Beaver Fever Fanaticism: EPA Eco-Radicals Are Hurting Families at the Tap
If your water bill increased recently, you might want to call the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA has driven up the cost of water by cracking down on localities, forcing cities to borrow money to fulfill costly mandates, and in some cases forcing localities to clean water that is already safe to drink.
Just look at what the EPA is doing to New York City’s otherwise excellent water system.
New York City’s water is outstanding. Mayor Bloomberg claims that it is among the best in the world, a boast he can easily support.
The city has protected over 161,000 acres of land (251 square miles, or over half the size of Hong Kong) in its watershed to prevent contamination, and is planning on adding more. It also adds chlorine, phosphoric acid, and sodium hydroxide to disinfect the water and keep it free from lead.
City drinkers can count on their water being tested over a half million times a year. First at the watershed, which is tested 230,000 times a year, then over 300,000 times before the water hits the taps. In fact, city water drinkers can count on their water being tested 900 times a day after it leaves the watershed.
It is so clean that it does not need to be filtered. But clean is not good enough for the fanatics at the EPA, whose bureaucrats still worry about the infinitesimal risk of diarrhea caused by pathogens like cryptosporidium and giardia.
While over 9 million customers depend on NYC water, roughly 100 people a year become infected by cryptosporidium, and even then, New York disputes whether this diarrhea is caused by the water. New York City almost never finds crypto in its watershed, and when it does, results indicate it comes from wildlife sources that “are unlikely to infect humans.”
And those consumers truly worried about crypto can boil their water for a minute. There are even low cost water filters that claim to remove crypto from water.
The city also dismisses the threat of giardia, another waterborne pathogen known as Beaver Fever. Though Beaver Fever occurs more often than crypto, this is another red herring swimming in the New York City reservoir.
People do get Beaver Fever in New York City. While one can get it from drinking contaminated water (such as a lake or a stream), one is more likely to get it from diaper-aged children or from traveling abroad.
Health officials also warn that certain sexual practices can lead to Beaver Fever. New York City is adamant that none of its outbreaks can be attributed to the consumption of tap water.
In other words, waterborne pathogen-caused diarrhea in New York City is rare. Sickness from crypto in the city is about as common as breast cancer in men.
Notwithstanding this very low likelihood of getting sick from NYC water, the EPA has ordered the city to build a new Star Wars-style facility that will blast its water with ultra-violet (UV) rays. Like the Death Star, it will be the largest facility of its kind in the known universe (no joke!).
The EPA has even gone so far as to order New York to build a roof over one of its reservoirs to prevent the unlikely contamination by crypto.
Sounds reasonable until you realize that this is no ordinary roof: it will be the largest roof of its kind in the world; a mighty “eco-dome” that will cover what is essentially a 90-acre lake. It would be like building a roof over much of the Vatican City, and it will cost a small fortune.
The costs of this eco-fanaticism are extraordinary: The UV facility has an estimated cost of $1.42 billion, while the eco-dome will cost $1.6 billion.
And who pays for this? Not Obama’s EPA. Not Congress. New York City water customers — and in some cases taxpayers — pay for the costs of these enviro-boondoggles.
I live in Portland, Oregon. The water bill for a family of 4 can be over a thousand dollars. We are scheduled for an 80 per cent increase in the next five years.
The money borrowed to meet these mandates and those that our insane local government has dreamed up to keep us hip (mass transit, bicycle roadways and etc.) have left us with with a long term debt of 6.5 billion dollars including under funded (bordering on no funding) pension debt of over 3 billion.
That’s over 11,000 dollars worth of debt for each of Portland’s citizens.
One party has controlled this town and county for 35 years. Take a guess which one.
sounds like a bunch of dmned democrats to me,
["Take a guess which one."]
The one the majority of the people voted for?
How many of those votes came from the graveyard or from the Dementia Ward at the local old folks’ home?
In Portland? There probably isn’t that much voter fraud to keep the dems in office. They are very proud of being super far left, and of course, there are lots of good feelings of everyone being sorta poor but helping each other out. I would say anyone right of MoveOn would be considered “conservative” there.
I think someone could make a small fortune making highway direction signs or maps though.
Correct me if I am wrong, I thought the NYC Water system dated back to the days and person of Aaron Burr.
Dr. Shalit
In lieu of controlling your health, they will control the things that make you healthy. Energy, water and food are already costly and nothing this administration is doing will change that.
Of course, there will probably be a government grant program to help people pay their water bills…
You will only get the water grant if you are one of the 47% who pay no income taxes. All of us hard working middle class people will be screwed.
Why not?? FDA is already controling the properly prescribed pharmaceuticals that kill over 100,000 hospital patients annualy.
This is also another example of how profoundly dishonest the EPA is when issuing these ridiculous diktats. Despite the true epidemiological statistics that are cited in this article about the potential for contracting cryptosporidium or giardia, the EPA claims, inexplicably, that these investments will prevent 112,000 to 365,000 cases a year!!! Of course this is inaccurate by several orders of magnitudes. In fact, one would be hardpressed to find ANY projection of risk by Lisa Jackson’s EPA that is even remotely accurate. And yet, the band plays on and nobody in the MSM questions these outrageous claims. Instead, we get angry diatribes about how any opposition to the EPA’s destructive policies is trying to “gut” the agency and kill people. This time, however, even the EPA-loving progressives in New York are starting to cringe.
They will prevent more cases than actually occur; apparently they will be going into the past and preventing cases that have already been caught.
Is the EPA’s logo a swastika? Or that hammer-and-sickle thing…
“If we can save just ONE life!”
The clarion call of the environmental fascist.
The rest of the slogan goes “even if it kills ten.”
It’s time for citizens to trust deregulated industry again!
Hail Chisso! Hail BP! Hail TEPCO! Hail Fracking!
Minamata disease
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease
Yes, because the logical counterpoint to excessive regulation is to start dumping mercury into the watershed.
Your name is a lie. I know for a fact that physicist are taught to think.
If dumping mercury is profitable in the short-term, why shouldn’t Japan’s Chissa Chemical Company do it? Purely from a market-driven point-of-view, of course. And if it happens that accumulating mercury causes long-term harm to pregnant mothers and their children, that’s not any concern of Chissa … it’s only necessary that Chissa insiders cash-out early (before the harm is evident).
Didn’t we just see TEPCO corporate officials start lying during hour one of Japan’s reactor disaster? And keep it up ever since? Unsurprisingly … because market incentives require TEPCO executives to lie.
The point being, that markets know no morality … heck, it’s downright foolish to expect morality from markets … every thoughtful conservative understands this … and *THAT’S* the common-sense reason why America’s (wisely conservative) Founders conceived a system “Check and Balances”.
Speaking of mercury (and actually on-topic, unlike your comments), the UV lamps are loaded with mercury, and submerged in the water being treated. They’re basically fluorescent tubes without the coating, only at high pressure. They’re designed to treat sewage effluent, not drinking water. And the proposed system for NYC will have tens of thousands of them, consuming megawatts, and causing the production of countless tons of CO2 per day.
Think this is a good idea, when 5 ppm of old-fashioned chlorine would do the same thing, and provide residual protection from regrowth after the treatment point?
Much of the world has already been made aware of the effect of residual chlorine and other poisons injected into public water on necessary organisms in their digestive tract.and have replaced its continued use with ozone purification.
Serving water consumers residual chlorine has become the easy out for those assigned to maintenance of flow controlled instrumentation required for the injection of such highly corrosive chemicals since meeting bacteria count water tests supersedes long term health concerns of consumers. Control is simply switched to manual providing enough for high demand flow injection and too much for all other flow rates causing excessive residual chlorine to become evident in taste and smell at the tap. Would you have them control the growth of all organisms downstream from injection to point of human excretion?
It appears that you are not familiar with with the megawatt usage of power in extracting chlorine from the salt in brine where it has been stored by nature.
The practice of adding fluorine to public water has also been rejected wherever information regarding health is not filtered by controlled media and symptomatic pharmaceutical sales DO NOT have priority over prevention and cure.
Internet info is easily accessible to all concerned. Does that include you?
Einstein. Chlorine (actually hypochlorite) spontaneously decomposes into chloride. As in the stuff in salt.
What a surprise! The “Physicist” changes the subject rather than deal with the topic at hand. Typical. As was pointed out repeatedly in the article, New York already does a very thorough job of maintaining the safety and quality of its water supply. And yet the EPA insists on saddling them with more debt and higher rates in spite of this. So the idea that we need the federal government to overreach in order to maintain safety is false. And yet “Physicist” wants to talk about…Japan? lol
Post facts if yah got ‘em, Moira … that’s always better than posting fact-free excuses and smearing.
And here’s one fact that’s plain-as-the-noise-on-your-face: any brand of conservatism that sells-out to fracking/polluting interests, is no kind of conservatism at all.
This is a principle that conservative presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower understood fully … heck, even Ronald Reagan pioneered the “cap-and-trade” methods are the foundation of modern effective pollution control programs.
As pretty much every conservative appreciates nowadays … it’s vital that American conservatism not be fooled by corporate shills whose focus is short-term-profits … and whose main method is public-be-damned propaganda.
1960s singing-versions of fracking-type propaganda
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/comment/1175210/
You want facts? You can’t even stay on topic.
I’ve got plenty of facts to offer on a variety of subjects and since you obviously don’t want to address the topic of THIS article I guess we’ll just chatter about whatever.
And it doesn’t surprise me that you consider Teddy Roosevelt a “Conservative.” Add that to the long list of errors in your, er…thinking.
Shall we add sarcasm and rhetoric to the growing list of things at which you are incapable?
Let me spell this out slowly since I know you can’t read fast.
The actions of the EPA described in this article are far beyond the realm of diminishing returns. The corrective action is to rein in such overreach, not to totally abolish environmental regulation.
*plonk*
No Morality? True, but that does not aquit those that blindly invest in them for profit.
I’m sorry, but the Effective Patient Treatment Authority Board has determined that spending 3 million dollars per patient treatment is not an efficient use of funds, and treatment is to cease, forthwith.
To hail with you, “physicist”.
“To hail with you, “physicist”.”
“Physicist” isn’t a “physicist” but a low level Network Admin in IT, something he discussed here a month ago.
“Second Level Network Admin( AKA helpdesk)” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it when attempting to present oneself as an Authority On Everything though does it?
Better to just lie, as he does.
One must understand how a bureaucracy looks at things. If a person is hired by the government to “improve” drinking water, that person will (must!) find problems with the water that he can then “correct”. If he doesn’t find a problem with drinking water, then his job is jeopardized.
You can see this in many governments. Years ago, there was a federal commission established to investigate witches/warlocks/Satan worshipping. After a couple of years and no evidence of the any wrongdoing regarding the devil, the feds decided to disband the commission. Suddenly, the members reported “sickness” caused by witchcraft (of course!). They claimed they were SO close to “the truth” that the witches and Satan worshippers were attacking them.
Environmental fascists understand the concept and use agencies like the EPA which gladly goes along with anything the fascists can dream up. The media (always on the lookout for “news”) jumps on the bandwagon, too. Then the Hollywood celebs (not exactly a hotbed of intellectual acumen) climb on board. Voila! Another “crisis” for Obama to solve and save the nation from complete disaster.
Bang on. Remember the flap ten years ago, when the EPA wanted to regulate arsenic to levels below natural occurrence? When did public health become their mission, anyway? I thought their mission was supposed to be to protect nature from us, not us from nature.
How many times do we elect Republicans to office and see nothing done about these bureaucracies? We gave them the House of Representatives, the control of the purse strings, and nothing happens. Voting Republican is the most frustrating exercise in futility I’ve ever done.
It’s a common misconception that the House has control of the purse strings. Any appropriation bill must go through both houses of Congress. With the Senate in hostile hands there’s no way to defund the EPA without shutting down the whole government, which would have unacceptable political consequences.
You forgot to mention your alternative. Surely you jest if you even remotely consider the other party.
Perhaps the EPA, like the rest of the federal gov’t, should be required to provide funding for any major project that they mandate upon a state or locality. Indeed their request, for under the 10th Amendment it can be nothing more, should be worded very politly as well, and an economic impact study and statement should also be included as part of their justification for the project, and oh yes, an environmental impact study and statement should also be done also at the EPA’s expense – and due to the current fiscal climate, the EPA should do these studies at a reduced budgetary level by hmmm say 1000%. After all we all have our fiscal duty to reduce our spending.
This article would have more credibility if PJM/Tatler had found someone to write it other than a full-time “Republican Party Consultant” … ain’t there someone with *actual* public-health expertise available to comment?
If yah follow the money, it turns out that the *real* issues in play are (1) money and (2) fracking … certain influential folks could make a pile of (1) if only the EPA gets out of the way of (2).
The pro-fracking faction is now working as hard it can to convince ordinary citizens that they don’t need clean water.
Good luck with *THAT*.
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State Fracking Rules Could Allow Drilling Near New York City Water Supply Tunnels
URL: http://www.propublica.org/article/state-fracking-rules-could-allow-drilling-near-new-york-city-water-supply-t/single
So you’re a frakking truther too? Does fire melt steel? Agnew had them plant explosives in the towers when they were built, didn’t he?
Fracking can indeed mess with a water supply. This has been documented numerous times. The problems are several fold including poor inspection and understanding of how to properly install frack well casing. However, there are still situations where the casing appears to be OK and yet still there are problems.
It is possible to remove many of the fracking byproducts, but these methods aren’t cheap.
I’m not against hydro-fracking. However, we need to have a very frank discussion over where and how we drill for energy and where and how we manage our water supplies. They are both necessary.
ProPublica? Really? LMAO!! Time for you to pick another topic because if that’s your source then you’re already discredited (although that seems to be a pattern for you). There must be a money motive for George Soros to oppose fracking. How fortunate for him that he has plenty of money to spend on propaganda organs like ProPublica that can distort the truth in order to maximize his profits.
Soros is invested in Brazilian energy production for sale to US and others, and Obama is helping to fund it. If we develop our own energy sources, Soros looses markets.
What can you expect from either party when both are heavily influenced by lobbyists from the same coalition of greed? One has only had its motives slightly diluted by injection of strong tea. Don’t expect any more till you can contribute testosterone to a cause and grow something from non genetically modified seed.
The real issue in play has been money since the early eighteenth century and can be expected to remain so with continuous media whitewash having been purchased.. The last independent daily died without fanfare in 1960s and there are no unbiased (NONE) TV media networks in existence with only few moderating their agenda for a those seeking leadership from anyone with the magic hormone. They seem completely unaware that honor went out of style with dueling.
With new reverse cracking process technology providing competition for all crude above $18 / barrel, natural gas conversion into liquid fuels can only be limited by federal drilling restrictions to prop up continued rising fuel costs. Crude prices have been totally controlled by bulk purchase of all before it ever reaches the surface since Kissinger cut the deal with Saudi Arabia to prop up the US dollar with bond purchases from their oil revenues.
Don’t be misled by the clean water cloud while all of Monsanto chemicals, and forms of over used antibiotics continue to join the mercury contaminated waters from of all systems of drainage. With Maurice Strong, T. Boone and others buying up property over the biggest aquifer in the US don’t expect any clean water lest you pay crude prices for it.
The last successful “green” encounter was from a tree hugging lawyer presenting undeniable evidence in the $3 million settlement for the Ruby Ridge Massacre civil suit, but FBI provided the sacrificial goats rather than let the tsunami reach a sitting president and his butch AG. Today’s jetties extend into the highest levels of the judiciary with the money trail leading back to the highest office in the land and international moguls with yet more money infusion infecting the field of all future judges. The EPA is only being used to grab more government control. Can you provide a single reason why they would exempt control of water or food?
Fallacy — ad hominem.
Address the argument, or continue to expose yourself as an ignoramus.
The EPA has been out of control since its very inception. There are far more cases of cryptosporidiousis caused by your loving, licking your face, warm blooded pets than from drinking tap water, but the EPA has not stapled your pet’s tomgue to the roof of its mouht to keep it inside the jaws as that would be far too cruel, as well as unneceessary. The incident in Milwaukee occurred due to a series of operational mistakes at the water treatment plant and has not reoccurred since at any other facility to any large extent that justifies the ridiculous regulations promulgated by the EPA to correct a non-existant problem. The crypto and giardia are the small tip of the iceburg as chlorination by-products and trihalomethanes cause continuous grief for potable water systems, again attempting to prevent/solve a non-existant problem except in the minds??? of the regulators. The EPA has spent more money and accomplished less than any other well-meaning governmental agency with which I have personally been associated since 1975. Abolish them and do not replace them with another group of non-sensical governmental idiots. Don’t get me started on the wastewater aspects of their agency!!!!!
What former EPA official now sits on the board of the company that builds UV treatment for water systems? Therein will lie the answer.
What former official of Monsanto now sits at the top of the FDA? The whole works is infected with greed.
The EPA is completely out of control. They are continually creating straw men to knock down. Their regulations re volitile solvents, lead, asbestos and wastewater are draconian and ineffective at the least and tremendously expensive not to mention impossible to comply with. This EPA monster must be reigned in soon before we are strangled by its crazy regulations and mandates.
No exemptions for NYC. They voted for it, they own it; let them suffer from it. Exemptions from the law create an aristocracy, suitable for revolutionary justice.
OTOH, if they want to abolish the EPA….
The EPA should first focus on Washington DC’s water supply — which doesn’t remotely compare in quality/taste with New York City’s. I’ve read about former NYers living in LA receiving regular shipments of bottled NYC tap water. How did NYC ever manage to have this great water without the EPA? (The the EPA elite probably doesn’t touch DC water — bottled water for them.)
As a farm boy, I have vivid memories of life before the EPA.
Radio waves were clogged with catchy tunes like “The ENDRIN song”.
Replace “ENDRIN” with “FRACKIN” and we’ve got modern times.
Anyone want to go back to those days?
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The Endrin Song
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcNKFsodjcI
Are the oil and gas companies fracking in the NYC watershed?
You don’t even have memories of five minutes ago.
Amazing how the self-proclaimed “pragmatist” is indistinguishable from one of the green fascists.
18,000 full-time employees to protect us from ourselves!
Don’t leave out the beuracrats hiding the data that’s being cooked for media.
I just YouTubed another 1960s radio classic … “The Heptachlor Song” .. hey, it’s even catchier than “The Endrin Song” … more of a “swing” than “country.” These are from my personal collection — I just happen to have an old vinyl record of songs that 1960s chemical companies distributed to country radio stations.
Endrin is of course now banned in *MOST* nations … heptachlor is banned in *ALL* nations … because these chemicals are genuinely evil in their effects. Just Wikipedia the chemical “heptachlor” for details — it causes diabetes in adults, brain damage in children, and immune damage in everyone.
The short-term profits these companies made — via their professionally-produced propaganda — ended up costing American taxpayers tens of billions for superfund cleanup … and permanently contaminated America’s ground-water with toxic chemicals.
Hmmm … does this sound kinda like today’s pro-”fracking” propaganda? It should.
————–
“The Endrin Song” and “The Heptachior Song” — 1960s versions of fracking
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrq2H0d9crI
Now sing “Louie Louie” for us! lol @ the farm boy.
Post facts and history if yah got `em, Moira!
Needless to say … the facts and history with respect to disastrous profits-first polluting are mighty sobering … as top-rated conservative American presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan all understood … and as we are seeing right now from TEPCO in Japan.
There are a few peculiar brands of ideology-first conservatism that refuse to learn from these facts and this history … needless to say, these peculiar brands of conservatism are unlikely to endure … and shouldn’t.
Cap-and-Trade: Market-based environmental successes of past Republican presidents
URL: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/republican/cap-and-trade-0808
Stay on topic, if it’s not asking too much of you. Or better yet, take a stab at reading the article. I’m waiting on you to come to terms with the facts provided by Mr. Coffey.
Big difference between SO2 and CO2. I can be convinced that dumping large amounts of SO2 into the atmosphere will cause acid rain or respiratory problems, but cap and trade regarding “carbon” is theft. There is no evidence that man-made CO2 leads to global warming. In fact there has been no warming in the past at least 10 years while CO2 has been rising. That’s why the Republican cap and trade article in the link is misleading. There is no mention of CO2 whatsoever, while castigating modern Republicans for not supporting environmental causes. The Republicans question the legitimacy of the argument that CO2 leads to global warming and dire consequences for humanity. And personally, another reason to be against the alarmists is that the UN is for them. That immediately raises the scam flag.
Post facts if yah got `em, Moira!
`Cuz otherwise American conservatism gets owned by corporate interests … special interests that nowadays are just as amoral, ruthless, and short-sighted, as they were in the 1960s.
This little essay will help yah get started …
Why Don’t Republicans Champion Cap-and-Trade? It Was Their Idea
The Green Conservative
URL: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/republican/cap-and-trade-0808
Somebody needs to do something about Ludwig van Quixote’s crazy uncle.
That’s the thing I miss most about Usenet. If you wanted to laugh at the nutters they were there in force. If you wanted to have an intelligent and serious conversation you could just plonk them into your killfile and they’d go away.
Got that right. Now we have a second nutter here going “weeeeee”. If you’re into whack-a-troll, enjoy.
The EPA is a government bureaucracy. It produces nothing but it must busy itself doing something, anything to justify its $10,020,000,000, 2011 cost to the taxpayer (http://nepis.epa.gov/Adobe/PDF/P10069PG.PDF). To expect them to do anything that will reduce the cost to an economy which they have no vested interest in is an exercise in futility as it is with all such organizations.
Are they at all necessary? Perhaps but the justification for their existence ought to be based in inverse proportion to the overall cost of the implementation of their proposals. Without that incentive this is the result but this is far from being an anomaly.
The EPA has been a drag on American industry since its inception in December, 1970; a classic case of government intervention unhinged. As are most Government bureaucracies theirs is an adversarial organization that considers it essential to control, not support industrial and therefore economic growth. These are insidious relationships at best and the cost that the EPA has imposed on industrial activity is a major factor driving the current economic malaise in America.
11. A physicist raises a valid issue, but not the answer. In any economic activity, which carries public, or private benefit, there is normally an economic risk. Risk is always present in society. People are hit by cars, get cancer, or may get sick from what they drink. Prior to the creation of the EPA, these risks were ajudged by expert engineers. An engineer is a technical person who holds hands with a scientist and a businessman. If he ever lets go of one hand, he ceases to be an engineer.
Today’s head lines are related to this article. By every financial matrix, our nation has spent far more, over the last several generations, than it could afford. Expenditures, spending money over time, define the competency of an organization. Good ones survive. Our society has failed that test. We know that a force killed thousands of New Yorkers in the WTC. Should we have spent a trillion dollars against this threat or put a roof over massive lakes to protect a few people from getting sick? Many agree that our decision makers are incompetent. They lack both technical knowledge and ethical strength. This is true both in the private and public sector. The BP well blowout was/is a catastrophe that exposed that BP top management was only aware of the increasing cost of the well drilling but was totally ignorant of the technical risks. The government over viewers only cared about the BP supplied prostitutes and booze; they too were technically incompetent. Both leaderships were headed by financial types and lawyers. BP was lauded, finally, for its technical capabilities, strengths which were ignored by its entire management chain.
The TEPCO management was told, years ago, that a modern reassessment of tsunami risk at Fukushima revealed that their vital electrical emergency system would drown in the big one. They did nothing, except make money. Their management follows the Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl managements into ignominy; they all were wholly technically incompetent.
The EPA stands accused on technical incompetency on two crucial issues. They know nothing about the ultimate costs of their decisions. They, more than any force, drove heavy industry off shore, at the costs of impoverishing many industrial states. And the basic data, the source of their rule making, is hidden from opposing technical people, unless it is stolen. We learned from hackers, that the primary data records on climate change, in East Anglia U, were trashed to save file cabinet space. Yet these numbers have become the basis of abandoning carbon combustion. The only records now extant have been tweaked by people whose rice bowl depends on climate change being their career. Exxon may have acted differently.
The solution to technical problems, e.g. water borne cryptosporidium and giardia (of which I am ignorant) is to focus the best minds on both technical issues, and costs, allowing both sides equal funding, and sanctioning fiefdoms, either private or public.
I never trusted Enron, or EPA.
Mr. Hails, the nation of Germany has (1) tighter environmental controls than the US, (2) tight state controls on health-care industry, including mandated universal coverage, (3) larger subsidies to education, (4) lesser physical resources.
By every criterion of PJM/Tatler‘s peculiar brand of conservatism, the German economy should be an utter train-wreck.
And yet, Germany is prospering economically.
In your view, why is this?
Does Germany have a military that’s worthy of the designation? Nope, they basically let the U.S. pick up the tab for their defense as well as the rest of Europe. And as we’ve seen in Obama’s war of choice in Libya, the Europeans couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. It’s clear that the U.S. needs to let them fend for themselves. Germans apparently aren’t as congenitally lazy as other Euro-socialists but even they would struggle if they actually had to pay for their own defense.
Moira … when you say “congenitally lazy” … is that one of them code-phrases?
Seems to me it’s a label that’s been heard before in American history …
These labels were applied to my own Irish ancestors …
… and it appears that these labels are being recycled, eh?
———————
The Convictions of a Grandfather
by Robert Grant, (1912)
URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=Jec0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA216
Moira … when you say “congenitally lazy” … is that one of them code-phrases? Seems to me it’s a label that’s been heard before in American history…
Oh, I’m sorry if you misunderstood my meaning and thought I was using a “dog whistle” or whatever. Lazy is as lazy does, mo chara. Ever been to Europe? lol
“It is sentimentality not to recognize that a considerable proportion of the population of the globe is congenitally lazy, congenitally defective, congenitally criminal, and congenitally shiftless.”
These labels were applied to my own Irish ancestors …
… and it appears that these labels are being recycled, eh?
Well, leaving aside the fact that once again you refused to deal with the given statement and wandered off on yet another meaningless tangent, I should mention that I have dual American and Irish citizenship thanks to my immigrant Irish parents. For the record it’s socialism that breeds laziness and until Euro-socialists stop acting as if their failed ideology is part of their DNA then there’s no helping them. A lot of Irish people can’t live in their own country anymore because of the failed policies of the Left.
Also note that I specified “Euro-socialists” rather than simply “Europeans.”
One reason is that they spend very little for defense. They and the rest of the EU. They have piggybacked on the US since the end of WWII. Then there is the fact that the government supports and encourages manufacturing and export. Not like in the US, where we have the highest corporate taxes in the world, and continually want to increase them, to pay their “fair share”. Some exports, such as automobiles, are subsidized by the German government. And then, of course, all of those American military bases in Germany that are pumping billions into their economies. The bases should be closed. And last but not least, they are 1/4 the size of the US, and don’t have nearly as much immigration welfare problems as we do. Their immigration is strictly controlled. On the other hand, during normal times, they normally have higher unemployment levels than we do.
My expertise is energy. I have engineered a score of nukes, two score of fossil fueled power plants, have several degrees, a handful of Professional Engineering licenses, and over a decade assessing advanced technologies, what is coming. It is axiomatic: Cheap energy is the bedrock of economic prosperity.
I worked with German engineers, in the US power industry. I do not believe, from their comments, that Germany’s regulatory system is as strict as ours. From a policy view, their recent decision to abandon nuclear energy will cripple their economy, and standard of living. Their choices are now the alternate green technologies, which carry unsustainable costs, or a massive reliance on Russian fossil fuels. Germany has some coal, but not enough. (We have centuries of reserves.)
Their primary and secondary educational systems are far better than ours. This has a direct effect on their standard of living. Their unit educational subsidies are not significantly larger, their society demands greater results from their expenditures.
But the over arching advantage between Germany and the US, has been, for generations, that they spent almost nothing, relative to the US, in defense against the Russian Bear. In the Balkan conflict, it was both illegal and impossible for German troops to reach Yugoslavia. We transport them to Afghanistan, at enormous cost to the American taxpayer (and 40% of these costs are funded by loans from China). This will not, can not last. The German assimilation of their Muslim minorities has/ will create white hot social thrive, which they are not resolving, as our attention will shift from Islamic conflict to nuclear struggles in Asia, from Iran, to Pakistan, to China, to North Korea.
No society has resolved Eisenhower’s conundrum: either mankind will learn to exploit nuclear energy peacefully, Atoms for Peace, or it will annihilate us. Added to this is our current paradox: if carbon combustion is a near and present danger to mankind, then billions are doomed, and starving people cause war. Societal response to these problems, e.g. EPA regs, will destroy nations in this century.
Germany’s prosperity, and ours, sits on a razor’s edge. The days of wasting our grand children’s life savings, on “good ideas” have ended.
RLH’s observations are well founded.
Water Chemistry is very complex. Repeat that to yourself until it sinks in.
There is concern over the byproducts of chlorination. They are known as Trihalomethanes (THM) and there are significant concern that these byproducts are probably cancerous. Before about 1990, the only issue with chlorination was that we don’t burn someone, and that we don’t waste it. Today, we’re much stricter about how much chlorine is used.
Some contaminants of the water supply have grown resistant to chlorine. Cryptosporidium is one of them. So if we are to minimize chlorine byproducts, how do we kill cryptosporidium? The answer is to use an orthogonal treatment process: UV disinfection.
That’s why we’re in this situation today. All that said, there are questions about why we bother to treat so much water to such high standards. Point of use water disinfection and treatment may be cheaper. We don’t need drinking water to wash our cars, flush our toilets, or water our gardens.
The quality of the distribution system that brings us our water is not the best. It’s been there for most of a century if not more. This is the issue the EPA should be concerned with. There is no way anyone can afford a large scale replacement or even a cleanup of all that infrastructure.
So the question remains: What kind of standards should we expect from our water utilities, and what should be the concern of the individual?
Like water chemistry, the answers here are not simple.
All I know is, when the new at the time flush toilets came out designed to save water it became impossible to flush both feces and toilet paper at the same time down to the sewer unless a force cup with a stick was used liberally.
The toilets can flush a turd down range if said turd is sans paper but struggles very hard to flush even the littlest square of soiled toilet paper.
I have had the septic tank sucked dry and still even when the tank is empty the toilet cannot flush paper and turd together without force cup aid.
I believe that with one more tweak of the toilet to save yet more water and I will be forced to utilize an out door john. I hazaed that I can set it upo directly over the septic tank and just eliminate water altogether except to wash my nasty ass off.
But, then again a bath is most likely the next target of the enviromental f’idiots.
a commenter wrote:“And yet, Germany is prospering economically.”
Germany has universal health coverage, but is the health care there better than in the US?
Germany is prospering, but is their standard of living as high as in the US?
My feeling is that there is legitimate room for differences of opinion. Some people want the government to do more at the expense of individual freedom and economic growth. Others, like me, prefer to have less government, more freedom, and believe that economic growth will lead to a higher standard of living, better medical care, competition for labor will lead to better working conditions. A rising tide lifts all ships, and economic growth is the best antidote for poverty. Economic growth is favored by low taxes and less government regulation (I’m not saying zero government regulations, I’m saying too much of it and the cost out weighs the benefits).
An amusing (and IMHO pretty accurate) Germany-vs-US comparison is linked below …
The verdict of history seems to be, that a citizenry that is honest, hard-working, and well-educated can make pretty much any economic system work well.
… could it be that far-right and far-left demagogues are *both* wrong, in putting ideology ahead of this plain common-sense fact?
When I visited Germany recently, they were making massive investments in manufacturing-for-export, universal health-care, green energy, and technological education … and they considered that America was mighty ill-advised not be making similar national investments.
———————–
A subjective comparison of Germany and the United States
URL: http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html
Say, didn’t they also do that in Spain? lol How’s that investment in a “green economy” work out for the Spaniards? Maybe Germany’s recent strength has something to do with the fact that the government is in the hands of a center-right political party (still “liberal” by American standards, though) and they actually take national debt seriously. Ask the SDP how much they like it! lol Germans will have to make a choice as to whether or not they are willing to let themselves be dragged down.
And yeah, the only reason all of Germany didn’t fall under the power of the Soviet Union is because of American power. How much money is Germany willing to spend to defend itself rather than relying on the United States?
If Deutchland is so wunderbar, auf wiedersehen, Johann. Tell me when you make enough marks to afford a Mercedes, Johann. Until then, remember duck tape holds old VW’s together. Or maybe a Trebant is more your speed.
We get it. You love Germany.
You (supposedly) have a PhD — you shouldn’t find it hard to emigrate. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
["The city has......acres in its watershed to prevent contamination, and is planning on adding more. It also adds chlorine, phosphoric acid, and sodium hydroxide to disinfect the water and keep it free from lead."]
Enough said!
Personally, I would like to see ALL federal governments public safety policies and government subsidies for them, repealed or at least exempting the likes of New York City and many other BIG cancer cities around the nation.
I am sorry, but could the author post one link that actually shows any of the new construction is based on a EPA mandate? I found something on the 30 million Cincinnati project, and it stated the project was based on EPA research, but not that they were being required to do so. I just want one article or release from the EPA or NY stating that either project is being required by the EPA. Is that so much to ask?
This is way overblown. Chlorine residuals at the tap are tiny to non existent in most municipal water systems. A small chlorine residual is valuable for dealing with incidental contaminations in the distribution system. Neither ozone nor UV are capable of maintaining a residual in the mains. If you’re concerned, a carbon (like Brita) filter will adsorb out the remaining CL.
There are no “other poisons” injected into the water.
This is nonsense. The fact that chlorine is the cheapest method of disinfection demonstrates the inanity of this statement. Both Ozone and UV are bigger consumers of power. This is one of the reasons why their use is resisted.
Off topic, but that marks you as a fluoride crank and not worth listening to,
Mannie, Mannie. Have you revealed yourself as paper pushing agenda bearing promoter of more theory without oversight ?
“This is way overblown. Chlorine residuals at the tap are tiny to non existent in most municipal water systems. A small chlorine residual is valuable for dealing with incidental contaminations in the distribution system. Neither ozone nor UV are capable of maintaining a residual in the mains. If you’re concerned, a carbon (like Brita) filter will adsorb out the remaining CL”
Your analysis parallels the FDA infected healthcare “industry” to the letter. When a little is good then more is better, but only when the consumer pays, preferably long term through another scheme. Pressurized sealed systems have no need for any preventive measures at users expense when material within the system is continuously monitored and controlled at entry and exit points.. But that doesn’t sell chemicals to support kickback for upper echelon supervisory bureaucracy. Don’t feel belittled. The same holds true in industry and for the same reason.
“There are no “other poisons” injected into the water”
Sorry, but one can only determine what is “injected” at other points in an aquifer with spot testing outside of office comfort traced back upstream from point of detection.
“This is nonsense. The fact that chlorine is the cheapest method of disinfection demonstrates the inanity of this statement. Both Ozone and UV are bigger consumers of power. This is one of the reasons why their use is resisted.”
Do you also assume that over the counter cost of cigaretts is where the paying ends? Exclusive of all the taxes added the future healthcare costs raises the ante to its numerical square. Another long term collection scheme is in play.
“Off topic, but that marks you as a fluoride crank and not worth listening to,”
Does it mark other European and Asian countries as “crank” that have outlawed the waste product from aluminum production processes that is marked with skull and cross bones when sealed in a container as required by law? Do you also defend the use of amalgum for filling teeth that has also been outlawed where
truthful information is provided as to its affirmed connection to mercury poisoning? Soap containing mercury was outlawed 20 years back.
I speak from forty years of both government inspection and hands on process control including water from the wellhead chlorinated for domestic use, cation / anion demineralization for steam production, river water purification with sediment filtering and added chemicals for process use, waste water treatment with sedimentation, solids screening, pond aeration with added “bugs” to attack chemical remnants and measured discharge back to the nature. I know how data is cooked when specs are not met. I can state emphatically that “what goes back is not what comes in” and in no way can water be expected to rid itself of all the “injected contaminants” before returning to consumers through polluted downstream water and diseased fish. Check out the dead zones in the gulf or the limitations of consumption recommended by Wildlife and Fisheries of any state. The only clean water left on earth is from thawing icecaps..
I use only filtered, distilled Ph adjusted water with added trace minerals since my nose gave me the inclination. Now there’s my crank but I’m prescription free. Who turns you on?
If you’ve been blown completely out of your neurotic box, try a little clear thinking before you climb back in and try to figure out just who else in your box is also misinformed.
Politics reigns supreme in any municipal exercise if tax money is available. A few years back all the county commissioners in Oklahoma but two either quit or were fired after the IRS investigation of one proved fruitful.
The ball is still in your court but it should get increasingly difficult to play if you manage to get your other foot in your mouth.
By the way Mannie, both ozone and UV are naturally occurring phenomena with one being limited by the other. If you had ever experienced an accidental release of chlorine you could easily assume that it must be limited by the gates of hell
if you survived the pneumonia from hydrochloric acid formed in your lungs. It was never intended for human exposure any more than radioactive decay unless you enjoy a regular c-scan for insurance compliance for doctors’ malpractice risk.
Off topic, but that marks you as a fluoride crank and not worth listening to,
Is that anything like being an anti-dentite? haha
Did somebody link this thread at Alex Jones’ site?
FLASH! EPA bans eating beaver! Film at 11.
Uhhh guys, I’m just going by memory here but in Germany’s defense, wasn’t there a clause in the armistice agreement after WWII that precluded Germany from having any kind of military except for police and limited self defense forces? I’m not sure, but that might still be in play or at least being a strong reason for them not to have a powerful military even now and us having to protect them.
That sounds about right. However, it doesn’t change the fact that having to pay for a military (a real military that is) would have changed things significantly. A separate but related issue would be the irony of Europeans criticizing the U.S. for its “militarism” while enjoying the security provided by the U.S. military. That’s why I would support a complete pull out of U.S. forces stationed in Europe. Then all the Euro-socialist peaceniks will be free to put flowers in the gunbarrels of whoever comes to kill them.
The author of this story calls himself a “Republican Party Consultant” … but for a consultant, his story is remarkably fact-free. That’s why I read the story as a plain-vanilla EPA smear … that’s being astro-turfed in service of party donors … who want are in a hurry to make a quick buck via fracking … by getting rid of the EPA.
If so … then look for plenty more EPA smears in the pipeline.
Right now, fracking corporations are not obligated to tell *anyone* what chemicals they are injecting into the ground-water … and these corporations are willing to donate plenty of money … to *any* party that will accept it … to ensure that American citizens remain in ignorance.
For sure, this ignorance-first policy ain’t any brand of conservatism (or equally, liberalism) that most conservatives (or equally, liberals) want to be associated with. Because politics aside, this brand of ignorance is just plain toxic.
—————————
EPA Should Require Disclosure of Fracking Chemicals, Groups Say
URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-04/epa-should-require-disclosure-of-fracking-chemicals-groups-say.html
Repeating the ad hom.
I’m beginning to believe that fallacious logic is the only type you know.
The only thing that surprises me is that the EPA is trying to get rid of the cryptosproridium and giardia rather than saving them. Don’t they know they are part of nature and have feelings too… lol. Don’t tell the UN because they may sue the EPA due to the pathogen’s rights.
Blah blah and more blah. Only one thing I want to know: where in the Constitution does it authorize Congress to force the citizens of New York or anywhere else to treat their water in a certain way, protect this or that bit of wildlife, or do any of the other unConstitutional things the EPA does? I’m waiting…[sound of crickets chirping]
That’s right, boys and girls, it’s not in there, along with the authorization for vast swathes of other unConstitutional Fed bureaucrazies that throw not sand but boulders into the gears of business, stifling the economy and hurting the poor. If you want an EPA so bad, pass a Constitutional amendment authorizing it. Otherwise quit breaking the law!
Only one thing I want to know: am I helpless if folks upstream dump toxic chemicals in the water my kids drink, the air they breathe, and the food they eat?
“Doc”, if your peculiar brand of conservatism says the answer is “yes”, then my family wants no part of it.
Because everyone knows what your world ends up looking like.
They smile and tell you everything’s fine … while they kill you.
———————————–
Timeline of Minamata disease
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Minamata_disease
Allow me to repeat my point: the EPA is unConstitutional. It makes no difference if you or 98% of the population thinks it does good things. If it’s important to have an EPA, get a Constitutional amendment passed authorizing it. If the type of problem you describe is prevalent enough, I’m sure you’ll have no problem getting it passed. But quit breaking the foundational law of this nation just because YOU think it’s important!
If breaking the foundational Law is what passes for your brand of politics (whatever it is), I want no part of it.
Doc, the Law of the Land is that the Supreme Court decides …
… and the Supreme Court has ruled over-and-over that the EPA is constitutional.
A simple Constitutional Amendment saying “Congress shall make no laws regulating toxic chemicals or imposing pollution controls” would immediate solve the problem (of course) …
… but Doc … how much public support would there be for it?
—————————-
National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone
US Supreme Court unanimously upholds EPA constitutionality
URL: http://www.epa.gov/reg5oair/naaqs/o3naaqs.html
The regulations are still pointless. The companies have to be held responsible as a matter of Principles and not bureaucracy; e.g., The Chissos company in Japan is to be held resposible for any death they caused as long there is a Principle in the corresponding Constitution or Bill of Rights stating something like the good ol’ “thou shalt not kill”.
That’s what people like “physicist” don’t understand; you held people legally responsible according to a legal standard based on Rights, not on loose techy details like aerosol filters, waste processing, etc, etc.
They should come up with a way to process their toxic wates or else face charges for murdering. Leave the technical details to technicians.
Yah know, “X” … those “loose techy details” can be mighty important:
These toxic chemicals from the 50s-70s are still in the breast-milk of every American mother. But at least (thanks to the EPA) the concentrations of these toxic chemicals in mothers’ milk are no-longer increasing. Those who seek to eliminate the EPA, supposedly on grounds of “efficiency”, are plain-and-simple seeking to eliminate the laws that protect our children. So judging by your own post’s moral standards, “X” … aren’t today’s “eliminate-the-EPA” shouters morally liable to a charge of … well … murder, plain-and-simple?
It appears to me that the loudest of today’s “eliminate-the-EPA” folks ain’t thought the matter through … or else, have completely forgotten recent American history.
———————————————–
Toxic Substances Portal – Heptachlor/Heptachlor Epoxide
URL: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/TF.asp?id=744&tid=135
*yawn*
A Luddite with a PhD, overly enamored with his own credentials, and completely given over to emoting rather than reason.
Post facts-and-history if yah got `em, Rob!
Why Conservation is Conservative
Republicans for Environmental Protection
URL: http://www.rep.org/quotes.html
Physicist.- there is nobody here denying the importance of the techy details, yet you are still missing the point.
The folks who are missing the point are the folks who imagine that abolishing the EPA will in any respect concretely protect our unborn children from toxic assaults and/or ecological collapse.
Supreme Court Decision in Mass. et al versus the EPA
URL: http://www.pewclimate.org/federal/analysis/judicial/massachusetts-et-al-v-epa-et-al
Nope, I don’t think abolishing the EPA will do any such thing. And, in the context of the matter at hand, I DON’T CARE! Whether abolishing the EPA will do this or that is IRRELEVANT to the question of whether the EPA is Constitutional. And the answer to that question is obvious to all who are not in denial: it isn’t.
Now, the putative benefit or lack of same v.v. the EPA IS relevant to the question of whether we should pass a Constitutional amendment allowing Congress to force the citizens of the various states to pay more for their goods and services in order to attempt to achieve said benefits. Have at it. Open debate. Go for it.
The EPA has hit every state with ridiculous mandates aimed more at ceasing production and costing jobs. States need to start banding together and suing the crap out of the EPA. One lawsuit after another until they are DOA.
It’s been tried … per the preceding post, the Supreme Court has ruled that the states have no standing to obstruct the national public interest in a clean environment.
It’s plain common sense … for example, Iowa has no standing to pollute the Mississippi River in willful disregard of downstream states, any more than Nebraska has the right to willfully pollute the Missouri River upstream from Iowa.
———————————————
Supreme Court Decision in Mass. et al versus the EPA
URL: http://www.pewclimate.org/federal/analysis/judicial/massachusetts-et-al-v-epa-et-al
Somebody’s been busy. You’d never know that he had a real job.
His “real” job, as he confessed about a month ago is as AKA “Network Engineer” otherwise known in the IT industry as a Janitor. One step above the IT helpdesk.
He’s not a physicist and sitting on the helpdesk gives him time to relentlessly spam comments on articles on a small conservative website in which he agrees with nothing.
Post facts-and-history if yah got’em, folks!
Otherwise reflect on the long sad history of folks who smear and slogan-shout and cherry-picking … to protect ideology and corrupt profits and waste.
Those brands of conservatism, and those brands of liberalism, that rely on smearing and slogan-shouting and willful ignorance … won’t long endure … and won’t deserve to endure … and the sooner they’re gone, the better for our nation and the planet.
That’s the conservative, common-sense wisdom of the Founders.
—————————–
“The Endrin Song” and “The Heptachlor Song” — 1960s versions of fracking
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrq2H0d9crI
it’s worth noting that the “major disease” that causes most of the cryptosporidium infections in New York City is AIDS. that’s right, the Federal government wants New York City water users to pay 90 million dollars so AIDS patients, who are already being massively subsidised by Federal, State, and local taxpayers, won’t have to use a Brita filter.
Has anyone read “looting main street”?
It’s a report about a town being suckered into buying too expensive a sewage treatment plant and going bankrupt paying off the loan. They built the plant to meet excessive enviro requirements, a bit like NYC got hit with.
Is JPM also behind the EPA pushing the regs to idiotic levels so they can make loans to other suckers?
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