drinking water

[Triple Zero]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html

apparently these people are getting rashes simply from showering

i mean, fuck, in some other thread (one about anarchism) people were arguing against some guy comparing America to a 3rd world country, well it might not be as bad as Somalia, but I'd say that clean drinking water is a pretty important aspect of civilization ...

[Cain]

In third world nations, such things tend to happen because they literally don't have the infrastructure to make water safe enough.

In the first world, it seems to happen because lobbyists push for regulatory agencies field and enforcement capacities to be defunded, while getting political cronies sympathetic to water companies and their shareholders put into positions of authority.

One is preventable, the other is calculated evil.  That is, I believe, the difference.

[Idem]

What about suing the bastards?

[Template]

What about suing the bastards?

They will continue to exist.

[Rumckle]

They probably accidentally got special water-boarding water, that the government is developing.

[Jenne]

Cain has the right of it--a recent study showed that our water supply has been badly regulated by the Feds, and Bob knows what the fuck is in most of it.

I don't know what to say, other than pay attention to the public healty warnings about this kind of shit.  I know they shut down businesses around town around here for 4 or 5 days a while back because of unsafe drinking water...that in itself was helpful AFTER the fucking fact if not BEFORE.

The fuckers.

[Golden Applesauce]

What about suing the bastards?

That's just it - if I spray acid on your face, that's a felony and I get arrested and go to jail.  If Heavy Metals Co. dumps their shit in my drinking water and causes hundreds if not thousands of acid burns and birth defects, they can get sued, but only if enough citizens get together and do something about it.  And the corporation will still have far more money than the citizens for lawyers, and they'll keep dumping their shit the entire time the case is tied up in court.  Even if the citizens win, the process will take years (during which time water quality will not be getting better) and the corporation gets ... a fine.  The guys who authorized the dumping, the people who carried it out, the people who knew about it and didn't do anything, all walk.  And the fine doesn't even hit the people who profited off of it - it comes out of the corporations' money, just like a business loss.  Even if it bankrupted the company, the shareholders and executives aren't liable personally for the debt.

The corporate people who falsify earnings reports and defraud investors?  Jail time.  Kill people?  Fines.

(I probably butchered the facts here due to a combination of no research and talking out of my ass.)

[Cramulus]

this is another symptom of corporations being exponentially more powerful than individuals


they have so many more resources
and few of the same vulnerabilities
           (like having a physical body which can be fatigued or imprisoned)

[Bruno]

What about suing the bastards?

That's just it - if I spray acid on your face, that's a felony and I get arrested and go to jail.  If Heavy Metals Co. dumps their shit in my drinking water and causes hundreds if not thousands of acid burns and birth defects, they can get sued, but only if enough citizens get together and do something about it.  And the corporation will still have far more money than the citizens for lawyers, and they'll keep dumping their shit the entire time the case is tied up in court.  Even if the citizens win, the process will take years (during which time water quality will not be getting better) and the corporation gets ... a fine.  The guys who authorized the dumping, the people who carried it out, the people who knew about it and didn't do anything, all walk.  And the fine doesn't even hit the people who profited off of it - it comes out of the corporations' money, just like a business loss.  Even if it bankrupted the company, the shareholders and executives aren't liable personally for the debt.

The corporate people who falsify earnings reports and defraud investors?  Jail time.  Kill people?  Fines.

(I probably butchered the facts here due to a combination of no research and talking out of my ass.)

It's ironic that, of all the things that fall under the modern classification of "terrorism", poisoning the water supply doesn't qualify as long as it is done for profit.

[Requia ☣]

Damn

We need to start comparing corps to terrorists.  That'll confuse the hell out of the right if nothing else.

[Golden Applesauce]

I was really, really hoping someone would tell me that I was mistaken, and you can in fact go to jail for poisoning the groundwater.   

[Kai]

This is nothing new. Also, you'all should have lived during the 60s and 70s, before the environmental movement really got started. You think its bad now?  At least the rivers aren't on fire.

The real current problem is the belief that when infrastructure is built it will remain, en perfecta, permanently. Thus, Atlanta, and every other failing water works and sewage system in American built 100 years ago.

[Jenne]

It's one of those issues that gets recycled in so much spy-vs-spy fiction and movies that it waters down the REAL problem.  The latest 007 movie and the Clive Owen movie called The International really hit that home to me.  That these are real-life, real-time problems...and not necessarily just in places like The Congo and South America.

[Corvidia]

The real current problem is the belief that when infrastructure is built it will remain, en perfecta, permanently. Thus, Atlanta, and every other failing water works and sewage system in American built 100 years ago.

^ This. I ran across an estimate from the American Water Works Associate today that says it will take about $250 billion of the next twenty years to fix America's water infrastructure. I kind of doubt anything will be done until Atlanta is wading in shit and LA is completely flooded, though.


Related tangent: If anyone has books, articles, or anything at all relating to water utility pipes, water purity and safety, etc. PLEASE can I have them?

[Kai]

The real current problem is the belief that when infrastructure is built it will remain, en perfecta, permanently. Thus, Atlanta, and every other failing water works and sewage system in American built 100 years ago.

^ This. I ran across an estimate from the American Water Works Associate today that says it will take about $250 billion of the next twenty years to fix America's water infrastructure. I kind of doubt anything will be done until Atlanta is wading in shit and LA is completely flooded, though.


Related tangent: If anyone has books, articles, or anything at all relating to water utility pipes, water purity and safety, etc. PLEASE can I have them?

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