POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[oblong]

37 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Tell me,  did people in that part of Ohio support deregulation for the rail industry.   Pretty sure a great many of them did.  They are very anti-EPA there too.      Who is dumb enough to think an industry will police itself.   

 

   That's like ksaying 'm sure the NFL will do everything in their power to protect player safety.......everything.  

LBJ wasn’t that keen on HHH either. He preferred him over Nixon only slightly. 

[Motor City Sonics]

4 minutes ago, oblong said:

LBJ wasn’t that keen on HHH either. He preferred him over Nixon only slightly. 

He kind of got stuck with him.     Humphrey stood for NOTHING.   As big an empty suit as any.     JFK didn't like LBJ and vice versa, but he knew LBJ was an absolute legislative ass-kicker, maybe the most valuable Vice President in the 20th Century.    JFK wanted Stuart Symington as his VP, but Symington would have gotten next to nothing done.  

[Motor City Sonics]

21 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

It's easy rhetoric to do what Reagan did and make rhetorical hay out of when the government screws up, and then. conclude the answer is to kill the gov completely. Easy to do and easy to get funded by the commercial interests who want nothing more than to get that government along with that pesky 'public' out of the way of their profits. However the real answer to when the gov screws up is to go back, roll up your sleeves and try to make it work better. You will always fail, but the process of continuing to  try is the only thing that allows successful countries to muddle through to any kind of long term success. In the end the gov is us, and if succeed in killing the gov, we will wake up to find we have killed ourselves as well.

You reap what you sow, man.     I know they are in a tough spot because their jobs get threatened, but now they can't safely live there.  It's like that all over red states in the east and south - chasing the EPA and other regulations away, sometimes violently.

I live in Dearborn, about equal distance between a huge airport and the River Rouge plant.    I hope my Wayne County & Dearborn politicians are doing all they can, but who the hell knows.   Wayne County's had so much corruption that it wouldn't shock me to find out we've been getting slowly poisoned.    They talk a good game, though, and at least the residence here don't try to throw regulators out.     We really don't know who has been running Dearborn the last few years about 2018-2021 or so, our mayor had dementia,  so someone was signing things for him.   That's scary in a city with a whole lot of polluters.  

[Motown Bombers]

Word on the street is Marlinga is going to run again for the district. Guessing this time Democrats won't pretend he doesn't exist. 

[Screwball]

Texas and Michigan officials say they didn’t know water, soil from Ohio train wreck would be transported into their jurisdictions - CNN

FTA;

Quote

Contaminated soil from the derailment site was being taken to the US Ecology Wayne Disposal in Belleville, Michigan, US Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said Friday.

 

[microline133]

Political theater....those US Ecology facilities are among only a handful of landfills in the country permitted to accept TSCA-regulated (Toxic Substances Control Act) waste. They receive soil and groundwater waste from around the country, much of it as bad or worse than the waste coming from East Palestine; many of my own projects have sent waste there over the years, particularly once the one in Model City, NY stopped accepting material. Government officials in each of those states have permitted the US Ecology facilities and they are never specifically notified of waste received, as long as it is in compliance with their pre-established permit. Coming out now to say they weren't aware their jurisdictions were receiving waste is a bunch of BS and purely theater to be lapped up by the masses.

[Tiger337]

Is there anything in politics which is not theatre?

[Jim Cowan]

11 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Is there anything in politics which is not theatre?

I hit the like button for spelling theatre correctly! 

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I hit the like button for spelling theatre correctly! 

Thanks.  No matter how it's spelled though it's still pronouned theatah

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

11 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Thanks.  No matter how it's spelled though it's still pronouned theatah

unless the next word starts with a vowel, amirite?

[Tiger337]

As in the theatah and the Ahts?  

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

As in the theatah and the Ahts?  

my understanding is that the Boston-area accent (and maybe that of other areas of New England) would stick an 'r' between the two vowels, so it would be back to "the theater  and the ahts".

not that I'm assuming you're in Boston, as I seem to recall you're somewhat west of there.

[mtutiger]

On 2/25/2023 at 9:15 PM, microline133 said:

Political theater....those US Ecology facilities are among only a handful of landfills in the country permitted to accept TSCA-regulated (Toxic Substances Control Act) waste. They receive soil and groundwater waste from around the country, much of it as bad or worse than the waste coming from East Palestine; many of my own projects have sent waste there over the years, particularly once the one in Model City, NY stopped accepting material. Government officials in each of those states have permitted the US Ecology facilities and they are never specifically notified of waste received, as long as it is in compliance with their pre-established permit. Coming out now to say they weren't aware their jurisdictions were receiving waste is a bunch of BS and purely theater to be lapped up by the masses.

This will sound arrogant, but in general, East Palestine has exposed a real lack of understanding on a number of subjects surrounding the derailment among the general public. Environmental policy among them.

I dont blame people for that, not everyone is a civil engineer or works in the railroad or environmental spaces, but if someone's only attachment to the subject is to pin it all on Politician X or Politician Y, it's kinda pointless to engage... the problems here predate Politician X and Y and are more common than people realize 

Edited February 27, 2023 by mtutiger

[Deleterious]

Did Norfolk Southern win the contract to transport the waste?

[microline133]

4 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Did Norfolk Southern win the contract to transport the waste?

As an innocent bystander, I'd be amused at the outrage when it came out that the waste was transported by truck and nobody was advised of the route.

"I can't believe you drove that through my neighborhood!"

"I was not advised that any of my constituents would be subjected to the risk of having this waste transported so close to their homes."

 

I dealt with something similar on a project years ago....contaminated site (cyanide, heavy metals, the soil was bright blue in many areas) in the middle of a residential neighborhood with an elementary school, church, and walking path nearby. Full funding is secured to execute the cleanup in just 1-2 years and the public freaks out that we might drive it past their house to get it out of there....okay, well, there is literally one route available out of the site. You choose....want it to stay there or do you want it gone?

[oblong]

But think of what a few rallies could do for a local politicans chances to become City Council president or mayor?

That's how Dearborn's mayor got elected.  Flooded homes.  He gave the impression it was the city council's fault (our council president was also running).  Now he's not as popular because he is not in favor of banning books in public schools, even though he has no say in the manner, a lot of residents don't like his opinion on that. 

[gehringer_2]

8 hours ago, mtutiger said:

This will sound arrogant, but in general, East Palestine has exposed a real lack of understanding on a number of subjects surrounding the derailment among the general public. Environmental policy among them.

I dont blame people for that, not everyone is a civil engineer or works in the railroad or environmental spaces, but if someone's only attachment to the subject is to pin it all on Politician X or Politician Y, it's kinda pointless to engage... the problems here predate Politician X and Y and are more common than people realize 

also part of the broader phenomenon of not wanting to know how the sausage is made. Just give me my 21st century lifestyle and let me pretend it all happens by magic. 

[mtutiger]

18 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

also part of the broader phenomenon of not wanting to know how the sausage is made. Just give me my 21st century lifestyle and let me pretend it all happens by magic. 

Just to elaborate a bit, as someone who works professionally in the railroad space, it's been very amusing on a couple of levels to see how the GP / media has reacted. One point of amusement has been how hung up people have gotten on individual details of this particular derailment and how, doing so, kind of overlooks how often trains derail in the United States (we average around 2.5.-3.0 PER DAY in any given year) and the different ways that trains derail. Like, in East Palestine, it's a wheel bearing, but the ways in which derailments happen are voluminous; it can be weather related, it can be related to subgrade conditions / drainage / poor maintenance in a given area, it can be operator error, it can be due to impacts at grade crossings. 

And along with that it's been amusing (more in a frustrating way) to see people try to jam what happened here into their own personal, political views. Again, I don't think any of the policy makers that I've seen fingers pointed at since East Palestine happened (ie. Pete Buttigieg, Mike DeWine, Donald Trump, etc.) bear any individual blame for what happened here... the issue is we have a railroad system in this country that transports a significant amount of goods (including chemicals like vinyl chloride) daily through many areas of this country. The society we have and standard of living we enjoy rely heavily on this infrastructure. And on many levels, transporting these goods present challenges and do not come without risks.... some of that falls onto the railroads, some onto the chummy nature between government and business, and frankly (particularly when weather gets involved) some of it is just "Act of God" stuff. And these issues all predated Pete Buttigieg and Donald Trump, they just did.

That kind of nuance or "how sausage is made" isn't what a lot of commentators are after though.... it's all about using the pain and suffering of the people of East Palestine as a cudgel until it moves out of the public consciousness and we're off to the next outrage.

Edited February 27, 2023 by mtutiger

[Screwball]

Shipments of contaminated waste to resume from Ohio train derailment site - CNN

FTA:

 

Quote

 

The EPA on Friday ordered the train’s operator, Norfolk Southern, to halt the shipments so that it could review the company’s plans for disposal, adding to the controversy surrounding the crash that has also left residents of the town worried about potential long-term health effects.

That’s as officials in Texas and Michigan complained they didn’t receive any warning that hazardous waste from the crash would be shipped into their jurisdictions for disposal.

Shipments now will be going to two EPA-certified facilities in Ohio, and Norfolk Southern will start shipments to these locations Monday, EPA regional administrator Debra Shore said at a news conference Sunday.

“Some of the liquid wastes will be sent to a facility in Vickery, Ohio, where it will be disposed of in an underground injection well,” Shore said. “Norfolk Southern will also beghin shipping solid waste to the Heritage Incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio.”

Until Friday, Norfolk Southern was “solely responsible” for disposing of waste from the train derailment, Shore said Saturday, but waste disposal plans “will be subject to EPA review and approval moving forward.”

 

Apparently, the complaints from Texas and Michigan worked as they are now going elsewhere. Vickery, Ohio is the winner it looks like.  Underground injection wells.  Yea, I've heard about them, since they are about a half hour from where I live, and it's also a few miles from Lake Erie.  I sure would like to know more about those wells since there have been stories of people getting sick in that area for years. These wells are around 3000 ft deep, similar depths of a fracking well.  How safe are they?  I know the official answer, but that is no doubt coming from the same people who tell the East Palestinians their water is safe to drink.

The train wreck is solely on Norfolk Southern and their implementation of PSR (Precision Scheduled Railroading). The horrific response is solely on everyone who should have responded. There are no innocent parties here.

From above;

Quote

overlooks how often trains derail in the United States (we average around 2.5.-3.0 PER DAY in any given year) and the different ways that trains derail.

That sounds like 2.5-3.0 PER DAY  too many.  Why is this happening?

Maybe because nobody gives one good shit as long as the railroad continues to make record profits, stock buybacks can continue, railroad pays pissy as fines and the POS politicians keep getting their pockets lined to look the other way.  Nobody gives a fuck about the environment or the people who live in it.

[CMRivdogs]

This will actually happen when the folks currently pushing for it can find a way to monetize it....

 

[mtutiger]

2 hours ago, Screwball said:

That sounds like 2.5-3.0 PER DAY  too many.  Why is this happening?

Some of those reasons were provided in the clipped out portions of the post you quoted.

I agree that it is way too many 

[Tiger337]

15 hours ago, Crazy Cat Gentleman said:

my understanding is that the Boston-area accent (and maybe that of other areas of New England) would stick an 'r' between the two vowels, so it would be back to "the theater  and the ahts".

not that I'm assuming you're in Boston, as I seem to recall you're somewhat west of there.

I am in the outer western suburbs, but I think maybe I just have a speech defect that sounds kind of like a Bodton accent. They used to send me to a speech teacher to practice pronouncing R's but it did't work.  😀

[CMRivdogs]

6 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Just to elaborate a bit, as someone who works professionally in the railroad space, it's been very amusing on a couple of levels to see how the GP / media has reacted. One point of amusement has been how hung up people have gotten on individual details of this particular derailment and how, doing so, kind of overlooks how often trains derail in the United States (we average around 2.5.-3.0 PER DAY in any given year) and the different ways that trains derail. Like, in East Palestine, it's a wheel bearing, but the ways in which derailments happen are voluminous; it can be weather related, it can be related to subgrade conditions / drainage / poor maintenance in a given area, it can be operator error, it can be due to impacts at grade crossings. 

And along with that it's been amusing (more in a frustrating way) to see people try to jam what happened here into their own personal, political views. Again, I don't think any of the policy makers that I've seen fingers pointed at since East Palestine happened (ie. Pete Buttigieg, Mike DeWine, Donald Trump, etc.) bear any individual blame for what happened here... the issue is we have a railroad system in this country that transports a significant amount of goods (including chemicals like vinyl chloride) daily through many areas of this country. The society we have and standard of living we enjoy rely heavily on this infrastructure. And on many levels, transporting these goods present challenges and do not come without risks.... some of that falls onto the railroads, some onto the chummy nature between government and business, and frankly (particularly when weather gets involved) some of it is just "Act of God" stuff. And these issues all predated Pete Buttigieg and Donald Trump, they just did.

That kind of nuance or "how sausage is made" isn't what a lot of commentators are after though.... it's all about using the pain and suffering of the people of East Palestine as a cudgel until it moves out of the public consciousness and we're off to the next outrage.

Not to downplay the effects of railway incidents or defend the rail industry (esp NS) but I would be curious about the number of incidences of over the road truck traffic similar to rail. Between truck fires, wrecks and things like trailers that seem to far apart, one would think the amount of people affected might be similar. Especially in tank trucks. 

[Tigeraholic1]

2 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Not to downplay the effects of railway incidents or defend the rail industry (esp NS) but I would be curious about the number of incidences of over the road truck traffic similar to rail. Between truck fires, wrecks and things like trailers that seem to far apart, one would think the amount of people affected might be similar. Especially in tank trucks. 

A wreck with a semi contains one 53' container of toxic something. You might have 40 of those on one single derailment. I would think the that single would be much easier to contain.

[CMRivdogs]

3 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Not to downplay the effects of railway incidents or defend the rail industry (esp NS) but I would be curious about the number of incidences of over the road truck traffic similar to rail. Between truck fires, wrecks and things like trailers that seem to far apart, one would think the amount of people affected might be similar. Especially in tank trucks. 

I think I found what I was looking for

https://www.longmontleader.com/beyond-local/beyond-local-hazardous-chemical-crashes-too-frequent-in-the-us-6589801

Quote

Truck-related hazardous materials incidents caused over 16 times more fatalities from 1975 to 2021 – 380 for truck, compared with 23 for rail, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The difference is more pronounced in the last decade, when U.S. rail transportation of hazardous materials caused zero fatalities and truck incidents were responsible for 83.

Trucks have also caused nearly three times as much property damage as rail incidents since 2000. That might seem surprising since derailments can involve several cars with hazardous materials. But most rail events take place in remote areas, limiting their human impact, while trucks travel on highways with other drivers around and often in busy urban areas.

Once again this doesn't absolve the railroads. Just satisfies my curiosity as a former traffic reporter.