My initial vent of iffy humor here was just a knee-jerk reaction to another environmental cover-up...all of which sets me seething! Another one we've been fighting here, locally, in South Jersey, is Monsanto's marvelous "weed-killer" Roundup. Ostensibly used as a trade-off to allow the Salem Nuclear Plants to operate in violation of the Clean Water Act, and kill billions of fish annually on their intake ducts, is a farce called "Wetlands Mitigation" whereby they claim to be creating so many new acres of wetlands as a tradeoff for their No Cooling Tower deal (they're the
only nuke plants in the country allowed to run without the required cooling towers!). Only problem is they've been spraying millions of gallons of Roundup on the marshes to eliminate phragmites as another part of the deal...but the treated areas are now devoid of
all plant life, the Roundup effectively killing
everything, leaving acres of dead brown tundra on what were once marshes. Also, as part of the "mitigation" they are turning
freshwater wetlands into
saltwater wetlands...but freshwater wetlands are rarer and, thus, now more environmentally crucial than saltwater wetlands! (Scream!-e) And there is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that the mitigation process has created any spawning opportunities above the norm to replace the annual fish
slaughter. The old Salem and Hope Creek Nuclear plants are also the most accident prone and statistically dangerous in the country...should've been shut-down a long time ago. And the 2 Hope Creek plants are built on an artificial island of mud in the Delaware River over an old fault line...it is calculated that a 3.5 earthquake would sink the island and trigger a meltdown...there was a 2.7 temblor just two years ago. We're talking Wilmington, DE; New York; Atlantic City; Philadelphia; Baltimore; and Washington D.C. here folks! Ah, well...we tried fighting P S E & G and the NRC (a flunky in the pocket of the nuclear industry)...and we lost (so far...see the
UNPLUG SALEM campaign at
http://www.unplugsalem.org). Our freeholders wouldn't vote to suspend purchasing energy from the plants or pass a resolution asking for their closure. And, now, nuclear energy is back in vogue, at an even more
cost effective level (shudder!)--meaning owners are investing in plants who don't know apes*** about their operation, and are planning to run them on smaller budgets...which reads less safety, less supervision. But as long as Monsanto can peddle their toxins, who cares? Now we have corn, soybeans, and other vegetables genetically immune to Roundup so Monsanto can sell only its product to farmers.
But, then, eating chemicals is the Great American Pastime, isn't it?
As long as it sells!
Well, there's my environmental rant for the month! Oops...now do we need an Environmental Thread alongside the thread for Politics?
