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This article is ridiculous. The numbers it throws out don't mean anything.

Love Canal was not a one-time aberration. The 1997 National Research Council’s estimate that the cost of cleaning up the thousands of known contaminated U.S. sites at that time could take 75 years and cost $1 trillion.

Well, sure, if yoou define "cleaning up" as getting rid of every last speck as opposed to simply keeping things at safe levels. Actually, $1 trillion amortized over 75 years may not be all that bad ... maybe even less than the EPA budget!

In 2002 the EPA cited General Motors and Ford as two of the top 100 corporate air polluters.

SOMEBODY has to be two of the top 100 corporate air polluters. I would be really surprised if it didn't include two of the largest manufacturing companies in country. It's not going to be Joe's Tannery or Starbucks, unless we get rid of all the manufacturing, then who knows?

A March 12, 2000 information sheet released by Stanford University stated that GM’s Delphi facility in Indiana released 603,900 pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment in 1994 alone.

Which "toxic chemicals?" Flouride is a toxic chemical, and we pour that into water on purpose. My guess is that 603,900 pounds is less than the amount of anti-freeze leaked out of cars in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois alone. By the "environment" do they mean the great lakes? What % is 603,900 pounds in Lake Michigan? .00000001% ? Certainly wantondumping is a bad idea, but giving a raw number like that is like Obama talking about cutting back spending by $100 million. It may not affect the big picture. We certainly don't know if they won't tell us what the toxic substance is.

The sheet also said that GM discharged more than 1,100 tons of volatile organic compounds in Arlington, Texas.

Okay, so these aren't toxic, but they are carbon containing chemicals that evaporate or turn to vapor. Even if you think that carbon in the air is a bad thing, 1,100 tons is spit in the ocean.

One example is the Carman Park Elementary School, of Flint Michigan, which has the alarming distinction of being in the 4th percentile nationally to the exposure of both cancer-causing airborne elements and also exposure to other toxic chemicals.

Again, somebody has to be in the fourth percentile. Some coal town in West Virginia is probably in the first percentile. Pick on them.

The school evaluation tool cites many toxic chemicals reaching the doorsteps of this Flint elementary school.

If I break a couple of vintage Sylvania TV tubes and a school is downwind of me, you can bet that "many toxic chemicals" might reach the door of the school. It just might not be in numbers that are biologically significant. (I actually did bust a bunch of tubes in a first grade classroom in the '60's...on purpose. I'd hate to think what would have happened to me today.)

The rest of the excerpt is hearsay quotations which may or may not be based in fact. The approach taken by the writer makes me question everything.

Mike Westfall is the blue-collar rebel activist who represents common people.
His cutting edge work is archived in important American libraries and millions around the globe read him every week. He connected the dots in this essential story. http://michaelwestfall.tripod.com/

Edwin Black, who edited this article, is the award winning, New York Times and international investigative author of 65 best-selling editions in 14 languages in 61 countries.
All of his books have been optioned by Hollywood for film, with three in active production.
Editors have submitted Black’s work ten times for Pulitzer Prize nomination. http://www.edwinblack.com/