I wonder what kind of chemicals fit that profile?
It's nice to live in a country where doing that means lawsuits and jail time usually. I doubt there will be justice in this case.
You don't need a toxic to kill lots of animals.
I live in Canada where we take the environment more seriously still.
Not a competition, really; we've both got to do better.
There are exceptions though, sewers and sewage treatment have been a great invention. And big cities aren't drowning in horse shit which was a major issue in London and New York at the turn of the twentieth century.
The state of nature is hellish and people will absolutely pave everything while breathing air that tastes like an ashtray to avoid it.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/10/25/study-finds-deterioratio...
And the water quality is not far behind, as it seems like every month has some new repeal of protections in order to benefit a few cronies of the current regime at the expense of national interests. For example:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/12/10/coal-mine-next-door/ho...
There was a huge change in the 70s, but those changes are currently being rolled back.
Others weren't breaking the law. That's actually pretty important: our legal system doesn't allow us to seek justice for criminal behavior which wasn't criminal at the time, and mostly that's a good thing.
That's what Superfund is all about, really. Companies have been fined and sued into bankruptcy for breaking regulations that actually existed, though by no means all of the ones that deserved it.
Look at the notorious Love Canal. The company got permission to dump toxic waste into a pit. And after Occidental bought the company, they were required to pay for the clean up.
It's obviously also a consequence of the short term focus of having fixed term limits.
I don't know how to fix these things, but it's irritating that nobody even tries to fix it.
And the shit that goes down in Canada is incredible. Trudeau. Young liberal, right? Ran on an anti-pipeline platform, but when he took office, he bought the pipeline for $7B and fully indents to build it.
However, Canada should get smart here and do what Norway does with their oil profits. Invest it in a sovereign wealth fund that's diversified away from oil. Because the oil age is ending and it will hit the most expensive producers, like the oil sands the hardest.
That seven billion spent on converting to renewable energy might have made more sense.
However, I suspect that if the pipeline is built they will still ship via rail if it is profitable - thus the net effect will just be more oil coming from the oil sands.
The only scenario were a pipeline could help the environment (relative to the status quo - it's still bad) would be it rail usage was displaced by pipeline usage. This could be true only when the price of oil holds stable between a narrow range such that pipeline shipments profitable, but not rail shipments. The price is unlikely to ever hold at such a range long enough such that Suncor, etcf.. would adjust production to ship by pipeline only. High sunk capital costs have meant that historically these companies run close to full capacity regardless of price.
There's little doubt the pipeline is what's best for Canada. What's best for humanity is another question.
Are you saying this because you know it to be true, or are you speculating?