Hey Cobalt.

Where the hell were you on this topic?

We argued for years about why we need the EPA and their ten trillion laws and regulatory compliance in order to stop this type of ground water contamination. This is why you said I can't do what I want with my own property. Why I need permission permits for everything. Why I can't dump nuclear waste on my own land in fear of it potentially polluting water for others.

Well.....the next closest thing to that has already happened.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/freedom-industries-bankruptcy-west-virginia-chemical-spill_n_4619385.html?ir=Green

Freedom Industries owns the storage facility responsible for leaking up to 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (a coal-cleaning chemical also known as crude MCHM) into West Virginia's Elk River.

Hundreds of thousands of people in nine counties were given orders not to use water for bathing or drinking for days as the company scrambled to clean up, exposing disturbing vulnerabilities in the water supply and a lack of data about hazardous chemicals and where they're stored. A second site owned by the company was also cited for safety violations shortly after the spill.

this is a huge disaster. 300,000 people in Charleston are told not to bathe, brush their teeth or wash their clothes. Not without feeling a burn in their mouth related to the methanol.

MCHM is not lethal unless ingested in large quantities, but can cause non-stop vomiting, burning throat, blisters, and other “poor people problems.”

Isn't this where the EPA was supposed to prevent things like this from occurring? Isn't this what we fund them to do and where all the regulatory oversight should have kicked in?

Isn't this where the red tape should have saved us?

I have always argued that this is when none of that shit will matter and you will have to go after them on a legal level. As a civil lawsuit. On a case by case basis.

As in litigate and sue their asses back into the stone age for the destruction they did to others property. For violating others property rights. Much like Erin Brockovich did decades ago in here 300+ million dollar recovery effort.

Well.......so much for that idea too.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/W._Virginia_water_polluter_Freedom_Industries_files_bankruptcy_in_legal_shell_game/32143/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Freedom owes $3.6 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents obtained by the West Virginia Gazette. The company also owes the IRS more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes dating back 13 years.

So both of our ideas didn't amount to a can of beans. Despite red tape everywhere, the biggest and most heavily bureaucratic EPA in history, nothing prevented or will resolve another fuck up of epic proportions.

The government can't fix this any faster or better than the BP oil spill in the gulf......or any other major environmental disaster.

And now apparently they are playing a shell game to prevent from being sued and held liable for what could make a major city all but contaminated (if not unlivable) for decades to come.

Much like any other bankruptcy, I will be interested to see who gets what....and from whom. If those victimized by this event can't sue those who do collect from FREEDOM INDUSTRIES first. All I know is that the EPA sure as hell didn't solve anything.

But it sure as hell will not stop them from using this as an excuse for more control, more money, and further regulatory mandates in the future.

But so is the nature of the beast. Everyone suffers due to the egregious actions of the very few (and reckless).
Post edited by Mockery at 1/19/2014 1:07:44 AM

My guess is that this will be like another one of those Keynesian vs. Austrian economic style arguments.

Where the Krugman solution to centralized bubble blowing and recessions is to create bigger new bubbles. Where too much debt can be fixed by accumulating more debt. Where cheap money can be fixed with cheaper money. Where too much government can be resolved with bigger government, bigger spending, and even more control.

And most logical people argue for the exact opposite.

My guess is the EPA wasn't big enough, strong enough, or funded well enough to stop yet another disaster from occurring.

Unfortunately many industries are based near large navigable waterways, most of these places are ooold as well. As a result you will often have ancient infrastructure which is being used until it fails (a standard industry practice.)

This usually isnt a problem with most equipment, tanks are different. Most bulk storage locations are subject to storm water inspections, SPCC inspections (for oil/hydraulics/coolant/etc storage), tank inspections, etc. These are records that a diligent state environmental inspector should be checking and verifying as accurate. It would have been evident that adequate secondary containments were not in place at this location, whatever they had in place released 7k+ gallons of material. These standards are put in place by the EPA and function as a bare minimum that states are responsible for. Most often its the state DEPs respinsibility to enforce these recommendations. Violations can result in fines, or a revocation of discharge permits. Further violations can result in jail time for responsible individuals.
The reporting should have illustrated the condition of secondary containments, bulk storage tanks, and the frequency they were being inspected. This establishes responsibility, and whoever failed to act (tank/spcc/stormwater inspectors, compliance officers, DEP inspectors) have zero excuse to lie their way out of that.

If this was a systematic failure to enforce existing regulations, its on the DEP and compliance officer in my opinion.

Bankruptcy, the legal standing of corporations, and other methods used to shield profits aside I cant imagine nobody getting out of this without jail time. That jail time, if it happens, will likely be a direct result of the documentation required by the state DEP based on EPA recommendations.

Ideally a poor containment would be observed on a state DEP inspection. You cant cover that up easily. My question would be whether the inspectors visited, what they noted, and what action they took to correct the situation. Is there incompetence at play? Bribes? A lack of personnel? Bad timing? I dont know. Thats for investigators to figure out.

Originally posted by: Mockery
My guess is that this will be like another one of those Keynesian vs. Austrian economic style arguments.

Where the Krugman solution to centralized bubble blowing and recessions is to create bigger new bubbles. Where too much debt can be fixed by accumulating more debt. Where cheap money can be fixed with cheaper money. Where too much government can be resolved with bigger government, bigger spending, and even more control.

And most logical people argue for the exact opposite.

My guess is the EPA wasn't big enough, strong enough, or funded well enough to stop yet another disaster from occurring.

A lot of what the EPA does for state agencies is to establish scientific methods for laboratory analysis. They do the R&D for the multiple state agencies so that you dont need 50 redundant organizations doing the same thing to varying degrees of competency. That way you can send a sample in to any lab and get the same result within a margin of error. This allows you to use these results for corrective action with the cinfidence that your measuring something thats actually there. Likewise if you have interferences, you can establish methods to mitigate those interferences.

We are seeing the results of all this standardization with the lab methods they are using to determine the concentration of these chemicals in the water supply. Those results will determine when dillution is sufficient to begin using the water for basic needs like showering or washing clothes.

Im sure you have an australian economic plan to stick it to the man, im just not too interested.

Originally posted by: Coba|t

Bankruptcy, the legal standing of corporations, and other methods used to shield profits aside I cant imagine nobody getting out of this without jail time. That jail time, if it happens, will likely be a direct result of the documentation required by the state DEP based on EPA recommendations.

That is my hope too. That and perhaps a case can be made to sue the creditors for funding such a shoddy operation (yet alone trying to recoup profits during bankruptcy).

And that is about all I can expect the EPA to ever do. To not pre-emptively solve or fix anything, but to instead be an investigator of how the event occurred and using that information as further proof/validation in a court of law.

That despite how many laws are made, my argument has always been that this will be treated and decided on a case by case basis in a court of law (where level of guilt is always established). That litigation and lawsuits are ultimately the only way to hold those responsible accountable for their actions. Jail time, however, is certainly another fine incentive.

O.J. might have gotten away with murder, but not without losing everything he had in the process.

Originally posted by: Coba|t
Ideally a poor containment would be observed on a state DEP inspection. You cant cover that up easily. My question would be whether the inspectors visited, what they noted, and what action they took to correct the situation. Is there incompetence at play? Bribes? A lack of personnel? Bad timing? I dont know. Thats for investigators to figure out.

Absolutely, that's what I am waiting to hear the details about as well. Either way, I hope this specific group is held accountable and isn't able to skirt their financial responsibilities from the damages they created.

This is all I have ever been saying and I just wanted to illustrate this as an example.....since it encompasses everything we have ever argued about on this topic.
Post edited by Mockery at 1/19/2014 3:43:49 PM

Originally posted by: Mockery
That despite how many laws are made, my argument has always been that this will be treated and decided on a case by case basis in a court of law (where level of guilt is always established). That litigation and lawsuits are ultimately the only way to hold those responsible accountable for their actions. Jail time, however, is certainly another fine incentive.

When you have a paper trail of regulatory paperwork it makes it very apparent what was occurring and where to place blame. "I didn't know" is no longer an option, ignorance is not an excuse for criminal negligence. Many of these regulations do everything but club you over the head with the message that you CAN BE PUT IN JAIL if you sign off on false information.

These environmental regulations have given a prosecutor a ton of evidence to throw at these people and bury them. I hope they do it.


I don't hear you clamoring for the elimination of the FAA every time an aircraft goes down.

Oh my fucking god these popup videos can fuck off, I don't think I'm coming back here for a while.

Originally posted by: Coba|t
Oh my fucking god these popup videos can fuck off, I don't think I'm coming back here for a while.

chrome plus adblock. n'existe pas
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The right is more virtuous than the left. They have twice as many virtues because they have double the standards.

Originally posted by: Coba|t
Oh my fucking god these popup videos can fuck off, I don't think I'm coming back here for a while.

Had you not been posting such flaming lies that pissed off our last advertiser we would still have our old fixed lame adds. Just saying.

It's true. If it weren't for those lies I wouldn't post nearly as much. that would tone down the dickhead signal to noise ratio big time.

if you think about it your lies should be regulated and litigated against by the EPA for forum pollution.

Don't you try to pull bankruptcy on us.

Originally posted by: Mockery

Originally posted by: Coba|t

Bankruptcy, the legal standing of corporations, and other methods used to shield profits aside I cant imagine nobody getting out of this without jail time. That jail time, if it happens, will likely be a direct result of the documentation required by the state DEP based on EPA recommendations.

That is my hope too. That and perhaps a case can be made to sue the creditors for funding such a shoddy operation (yet alone trying to recoup profits during bankruptcy).

And that is about all I can expect the EPA to ever do. To not pre-emptively solve or fix anything, but to instead be an investigator of how the event occurred and using that information as further proof/validation in a court of law.

EPA is responsible for superfund cleanup sites, they can compel those responsible to pay for cleanup projects, and they can recover those costs after cleanup projects have begun.

I dont see a libertarian alternative, I see a libertarian letting bankrupt parties off the hook and completely ignoring the polluted property because they dont own it. You dont like the idea of using the EPA to compel responsible parties because using force is only justifiable if its used by a libertarian playing the victim.
Post edited by Coba|t at 1/27/2014 12:16:29 PM

Originally posted by: Coba|t

Originally posted by: Mockery
My guess is that this will be like another one of those Keynesian vs. Austrian economic style arguments.

Where the Krugman solution to centralized bubble blowing and recessions is to create bigger new bubbles. Where too much debt can be fixed by accumulating more debt. Where cheap money can be fixed with cheaper money. Where too much government can be resolved with bigger government, bigger spending, and even more control.

And most logical people argue for the exact opposite.

My guess is the EPA wasn't big enough, strong enough, or funded well enough to stop yet another disaster from occurring.

A lot of what the EPA does for state agencies is to accept bribes from huge corporations so as to set forth regulations that help said industries... scientific methods for laboratory analysis. .

I shortened that up for you, no thanks needed.

about sums it up.

now the EPA is telling a bankrupt company they have to remove all their tanks.

good fucking luck with that...better chance getting your retirement money back from Bernard Madoff at this point.

This type of stupid is best left for those who believe in Hope and Change still.
Post edited by Mockery at 1/27/2014 11:18:00 PM