EPA Fails to Tighten Lead-Poisoning Hazard Standards (2013, March 11) USA Today by Alison Young, p. 3B.
[Excerpted] The Environmental Protection Agency has no current plans to protect children from lead poisoning, despite calls for action from the agency's own scientific advisers. [end quote]
ProPublica (2013, March 13) After a Powerful Lobbyist
Intervenes, EPA Reverses Stance on Polluting Texas County’s Water’ by Abraham
Lustgarten
[Excerpted] When Uranium Energy Corp. sought
permission to launch a large-scale mining project in Goliad County, Texas, it
seemed as if the Environmental Protection Agency would stand in its way.
To get the ore out of the ground,
the company needed a permit to pollute a pristine supply of underground
drinking water in an area already parched by drought.
...EPA scientists feared that
radioactive contaminants would flow from the mining site into water wells used
by nearby homes.
Uranium Energy said the pollution would remain contained, but
resisted doing the advanced scientific testing and modeling the government
asked for to prove it.
The plan appeared to be dead on
arrival until late 2011, when Uranium Energy hired Heather Podesta, a lobbyist
and prolific Democratic fundraiser whose pull with the Obama administration
prompted The Washington Post to name her the Capitol's latest "It girl."
Podesta -- the sister-in-law of John
Podesta, who co-chaired President Obama's transition team -- appealed directly to the EPA's second in command,
Bob Perciasepe, pressing the agency's highest-level administrators to get
directly involved and bring the agency's local staff in Texas back to the table
to reconsider their position, according to emails obtained by ProPublica
through the Freedom of Information Act.
By the end of 2012, the EPA reversed
its position in Goliad, approving an exemption allowing Uranium Energy to
pollute the aquifer, though in a somewhat smaller area than was originally
proposed. [end excerpt]
MAJIA Here: The uranium mining in AZ still poisons the Navajo and other groups. Uranium mining and enrichment are not, and cannot be made, safe with any technology.
Kudos to ProPublica and USA Today for reporting on the EPA's failure to protect against activities which will increase the volume of 'free' and therefore mobile toxic elements in our air, water, and soil.
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