From what I have read, the contaminated water filled with arsenic and lead from the long-abandoned Gold King Mine in San Juan County, Colorado, had been contained since the mine was abandoned in 1923 (yes, almost 100 years). The contaminated water just needed to be safely removed, so the EPA paid a contractor over $381,000,000 to do the job. In the category of "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words"...yeah, you know the rest...
The contamination from the Animus River is spreading to New Mexico and the odor from the toxic plume has reached Utah, but hey, EPA Chief Gina McCarthy is really, really sorry.
So far, no one has been fired, but then again, Bush has not been blamed either.
Comments?
The contamination from the Animus River is spreading to New Mexico and the odor from the toxic plume has reached Utah, but hey, EPA Chief Gina McCarthy is really, really sorry.
So far, no one has been fired, but then again, Bush has not been blamed either.
Comments?
22 comments:
The EPA says, "We're sorry."
(mild NSFW)
Did ya'll know that the EPA has armed response teams, SWAT? Weird ain't it. I wonder how many of these alphabet agencies have tactical teams. I bet it's a bunch. I figure if a bunch of those citizens get mad and get unruly you will have Federales crawling all over them. But the EPA says they're sorry, so we leave it that. Lord knows they never lie or deceive.
Bev, I read a retired engineer wrote a letter to the editor out there, that the EPA would do exactly this (purposely breach the containment wall) in order to declare the area a Superfund site and shut down any further mining (coal and/or otherwise).
He claimed (a week before it happened) that he's experienced this type of move by the EPA before in his career. They screw something up so that they can come in, federalize the land and get LOTS of money to 'clean up' the site (which takes many, many years BTW).
Imagine the uproar if a privately held mining company had a spill like this. We would be seeing images of dead cows. crying Navajo babies, floating fish and protests from environmental groups detailing the criminal acts of the evil capitalists.
If it's the EPA......crickets.
And Andrew wonders why Trump is so popular with those disaffected by the cronyism and corruption in our politicians.
Bob
Kit - Funny stuff! I love South Park. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are geniuses at hitting the right tone. I can't wait to see what they can do with the EPA because SP is in Colorado, isn't it?
Critch - I am not sure why the EPA has an armed response team except maybe to put down "eco-terrorists" except how do they arrest themselves?. Well, we know INS doesn't have any tactical teams or thinkers at least in the upper echelon of the agency.
Hey did you hear that Gov. Brown (Nutter/CA) has signed a law passed unanimously by the State Senate to ban the word "alien" from official public use? And the state government is actively hiring "undocumented" illegals for state and local government jobs. I guess that take fining employers for knowingly hiring illegals instead of arresting illegals for being...well...illegal off the table in California.
But I digress...
Bob - You know, I read about that and it makes perfect sense. If the original clean up was only going to take $381million and take only a year, then why not make it a permanent clean up that will take generations and billions? I mean, it had been sitting there for nearly a hundred years before the EPA decided to clean up....er, I mean..."clean IT up". My bad...
That engineer was dead on wasn't he? I hope he's careful starting his car.
Somebody (not the engineer whistle blower) needs to be hung from the jibbet and left there until the body rots from the head as a lesson to all of the EPA Nazis.
Bob, There's really no wonder about Trump's supporters. PT Barnum knew who they are.
Bev, The EPA is perhaps the most incompetent agency of all time. I can't think of a single issue they've ever handled the right way. And when things blow up on them, they become bullies.
Their cleanup functions should be handed to the Corp of Engineers and the rest of the agency should be purged and replaced with the competent.
Andrew.....Well, Trump has been called a "carnival barker," so maybe that label fits the bill.
I think Trump's supporters know why he's in it right now and are just tickled that he's throwing all the tired tropes out the window (how's that for cliche's?!). I believe he's in the race to get even more exposure for the "Trump" brand, if that's possible. If he gets the Repubs to start fighting back against the leftists, then perhaps he will have done some good.
The parallels to Perot in '92 are quite eerie aren't they?
Bob
Bob, Trump is conman and he's found an easy mark. He is going down a checklist someone wrote for him, having a good time doing it. But don't believe for a minute that he believes anything he's saying or that the GOP will adopt his "views." If anything, Trump guarantees that the GOP will move left in response to his noxious behavior.
LL - Actually EPA Chief Gina McCarthy and her family should have live in a tent next to the smelly river and be forced to bathe in it until it is cleaned up.
OT, but it looks like Carson's run for fun and profit is over. It's came out that he used fetal tissue in an experiment in 1992. He has recently claimed the use of fetal tissue is unethical and never medically necessary.
One of our readers sent me a link to this article about Trump LINK. It has an interesting explanation of why his supporters follow him. I don't entirely agree, but it is a good theory. Here's a very good quote to read:
In light of Trumpmania, I think my critique from two years ago is even more relevant. Like John C. Lilly’s poor little electrode-wired monkeys who, when given the opportunity to orgasm every three minutes, would damn near masturbate to death, conservatives are going at it hot and heavy over a candidate who was widely dismissed back in 2011. “Of course he’s not a conservative,” Andrew Breitbart told Juan Williams (subbing for Bill O’Reilly) in April 2011. “He was for Nancy Pelosi before he was against Nancy Pelosi,” Breitbart continued, accusing Trump of “playing the election cycle.” In May of that year, Dennis Prager declared Trump “unfit to be a presidential candidate, let alone president.” Michelle Malkin, writing in April 2011, accused Trump of supporting “statist” policies, pointing out that he “backed casino industry bailouts and wealth-redistributing ‘tax-increment financing’ schemes—the very kind of taxpayer-subsidized interventions we’ve seen on a grand scale under the Obama administration.”
And Mark Levin? “The Great One” lashed out at “The Donald” in a devastating radio takedown in April 2011, blasting Trump for his love of single-payer “universal health care,” his desire to impeach “evil” George W. Bush, his belief that President Obama was doing “an amazing job,” and his admiration for Nancy Pelosi. Most important, Levin destroyed Trump’s claim (yes, the same one he’s making again now) that contributing money to Democrat officeholders was merely a “business necessity” by pointing out that Trump gave to Democrats in races in which there was no incumbent. “I think he’s a sick individual, frankly,” Levin concluded, calling anyone who supports Trump “chumps.”
What a difference four years make. Just last week, Levin took to the mic to bellow, “I’m tired of these attacks against Trump” (like the ones he made in 2011?), and, as RedState pointed out (also last week), “Ironically, the Breitbart website has seemingly been the online driving force behind Trump’s candidacy. Andrew Breitbart, if he were still alive, would have never allowed that to happen.”
I personally think Trump is easy to explain. The fringe right went to war against the GOP. They lost. They lost baaaaaadly. Remember me talking about that?
Basically, they wanted to oust McConnell and Boehner and the rest. But the GOP leadership was too savvy and figured out how to put them down. The end result was that most of the "Tea Party candidates" (read: bomb-throwers) got blown away in the primaries. Those that survived either surrendered or shut the hell up. Even Ted Cruz was essentially neutered after that.
Trump stepped into the vacuum. He promised to be louder, dumber and throw an even bigger tantrum. In effect, he promised them scorched earth against the guys who just whipped their butts. And he has one more benefit: he can't get tossed out of office. So they jumped onboard the Trump train hoping that he could make them relevant again.
Anthony - I don't really think that Dr. Carson was serious contender anyway, But just because he did research 20 years ago does not mean he can't speak against the practice today. He should be in line for Surgeon General or HHS anyway.
Bev, I agree that that shouldn't be disqualifying at all. But I don't think Anthony's point was about his qualifications, so much as it was a realization that single-issue types don't allow inconsistency. You are either 100% good or evil in their world.
I think people mistakenly believe that Andrew Breitbart was some far Right-wing wacko. He wasn't. He was classic fiscal conservative when the Tea Party movement was only about being fiscally conservative. If he had lived, I think even he would have fought hard against the hard right social conservatives.
The movement went off the rails when he died.
Exactly! He fought them pretty well while alive, that's for sure, even if he didn't get as much as he wanted for GOProud.
Andrew Breitbart and I had our disagreements, notably on what the author of the column AP shared, but I sorely miss his willingness to engage the left while simultaneously trying to drag the right into the culture wars. Closest thing we currently have remaining is Greg Gutfeld, although I think Fox News spread him too thin to be as effective as he could have been. Sigh ...
I've hunted that area from Farmington, NM to Durango, CO many times. It's a beautiful area.
Well, Obama and Kerry have kissed the ass of another despotic dictator for no apparent reason and without any conditions. So that's Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Co., Iran where the dictatorial imam wish death on America and where Cuban's Castro brothers jail and seize the assets of anyone they don't like whenever they like.
Who next? I am not sure that Kim Jong Un has been approached for the full Obama honors yet, but I am sure that is coming. Maybe when Kim had his uncle/adviser eaten alive by hungry dogs for his amusement, Obama thought maybe this isn't the time...but soon.
Oh, yeah, I forgot...Obama reopened the US Embassy in Syria as one of his first acts as President...that worked out well, didn't it?
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