“VX…one of the most dangerous chemicals ever created”.
They did WHAT?
EPA OK?d plan to dump nerve agent into Delaware
By HARRY YANOSHAK
Bucks County Courier Times
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won’t oppose the U.S. Department of Defense and DuPont Co.’s plan to dump a wastewater byproduct of a deadly nerve agent into the Delaware River.
The agency said it’s assured of a safe treatment for up to 4 million gallons of caustic wastewater created in the treatment for VX, a chemical weapon with a pinhead-size potency to kill a human. DuPont is treating VX for disposal at its Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana.
The agent, once neutralized, would be shipped to DuPont’s Chambers Works plant in Deepwater, N.J., for discharge into the river.
“EPA believes that all of our previously identified ecological concerns have been resolved,” said Walter Mugdan, director of the agency’s Environmental Planning and Protection division in New York, in a letter released Friday to CNN and obtained by The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.
So OK, what ‘s VX? From the Centers for Disease Control:
The extent of poisoning caused by VX depends on the amount of VX to which a person was exposed, how the person was exposed, and the length of time of the exposure.
- Symptoms will appear within a few seconds after exposure to the vapor form of VX, and within a few minutes to up to 18 hours after exposure to the liquid form.
- VX is the most potent of all nerve agents. Compared with the nerve agent sarin (also known as GB), VX is considered to be much more toxic by entry through the skin and somewhat more toxic by inhalation.
- It is possible that any visible VX liquid contact on the skin, unless washed off immediately, would be lethal.
- All the nerve agents cause their toxic effects by preventing the proper operation of the chemical that acts as the body?s ?off switch? for glands and muscles. Without an ?off switch,? the glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated. They may tire and no longer be able to sustain breathing function.
- VX is the least volatile of the nerve agents, which means that it is the slowest to evaporate from a liquid into a vapor. Therefore, VX is very persistent in the environment. Under average weather conditions, VX can last for days on objects that it has come in contact with. Under very cold conditions, VX can last for months.
- Because it evaporates so slowly, VX can be a long-term threat as well as a short-term threat. Surfaces contaminated with VX should therefore be considered a long-term hazard.
Oh shit. But then, why should we be surprised ? From the Arizona Star:
Opinion by Marc Lame Guest column
Gutted EPA fails to protect kids
[…] It should come as no surprise that Tom DeLay, a former pest exterminator, and a lobbyist representing some of the world’s most powerful industries are linked to the corruption of our political system.
A remarkable and historical example of their motivation has been the crippling of regulatory agencies authorized to protect human health and the environment.
In the 1960s, the pesticide manufacturers and the pest-control industry, on whose products and services the American farmer and public had become dependent, were caught unaware.Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” had exposed the involuntary environmental health risks associated with pesticide use.
The truth of “Silent Spring” gave rise to the widespread questioning of our dependence on pesticides, eventually our nation’s environmental protection laws and the EPA.
The pesticide industry found it should not have relied on the USDA and farm state politicians to protect the use of pesticides. It needed more power and less chance of regulation ? but that is history, right?
These industries learned well the lesson of not pre-empting popular belief in environmental health protection as they suffered the effects of environmental activism.
Thus, they persistently, and with almost unlimited funding, created industry groups and a lobbying system to influence the regulation and use of pesticides, pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals.
In the mid-1980s, they found their champion ? Tom DeLay, an anti-regulation zealot and a pest exterminator from Texas.
He believed it was a criminal act for the EPA to ban the use of DDT and blamed that action for the deaths of millions in the Third World from malaria.
Bent on exterminating environmental regulations and promoting the increased use of pesticides, DeLay and the pesticide industries created a pro-pesticide cabal in the mid-1990s.
Advancing and exploiting a “pay-to- play” system of enabling very wealthy donors access to manipulate congressional budget allocations and agency oversight, they formed a finely tuned strategy to cripple regulatory agencies.
This strategy has resulted in the severe restriction in the ability of the EPA to protect our health and the environment.
In the last 10 years, reduced funding, Draconian travel restrictions, calls for “science-based” studies to delay the common-sense implementation of best management practices and rule-writing “assistance” by regulated trade groups have subverted, or at best, diverted agency priorities ? particularly with regard to pesticide reduction programs.
Entomologist Marc Lame teaches at Indiana University and is the author of “A Worm in the Teacher’s Apple: Protecting America’s School Children from Pests and Pesticides.”
Ack. Tom Delay. I should’ve known. Is there nothing his putrid touch hasn’t sullied?
Tags:
Environment
US Military
Tom DeLay
Nerve Gas
Bioweapons
Pollution
