Saturday, January 22, 2011

HOW CAN WE TRUST WHAT HAS BEEN PROVEN WRONG?

EPA vs. TCEQ-it's in the news.
EPA needs to take over air permits because TCEQ has not been the answer to our dirty air problems- that is, our gases are filthy blights and blots upon the parchment of the Clean Air Act . I agree-EPA needs to regulate what Texas won't.
But that leads me to ask, how can EPA expect the people (us) to TRUST and BELIEVE TCEQ
and the work it has produced or ignored in the past????
TCEQ approved closure of the polluting factory in my old neighborhood. It-TCEQ- knew the deep groundwater was contaminated, and the soil toxic. Heck, the soil was basically removed and replaced in parts; but all I really, specifically know now is: TCEQ SAYS THIS PLACE IS OKAY!
I have to trust their bottom line judgment, their calculus; which bears the stamp of the state seal of Texas.
SO, I am to trust TCEQ? The same TCEQ that hid radioactive water in Houston and put the river bottom industries back in business after a surface clean up expected to last five years? The same TCEQ that made deals with toxic industries to end lawsuits? The same TCEQ that let gas drilling pollution in air and water around Ft. Worth get so bad that citizens had to run a campaign in the media to save their health and property?

EPA, in my opinion, needs to review all the closures of toxic industries in Texas that TCEQ approved and decide if they were appropriate in the past, and protective of citizens in the present and future.
The local closure I have studied doesn't look appropriate; and, by the way, I don't love testing done by the pollutor and presented as favorable -in the midst of other unfavorable tests.
WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? Since when does the pollutor control testing and the submission of test results?

EPA, do not ask us to trust an agency that you say you can't trust.

If we citizens trust wrongly- we literally absorb the cost in our lungs and bones; and many of us never even know what hit us. LITERALLY.

____________________________________

Update: I talked with a highly knowledgeable friend today who had such a good comment:
(I paraphrase) It may take a Congressional investigation to prove that government and state agencies have failed to protect the people of Texas, through laws and statutes which have been enacted for the people's benefit. (From what I've experienced, this feels right and passes the logic/scholarship test.)

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