EPA REFUSES to Explain Why It Let Pollution Sit for DECADES
21st December 2016
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials refuse to explain why they let pollution fester at up to 302 highly-contaminated sites under their authority for years or even decades. They also won’t explain what they’re doing to protect people’s health.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:34
The explanation is simple and it’s a common problem: “Lawyers are involved.”
Superfund was supposed to clean up all those sites, and it was supposed to have most of the work paid for by those horrible,greedy, capitalist corporations that created the mess. Of course Congress couldn’t be bothered with working out the details of how that was going to work (hint: math is hard), so they left it to the EPA. In EPA’s world, the company with the most cash should be punished the most. So if Exxon sent one drum of waste to a legitimate (at the time) waste disposal site and Mom&Pop Co., Inc. (now out of business) sent 100,000 drums, then Exxon should pay all the cost. So lawyers get involved very quickly and the whole thing winds up as an attorney fest. At one time, the amount of money spent on lawyers was about the same as the amount spent actually cleaning up the sites. It has since climbed to something more like 80/20 in favor of the lawyers. Lots of money, not much cleanup.
So why would a political entity want to feed lawyers cash instead of getting rid of the problem? Lawyers contribute to campaigns. Evergreen projects mean evergreen cash flow. Those sites are NEVER going to be cleaned up unless something drastic happens to EPA.
By something drastic I mean something on the order of California sliding into the ocean.
It could happen. At least in our dreams.