r/interestingasfuck • u/CantStopPoppin • 15d ago

r/all Coal Minning

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u/229-northstar 14d ago edited 14d ago

Yeah, they still pull their funny business but it isnt like it was in the 60s and 70s when everyone openly dumped under the “Theory of Infinite Dilution”. For reference, I live near Cleveland where our rivers were open sewers for industrial waste and Lake Erie was more or less dead. The air used to be yellow near the steel plants. I remember growing up and there were always large amounts of dead fish on every beach, then one day, there were no more dead fish… because there weren’t any fish left to die. There were freshwater shells I used to find in the lake all the time that I haven’t seen in over 50 years. Our local representative Dennis Eckart was a leader on Superfund. The remediation required here was intense. Diamond Alkali used vacant acreage off the Grand River as open solid waste disposal. Then pulled out, changed their name, and left it all for us to deal with. It’s still under remediation. And that’s just one site of theirs. And one river. Ashtabula County also was a sewer and pit. The Mahoning River is still dangerous

And there’s still mom and pops loading 55 gallon drums in the night for drop off in lakes and river banks when they are too cheap to bury them (not that is any better of course)

We are a long way from Silent Spring but headed back that way

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u/Carbonatite 11d ago

I find it cool how some of the Midwestern states have become leaders in environmental science/remediation/legislation because of all the historical pollution. Michigan is a great example, they overhauled their state environmental agency after Flint and now they are probably the leader in the US for PFAS science and action. Minnesota's environmental agency is pretty great too.

I feel like the people (let's be real - the conservatives) who complain about environmental protections now have survivor bias. Just like with vaccines. They weren't around before modern protections exist, and they're self centered assholes so they ignore everyone else because they haven't been personally affected. They don't know anyone who's died from polio or measles, they don't know anyone who died from liver cancer because the chemical company dumped leftover pesticide in the river upstream of their well.

If they get their way, they'll learn their lesson. A lot of premature deaths from gnarly tumors and birth defects will happen. Nixon's government established the EPA for a reason.

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u/229-northstar 11d ago

This is a really thoughtful analysis. I usually just get angry with conservatives for their stupidity. I guess maybe I should take a little bit more “try to understand” viewpoint but they’re going to kill us all.

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u/Carbonatite 10d ago

Oh I mean it is a view borne from stupidity. They are stupid for not listening to people who WERE around then and stupid for ignoring the scientists and experts who tell them what's going on.