Man that was a hard read. How do you even try to use a legal system for restitution for something like that? The original company (UCC) screwed up 40 years ago in a really bad way, paid out a...
Man that was a hard read.
How do you even try to use a legal system for restitution for something like that? The original company (UCC) screwed up 40 years ago in a really bad way, paid out a pittance, never cleaned up the toxic remains, and was subsequently split into pieces between UCC, UCI, and Dow. Dow bought their shares 20 years after the disaster so they claim no responsibility, morally or financially. UCC and UCI each blame each other, and the best the Indian federal government has done is write up an impotent 'petition' asking Dow for another $1.2 billion to help clean it up?
These people have been failed by their municipal, state, and federal governments to an embarassing and inhumane extent.
I've been looking into the Santa Susana Field Lab a lot lately, mostly because I've been going hiking out near there recently. It's the site of one of the worst toxic waste disasters on US soil....
“Hoo boy, it sounds like somebody with some money and some understanding has to come in there and clean the place up.”
I've been looking into the Santa Susana Field Lab a lot lately, mostly because I've been going hiking out near there recently. It's the site of one of the worst toxic waste disasters on US soil. They had 4 nuclear incidents, disposed of waste barrels in the nearby reservoir, or shooting and exploding them, and had burn pits to "dispose" of radioactive materials and chemical waste.
It used to be owned my Rocketdyne, but after deaths of personal, stories started emerging. Boeing ended up buying the facility for cleanup. They definitely had the money and understanding, but it has taken nearly two decades of hounding by the federal government, state, and local for them to do much of anything meaningful. Waste levels are lower now, but there are still significant issues. Thankfully, the DOE and NASA stepped in to clean the site to higher standards.
Bhopal sounds so much worse.
Even with the resources available to remediate the SSFL, those in charge dragged their heels for years to avoid the costly cleanup and cover up the problems for a long as possible. The local population is upper middle class, and public outcry is driven by some fairly well-to-do people. Bhopal doesn't seem to have any of that going for it. I hope the best for the people who live there, and hope that my comparison proves to be a false equivalence. But the reality of this situation is likely to prove grim for years to come.
Environmental damage on this scale seems to be something governments and societies all around the world have a blind spot towards. In the US, we've got the Hanford Site, where lots of nuclear...
Environmental damage on this scale seems to be something governments and societies all around the world have a blind spot towards.
In the US, we've got the Hanford Site, where lots of nuclear research and material enrichment went on during WWII and the Cold War. It's now the largest Superfund site in the US.
Man that was a hard read.
How do you even try to use a legal system for restitution for something like that? The original company (UCC) screwed up 40 years ago in a really bad way, paid out a pittance, never cleaned up the toxic remains, and was subsequently split into pieces between UCC, UCI, and Dow. Dow bought their shares 20 years after the disaster so they claim no responsibility, morally or financially. UCC and UCI each blame each other, and the best the Indian federal government has done is write up an impotent 'petition' asking Dow for another $1.2 billion to help clean it up?
These people have been failed by their municipal, state, and federal governments to an embarassing and inhumane extent.
I've been looking into the Santa Susana Field Lab a lot lately, mostly because I've been going hiking out near there recently. It's the site of one of the worst toxic waste disasters on US soil. They had 4 nuclear incidents, disposed of waste barrels in the nearby reservoir, or shooting and exploding them, and had burn pits to "dispose" of radioactive materials and chemical waste.
It used to be owned my Rocketdyne, but after deaths of personal, stories started emerging. Boeing ended up buying the facility for cleanup. They definitely had the money and understanding, but it has taken nearly two decades of hounding by the federal government, state, and local for them to do much of anything meaningful. Waste levels are lower now, but there are still significant issues. Thankfully, the DOE and NASA stepped in to clean the site to higher standards.
Bhopal sounds so much worse.
Even with the resources available to remediate the SSFL, those in charge dragged their heels for years to avoid the costly cleanup and cover up the problems for a long as possible. The local population is upper middle class, and public outcry is driven by some fairly well-to-do people. Bhopal doesn't seem to have any of that going for it. I hope the best for the people who live there, and hope that my comparison proves to be a false equivalence. But the reality of this situation is likely to prove grim for years to come.
Environmental damage on this scale seems to be something governments and societies all around the world have a blind spot towards.
In the US, we've got the Hanford Site, where lots of nuclear research and material enrichment went on during WWII and the Cold War. It's now the largest Superfund site in the US.