Are you bleeping kidding me?:
‘Delaware OK’s Slag-Grinding Plant Over Neighbor Health Concerns’.
John Carney and his DNREC lackeys have decided that the creation of up to 10(!) jobs is more important than the health of residents in the already environmentally-challenged community of Southbridge.
According to the News-Journal article, the company will be obligated to install the ‘best available technology’ for its slagging operation. What if the best available technology sucks? Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s the best available technology. Not to mention, does anybody expect DNREC to deviate from its Chamber cronyism in ensuring that the community’s health will not be compromised? And for what? A company that will grind ‘a steel manufacturing byproduct’ into granulated slag? 10 fucking jobs?
Wait, there’s more. Here’s what residents face:
They worried about slag dust getting in the air. Industry safety sheets state the material can damage lungs if the dust is breathed in, and contains small amounts of materials that may cause cancer.
There is little research on the effects of slag grinding operations on their surroundings. One study submitted to the state of New Jersey of a slag processing facility in Camden concluded the plant likely contributed about 10% of outdoor dust in the area.
News of the plans alarmed residents in a part of Wilmington that environmental advocates found was one of seven in Delaware where residents suffered cancer and respiratory illnesses at higher rates than their counterparts in wealthier, whiter Greenville.
The feckless (and corrupt?) secretary of DNREC, Shawn Garvin, argues that the new facility in and of itself would not violate state and federal air pollution standards. What, of course, he pointedly avoided discussing was the cumulative effect that adding yet one more polluting and possible cancer-causing business to an area already overburdened with them would have.
Garvin, in his own way, is every bit as disingenuous as Former DELDOT Secretary Kermit Justice used to be. The following is a true story. Part of the notorious Capano family was proposing a massive commercial project somewhere in the vicinity of (pre-expansion) Route 202 and Silverside Road. The proposal was strongly opposed by CCOBH (I was the Arden representative on the body at that time). This project required a traffic impact study that we felt would limit the scope of the proposed project. The impact study came back with the finding that the new project would have no impact on the affected intersection. The rationale? I’m not making this up: The intersection was already a failed intersection, and it would remain a failed intersection if the Capano project was built. Hence, no change.
Garvin has done the exact same thing here. The community is already beset with companies that pollute air and water, so what’s so bad about adding one more serial polluter to the mix? It’s a disgrace that an alleged D governor and his handpicked DNREC Secretary don’t give a flying fuck about the health of the Southbridge community. I was gonna ask, why not just give the Chamber carte blanche over everything? My bad, Carney and Garvin already have.