Hoggish Ash and Other Leavings

I am always puzzled when pro-business conservatives rail against “unnecessary” environmental regulations right smack in the middle of communities where their spouses and children live and breathe. The believe they can avoid the hard dollar and social costs associated with their cavalier pollution-laden practices. Somehow that toxic cloud drifting overhead and deep through their nostrils settling in their lungs will skip them because they made it possible? Uncontrolled animal waste dumped into fetid pools, lakes and rivers – lifted by raging floodwaters and spread across public land and waterways – will simply avoid their grossest enablers?

Unfiltered toxins, massive industrial waste, un-potable ground water and dying plant and animal life all around will make for pleasant surroundings and quality of life for the masters of the universe who presumed to violate public assets without the slightest concern for public health, spreading joyful carcinogens and other rather clearly-linked health-horribles?

Enter Hurricane Florence (or Harvey, Katrina, Maria, Sandy, etc., etc. in other lands, each a 100-year or even a 1000-year storm that seems to happen almost every year now) and watch those angry flood waters and gusts of violent wind make sure that toxicity can be enjoyed by all. The September 19^th Los Angeles Times, fresh from reporting the stories of the litany of massive wildfires across the California, decided to take toxic look at Miss Florence and her guest stint over North Carolina, a state that has gone out of its way to enable local industrial polluters to ply their trade with little in the way of environmental restrictions:

“Rick Dove is an environmental paparazzi operating at more than 1,000 feet above the ground… A senior advisor with the Waterkeeper Alliance, he circles the floodwaters from Hurricane Florence in the back seat of a tiny propeller plane, gripping his camera while searching for toxic problems below.

“Like a shutterbug hunting for a scandal-plagued celebrity, he points the pilot toward a hog farm near the overflowing Trent River in eastern North Carolina. There are two open-air lagoons where waste from the animals is deposited, and one appears to have been inundated.

“Some of the manure may have escaped, seeping back into the river and contributing to hazards that environmentalists have been warning about since before Florence made landfall Friday morning… ‘They said they fixed it so it wouldn’t happen again,’ said Dove, 79. ‘Well, Mother Nature had different ideas.’

“Hog farms are one of the most problematic environmental challenges after Florence dumped a historic amount of rain on the region, but they’re far from the only one. Advocates have been keeping a close eye on coal ash basins, where the residue from power plants is stored, and toxic sites across the state. Floodwaters can rise high enough to mix with contaminants and deposit them back into rivers and wetlands that provide drinking water and natural habitats.

“These fears have existed for years in a low-lying state with a network of rivers that can disperse pollutants for miles. Now climate change is increasing concerns that storms like Florence will strike more often, altering the calculus for where industries are safe from flooding… ‘This is a time to recognize that there’s a new normal in environmental protection right now,’ said Thomas A. Burke, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health…

“Researchers and advocates said it’s time to update rules for where facilities can be located and how waste can be stored as hurricanes appear to be growing more common and bring heavier rainfall with them… ‘These are changes that are consistent with what we would see from the effects of climate change,’ said Martin Doyle, a Duke University professor who studies rivers. ‘It’s a totally different calculus.’

“Florence has caused havoc with the state’s infrastructure since it began hammering the coastline last week. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority lost electricity as the storm arrived, and then a backup generator failed. About 5.25 million gallons of partially treated wastewater were released in the nearby river before it was safe for workers to repair the generator… ‘It was unavoidable,’ said Jim Flechtner, the utility’s executive director. ‘It’s just not safe to send people out in high winds and heavy rains.’

“Another problem was suffered at a shuttered Duke Energy power plant near Wilmington, in the southeastern corner of the state. About 2,000 cubic yards of coal ash were displaced when water ran into a landfill, although it’s unclear how much reached the nearby Cape Fear River.

“Monitoring trouble spots is a challenge after a hurricane. The same floods that have trapped people in homes have also cut regulators off from the facilities they need to monitor. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to deploy teams Wednesday [9/19] to high-priority toxic sites, and state officials want to do the same.

“‘Many roads are still impassable, so it is not safe to inspect,’ said Megan Thorpe, the communications director for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

“There are 3,300 hog lagoons in North Carolina, according to state regulators. Four have suffered Florence-related structural damage of some kind. Some waste may have escaped 13 others during flooding, another nine have been inundated, and dozens more remain at risk. The numbers are reported by the farmers themselves…”

Long after the reporters are gone, after most people have returned to their homes and jobs while others seek to rebuild what they have lost, the environment is still digesting the well-spread toxicity and continuing to funnel its malevolence into ground water, rivers, lakes and streams. Disease. Down and dirty poisoning. It takes time for pollutants to dilute into a benign condition. But then, it will be time for the next natural disaster. Science? Global climate change? What’s that? Think climate change isn’t expensive? Tell me any other newly-introduced global threat that could possibly be more expensive or cause more damage. Anything!

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s funny how physics, chemistry and biology – call it Mother Nature if you will – are non-responsive to political rhetoric or even statutory/regulatory attempts to deny their existence.