GM'S TOXIC LEGACY FOR AMERICA

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. In 2002 the EPA cited General Motors and Ford as two of the top 100 corporate air polluters. 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. The sheet also said that GM discharged more than 1,100 tons of volatile organic compounds in Arlington, Texas. Talking about the GM foundry division plant located in St. Lawrence County, New York, Christopher A. Amato, deputy chief of the attorney general’s bureau, charged GM “they have basically flouted the law for 25 years.” The nearby Mohawk Tribal Chief said GM’s industrial waste dump here had been poisoning the Mohawk people for over 50 years. A December 10, 2008 USA Today article by Blake Morrison and Brad Heath detailed how children are being exposed to toxic air pollution. It used a government-screening tool to identify and rank 127,800 public, private and parochial schools around the nation. 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. The school evaluation tool cites many toxic chemicals reaching the doorsteps of this Flint elementary school. The three factories most responsible for this pollution reaching those kids are all nearby GM plants. GM’s answer to their retirees exposed for a lifetime to these same toxic chemicals is to jettison their healthcare when autoworkers retire and need it most…

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.

> Love Canal was not a one-time aberration.
Could the author have been less informed.
Hooker Chem owned the Love Canal, a really nasty chemical dump.
Being an eyesore, they covered it over with a layer of topsoil and had it landscaped. They still planned to keep it and not let people be there.
Along came local politicians with an eye on using the nice park for their own needs.
They served Hooker with an eminent domain notice, Hooker objected but they took the property anyway. I think they paid Hooker some token amount to make things legal.
20+ years later, everyone forgot the whole thing and they built on the land. Later it was housing.
When the toxic problems surfaced, all fingers pointed to Hooker as the bad guy. The real bad guys were the Niagara Falls politicians.

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/

I am happy that Mr. Westfall and Mr.Black have been able to earn the respect of their peers in their profession.

I am simply stating the fact that the article is filled with statements that are designed to create an emotional response, and that these statements do not make the case very well.

Okay, so GM and Ford are two of the 100 biggest polluters in the U.S. That could well mean that they pollute less the 50,034th biggest polluter in Red China. It tells me nothing.

This reminds me of the big commotion made because ExxonMobil (with whom I carry no brief) made a profit of $11 billion, right before Obama went and spent 100 times that. If they did $300 billion worth of business, $11 billion wouldn’t be all that much. Since they LOST money last quarter, it STILL may not be all that much.

Around here, working for the New York Times and having your work optioned for Hollywood does not exactly enhance your reputation for credibility. My earlier post just described how the author used facts in an incomplete or positively misleading manner.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.