list other powers as literally everything is included in "General Welfare" and the US Federal Governments power is unlimited. That is not the case >>"General welfare" is a much wider term, that can encompass more and more, as minimum humanity standards increase. Ahh your a living document believer, that we should reinterpret the constitution under the lens of how words are used in common usage today, not the original intent of the provisions. I am an orginalist so no I do not agree that General Welfare powers expand as humanities standards increase [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620213
- tedivm 3y ago
  > or that does not excessively and punitively tax business and "the rich" Your bias is showing a bit there.
  - stronglikedan 3y ago
    Pointing out historically demonstrable facts isn't bias.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    My bias is Anti-government. The best government is the smallest government, and I believe in strict interpretation of Article 1 Sec 8 powers. That said, where am I wrong, for the last several decades all the Democrats do is talk about how the Rich do not pay their "fair share" never defining what a fair share is.. and how we always need to tax them more... I have also seen it Move from "millionaires and billionaires" to just billionaires as many of the Democrats in congress entered the millionaire club
    - jorvi 3y ago
      > The best government is the smallest government Yes you can clearly see that by the highest quality of life being in countries like The Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Singapore.. all countries known for their small government bent. > and how we always need to tax them more... Because the wealth gap has been growing ever larger > I have also seen it Move from "millionaires and billionaires" to just billionaires as many of the Democrats in congress entered the millionaire club Or perhaps they’ve realized a lawyer that earns 300k a year still is working class? It’s laughable how the same, folds-like-a-lawnchair arguments always keep being trotted out, as if they haven’t been proven wrong a million times over.
    - pierat 3y ago
      Given that in Article 1 Section 8 is the following: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" highlight: "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare" Seems to strongly indicate that clean water, clean food, medical, etc, are part of the "general welfare".
- alldayeveryday 3y ago
  [dead]
- oasisbob 3y ago
  > Like with many things the goal may be bipartisan, but how to get there will not be Why not the existing EPA Superfund program? Discovering pollution from industry decades after the contamination took place isn't a new problem.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  > Republicans will reject any funding methods that add to the national debt, or taxes businesses It goes deeper than that. Much of the narrative rejects the validity of claims, or files solutions in the "woke" category, to be fought out of principle.
robbywashere_ 3y ago
Ironically there seems to be no shortage of fluoride conspiracy theories or “waters turning the frogs gay” but actual chemicals and toxins … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  I think it's just 2 sides of the same coin. Fluoride is an actual chemical, and the Alex Jones "turning the frogs gay" comment was about a study that linked the presence of atrazine (a pesticide legal in the US but banned in the EU) in a water supply with the demasculinization of frogs (FWIW there's been replication issues when other people ran the same experiment).
  - orangepurple 3y ago
    https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/transsexual-frogs https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/transsexual-fr...
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Tyrone_Hayes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Hayes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Hayes) and his research is a wild rabbit hole to get lost in. You can view his talks on youtube. The guy turned down a lot of cash to get the word out about atrazine. We could use a lot more scientists like him.
- purpleblue 3y ago
  The chemical is atrazine and it tests it did turn frogs from male to female. We can quibble over whether or not dosage matters but I think it should also be uncontroversial that using a chemical that disrupts hormones like that should not be used on food that we consume.
  - causationisthex 3y ago
    Is there a website that shows the chemicals and their allowed/disallowed uses by country? Would love to see the differences.
purpleblue 3y ago
Why should the government pay for it? The companies that produced these PFAS and let it pollute our country should be taxed heavily to pay for it.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  I strongly suspect that those companies’ net worth isn’t enough to pay for the cleanup.
  - purpleblue 3y ago
    They should be shut down immediately then. Why should companies be allowed to created more destruction than the value they bring to the country?
tomxor 3y ago
Cleaning up? With what? We've barely figured out how to even detect a tiny portion of PFAS, and even then can't quantify it, we don't have any way of removing PFAS specifically, the best general purpose technology we have is reverse osmosis which is not economical. If it's in the ground water it will be in the drinking water. What we need to do (as in the human race because this stuff just propagates around the globe), is to stop manufacturing them, immediately, because this stuff accumulates. The mentality of "shoot and ask questions later" in the name of industry, technological progress and "my wallet" needs to stop. Prevention is the answer, not more technology to fix a technology that should have already have been deprecated over a decade ago - and to be clear i mean all PFAS, until individual formulas can be proven ecologically and biologically safe. To prevent history from repeating itself new chemicals beyond the thousands of PFAS should go through ecological and biological testing before allowing them to be manufactured at scale and released into the environment. In the same way we test products for human consumption, we need to learn that the environment is an extension of us, and if we disregard it, it will come back to bite us.
- myshpa 3y ago
  What we need to do is to prevent such occurrences from happening by enforcing regulations that require companies to demonstrate the safety of their products before manufacturing them for extended periods, instead of concealing data and facing minimal consequences.
  - tomxor 3y ago
    > concealing data and facing minimal consequences. Yes, the delay in punishment is a huge problem. 3M is facing fines easily pushing them into bankruptcy... so even when the punishment is severe enough, it's too late, huge damage has already been done. The problem is that even this is not a disincentive, whether or not they know it, executives use these artificial constructs "companies" as vehicles to extract money, the smart ones play hot potato to prevent personal liability once they see what's ahead, instead of blow the whistle - it's immoral, I don't know how to fix it. Perhaps the only way is education, even MBAs need to be made to appreciate the value of environment and the potential ecological and biological consequences of their negligence - I think most of them probably down play it even in their own mind, as a kind of "gotta break some eggs to make an omlet" mentality, that there is always an environmental cost, but lacking the historical knowledge and imagination of how such costs can vary qualitatively and quantitatively with orders of magnitude in separation.
valbaca 3y ago
> apolitical bipartisan issue Not when one party is dedicated to destroying the EPA and anything related to it
nielsbot 3y ago
If private companies profited from these chemicals (after knowing they were dangerous and likely to get into the water supply) they should pay back some of their profits. Doubt we'd be able to prove it even if true.

deciplex 3y ago

> Surely, clean water—something we all need—should be an apolitical bipartisan issue, right? ...right? Unless there's a way to get very rich from doing it, it won't get done in the contemporary US.

kapperchino 3y ago

[flagged]

phpisthebest 3y ago

Like with many things the goal may be bipartisan, but how to get there will not be Republicans will reject any funding methods that add to the national debt, or taxes businesses Democrats will reject any funding methods the come with strings attached to reduce or pull funding from other programs, or that does not excessively and punitively tax business and "the rich" So with such an impasse nothing will get done

luddit3 3y ago
Seems like all those corporations should be paying for cleaning up their mess. Why would we pull funding from other programs. That would be socializing the the cost while the few reap the reward.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
What would be more productive, then, would be awareness campaigns for filters that can be bought and used at home to reduce said chemicals and ideally dispose of them in ecologically safe ways.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  At the end of the day I do not believe this is a national matter in the first place, No where in the Constitution does congress have the authority to regulate drinking water in the first place, outside the bastardization of the commerce clause So it should be left up to state regulators to set what they feel are the best for their states. EPA could play a role in ensuring One state does not pollute another state, but there are and should be limits on what is a "federal issue" even if people today seem to think everything should be under the umbrella of the federal government.
  - pierat 3y ago
    You ignored my other comment regarding how clean water is indeed a Constitutionally mandated power. Having a safe and secure access and usage of water is definitely part of the "general welfare" within Art 1 Sec 8. And no, water doesn't have to be explicitly listed. "General welfare" is a much wider term, that can encompass more and more, as minimum humanity standards increase. "General welfare" is also a way that the EPA can run, and actually mandate strong changes to reverse massive pollution, and act strongly against climate change. Having high humidity and heat can and will make areas unlivable for humans. (And I do agree that the commerce clause being used everywhere is a load of garbage in much of its applications.) Given that in Article 1 Section 8 is the following: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" highlight: "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare"
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      I already address the wrong interpretation of General Welfare here [1] it is a common tactic by Authoritarians to expand the scope of the federal government to be unlimited, when clearly the purpose of the constitution was to limit the government, If your understanding of that clause is correct then there is no reason to go on and list other powers as literally everything is included in "General Welfare" and the US Federal Governments power is unlimited. That is not the case >>"General welfare" is a much wider term, that can encompass more and more, as minimum humanity standards increase. Ahh your a living document believer, that we should reinterpret the constitution under the lens of how words are used in common usage today, not the original intent of the provisions. I am an orginalist so no I do not agree that General Welfare powers expand as humanities standards increase [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620213
tedivm 3y ago
> or that does not excessively and punitively tax business and "the rich" Your bias is showing a bit there.
- stronglikedan 3y ago
  Pointing out historically demonstrable facts isn't bias.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  My bias is Anti-government. The best government is the smallest government, and I believe in strict interpretation of Article 1 Sec 8 powers. That said, where am I wrong, for the last several decades all the Democrats do is talk about how the Rich do not pay their "fair share" never defining what a fair share is.. and how we always need to tax them more... I have also seen it Move from "millionaires and billionaires" to just billionaires as many of the Democrats in congress entered the millionaire club
  - jorvi 3y ago
    > The best government is the smallest government Yes you can clearly see that by the highest quality of life being in countries like The Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Singapore.. all countries known for their small government bent. > and how we always need to tax them more... Because the wealth gap has been growing ever larger > I have also seen it Move from "millionaires and billionaires" to just billionaires as many of the Democrats in congress entered the millionaire club Or perhaps they’ve realized a lawyer that earns 300k a year still is working class? It’s laughable how the same, folds-like-a-lawnchair arguments always keep being trotted out, as if they haven’t been proven wrong a million times over.
  - pierat 3y ago
    Given that in Article 1 Section 8 is the following: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" highlight: "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare" Seems to strongly indicate that clean water, clean food, medical, etc, are part of the "general welfare".
alldayeveryday 3y ago
[dead]
oasisbob 3y ago
> Like with many things the goal may be bipartisan, but how to get there will not be Why not the existing EPA Superfund program? Discovering pollution from industry decades after the contamination took place isn't a new problem.
bdcravens 3y ago
> Republicans will reject any funding methods that add to the national debt, or taxes businesses It goes deeper than that. Much of the narrative rejects the validity of claims, or files solutions in the "woke" category, to be fought out of principle.

robbywashere_ 3y ago

Ironically there seems to be no shortage of fluoride conspiracy theories or “waters turning the frogs gay” but actual chemicals and toxins … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Rebelgecko 3y ago
I think it's just 2 sides of the same coin. Fluoride is an actual chemical, and the Alex Jones "turning the frogs gay" comment was about a study that linked the presence of atrazine (a pesticide legal in the US but banned in the EU) in a water supply with the demasculinization of frogs (FWIW there's been replication issues when other people ran the same experiment).
- orangepurple 3y ago
  https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/transsexual-frogs https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/transsexual-fr...
- autoexec 3y ago
  Tyrone_Hayes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Hayes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Hayes) and his research is a wild rabbit hole to get lost in. You can view his talks on youtube. The guy turned down a lot of cash to get the word out about atrazine. We could use a lot more scientists like him.
purpleblue 3y ago
The chemical is atrazine and it tests it did turn frogs from male to female. We can quibble over whether or not dosage matters but I think it should also be uncontroversial that using a chemical that disrupts hormones like that should not be used on food that we consume.
- causationisthex 3y ago
  Is there a website that shows the chemicals and their allowed/disallowed uses by country? Would love to see the differences.

purpleblue 3y ago

Why should the government pay for it? The companies that produced these PFAS and let it pollute our country should be taxed heavily to pay for it.

amanaplanacanal 3y ago
I strongly suspect that those companies’ net worth isn’t enough to pay for the cleanup.
- purpleblue 3y ago
  They should be shut down immediately then. Why should companies be allowed to created more destruction than the value they bring to the country?

tomxor 3y ago

Cleaning up? With what? We've barely figured out how to even detect a tiny portion of PFAS, and even then can't quantify it, we don't have any way of removing PFAS specifically, the best general purpose technology we have is reverse osmosis which is not economical. If it's in the ground water it will be in the drinking water. What we need to do (as in the human race because this stuff just propagates around the globe), is to stop manufacturing them, immediately, because this stuff accumulates. The mentality of "shoot and ask questions later" in the name of industry, technological progress and "my wallet" needs to stop. Prevention is the answer, not more technology to fix a technology that should have already have been deprecated over a decade ago - and to be clear i mean all PFAS, until individual formulas can be proven ecologically and biologically safe. To prevent history from repeating itself new chemicals beyond the thousands of PFAS should go through ecological and biological testing before allowing them to be manufactured at scale and released into the environment. In the same way we test products for human consumption, we need to learn that the environment is an extension of us, and if we disregard it, it will come back to bite us.

myshpa 3y ago
What we need to do is to prevent such occurrences from happening by enforcing regulations that require companies to demonstrate the safety of their products before manufacturing them for extended periods, instead of concealing data and facing minimal consequences.
- tomxor 3y ago
  > concealing data and facing minimal consequences. Yes, the delay in punishment is a huge problem. 3M is facing fines easily pushing them into bankruptcy... so even when the punishment is severe enough, it's too late, huge damage has already been done. The problem is that even this is not a disincentive, whether or not they know it, executives use these artificial constructs "companies" as vehicles to extract money, the smart ones play hot potato to prevent personal liability once they see what's ahead, instead of blow the whistle - it's immoral, I don't know how to fix it. Perhaps the only way is education, even MBAs need to be made to appreciate the value of environment and the potential ecological and biological consequences of their negligence - I think most of them probably down play it even in their own mind, as a kind of "gotta break some eggs to make an omlet" mentality, that there is always an environmental cost, but lacking the historical knowledge and imagination of how such costs can vary qualitatively and quantitatively with orders of magnitude in separation.

valbaca 3y ago

> apolitical bipartisan issue Not when one party is dedicated to destroying the EPA and anything related to it

nielsbot 3y ago

If private companies profited from these chemicals (after knowing they were dangerous and likely to get into the water supply) they should pay back some of their profits. Doubt we'd be able to prove it even if true.