Wow, so we just watched CNN's "special investigation" on the environment and came away kind of speechless. Forgive us for being skeptical going in, but the melodramatic-ominous-music promos we kept seeing for "Broken Government: Scorched Earth" were cringe-inducing. It still wasn't enough to stop us from watching the one-hour special, with topics ranging from pollution to censoring scientists to clean energy. To our surprise, it ended up being one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful environmental pieces we've seen on any news channel for a long time.
Our new favorite CNN reporter, Miles O'Brien (sorry Anderson), covers a lot in the one hour program, including:
How corn ethanol is an inefficient source of energy (although they neglected to mention the new study that found that the ethanol boom may actually exacerbate the CO2 emissions it is supposed to quell), and the fact that it mainly gets so much play in Washington because of those pesky Iowa caucuses.
Industrial pollution, and health impacts of such pollution, highlighting ASARCO's lead spewing power plan and interviews with llocal residents that have been sickened by its emissions. O'Brien even explains what Superfund sites are and how polluters have managed to get around paying for their clean-up duties. We like his aggressive approach while interviewing EPA officials. They deserve to be called out as much as Gonzalez, Rice, or any other political appointee.
A piece on endangered prairie dogs and ferrets and poison. Someone should clue those ranchers in to a poison-free solution to prairie dog management. Oh snap! O'Brien just called out the man responsible for enforcing the endangered species act as a former lobbyist and Senate staffer who worked for reducing the effect of the ESA.
Climate change. Wait, a former teevee reporter, Dean Acosta, was appointed to NASA, and censored government-funded scientific documents about global warming? Well, I guess if you can go from being a horse breeder to FEMA director, anything is possible. God Bless America.
No one wants the Asarco El Paso smelter to reopen - not Mexico, not New Mexico and not El Paso TX. But there is a fraud/cover-up. In the ASARCO bankruptcy proceeding in Corpus Christi they are refusing to discuss the toxic waste handled and burned illegally by ASARCO in the 1990's. And, in the Paso del Norte region no one asks what toxic waste is here from that illegal burning.
They are dividing up the company assets, deciding what damages/liabilities they have to still pay for, and NOT DISCUSSING THE ILLEGAL TOXIC WASTE that got into the Paso del Norte soils, air, the Rio Grande and the international Hueco aquifer.
Meanwhile, just several miles up river from the El Paso smelter the 2nd largest N.M. regional dump is renewing a ten year permit -- and its application would allow it to accept (radioactive) Uranium mining and milling waste into that dump. That radioactivity will outlast the dump's liners. That dirt would be blown all over the region, and the isotopes would flow with the dirt during rain and wind events into the dump's unlined storm ponds to likely flow down the documented Sunland (park) surface fault (that extends along sunland park drive and then the edge of the dump) into the aquifer below. (A whole pile of that waste sits up at Coyote Canyon in Navajo N.M. land, stockpiled by EPA Region 6).
It is time that the community asked what EPA Region 6 is hiding, what Asarco is hiding --- what all these powerful concerns are hiding from us about what ASARCO poisoned us with. Has anyone seen a dioxin report on the Paso del Norte region? No. Has anyone seen a comprehensive beta radiation level plot graphed of our region? No. Has anyone seen a comprehensive chemical analysis of the Asarco pond-dirt that Asarco felt was bad enough that they railed it all the way back to Corpus Christi? No. What about a PCB report/chemical analysis? No. Can the EPA water lab find the chemical report and records for when they came out here in 2001 to try to duplicate Rio Grande samples from an unpublished UTEP masters thesis (running a mini double membrane osmosis treatment system at the Canal street station)? NO.
Are we and have we been sacrificed? YES.
The powers that be must think that we are ignorant stupid people down here in El Paso to sit idly by and simply ask for the smelter to be CLOSED without asking WHAT ARE THEY HIDING and WHAT TOXIC WASTE IS HERE??????????
the dirt during rain and wind events into the dump's unlined storm ponds to likely flow down the documented Sunland (park) surface fault (that extends along sunland park drive and then the edge of the dump) into the aquifer below. (A whole pile of that waste sits up at Coyote Canyon in Navajo N.M. land, stockpiled by EPA Region 6).
It is time that the community asked what EPA Region 6 is hiding, what Asarco is hiding --- what all these powerful concerns are hiding from us about what ASARCO poisoned us with. Has anyone seen a dioxin report on the Paso del Norte region? No. Has anyone seen a comprehensive beta radiation level plot graphed of our region? No. Has anyone seen a comprehensive chemical analysis of the Asarco pond-dirt that Asarco felt was bad enough that they railed it all the way back to Corpus Christi? No. What about a PCB report/chemical analysis? No. Can the EPA water lab find the chemical report and records for when they came out here in 2001 to try to duplicate Rio Grande samples from an unpublished UTEP masters thesis (running a mini double membrane osmosis treatment system at the Canal street station)? NO.
Are we and have we been sacrificed? YES.
The powers that be must think that we are ignorant stupid people down here in El Paso to sit idly by and simply ask for the smelter to be CLOSED without asking WHAT ARE THEY HIDING and WHAT TOXIC WASTE IS HERE??????????
duplicate Rio Grande samples from an unpublished UTEP masters thesis (running a mini double membrane osmosis treatment system at the Canal street station)? NO.
Are we and have we been sacrificed? YES.
The powers that be must think that we are ignorant stupid people down here in El Paso to sit idly by and simply ask for the smelter to be CLOSED without asking WHAT ARE THEY HIDING and WHAT TOXIC WASTE IS HERE??????????
Letting ASARCO re-open in El Paso exemplifies the disgraceful nature of the relationship between the TCEQ and special interests.
Let's face it, the Board,and the Executive Director for the TCEQ,which approved the operating permit, were all Perry appointees; therefore, the leftover residue of the Bush administration. They surely didn't have the best interests of the general public in mind when they approved ASARCO's permit.
I tried finding if they are going to replay the piece, but couldn't find it on cnn.com anyone know if they will replay it? I definitely want to see it.
They aired the heck out of it this past weekend, not sure when it will be on again, but here is the transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/21/acd.02.html
Yeah, OK, we can be the change that we want to see in the world. But unless powerful people in powerful positions want to be that change as well, nothing's going to change.
So now, finally, there's a place where you can go for news and analysis of politics from an environmental perspective.
