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I was visiting my family a few weeks ago in my childhood town, and the topic of our small local river came up. It's about three minutes away, and both the strea
by qchris 3y ago
I was visiting my family a few weeks ago in my childhood town, and the topic of our small local river came up. It's about three minutes away, and both the streams that feed it and the larger river it feeds into were fairly big parts of my childhood, including fishing, crayfishing, exploring, and generally playing on the banks. It turns out that there's a fishing advisory in effect this year, advising folks not to eat any fish caught in that river.
The reason is PFAS pollution, where the levels in the water table now indicate the potential for bioaccumulation above the recommended level for human toxicity. The people living in that area are now denied access to clean water and not having to worry about eating toxic fish, and I'm sure the otters and herons in the area haven't gotten the notice. Millions of state tax dollars have now been allocated to try to just estimate the contamination level in drinking water wells throughout the state as well.
Frankly, the producers and users of these chemicals have proven to be, at the minimum, so grossly negligent and potentially actually malicious, that they can not be considered to be acting in good faith, and "reasonable compromises" should be looked at with extreme suspicion. I feel the responsible organizations fined for both remediation and damages, the individuals responsible made criminally liable for the harm they've caused, and once that example has been made, we can talk about compromises once the "free market" has factored in the actual cost of using these chemicals when they can't just dump risk onto the public.
[1] https://ctmirror.org/2021/08/29/how-widespread-are-pfas-chemicals-ct-officials-are-about-to-inspect-more-than-2400-locations/ https://ctmirror.org/2021/08/29/how-widespread-are-pfas-chem...
- RajT88 3y agoPFAS is one of the most common causes of fish advisories by me as well. The story changes a little when you get to Lake Michigan, which is more heavy metals, fecal coliform, etc. The heavy metals coming from the steel refineries who periodically have oopsies and dump a few tons of waste into the lake.
- zucked 3y agoLast I looked, the entire Green Bay side of Lake Michigan (from Green Bay up to Escanaba/Garden area) was under a PFAS advisory, as was the south western 1/3 of Superior (from Duluth to the Keeweenaw). The stuff is everywhere. At least the raw sewage overflows from Milwaukee/Chicago mostly dilute and turn less toxic in the matter of months versus generations as is the case with PFAS.
- selectodude 3y agoChicago almost never dumps sewage into the lake anymore. Haven’t yet this year even with all the major storms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan
- trillic 3y agoUnfortunately that's not true. While not entirely raw sewage, Chicago opened the locks at Navy Pier in July of this year...not all the water in the city can flow to those reservoirs unfortunately, there was just so much rain around 4th of July this year. Swimming advisories were only in effect for a few hours after the lock was open for nearly 8. Things are getting better but we still have work to do.
- blackbeans 3y agoHere in The Netherlands, a large DuPont/Chemours factory has been dumping waste products for over 30 years. The maximum safe concentration of PFAS/PFOA has been reduced in the past years, due to better understanding of health concerns. As a result and due to more public attention, water surfaces are now seen as harmful up to 10 miles away from the factory. The factory is located right between a medium sized city and a national park. Within a radius of a mile around the factory, people are advised not to grow vegetables. I think many countries have similar stories and clean up costs are going to be huge.
- HankB99 3y ago> The heavy metals coming from the steel refineries ... Steel mills or petroleum refineries. We have both. I thought that mercury in the environment came mostly from coal fired power plants. The mills have their share of pollution issues but I think that's more air pollution. Well... There was the issue with killing a bunch of fish a couple years ago. IIRC that was cyanide.
- tracker1 3y agoI think if we actually did more of the latter portion of your statements things could actually change for the better. Hold companies fiscally responsible for cleanup and actually criminally charge the decision makers for cases of negligence. Similar for the railway disasters like East Palestine. The protections provided to corporations are intended to shield hands-off investors, not executives and board members that drive profit above safety and common sense. I'm not in favor of a lot of heavy handed regulation, but I'm all for corporate liability.
- zucked 3y agoHistory has shown that it is difficult to hold parties liable because they find creative ways to eschew the obligations via spin-offs, bankruptcy, or both.
- dopidopHN 3y agoWe manage to do it for poor people and students. I wish we could do it for officier of corporations. Now that they enjoy free speeches privileges.
- zucked 3y agoLaws are only as defensible as the lawyers we sic on them. Turns out, we have some really creative lawyers in our ranks.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoStatist and capitalist society is built on rules for thee but not for me. Good luck voting and waiting to solve this.
- rolandog 3y agoI always like to come up with human analogies for the mental gymnastics that Big Business tries to pull off: "Wait a minute your honor, here's my newborn child; he's the legal owner of that truck, and therefore he's the one that should be locked up for running over the old lady."
- dopidopHN 3y agoYour point about the real cost of those chemical is so crucial. Maybe I would have more respect to whatever free market proposal if the real cost were factored in. And yes, it’s including not polluting or cleaning up fully after yourself if you do. If you pollute in a non cleanable way, you either pay a lot, or it’s illegal. Kinda tired of freeloaders.
- rngname22 3y agoIt's not considered alarming to publicly state you believe those guilty of murder should face capital punishment - that is - to be executed by the state. Certainly not a view held by all but it's within the Overton window to state you hold the view. I believe it should be normalized that we speak about the most egregious, permanent, impossible to reckon with environmental pollution in the same way - that is - it ought to be a crime to pollute in the most serious ways and that crime out to be punished with state executions.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoThinking of it this way just as an exercise also leads you directly into how constructed the entire idea of crime even is. All these articles in mainstream papers the last few years fomenting a panic about rising crime, calling it crime waves, etc. They are not talking about this. Because they don't mean this. We don't, for the most part, consider these to be crimes. Sometimes we may use that word, but you don't see the same flood of op-eds and public official press conferences calling for retributive justice. Similar shit elsewhere. Shoplifting is a crime but hundreds of millions in wage fraud is just bad accounting, etc etc.
- zug_zug 3y agoI agree. If somebody from Iraq did this to a US river, it would a catastrophic act of bioterrorism, an act of war warranting death by drone without trial. Maybe calling it corporate bioterrorism (though a bit hyperbolic) could shift the overton window into somewhere closer to reality.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoThis is a somewhat one-sided perspective. The end polluter is often the US government itself. Do we hold the government officials to that same standard? How about the citizens that elected them?
- rngname22 3y agoI think the only real answer we can have is, yes. Unless something really fundamental changes, where egregious forms of pollution of forever chemicals is seen the same way things like incest, rape, or murder, then nothing will change.
- cortesoft 3y agoI am also curious if it wasn't also toxic back when you were a kid, and people just didn't realize it and were eating contaminated fish.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoThe major end user and polluter is usually the public government. People can absolutely sue the government, but they just end up paying for it themselves.
- ethanbond 3y ago> The major end user and polluter is usually the public government. Why is that?
- quasse 3y agoAt least in my city, the Air Force is the major source of PFAS pollution in our waterway, because they dumped firefighting agents into it for decades at their airbase.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoMost of the contamination is from firefighting foams. Government agencies decided that the pollution was an acceptable cost for their added benefit to saving lives and property. PFAS firefoam is still widely used, as governments still deem it necessary. However, training with real PFAS fireform is now more restricted than it once was.
- mrguyorama 3y agoAh yes, it's totally the fault of the occasional use of firefighting foam, and not the fault of literally every single food package being covered in the stuff. Do you have numbers to back up your assertion?
- TylerE 3y agoFood packaging? Do you have a citation for that? Cookware yes, but packaging?
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
- jokoon 3y agoMaybe it could move to "banned by default" for anything that is sold to the public, and authorized for very very narrow and particular applications that have little risk to contact the environment, although it's hard to study which application, maybe as long as the quantities produced are small enough that they're not a danger. For example, if it's for space satellite parts, or for nuclear energy application, etc, when alternatives don't exist as long as the quantity are small and as long as they're being disposed of safely. So in short: if it's a sector that is high value enough, where quantities are small and where safe disposal is mandatory.
- mrguyorama 3y agoQuite simply, any conclusion of this saga that doesn't end with 3M and fellow companies utterly erased and their assets sold off to more responsible stewards to pay for remediation and cleanup efforts, including piercing the corporate veil for a lot of the owners, is a miscarriage of justice. You cannot be allowed, as a private entity, to knowingly pollute.... everything, and still be allowed to conduct business. You have made it abundantly clear that you will harm others for profit, and we should be aggressively destroying any company that does so. You have no natural right to a profit at other's expense, and we should stop pretending that these companies are following the rule of the law with these settlements. No part of any law says you have to let malicious companies continue to operate because they are big and have a lot of money. Bankruptcy is an important and necessary part of a healthy market.
- amelius 3y ago> You have no natural right to a profit at other's expense Another thing is that the stock market doesn't work here. It promotes shortsighted trading without an eye for long term side effects. In principle shareholders should be accountable too. If you owned stocks of a company that caused damage during the period when that damage occurred, you should be accountable and at least you should not be able to profit from it. The stock market should be retrofitted with an accountability system. This is the only way shareholders will start caring about our future.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoProjecting your wants onto power aside, why would this ever happen? What would drive our government to do that? If there's no incentive, it's empty desire or based on some fantasy that government would suddenly operate in terms of what's best for society rather than a serious consideration of how power works. Why look to government to do that? Are examples of government pollution controls effective, or examples of greenwashing? For instance a lot of the Quebec forests that burned already contributed to those CO2 offsets by having someone say they wouldn't burn them, and yet...
- 3y ago
- m463 3y agoThis is corrupt all the way down. Consumers cannot determine if they have "forever chemicals" in their products and vote with their wallet. I've tried for ages to find cookware that is healthy, and time and time again the cookware I've bought has these chemicals hidden behind corporate lies. Even consumer's reports has finally realized: Because CR’s tests and research show that even products made without PFOA may contain the compound because of how they’re manufactured, we have decided to no longer display "PFOA-free" in our ratings of nonstick cookware. Such claims may not be reliable for PTFE-coated products. happily there is hope: A California law that will go into effect in 2023 will ban companies from claiming in online sale listings that a cookware product is free of any one PFAS—like PFOA—if it contains any other PFAS, like PTFE. Those claims will have to be removed from packaging by 2024, when a similar law will go into effect in Colorado. I wonder if "online sale listings" will just use geoip and ignore the rest of the country.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y agoWhy not buy uncoated steel or aluminum cookware? It's all I use. Often need steel wool to clean, but that's much better than buying non-stick cookware.
- m463 3y agoI like carbon steel, seasoned. doesn't weigh quite as much as cast iron. I also use stainless and scrub.
- hcurtiss 3y agoBut are these advisories really meaningful? People volitionally ingest persistent organic flourines every day (e.g., Flonase, Prozac, Lipitor). These chemicals are really useful, and only very mildly harmful. EPA's straight-line calculations for excess deaths are comically overstated -- tens of thousands of deaths, and we struggle to actually point at more than a few high profile incidents. Is it possible that, yes, these chemicals are mildly harmful, but also very useful, and that we have to take a more sophisticated approach to the trade-offs? Here's an amusing article highlighting the struggle to single out the "bad" PFAS from the truly life-saving PFAS. https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/is-there-a-right-definition-of-pfas/ https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/is-there-a-right-d...
- mint2 3y agoIn today’s NYT article on e-bikes (i.e. electric mopeds) for teens, the maker says how motorcycle education classes saved his life, but doesn’t want similar classes for the electric mopeds he sells to kids because it would hurt business. It’s the same all over, companies care about their own short term profits and gladly maim people and things for a buck in their pocket.