Thursday, March 2, 2023

Meanwhile, in Alabama



US Public Radio reports "An Alabama landfill fire, burning for more than three months, is blanketing nearby communities with toxic fumes. It's raising questions about the need for more regulations around waste management."

STEVE INSKEEP, reported on March 2:

"You know that smell when you're passing by and somebody is burning trash in their backyard? I can remember the first time I ever smelled it. It's memorable. And apparently, it happens on a giant scale at landfills. Thousands of landfills catch fire across the United States every year. And some of those fires last days. Some of those fires last weeks. And in Alabama, one landfill has been burning for more than three months."

Just like in the case of Dexter-owned Arlington Heights C&D, inspection reports show the Alabama dump contains unauthorized material, like rubber tires and scrap metal.

Dexter does Alabama even better - one fire at AHC&D lasted a year or so and poisons have escaped into surrounding properties.  Neighbors complain about the smell.  Unlike the EPA. Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Climate Change (NSECC) won't lift a finger.  NSECC is a friend of business, not people.

Trucks, not trains deliver the poisons to Annapolis County, but the recent Norfolk Southern derailment is a manifestation of how business cares only for profit.  The 2023 Ohio train derailment (also called the East Palestine train derailment) occurred on February 3, 2023, at 8:55 p.m.  when 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.   Several railcars burned for more than two days, with emergency crews then conducting a controlled burn of several railcars at the request of state officials, which released hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air. As a result, residents within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) radius were evacuated, and an emergency response was initiated from agencies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

In the aftermath of the disaster, Norfolk Southern was accused of prioritizing $10 billion stock buybacks for shareholders instead of maintenance. The CEO was accused of sidestepping questions about Norfolk Southern's support for then president Trump's 2017 overturning of the Obama administration requirement for modern brakes and Norfolk Southern's pressing the federal government against a rule that in most cases would require more than one person operating a freight train.

Money, not safety.

Dexter prioritized eliminating HRM's sensible rule against exporting industrial waste. This is called flow control and is anathema to the waste haulage industry, especially those transporting Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) waste.

The landfill at Otter Lake, operating under a strategy of zero waste opened in 1999. HRM said from the beginning that they didn’t want to operate the dump, so Mirror, part of Dexter's Municipal group of companies was hired to manage the facility.

Private dumps, encouraged by NSECC, are monumentally stupid.

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