This is a very serious thing that I don’t want anyone from JWLD to be able to find any specifics about via google search, so I am going to speak in generalities. I apologize up front for any confusion that may cause.
Let’s say you live in an area where an energy company (who we will call Jerks-With-Liquid-Dinosaurs, or JWLD for short) has decided they want to move their product through your city. Not to bring it for sale to your city or hire people to work with their product in your city, but just transport it on a trip from one end of the country to the other. Not only do they want to move their product of questionable safety through your town, but they want to put a sort of release valve on the edge of your town where they will release very dangerous toxins into your air and water pretty much every day. This release valve is also prone to explosive tendencies, so they might blow up part of your town on accident and they’ve decided to put this toxic, explosive monstrosity next to a bridge and a public park.
Now the citizens of your town are starting to band together to fight JWLD and force them out of the area, which is fabulous and hopefully will end with the smoting of the modern Goliath, but it is becoming apparent that your mayor is either avoiding the issue until after reelection in November or has taken a bribe from JWLD and is ignoring any damage they may end up causing to the town. This means that the citizens are essentially fighting this battle alone. They have some good ideas and are working as fast as they can, but this is new to them whereas JWLD are experts at this with lawyers and employees whose only purpose is to shut down people like you.
What steps would you take to defend your family, your home, and your town?
Could you get them to move through my town? Save your lawyers. No bribe needed. In fact, well give them a tax break if they build a liquid dinosaur refinery. We’re even willing to ban the sale of all products to your town in compensation for your fears.
You’re description of Alaska is noted and filed under Caribou.
I’m not in Alaska, I’m on the east coast. They aren’t building a refinery. They aren’t paying any taxes to the area so no tax break will be needed. There are no jobs associated with this that will be brought to the area outside of a couple dozen temporary construction positions. They are accessing their product in TX or thereabouts and sending it north through Canada to sell to overseas markets, passing through our town on the way. The thing they want to build in our area is simply a release valve they will use to release pressure from buildup and empty out the line to clean and repair it regularly. If you want it let me know and I will tell them your town would love to have a giant explosive device to blast butane and radon into your atmosphere and won’t put up any fight at all.
But you do have a good point, the people in Alaska have been fightig the Keystone Pipeline for a while now. I bet they have some good information about how to do this. I’ll see if I can find any information about how they’ve been working to fight against their version of JWLD. Thanks for that!
A good first step would be understanding precisely what risks – actual documented risks as opposed to speculative, inchoate worries – these materials have to people. What are the relevant EPA standards, if any, associated with the product? Have other localities fallen victim to the realization of these risks?
I have most of that information. Besides the fact that these release valves have a tendency to explode (at least 8 locations where they have installed these have had explosions in the last 5 years) the chemicals that will be released are a serious concern. I am trying to keep the company and the situation in general quiet as we want to avoid giving them any information about the ways we are trying to fight this, but let’s just take a look at one of the things that this pipeline will be bringing with it - radon.
According to the EPA, the average outdoor radon level is 0.4 pCi/L. At this level they estimate that unless you are smoker your risk of lung cancer is essentially nil. The product they want to move through our town and blow through their release valve has significantly more radon than the “normal” version of this particular energy source, and the U.S. Geological Survey that did the testing (which was on this exact product from this exact company, only about 2 states south of here) found it contains radon levels as high as 2,500 pCi/L. But that is crazy, right? That is the highest number they found in their research, so let’s give the company the benefit of the doubt and go with the lowest numer they found, 37 pCi/L. According to the chart on the EPA website 20 pCi/L will cause about 36 out of 1,000 nonsmokers to get cancer. The chart doesn’t go any higher than 20 pCi/L and the lowest possible radon levels recorded by the testing is almost twice that. If we give them a huge benefit of the doubt and round down we could assume at 50 out of 1,000 nonsmokers would get cancer. In our town of 50,000 people that is 2,500 people who will end up with lung cancer that wouldn’t have had it otherwise, based on the lowest possible radon readings. As for hard numbers of people harmed by having one of these things installed in their town, so far there have been at least 16,016 reports of people who live near these release valves who have reported either significant health issues or significant environmental/property damage (the list I have access to doesn’t separate people who develop cancer and people whose house burned down because of an explosion, it just collects every report of anyone who was damaged in any way by their proximity to these things.)
Now, based on actual numbers from scientists, surveyors, and people who have experience living in the kind of environment they want to force on our city, what would you recommend? If JWLD came to you and said they have government permits allowing them to install this monstrosity 3/4 of a mile from your home (the distance from my house to the location where they want to install this thing) what would you do?
Let’s try this again. If the gas line carries 20 PCi/L, how much are people actually breathing? [Hint: not 20 PCi/L, unless they are asphyxiating from breathing the pipeline contents exclusively instead of air]
they’re bringing taxes and jobs into our economy and diluting the control other countries have over the price of oil. We can see that happening now. This versus sending all our money overseas to countries that fund terrorism.
As long as you’re using fossil fuel you’re responsible to the environment and should expect the liability that comes with it. We have oil and gas lines all over the country and to suddenly announce THIS one is the devil in a blue dress is
short sighted and will force more oil onto tanker cars which increases the likelihood of environmental problems.