Environment & Energy

hatrack

(59,587 posts) Mon Feb 1, 2016, 09:54 AM Feb 2016

Shocking! Chinese Authorities Link Abandoned Pesticide Plant To Sickened Students Across Street

(Beijing) – The Ministry of Environmental Protection has found toxic chemicals in the soil under a closed pesticide factory across the street from a school in the eastern province of Jiangsu where students have developed health problems.

Students at Changzhou Foreign Languages School, a multi-lingual school for students from the seventh to 12th grades, have complained of foul-smelling air since they moved to their new campus in a suburb of Changzhou in September, Xinhua News Agency has reported. The air has given some students sore throats or rashes, parents told the official news agency. Tainted air has even caused some students to vomit, parents complained.

The ministry said on January 29 that the odor is coming from the abandoned Jiangsu Changlong Chemicals Co. Ltd., which was operational from 2000 to 2010. The ministry said it found levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons and benzyl chloride that exceeded its standard for soil. Exposure to total petroleum hydrocarbons, chemical compounds that come from crude oil, can harm the lungs, central nervous system, liver and kidney, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says. The chemical benzyl chloride, which is used in a range of manufacturing activities, is intensely irritating to the skin, eyes and mucous membranes.

The 153 acre campus of Changzhou Foreign Languages School has accommodated 2,800 students and faculty members since opening in September, the school's website says. Students and parents initially thought the foul smell was from pesticide used on trees planted on the campus, one parent told Caixin, but the smell became more noticeable around December 25.

EDIT

http://english.caixin.com/2016-02-01/100905998.html

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Shocking! Chinese Authorities Link Abandoned Pesticide Plant To Sickened Students Across Street (Original Post) hatrack Feb 2016 OP

This is what our country would look like if the Koch brothers get their way... Human101948 Feb 2016 #1

Human101948

(3,457 posts)

1. This is what our country would look like if the Koch brothers get their way...

Reply to hatrack (Original post)

Mon Feb 1, 2016, 10:16 AM

Feb 2016

While they find the Chinese government anathema, they love the sort of government non-regulation of polluters that is prevalent in China. No EPA, no OSHA, no BLM--just dump the by products and hightail it as soon as the location becomes unprofitable.

The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries. Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution. Koch's climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.

For Koch, this license to pollute amounts to a perverse, hidden subsidy. The cost is borne by communities in cities like Port Arthur, Texas, where a Koch-owned facility produces as much as 2 billion pounds of petrochemicals every year. In March, Koch signed a consent decree with the Department of Justice requiring it to spend more than $40 million to bring this plant into compliance with the Clean Air Act.

The toxic history of Koch Industries is not limited to physical pollution. It also extends to the company's business practices, which have been the target of numerous federal investigations, resulting in several indictments and convictions, as well as a whole host of fines and penalties.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924#ixzz3yvSXIpea
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