Toxic air pollutants in E. Palestine could pose long-term risks, researchers say | Hacker News Reader

Toxic air pollutants in E. Palestine could pose long-term risks, researchers say

washingtonpost.com

42 pointshammock15 comments

There are two "longs" in this story. Beware confusion.

* >> Long term << health impacts of a short-term exposure.

* Ongoing >> long-term << exposure, from insufficient cleanup of widely-dispersed toxins.

This has become, pardon the expression, a slow-moving train wreck in terms of PR and more importantly, on-the-ground-response from government agencies.

The secretary of transportation took pains to downplay its impact, going so far as to take weeks to address the issue officially and more weeks to go and personally take a look at the situation. Industry has been as ham-fisted as well -but that's almost understandable given the conflict of interest. But still, they should have give it the seriousness it deserves.

Unintentionally, Pete underlined the lackadaisical attitude when he said, paraphrasing here, hey, no biggie, derailments happen over 2.5 x day. So either the gov is woefully derelict in its duties or... he was trying to minimize the scope of an actual serious incident.

I hope what comes out of this is an investigatory commission who will make recommendations to minimize the toxic effect of accidents that will be followed up with actual new regulation.

Wow.

I think the last non negligible accident including vinyl chloride was 2012, and it was ~6x less bulk volume than this one (20k gallons as opposed to 120k)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5776704/

And it wasn't managed via a controlled burn.

Buttegieg should know that it's not about the number of derailments but the chemicals involved, the volume / mass involved, the conditions of leakage / spillage, environmental spread and finally the chosen response to mmmanage (which sometimes can make the problem worse or trade one problem for another)

Why should Buttegieg know that? What qualifications does he have for his job other than his sexual preference and being a presidential candidate that got out of Biden's way?

Well I did claim he should know that. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. If he does, that jumps this ship into conspiracy territory (conspiring to belittle those concerned, without evidence) and he doesn't, he should be immediately released from his position due to mental inadequacy (it's bordering common sense)

I've heard far dumber things said and no culpability so I imagine nothing to change.

Can you imagine the shakeout that would happen if an AEC commissioner faced with a TMI-like incident were to say, yeah, no, that happens, it's not big deal. Some noble gasses were vented, it's less than 1/100th of the exposure you get annually from background radiation and only half of what you'd get from a chest X-ray, so big whoop -I'll speak to it officially in a couple of weeks and I may show up in person after that and the president would have no plans to pay a visit.

(obviously TMI had the potential to become a much bigger issue --never the less, despite the relatively low radiation actually leaked, it was treated as a maximum disaster)

It took him 17 days to even show up. What has he been working on that's more important? He's not just incompetent, he's an uncaring sociopath.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/02/23/east-pales...

I will say though, at least he did finally show up. Better late than never I guess. His boss doesn't have any plans to.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/politics/joe-biden-east-pales...

His boss hallucinates riding trains with dead people; this is a bit out of his league.

What does his sexual preference have to do with his qualifications for this job?

I think it’s fair to criticize his response but bringing up his sexual preference is a tired and bigoted complaint. His detractors seem to be more concerned about his sexuality than anyone else.

My point in saying that is that he is a diversity hire. He was hired because he's gay. That's his only "qualification" for his position that he was gifted for getting out of Biden's way during the primaries.

See also Kamala Harris (first female VP of color! Wow!!!) and Karine Jean-Pierre (she's black AND lesbian!!!), both were chosen for diversity reasons and are completely incompetent at their jobs.

I know your point. It’s not subtle. It also discounts that he was a rising star in politics. It’s the same thing we saw with Ben Carson.

I think it’s a low blow to suggest that either were hired to virtue signal diversity.

I much prefer a later comment where you attempt to lay out a case why he was bad at his job for things he did or didn’t do. Well at least that’s what I think the sources you provided did.

I don't care that he's gay. It has zero impact one way or the other. My point is he's bad at his job. He was not chosen in good faith for this position based on his qualifications to do this job. Why was he chosen to be secretary of transportation when he has no training, experience, or background in transportation? I think we both know the answer.

Speaking of KJP, Buttigieg's press secretary literally accused media representatives of violence because they asked her questions about this incident, while Pete was on-site. Really puts KJP in a positive light, relatively speaking.

Some back of the envelope math, isn't that only like two orders of magnitude more burned than in a single vinyl siding multistory apartment building fire?

NJ has a long history of being used as a toxic waste dumping site. It's unsurprising that a train accident on the outskirts of Philadelphia didn't raise many eyebrows.

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