Re: industrial effluent, rhetorical and otherwise

["Mark Robinowitz" <mrobinowitz@igc.apc.org>]

> Date:          Wed, 8 May 1996 13:47:45 -0800
> To:            mrobinowitz@igc.apc.org, dioxin-l@essential.org
> From:          kegill@halcyon.com (Kathy E. Gill)
> Subject:       Re: risk

> On Wed, 8 May 1996 13:45:25 -0400 (EDT)
> mrobinowitz@igc.apc.org wrote, in response to Ferdinand.Engelbeen@ping.be
> 
> >If your industry was so safe, how come there is no petrochemical factory
> >anywhere on Earth that is located in a wealthy community, or operates
> >without chemical sewers and smokestacks?  If your effluent is so safe, why
> >not keep 100% of it on site?
> >
> >Sounds like you're full of effluent.
> 
> (1) Mark -- factories aren't located "in a wealthy community" because the
> land values are so high that no one could afford to *build* a factory
> there. Just as there are no landfills, airports, hospitals, shopping malls,
> or any other "nuisance" in the backyard of a high-rent districts.

here in the Washington, DC area, there are LOTS of hospitals and shopping 
mauls located in the wealthy suburbs, but the toxic dumps, legal and 
otherwise, are largely in poor, minority communities.  Guess it's a sheer 
coincidence.  The new Montgomery County garbage incinerator was built
in the poorest, most rural part in the county, even though it would have
been cheaper to build it at a County centralized garbage facility as 
originally planned (but it would have annoyed far more citizens, so it
was built in the least politically powerful district, at much greater
operating cost).

And pollution certainly doesn't respect property boundaries or political
districts.

> 
> (2) Factories don't keep effluent on site for the same reasons that people
> install toilets, indoor plumbing and septic tanks/or/sewers.

feces are biodegradable and even compostable

if we had any sense we'd use safe, odorless composting toilets instead of 
dumping shit into rivers 

organochlorine byproducts are not compostable or biodegradable

and surely you know that the chemical industry is fighting efforts to 
expand the number of chemicals included in reporting requirements (Toxic 
Release Inventory).  If they're so safe why is the Chemical Manufacturers
Association so adamant against people knowing what substances its member
companies emit into air water and soil and so supportive financially
of politicians who seek to block citizen involvement in environmental
policies?

> 
> BTW --- we're all full of effluent <g>. It's one reason to live is to pollute.
> 
> Kathy
> 
> 
> 

some of us live to stop pollution, especially since pollution stops life

everyone has their choice to make in their existence: which side are they on?
Money is more important than morality, for some.