Category Archives: defense contractors

Ohio River and the West Virginia spill

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So…the spill in West Virginia in the Elk River has gone into the Ohio River and is headed our way…so I went looking to see how the authorities are dealing with it…

I found that the Cincinnati folk are right on this–

When I looked for Indiana authorities’ action on it…nothing.  No surprise there.  The Indiana Dept. of Environmental (MIS-) Management allows businesses three years between inspections.  West Virginia could happen here. (and probably already has, but without nary a peep from anyone who knows about it.)

But I did find this disturbing report.  Indiana is guilty of dumping 15 MILLION pounds of toxins into the waterways.  Good Grief!

Here’s yet another disturbing report of BP once again poisoning a body of water from the Whiting, Indiana, refinery…you know, the petcoke we’ve talked about.  This time,  it’s our wonderful Lake Michigan they’re dumping mercury into….where is the media coverage here?  *crickets*

If you don’t think two pounds of mercury sounds like a lot, keep in mind it only take a thermometer of mercury to poison a 20-acre lake.

(Of course, I take exception to this article ignoring amalgams as sources of mercury along with vaccines.  And ignoring GMO’s as impacts on the gut, allowing heavy metal poisoning.)

…and it’s not just the water they’re poisoning…

Young speaking out on Canadian Tar Sands

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Neil Young is trading pointed remarks with the Canadian government over the tar sands oil.

Good for him.   I’m glad someone with some media attention is speaking out for the indigenous.

 

Republican Mask – Democrat Mask

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Reclaim Reform (Ken Previti) has this up on the Chicago Teachers Union’s new IPO….the solution isn’t with those wearing Democrat or Republican Masks whom are in reality corporate employees…but with us.

God bless Karen Lewis and the CTU.

Moving the pet coke

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Well, of course….they’re dumping pet coke in Chicago…and Whiting, Indiana….

“Petcoke tends to have higher metal content than coal – like nickel, vanadium and selenium,” added Geertsma. “Coal can have higher mercury content, so they’re both bad in terms of toxic heavy metals content.”

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The report says that Canadian exports of petcoke to the U.S. more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, and BP Whiting’s expansion will triple its petcoke production to 6,000 tons per day.

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And I got my answer to where the petcoke piles were moved to–Ohio.

 

More on Fukushima **edited

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The comments on the last blog have some good links:

Nearly a third of all babies born after 3/11/11 are more likely to have thyroid issues.  If you recall, radiation interferes with the thyroid.  A good page here on what happens to the body.

More here.

Another link to a comments page about nuclear fallout and its affects on those in the military:

We think there are 150,000 more Atomic Veterans across the U.S. who do not know that their oath of secrecy has been recended, since 1963, and who also may not know that they may be entitled to VA benefits. The National Association of Atomic Veterans ( NAAV ) was formed in 1979 to assist Atomic Vet’s in accessing the VA system, for the purposes of getting treatment and compensation for a host of health issues precipitated by their exposure to ionizing radiation particles while proudly serving their country, as Mr. Beatty did, at Operation Crossroads… We continue to get phone calls, weekly, from A-vets who have recently been made aware of our organization, and who are in need of assistance in these areas. We look forward to hearing from anyone who may read this article…… Our website is: http://www.naav.com

R J Ritter – Nat. Commander
NAAV, Inc.
Member: Veteran’s Advisory Board on (radiation) Dose Reconstruction.

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Pass the word–perhaps this will help someone affected and not knowing where to go for help.

~~A side story on the chemical spill in West Virginia…criminy, if this isn’t nature slapping us in the face, warning us that we’re inept in dealing with this stuff, I don’t know what is…nature can only endure so much.

The attitude that the river will “take care of it” is utter bullshit.  It’s just going to go somewhere else and cause health issues for the unfortunate ones.

Meanwhile, the Koch brothers have a pile of petcoke right next to the river in Detroit…**edited:  I stand corrected. It has been removed….but the report fails to tell us where the pile was moved to..?  Wanna bet it was to some poor neighborhood?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Fukushima lawsuit

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The tragedy of Fukushima continues to reveal more illness.  Navy first responders have come forward with radiation related sickness.

Nuclear energy will never, ever be safe.  This accident proves that beyond a doubt.  Holy crap, I don’t think we’ve even begun to see all of the devastation.

More bad news for orcas

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This is a disturbing report on our stupidity and carelessness and its impacting ecology, and specifically the orcas.

Here’s a Puget Sound indigenous group trying to help the orcas.

Of course, thinking of the west coast, my mind wandered towards the impact of Fukushima.  A member of the mercury support group has stated that she felt much worse after moving to the west coast.  She left after a year.

From the article:

Barrett-Lennard says the southern resident orca pod, which is found in the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland, has lost seven matriarchs over the past two years, and he’s noticed a lack of vocalizations from the normally chatty mammals.

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More here.  This is even more sobering in detail.  There is an animated video of the radiation trail towards the United States and Canada.  Be sure to click on the Laura James video –a picture says a thousand words.  It made me nauseous looking at all the dead and dying sea stars.

They also make note that it is happening in Maine and New Jersey, so they question the Fukushima connection…but perhaps the radiation didn’t stop at the West Coast, but has traveled inland, as they say?

They also make note that the moose population is dying off–so much so that Wisconsin called off its moose hunt this past year.  The deer population, as I’ve blogged about, is suffering and dying, too.  And nobody questions GMO’s and their possible impact on these animals.

 

Understanding the gravity of NAFTA

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Idle No More has a post up on the far-reaching effects of NAFTA.  This is especially important because now we have NAFTA on steroids with TPP being fast-tracked through Congress.

Here’s an update on Blackfire.

More here.

From the article:

Though officials did meet with NGOs opposed to the mine, they accepted Blackfire’s take that protestors were out to squeeze money from the firm, says MiningWatch’s analysis of the emails.

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Of course….because the mining company execs see everything in $$, they think everyone *else* thinks as they do.  It is inconceivable to them that there are people who value the environment, their health, their children’s health, the Earth, etc.

Note how the company was unable to substantiate claims against Abarca.  It appears he was thrown in jail under false claims.

NAFTA, and I fear TPP, are all about taking power and control away from the local people.  It means losing their autonomy to decide what happens in their communities, as the mega million dollar lawsuit illustrates.

These trade agreements are not supportive of the democratic process, rather a dictatorial process.  How is this representation of taxpayers?

Huffington, Gates, join forces

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In what could be called the Billionaires’ News Service, Ariana Huffington and Bill Gates, amongst other billionaires, want to control even more of the media message….er, I mean, news…

…and this, my friends, is why we need the Fairness Doctrine.  This is why we need a break up of the monopoly of the press and media by the 1%–they already have their voices heard, over and over.  They were able to sell the Iraq War through their monopoly of the news outlets–radio, paper, TV–as we saw in the previous blog on Iraq Veterans against the War.  It was scripted without so much as one critical media reporter…oh, wait, Phil Donahue was critical…and he was fired.  The more that media is concentrated, the less independent voices are heard.  If we had the media we had in the 60s and 70s, there would have been more investigating of WMD’s, and less cheerleading by the talking heads.

The Guardian link, has a little more detail.  Keep in mind that the Guardian has also joined forces with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation… further concentrating Gates’ media messaging…

A side note~~A commenter on the commondreams site has this link up**.  Wow. If this is true, it opens up yet another can of worms of falsifying evidence to get us into yet another war….

And the questions begin:  Why did Scahill and Jones refuse to share a stage with Mother Marian?  If Scahill is as good as investigative reporter that he is reported to be, then why would he not investigate the accusations against Mother Marian?  Why did he not seek her out to get her side of the story?  This is all just mindboggling.

**also note that the author writes articles published in Huffington Post.