Under-served Communities Get Some Environmental Relief. No, not in Delaware. That would require the Polluters’ Patron Deb Heffernan to turn her back on her campaign financiers. But, at least in Missouri and Louisiana, some progress:
The Environmental Protection Agency will start monitoring the air in Verona, Missouri, where a manufacturing plant named BCP Ingredients emits a potent carcinogen called ethylene oxide. The mayor of Verona, Joseph Heck, has fought for air monitoring for nearly a year, since ProPublica’s analysis showed the company’s emissions substantially raised the local cancer risk. In some parts of the small city, the industrial cancer risk was an estimated 27 times what the EPA considers acceptable.
Also this month, residents of St. James, a Louisiana parish on a stretch of the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley,” won a yearslong battle to block the building of a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex that would have been one of the largest industrial projects in state history. As reported by Lylla Younes for Grist, a state district judge withdrew the air permits, finding that state officials did not adhere to the Clean Air Act when issuing them.
“The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s decision to authorize these potential public health violations, without offering evidence to show it had avoided the risk to the maximum extent possible, was arbitrary and capricious and against the preponderance of evidence under the agency’s public trust duty,” Judge Trudy M. White wrote in her ruling.
ProPublica found in 2019 that the air around the complex proposed by Formosa, a Taiwanese chemical giant, already contained more cancer-causing pollution than 99.6% of industrialized areas in the country. The proposed facility could have caused toxic air levels in some parts of St. James to triple.
“Formosa was wrong to even want to come in here and poison us because we’re already being poisoned,” Sharon Lavigne, a lifelong parish resident, told Grist’s Younes, who previously led ProPublica’s investigation. After Formosa announced its plans for the complex, Lavigne founded the grassroots group Rise St. James, which teamed up with the environmental watchdog Earthjustice to sue the state over its decision to grant the permits.
Deb Heffernan could have helped stop this sort of environmental racism in Delaware. Instead, she buried bills that would have done so in her committee. WE WILL BE WATCHING AND REPORTING, DEB.
How States–Including Delaware–‘Help The World’s Wealthy Hide Their Fortunes’. Yes, Delaware is a Billionaire Enabler State. This looks like a job for the Rev. and the Highlands Bunker Podcast. The modus operandi should be familiar to those who follow the machinations of the Delaware Way.
Artificial Turf And Forever Chemicals. Isn’t that soccer mecca in Kent County full of turf fields?:
Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu, has ordered no new artificial turf to be installed in city parks, making Boston the largest municipality in a small but growing number around the nation to limit use of the product because it contains dangerous chemicals.
All artificial turf is made with toxic PFAS compounds and some is still produced with ground-up tires that can contain heavy metals, benzene, VOCs and other carcinogens that can present a health threat. The material also emits high levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and sheds microplastics and other chemicals into waterways.
“We already know there are toxic chemicals in the products, so why would we continue to utilize them and have children roll around on them when we have a safe alternative, which is natural grass?” asked Sarah Evans, an environmental health professor for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Why, indeed?
Oh, that Kent County Sports Complex? All synthetic turf. They brag about it, call themselves, wait for it, ‘The Largest All-Synthetic Turf Sports Complex In The Mid-Atlantic’.
“Hey, parents, come to the Kent County Sports Complex and have your kids roll around in PFA’s. Don’t worry, the State of Delaware has no doubt immunized the operators from any liability due to health problems your kids might incur.”
What do you want to talk about?
All the free market lovers in Florida should be happy to be able to rely on private insurance companies to pay damage claims. Wait, many insurance companies find an area that is perpetually pummeled by storms to be too risky to insure. What a challenge?
Beach houses should go back to being simple frame boxes on stilts, easily blown down and easily rebuilt. No McMansions. Then maybe normal non-rich families could actually afford a beach vacation.
I read that Trump stored stolen documents in Mag a Lardo’s basement. My reaction was “Mag a Lardo has a basement?
Speaking of bipartisianship, i got a mailer from LBR yesterday highlighting her as a true leader of bipartianship. it should say, there has never been a truer paycheck casher in de history
Feel the same about LBR, yet another corporate stooge eager to sup at the trough of the corporations and wealthy. Predict the Republicans will field a candidate that makes Witzke look sane, difficult though it will be. Tempting to treat Florida the same way their politicians treated Hurricane Sandy, will not happen. Deeply flawed or not the Dems are there to help and rebuild, the Republicans goal remains destruction and thinly disguised war.
Didja know that Naples, one of the hard-hit areas, is:
“…mostly known for its high-priced homes, white-sand beaches, and numerous golf courses. Naples is the self-titled “Golf Capital of the World”, as it has the second most holes per capita out of all communities, and the most holes of any city in Florida. The city is also known for being appealing to retirees, and a large percent of the population is made up of them.”
Tell me again why we should bale out these wealthy folks who can’t get flood insurance on their homes…
Insurance on my Dad’s gulf coast home went up by a lot after the last storm – when many nationally known insurers simply pulled out of the market. He bought some cut-rate bullshit insurance knowing that if the house was destroyed, it probably wouldn’t pay out anything.
I helped him move out last year. *phew*
They can rebuild using all the money they saved by not paying state income tax!
they dont pay income tax but they have the sales tax that is equal to DE’s state income tax and their property and school taxes are higher than De’s. their budget is mostly made up of sales tax income, nearly 80%, while DE is made up of only 40% of income tax
My opinion FWIW is if you have a coastal home (within 5 miles of the coast line) you should be completely self insured for any type of natural occurrence, whether its flood, wind, etc. there should be no federal, state, municipal funds to help you recover. you know the risks buy your arrogance overrides it so deal with it
“5 minutes” isn’t a great measure. But yeah, when you can’t get insurance you also can’t get a mortgage, so “cash on the barrel head” coastal real estate is going to get very cheap, very quickly under that plan.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/lauren-witzke-and-deanna-lorraine-say-deep-state-using-weather-manipulation-technology-to-punish-desantis?ref=home
Lauren Witzke in the news again. Good lord.