Polluted Water in America ruled OK by EPA

The first paragraph of AP News says it all:

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there’s no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.

This is a completely baseless and counterproductive decision, as the movie FLOW illustrates.

The AP article says the EPA claims to have used a risk calculation that decided Americans do not deserve the cost of cleanup:

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a “meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems.”

In other words, the government does not want to spend its money on cleanup of a toxin that they are primarily responsible for dumping into the water. The EPA is harming national security.

Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: “This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly.”

The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.

The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA’s conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.

Fortunately, states are acting on their own to set a health standard for drinking water that includes a limit on perchlorate. The states do not seem to be as biased towards protecting the Pentagon budget in their calculations.

California uses 6 parts per billion as a level of concern, whereas the US Navy uses 24 parts per billion. The problem with perchlorate is that it travels through water into plants, milk, and people; even nursing babies are at risk:

A chemical pollutant that is commonly found in water supplies could harm nursing babies, even lead to mental impairment in extreme cases.

Perchlorate-an industrial pollutant linked to thyroid ailments-has been found in US drinking water and a survey is currently under way to find out its extent and impact in the UK.

Now it has been discovered that it becomes actively concentrated in breast milk, according to a team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore.

Today perhaps you can feel lucky that you don’t live in a city like Rialto, California (that has 22 wells contaminated with perclorate and one registering 10,000 ppb) but tomorrow you might be wondering why the EPA does not want to protect you and your family from danger.

The EPA should immediately go after the sources of contamination, public and private, and declare levels above 6 ppm an unacceptable risk to American safety and security. Keep in mind that the cost of cleanup will decrease significantly if the EPA takes a stand on this issue — demand for new cleanup technology will spur innovation.

Wall Street Meltdown Predictions

Interesting to read about Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volker and his early warning about the risks of deregulation. PBS has the story:

Thomas Theobald, then vice chairman of Citicorp, argues that three “outside checks” on corporate misbehavior had emerged since 1933: “a very effective” SEC; knowledgeable investors, and “very sophisticated” rating agencies. Volcker is unconvinced, and expresses his fear that lenders will recklessly lower loan standards in pursuit of lucrative securities offerings and market bad loans to the public.

Oh, that was in 1987.

In August 1987, Alan Greenspan — formerly a director of J.P. Morgan and a proponent of banking deregulation — becomes chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. One reason Greenspan favors greater deregulation is to help U.S. banks compete with big foreign institutions.

It seems to me that if you have to change the rules or remove the referees to win, then maybe you do not really intend to play the game anymore. Imagine basketball with no refs, baseball with no umpire. This is not my idea of the best way to compete. The power-vacuum of deregulation not only allows for unsustainable excess and fraud (cheating on the field) but also spirals downward into a match of sheer aggression and violence. So deregulation leads to far higher operating costs, more permanent failure and decreased quality of service. Who wins from that equation?

Pakistan Marriott and fertilizer bombs

The Radio New Zealand News gives details about the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

The heavily guarded hotel was attacked at 8pm local time on Saturday, when a truck blew up at the hotel entrance after it was stopped for a security check.

There is no security footage of the main blast because it destroyed the camera, but officials said the vehicle was packed with 600kg of high-quality explosives, as well as grenades and mortars.

Aluminium powder was also used to accelerate the explosion and added to the ferocity of the blaze, officials said.

The photos I have seen reminded me of the WTC explosion in 1993, and I couldn’t help but notice both mention 600 kg (1310 lb) explosives in trucks, even though the trucks could hold more. Why 600 kg? The 1993 bomb at the WTC also was made from urea nitrate (fertilizer) with aluminum.

A quick search found similar details in a story about a UK man from the BBC:

Defendant Anthony Garcia purchased a 600kg bag of ammonium nitrate fertiliser in November 2003, the jury was told.

This was kept at a self-storage depot in Hanwell, west London, until staff became suspicious and called police.

Mr Garcia is one of seven suspects accused of planning attacks on pubs, nightclubs and stations in the UK.

Some of the suspects are alleged by the prosecution to have received training in explosives and use of the poison ricin in Pakistan.

600 kg of fertilizer (equivalent to 500 kg of TNT high explosive) in these events must be more than a coincidence. The 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the 2002 Bali bombings and the Istanbul HSBC bombing in 2003 have similar notes.

It seems to me that a subtext of ammonium nitrate creation, export and control is missing from the news stories I have read so far. Remember how Timothy McVeigh was accused of using 2,300 kg (5,000 lb) of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane in the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bomb? Even more shocking was the 1947 explosion at the Galvaston ship canal at Texas City on the French Freighter Grand Camp that killed over 576 people, injured 5,000 and caused $67m in damage. Few go over this history of industrialized fertilizer mischief or bring up the question of regulation in these stories about “threats”, but there seems to be a clear pattern.

The US signed a “Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act” in 2007 but it apparently “leaves the U.S. with weaker controls on ammonium nitrate than Britain, Germany, Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and many other nations.” Australia has a list of Principles for the Regulation of Ammonium Nitrate.

I started to look and see if there are any fertilizer early-warning systems under development (e.g. sniffers that could have alerted security that a truck laden with fertilizer was driving through an urban area), and also whether there are ways to neutralize combustibility (detonation resistance) with an additive, but did not get very far. I am sure the latter exists, but what of the former?

McCain Truth Squad caught lying

The Alaska Report has more damning evidence that the GOP is twisting the truth and backpedaling to get Palin out of a bi-partisan investigation.

It was alleged at a press event this week by the McCain camp that the Palin Administration did not authorize the trip, and that Monegan was fired for trying to go on the trip anyway.

Attached is the travel document from the Governor’s Office authorizing Monegan to go on that trip. That document was left out of the presentation by the “Truth Squad” earlier this week.

Alaskans are apparently getting a bit tired of being pushed around by GOP shock-and-awe lawyers:

“They’ve sent outsiders up to Alaska to mislead the public about a bi-partisan investigation, and personally attack anyone in their way,” said State Rep. Les Gara (D-Anchorage). “The Governor agreed to this Legislative investigation until the day she joined the McCain ticket, and attacking Alaskans to get out of this commitment is plain wrong.”

Amazing to see that the investigation was passed by bi-partisan unanimous vote, Palin said she wanted to be held accountable, and yet McCain’s campaign is doing everything it can to sue everyone into silence.

Political partisanship has nothing to do with the current outrage of many Alaskans. McCain-Palin Stormtroopers have dropped into Alaska and taken over the department of law. Alaska has become a battlefield in the war for the White House. Senators Hollis French, Bill Wielechowki, Kim Elton, Investigator Steve Branchflower and Walt Monegan are the public targets. The Alaskan Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the Citizens of Alaska are the collateral damage. It isn’t too dramatic to say we are having a Constitutional Crisis when our Attorney General, Talis Colberg, is instructing Alaskans to break the law by ignoring subpoenas.

This is Alaska. This is Alaska under the GOP…

The Battlefield Alaska article lays out ten excellent reasons why the GOP are smoking crack if they think the investigation is partisan or should be postponed:

Top Ten Reasons the Investigation into Sarah Palin is Fair

1. It began with a 12-0 vote of eight Republicans and four Democrats.

2. The President of the Senate, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

3. The Speaker of the House, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

4. The investigation began in July, well before Governor Palin was placed on the national ticket.

5. Governor Palin pledged over and over to cooperate with the investigation. Here’s a quote from a KTUU story July 18, 2008. “We would never prohibit, or be less than enthusiastic about any kind of investigation. Let’s deal in the facts, and you do that via investigation.” And another from Sharon Leighow, Governor Palin’s press secretary in an Anchorage Daily News story from July 29, 2008. “The governor has said all along that she will fully cooperate with an investigation and her staff will cooperate as well.”

6. The Project Director, Hollis French, was not a member of the committee that started the investigation.

7. The Republican senator that supplied the crucial vote in favor of subpoenas has a John McCain for President sign in his yard, and he represents the area around Governor Palin’s home town.

8. At the meeting when subpoenas were issued, every member present from the House Judiciary Committee voted to support the Senate’s subpoenas, including the Chairman, a conservative Republican, and the vice-chair, a conservative Republican.

9. The investigator, Steve Branchflower, who is actually gathering the facts and writing the report, has no ties to either party.

10. Because filing a complaint against yourself, and then moving to have that complaint dismissed, is not a good way to get to the truth. (“Palin Calling for an End to Investigation She Requested” ABC News)

Ok, lying-Truth Squad, let’s hear your responses.