Chemical Makers Sue Over Rule to Rid Water of ‘Forever Chemicals’
Chemical Makers Sue Over Rule to Rid Water of ‘Forever Chemicals’
Industry groups said the E.P.A. had exceeded its authority in requiring the drinking-water cleanup. The chemicals, known as PFAS, are linked to cancer and health risks.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10442645
Chemical Makers Sue Over Rule to Rid Water of ‘Forever Chemicals’
In practice, this means 3M is continuing to create harm from the risks they spent decades covering up
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It blew my mind when i learned we don’t require 100% capture of contamination from manufacturing. Granted i was a kid, but it seemed to me that cleaning up after yourself would just be the cost of doing business. How naive i was.
There’s a paper mill near me, on a river, and the one and only interesting thing about it is that it discharges water that is cleaner than it takes out.
Now, this isn’t because they just care so much, or try so hard.. it’s actually because the river is so horribly polluted from other shit upstream, even after decades of cleanup projects, that doing the bare minimum is actually a net positive…
What a shitty world we live in. It could have been so much better.
Potomac?
Nope.
But that made me realize there are probably a lot of places where that description fits, sadly.
3M has fucked up the water in my area pretty bad for decades. I have to use Zero water filters for everything. Been thinking of installing a large under sink filter/reverse osmosis system.
It's 100% worth it. Not only does it get rid of the pollution, it tastes a lot better too.
It is the cost of doing business. They just wanna make the rest of us pay it.
That was the intent of the system for water at least. The acronym for water discharge permits is NPDES. National Pollution Discharge Elimination System.
Then profit driven companies, their soulless lobbyists, amoral lawyers kept bending that.
Like just about any environmental regulation in the US - most of them are heavily influenced by the industries that are regulated. All US laws prioritize commerce and profits first and everything else second. Including the environment, workers rights, etc.
Gotta get lobbying and money as speech out of the equation. Then everything would have some chance of improving or kind of aligning with citizen expectations.
Also, most of government workers would love to have more effective regulations so we can be more effective. Despite most people shitting on them as lazy or ineffective. The ineffective is by design and under funding.