A lose-lose sitch?
June 20, 2008
Because the EPA tentatively approved the dumping of 40 million pounds of toxins from Mexico, a public hearing was held today in Porth Arthur, Texas by the agency. Still no word on the outcome of the hearing, but the Gulf Coast is getting fucked again (or so it seems).
From the New York Times:
“Despite a federal ban on importing PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, the company, Veolia Environmental Services, has asked the Environmental Protection Agency for an exemption to move the chemicals by truck from Mexico and to burn them at its incinerator just outside Port Arthur. The incinerator has been disposing of the United States’ PCB waste since 1992.”
How does the EPA get off even tentatively approving something like this?
The people of Port Arthur aren’t welcoming 40 million pounds of toxic shit into their backyards (obviously). Since the 1970s, pollution in the area has earned the town nicknames like Cancer Alley and the Armpit of Texas. This is sad. The Times uses poverty, race and geography to explain the abuse of Port Arthur.
Still, the situation isn’t so simple. The toxins are being held in temporary facilities in Mexico, and that is likely to do more damage to the gulf than the incineration. Dear lord.
Oh, just FYI: “Port Arthur, with a population of about 58,000 people, face a legitimate risk of exposure to PCBs, which have been linked to cancer, brain and liver damage, skin rashes and harmful effects to the reproductive system.”
It’s also interesting that the mayor of Port Arthur refuses to get involved in the dialog because the incinerator is outside of city limits and he claims this to be a federal matter. I wonder how he sleeps at night
Newsweek had a good article about Texas’s F’ed up environmental policies, too.
I don’t understand where dumping is involved. Incinerator technology is quite advanced. Unless the company is irresonsible with handling of the PCBs, I also don’t understand how people are at risk. Disposing of chemicals at an advanced incinerator is preferable to leaving them in temporary storage in Mexico, as you said.
Not to say Texas isn’t f’ed up.
Jeff you make a really good point. The issue here is the proximity of the residents of this town to the chemicals being incinerated. There has been a long history of these people being subject to pollution, and I should have been more specific in labeling Port Arthur as a ‘dumping ground.’
Obviously you know more about incineration than I do, but PCBs have been banned from being imported into the US for a reason, am I right? The incineration is set to take place so close to these people’s homes and I think they’ve just had enough (based on the interviews I’ve read).
The incinerator near Port Arthur has also been cited for not having the 99.999% PCB destruction rate that Veolia claims it has.
Again, I’m no expert on this. The temporary storage in Mexico sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. It’s just sad that a majority of the residents in Port Arthur are poor and subjected to bad air quality and a polluted environment. Texas is so damn big, why not place an incinerator in the middle of the desert, away from humans and animals?
Because that would make too much sense and not enough dollars.