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Edited on Wed Jul-14-04 07:25 PM by amen1234
when I got my FIRST Chemistry degree at the University of Michigan in 1971, there were NO regulations for Mercury....the EPA was formed about 1972, and began setting some standards (real loose standards) and over the years, TIGHTENING UP the standard slowly....
reTHUGlicans HATE the EPA....they are currently trying to KILL it (and I speak as a Manager who QUIT the bush* EPA rather than prostitute myself in the sciences)....
in about 1985, chemistry took a GIANT leap...instruments advanced rapidly due to fiber optics (for chemical separation columns in GCs, HPLC, GC/Mass Specs, etc.), also, high tech computers made possible HUGE advancements in ICPs, DC Plasma (boron), GFAA, CVAA, and more...prior to that, we couldn't SEE a lot of chemicals that we can SEE today...so, rather quickly, it became apparent that there were ALWAYS a lot more toxins in our environment than we had even imagined.....I went back to college and got my SECOND chemistry degree at the U of Colorado in 1990 because of these advances...
under reaguns and bush1....people were encouraged to come up with ways to 'by-pass the science' (find loopholes) for the benefit of the rich and the corporations...afterall, there are NO landfills, or smokestacks or industrial waste dumps or sewer treatment plants in RICH neighborhoods...and poor people are often overwhelmed with just day-to-day living and have no time/money to deal with the government....there would be NO MORE tightening of standards allowed, even though instruments could FIND more (which is how the Arsenic debacle at the beginning of bush* took place)...and no more chemicals brought under regulations, even though more than 10,000 NEW chemicals are created every year, and it's a good bet that many are toxic...EPA is only regulating a very very small number of chemicals...
it was a TWO part attack by reTHUGlicans, first...there was falsification of chemical data, which made it a LOT easier for the responsible corporation to clean up their waste...just change the numbers and it's clean...but this soon proved difficult, as more and more, forsensic chemists CAUGHT the perps...
so, the SECOND STEP (with a MUCH bigger impact), was the BIG LIE ...evolved under reagun's and bush*...the terminology and idea came right out of the banking/insurance industries, and was PUSHED a lot by people at Harvard...RISK ASSESSMENT....risk assessment is the BIGGEST SCAM ever for science...it is a total SCAM, LIES, and MANIPULATION of the chemical data....
but under reTHUGlicans during the 80's, RISK ASSESSMENT became a very popular, and low-cost way to manipulate and evade environmental clean-ups and the law....the reTHUGlicans actually have now INSTITUTIONALIZED risk assessment, pretending that it is a science...
it is real convoluted...but to put it simply...RISK ASSESSMENT says that if you have a toxic chemical, regulators MUST now look at the statistics and actually calculate (which is impossible) how many people will suffer...and then the cost...and if the cost/benefit ratios are too high...then FORGET IT, and go ahead and KILL people...chemicals just don't fit well into RISK ASSESSMENTS...quantity/risk just don't fit....for example, quantity of Plutonium can be extremely small, but KILLING is extremely efficient...some chemicals KILL right away, most take years, or affect babies more than adults, or deform fetuses without any idea what caused the problem....cancers are very difficult to predict for risk assessments....
your example MERCURY....RISK ASSESSORS actually calculate the amount the average person is exposed to, whether that amount would harm them (short-term, or long-term teratogenic, mutagentic, carcinogenic)....the numbers go all over the place, depending on where you are located and what coal is burned....even the chemical data for heavy metals (like Mercury) coming out of coal-burning smokestacks have LOTS of errors and very few data are available....but they make the RISK ASSESSMENT anyways, especially if they can make it LOOK GOOD...as children DIE....
here in Alexandria Virginia, many children have HIGH LEVELS of Mercury in their bodies from the nearby aging COAL burning plant, but that data is NOT allowed into a RISK ASSESSMENT....Alexandria children suffer heavy metal poisoning, and LOTS of effects, brain damage, nerve damage, etc....the chemical analyses now include metal-speciation, and Mercury has a number of different chemical forms...all COAL contains metals (mercury, cadmium, chromium, uranium, nickel and much more)...the metals are added during the formation of coal, which takes millions of years, from volcanic eruptions...
the REAL DEAL would be new technologies (sponsored by OUR government, like coal, oil, and nuclears plants are)...but bush* won't do that, he's into OLD stuff, like oil, coal..BIG POLLUTING industries...
a partial solution would be to force the OLD coal plants to update to modern environmental pollution prevention equipment...but bush* and his minions will NEVER do that...the OLD plants are enormously profitable, outliving reTHUGlican dreams of profits, even as they spit out more and more pollutants in their oldest age...same with oil plants...as the Texas governor, bush* put into law a 'grandfather' clause, that all old plants do NOT have to ever be brought up to current environmental codes, and NOW, pResident bush* just did the same thing for the old coal plants all over America....so the children will continue to live lives of desperation, their parents won't understand why, and the RISK ASSESSMENT LOOKS WONDERFUL on paper and for Congressional presentations, as all the reTHUGlicans pat themselves on the back...
ADDED MERCURY: the end product of coal-burning plants is an ash/sludge that is FULL OF MERCURY and other toxic metals...that ash is filled into whole valleys and covered with grass under bush* policies...it will continue to leach into people's drinking water, farming water, animals, etc. for years and years...causing even more health issues...nerve damages, brain damage, miscarriages, deformed babies....
TRADING CREDITS: just a joke....another whitewash...think about it for a moment...does it make any sense for my local OLD coal-burning plant in Alexandria Virginia to continue to poison AMERICANS??? our hospitals are OVERLOADED all the time, and our children cannot learn because they are LOADED WITH MERCURY (and arsenic, cadmium, lead, chromium and more)....
so, under pressure from WE THE PEOPLE....Alexandria coal plant can buy cheaply some credits from a coal plant in remote Hayden Colorado...and CONTINUE POLLUTING with no improvement....the statistics will be AVERAGED over all of America...and Congress and bush* will show beautiful color charts of improvements to air pollution in America (if averaged over the whole country)....but the reality will STILL be the same for those of us in Alexandria VA...same pollution, same toxins....nothing will change...it's bush* joke on America....play with the numbers, and the problem is totally solved..ha ! don't believe it...
end of a long story...hope it helps....
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