Category Archives: indiana

Energy regulation

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CSPAN featured Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of Federal Energy Regulatory  Commission.  Politico has this up.

A couple of callers commented on Wellinghoff’s demeanor.  He seemed to be no-nonsense.  He was formerly a consumer energy advocate.  It seemed that he was pro-consumer…but I couldn’t shake a bad feeling I had…

…he mentioned fracking as a viable practice for extracting natural gas at least two or three times during the short interview…and my heart began to sink…

He barely mentioned off grid and solar power, although when he did mention it, it was in a positive light.  What I would like to see is federal support for off grid classes in communities.  Let people create their own power for their needs, instead of huge coal plants and monstrous pipelines that spill oil (something else he said he was for.)

I hope that I’m wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s going towards the fracking industry.  He kept repeating that it could be done in an environmentally sound way.  Bullshit.

A woman caller had the same sentiment as me when she revealed that she is suffering from breast cancer due to methane gas released from fracking.  She said that he was feeding people a line and that her own governor was selling her state out from under the people.  (Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the state.)

Wellinghoff would not back down and repeated that fracking could be done in an environmentally friendly way. <sigh> So…another former consumer advocate has been bought off…

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Speaking of pipelines….

Why am I hearing about this after the fact?  Where was public radio BEFORE this took place?

And the Save the Dunes group apparently knew about it but, hey, as long as Enbridge *cough* promises to not spill any of its nasty ole’ oil into our rivers, lakes, and streams, hey, it’s okay with them….because, you know, Enbridge has such a stellar history of concern for the environment and the people and animals that inhabit it.  /very snarky, indeed.

From the article:

“IDEM, through its certification, is allowing Enbridge to disregard alternate pipeline routes and other opportunities to reduce and eliminate water quality impacts, in likely violation of the Clean Water Act,” said Kim Ferraro, staff attorney at the Hoosier Environmental Council.

Both Michigan and Illinois have laws governing interstate pipeline routing, requiring companies to assess environmental and community risks, but currently Indiana does not.

Good Grief….my head is about to explode…

 

 

 

AG – GAG hits a snag…

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(sorry, couldn’t help myself)

It would seem that the attempts by the ALEC groups to infringe on the First Amendment right to speak out have been thwarted…at least for now.

Stories here.

Be sure to click on the link for the Amy Meyer story.  Chilling.

And Indiana drops it for the year.  Knowing how they like to bring stuff under the radar, I’ll assume that it will be back next year and voted in when attention is diverted elsewhere…

Detroit buried in petroleum coke

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(migraine…pardon my faux pas)

They ought to take this three-story, one-block long pile of coke and dump it on the Koch’s front lawn.  And for every shipment afterward, dumped on every Tea Party supporter’s front lawn who denies the pollution coming from oil and its byproducts.

More here on the residents’ concerns.  Same stonewalling over health concerns for residents living around this poison.  They say they’re sending in samples to find out if it’s hazardous.  Here’s the Material Data Safety Sheet (MSDS) on Petroleum Coke.  It’s pretty evident from this that it IS a serious health concern.   One of the warnings is not to breathe the dust.  Wonder how many residents breathe in particulate every single freaking day?

From the sheet:

Inhalation of excessive dust concentrations may be irritating to the upper respiratory
system. Repeated chronic inhalation exposure may cause impaired lung function.
There is no evidence that such exposures cause pneumoconiosis, carcinogenicity,
or other chronic health effects.
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I would question the last sentence–anything that can cause impaired lung function is causing inflammation…inflammation kills cells over a period of time.
Note that is is a combustible dust….just laying around….which the MSDS specifically states this is not proper storage–it states it should be in containers.  (Not that I personally believe containers are any better.  The stuff is toxic, toxic,toxic, creating problems of disposal…in somebody’s neighborhood.)

Anybody wanna bet this is located in a poor neighborhood in Detroit?

So…now BP wants to start operations for processing this filthy sludge in Whiting, Indiana, which is near Gary and Hammond  and Chicago….right on Lake Michigan. Um-hmmm…Anybody wanna guess if the toxic environment is a factor in Gary Indiana being the murder capital of the United States.  Note the article stating this area is one of the worst in air quality in the U.S.

And here we have the latest in *cough* BP cares….about our profits over your health and safety…

More here.

A video of yet another explosion in Whiting, Indiana:

Indiana has a sad history of putting business over its environment.  Just look at the lack of trees compared to, say, Ohio.  You can actually tell the air quality difference once you leave Indiana and venture into Ohio.  Nevermind the beauty of all the trees, but the air is breathable.  Anyway, Indiana’s own Dept. of Environmental Management *cough* has told manufacturers several years ago that once they were given a good report, they could slack off, er I mean, they could continue their good environmental practices until the IDEM inspected them three years later.

The Indiana Dunes, which we used to go to nearly every summer, have been polluted by the lack of concern of the environment.  Lake Michigan was once reasonably clean.  I took my kids up there after many years and was depressed to see the condition of the water.  It was no longer clear and had that polluted look to it.  I saw nuclear cooling towers off to my left.  At least, I thought they were nuclear cooling towers…turns out they were from another power plant–the one thing Indiana has going for it is that we don’t have nuclear power plants here.  I don’t hold my breath that they won’t eventually appear, especially with Mike Pence and the ALEC team now in charge here.  Besides, there are nuclear plants in Illinois and Ohio bordering our state, so…yeah…we’re still susceptible to nuclear radiation or the China Syndrome.  All it would take is one of the reactors melting down and we’re done.

And then there’s the curious case of radiation in Delaware,  Indiana that is mentioned in this blog.

In Honor of Mothers…

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This Mother’s Day was a tough one.  Tears as we listened to “You’ll Never Walk Alone”….

So…I thought instead of the usual syrupy “Happy Mother’s Day” stuff, I’d do things a little differently~~

In Honor of the Mothers of the kidnapping victims of Cleveland….the two mothers who never gave up…God Bless.  I can’t wrap my brain around this case–clearly, there were people sounding the alarm about something going on at that house.  The police even showed up once–only to knock and then walk away when no one answered.  The message this case is sending:  women don’t matter–or worse, they wanted to be there.  I’m just waiting for them to start pointing the finger at the victims–some already have started the “if they hadn’t done this, that wouldn’t have happened…”  While ignoring that domestic violence happens every day in the U.S. in blue collar households and professional households.  People with money.  People without money.  Those with college educations, and those with high school diplomas.  Makes no difference.

In this case and I suspect the Boston Bombers’ case, domestic violence played a key role. …and yet, it’s never singled out as the cause of violence.  And I also caution against making broad generalizations that the psychiatric profession is noted for–just because one comes from a home of domestic violence does not mean they will repeat it.  Another mystery to be solved is why some go on to perpetuate the violence, and others rise above it.

Related to this, I’ve been reading blog after blog of mothers who have lost custody of their children. It is heartbreaking.  And it’s damning of the U.S. court system that use Guardian Ad Litem’s testimony as golden, without ever examining their motives nor the actual qualifications, personal biases,  and time spent with the children whose lives they are about to destroy.  On top of all of this, parents are now charged a fee to see their children!!  This is outrageous.

Phyllis Chesler has written a book, Mothers on Trial that blows away the myth that mothers *always* get custody of children.  This is only true, she says, if the father doesn’t fight for custody.  If he does take the mother to court, he will win custody in most of the cases.  (I think I read 70% of the cases).   It’s especially true if the woman is uppity.  In five cases I had reviewed, the Guardian Ad Litem had awarded custody to the father in all five cases….even though there was undisputed abuse in two of the cases and as far as I could tell, no abuse nor neglect of care of the children on the mother’s part.  As with the blogs I read…even in cases of  a father molesting the kids, the mother was treated as the criminal and the father was awarded custody.

This has to stop.

Fort Wayne is on Fire

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Another police shooting—the fourth in four months–of a Fort Wayne citizen:        indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Mayor-Henry-on-205796441.html

This isn’t even counting the ones shooting each other.  You know it’s bad when California sits up and takes notice….as they did with the third shooting just a few days ago…

The news reported that the latest shooter “should not have had access to a gun with his prior history…”  It left out the details about why this person should not have had a gun….but since he claimed to be Jesus and just randomly started shooting people (rather than a specific target), I would guess mental issues.  And yes, I would wonder about the chem trails and the toxic environment of FW–they had terrible air quality last year on many, many days.  And this shows air quality is once again questionable.  All I can say is that I notice a change in people’s behavior when there has been heavy chem trail spraying and when the air quality is already bad.  I know that when I tried jogging in the A.M. on bad air quality days, I started wheezing afterwards.  Not good.

Here’s another map showing particulate matter as being moderately high.  This is not good, either, as particulate is known to be the cause for health conditions–scientists just don’t know how it affects health, only that it does affect heart, lungs, and brain health.

Finding good food

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This website makes it easier in finding organic and sustainable farms.  However, I would caution you that just because someone claims to be organic doesn’t necessarily mean they have their hearts in it.  I know of at least one farm listed here that they were burning asphalt roof tiles, along with plastics and other stuff that you shouldn’t…a half – block away from the organic fields.  They also sprayed weedkiller on gravel that was next to the growing field.  Yep.  That’s not something someone casually shopping would know….so it helps to know the folks you’re dealing with or someone who works for them, but this website is a good start.

I’ve tried to go online to look for local free range egg farmers, but came up empty.  There was one website that was called “farmer’s friend, but there was nothing even in Allen County (FW), where I knew they had free range eggs….<sigh>…it doesn’t do one a whole lot of good if you’re not going to put information on the website for customers.

Hope this helps anyone looking for locally grown food.