Clean water is a privilege not a right
Floodwaters unleashed by a dam failure in central Michigan have reached a Dow Chemical facility and Superfund site, the company admitted Wednesday, raising the possibility that the flood could turn into a full-fledged environmental catastrophe.
Because the flood could contain toxic gunk, kind of like the Flint water supply.
With much of Midland expected to be underwater by later on Wednesday, it was likely that the floodwaters would breach the levees designed to protect the Dow compound, said Allen Burton, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan. This meant that, at the site itself, flooding could reach storage tanks, potentially releasing chemicals onto farmland and residential areas that line the river downstream, he said.
The Superfund cleanup sites are downriver from the century-old plant, which for decades had released chemicals into the nearby waterways. The concern downriver, Dr. Burton said, is that contaminated sediments on the river floor could be stirred up by the floodwaters, spreading pollution downstream and over the riverbanks.
Union of Concerned Scientists research scientist Jacob Carter told Common Dreams that President Donald Trump’s assault on environmental regulations bears some of the blame for the current catastrophe.
“This is another example of the Trump administration putting vulnerable communities in harms way by sidelining science” said Carter. “There was an Executive Order that called for Superfund sites to update their infrastructure to protect them from future extreme floods, but it was trashed by the Trump administration a week before Hurricane Harvey hit.”
Because why wouldn’t we want Superfund sites to be vulnerable to floods?
I had to Google ‘Superfund site’, because it sounds like something to do with pensions. I am now duly horrified, thank you.