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EPA agents raid ammunition company on alleged ‘environmental violations’
Daily Caller ^ | 12:11 PM 03/28/2014 | Michael Bastasch

Posted on 03/30/2014 7:42:36 AM PDT by Hoodat

Environmental Protection Agency and FBI agents raided the ammunition company USA Brass over alleged “environmental violations” early Thursday morning.

NBC Montana was tipped off by witnesses that federal investigators were there until at least 4 a.m. on Thursday. Federal agents could be seen going through the company’s building and taking items to a truck parked outside. EPA lead criminal investigator Bert Marsden said that the agency was looking into alleged “environmental violations” by USA Brass.

“We are investigating alleged violations of environmental law,” Marsden said on Thursday. “An investigation takes as long as it takes, and I can’t provide any details as it relates to that.”

“I can make a statement that there is no immediate threat to the public or the community at this time,” said Marsden.

It’s unclear exactly what the environmental violations were, but USA Brass has come under fire from federal agencies before for lead exposure. USA Brass cleans and resells used ammunition casings, and NBC Montana reports that local health officials found elevated levels of lead in the blood of 22 current and former employees.

Last September, the company was fined more than $45,000 by the U.S. Labor Department for 10 serious violations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also found that USA Brass has overexposed workers to lead and failed to “provide basic safeguards to reduce lead exposure, including breathing protection and protective clothing,” reports NBC Montana. . .


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; epa; epaoutofcontrol; lead; osha; secondamendment; usabrass
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To: flaglady47

I won’t vote GOPE. Just for conservatives


61 posted on 03/31/2014 8:46:40 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: bunkerhill7
"Impossible to prove from whence came the lead."

Not true at all. High resolution mass spec can easily do so. Different batches of lead have significant differences in isotope ratios, depending on the parent radioisotope that the lead is derived from, which ultimately goes back to what the geochemistry of the lead mass source. Likewise, recycled materials can have similar (but more subtle) differences.

62 posted on 03/31/2014 9:24:27 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (Newly fledged NRA Life Member (after many years as an "annual renewal" sort))
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To: Hoodat

If there is no immediate threat, then there is no need for a raid. Unless, that is to say, one seeks to implement a gestapo-like totalitarian police state, which seeks to diminish the right to keep and bear arms “by other means” as someone once said.


63 posted on 03/31/2014 9:39:03 AM PDT by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: Wonder Warthog

One can`t tell the present location of the physical object from childhood when a guy is 30 years old or more coz by then the crib is probably gone. Even babies gnaw on windowsill ledges that had lead paint in them, and their tricycles and toys also had lead in them-

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TRACE ALL THAT LEAD BACK TO CHILDHOOOD TOYS AFTER ADULTHOOD_

PROVE YOUR CASE- Where`s the evidence that someone has actually traced lead poisoning in an adult back 30 years to a childhood object contaminated with lead paint-

I am waiting.
BTW I STILL GOT MY CRIB FULLA LEAD PAINT N I`m pushing 80 hahaha perfect health too

what a buncha crap


64 posted on 03/31/2014 9:51:04 AM PDT by bunkerhill7 ("The Second Amendment has no limits on firepower"-NY State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione.")
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To: Wonder Warthog

Look at this non-sequitur from a UCLA “STUDY”
WELL DUHHH

“Over 40% of homes built between 1940-1959 and over 65% of
homes in the United States built prior to 1940 still contain hazards due to leaded paint. The lead from the paint gets incorporated into household dust and is both inhaled and ingested by small children, who are prone to putting play items in their mouths as they explore their surroundings.”

In addition, studies suggest individuals who suffer from chronic lead poisoning during early childhood are more likely to behave violently
and engage in criminal behavior later in life.
http://www.environment.ucla.edu/reportcard/article3772.html

This means that 50% of all the people born in the USA since 1940 and earlier are actually criminals and they just can`t help it.

What a bunch of crock!!


65 posted on 03/31/2014 11:39:05 AM PDT by bunkerhill7 ("The Second Amendment has no limits on firepower"-NY State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione.")
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To: bunkerhill7
Yeah, if the only source is a childhood crib that it might be difficult (note, NOT "impossible) to make the connection. If the crib just happens to be available, one certainly CAN make the connection. It would be darned expensive, but NOT impossible. Once lead gets into bone, it doesn't (easily) get out, and there are instruments that can scan the thickness of the bone one layer at a time, to see how old the person was when the exposure occurred.

Basically, it would involve cutting a disc out of the bone, and then sampling it layer by layer in an EXTREMELY sensitive mass spectrometer, by ablating one layer at a time...probably with a pulsed, focussed laser.

Has anyone actually "done" the above??? Probably not (see "expensive"), but the analysis capability is available (Note...I'm an analytical chemist....so certainly knowledgable about what today's technology is capable of).

But there are plenty of lead sources that are contemporaneous (i.e. as in the posted article)to exposure. So the lead used in the plant processes most certainly CAN be connected to an exposed person or persons.

66 posted on 03/31/2014 1:03:11 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (Newly fledged NRA Life Member (after many years as an "annual renewal" sort))
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To: Wonder Warthog

I still think that lead doesn`t stay in the body coz my mother would take me shopping with her when I wuz a kid and when I stopped to look a a toy or candy, she would say, “Hurry Up! Get the Lead Out!” Mother wuz always right.


67 posted on 03/31/2014 2:34:37 PM PDT by bunkerhill7 ("The Second Amendment has no limits on firepower"-NY State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione.")
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To: Gen.Blather
It’s similar to...say, the 1938 Berlin cops arrested a few Nazi party leaders.

Maybe it's more like the SS taking out the leadership of the SA?

68 posted on 04/06/2014 4:30:39 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: logic101.net
Because OSHA can’t ban the use of lead in bullets and neither OSHA nor the EPA can come in with an armed attack

But USA Brass doesn't deal in bullets, they deal in fired brass.

Sure there is probably some lead traces, although not much since most bullets are jacketed and the lead doesn't touch the brass of the cartridge case (the brass) There is also lead in the primers, but again, not much in fired primer.

The employees are more likely to have gotten a little extra lead exposure at the local gun ranges. Or from any number of other sources.

69 posted on 04/06/2014 4:39:06 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: Georgia Girl 2
Then the 1776 solution.

Actually the 1775 solution. April 19th to be exact.

My ancestor then Sergeant Samuel Hill, of Harvard MA, took part in those festivities. He is listd as responding to the Lextington alarm. Paul Revere and all that. Earlier he had been a member of Harvard's Committee of Correspondence, sort of like the FR of those pre-internet days. His future son in law, Ephraim Chaffin, also my ancestor later joined by then Captain Hill at the 1st battle of Saratoga.

70 posted on 04/06/2014 4:44:03 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: El Gato

Well sadly it may be deja vu all over again for your family soon.


71 posted on 04/06/2014 4:47:44 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: Delta 21
Being an “ammo mfg plant”, the ATF should have had jurisdiction and been first on the scene.

But they aren't an ammo manufacturing plant. They are, in effect, a recycling company. They don't make ammunition, they don't deal with explosives. They clean up old brass, which they probably buy mostly from the military. The administration tried to shut down sales of fired military brass to such recyclers, a few years ago, but that sort of blew up in their faces. They wanted the stuff melted down.

72 posted on 04/06/2014 4:49:39 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: DJ Taylor
Followed by a Declaration of Martial Law

Sort of like Lord North and King George's stooge General Gage did.

Well George, and his son George, were not long after no longer King, at least in the 13 former colonies.

BO isn't King either, no matter how much he wishes his phone and his pen made him one. If he tries to stay in office one second past noon on January 20, 2017, he'll soon learn that, the hard way. If he hasn't learned it sooner.

73 posted on 04/06/2014 4:54:25 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: joe fonebone
failure to take proper safeguards for your employees is criminal, and these guys put cash in their pockets at the expense of their employees very right to live..,

How do you know the lead in the employees came from the plant. Did they test other people living in the same area?

The story doesn't indicate what processes that are used to de-prime and clean used cartridges would result in such lead exposure.

The story does say An OSHA inspection in March actually found that the company complied with federal requirements for several months, apparently learning from its mistake last year. It sounds more like the company was not doing things the OSHA way, but now are.

Brass is an alloy of copper(mostly) and zinc. No lead in it. Primers have lead, and the fired primers could be the source of the lead, but most of the lead from the primer goes out the end of the cartridge case, right behing the bullet, when the cartridge is fired.

74 posted on 04/06/2014 5:07:30 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: ChildOfThe60s
A message being sent...intimidation."

A chilling effect upon the entire industry...

75 posted on 04/06/2014 5:17:16 PM PDT by unread (Rescind the 17th. Amendment...bring the power BACK to the states...!)
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To: El Gato

The cat? “Maybe it’s more like the SS taking out the leadership of the SA?”

No, because the SS represented Hitler. It looks like the FBI is representing We The People.


76 posted on 04/06/2014 5:27:48 PM PDT by Gen.Blather
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