Monday, September 17, 2007

It's raining manganese...halleluja...

October is fast approaching which means one of two things:

1) I REALLY need to get to work on my Rock Biter costume if I ever want to get it finished in time for Halloween.

2) It's the 35th anniversary of the Clean Water Act!

What do those two things have in common? They're both saturated with imagination and fantasy!

Three and a half decades later and we're still fighting over how much pollution we can pollute with in an already-polluted river that was the inspiration for an anti-pollution legislation. Anybody else feel like we're running in circles here? When you need to have a 30 year old babysitter, you know you have a problem.

So who's causing all this pollution?

Here's a list of your Top 10 water-release polluting companies, 35 years after the fact [the number at the end of each listing is for pounds of water release pollutants. Releases to water include discharges to streams, rivers, lakes, oceans and other bodies of water. This includes releases from both point sources, such as industrial discharge pipes, and nonpoint sources, such as stormwater runoff, but not releases to sewers or other off-site wastewater treatment facilities. It includes releases to surface waters, but not ground water]:

1. AK STEEL CORP. (ROCKPORT WORKS), 6500 N. U.S. 231, ROCKPORT, IN 22,693,591 PWRP
2. BASF CORP., 602 COPPER RD., FREEPORT, TX 15,945,553
3. IBP INC., 1500 S. BRIDGE ST., LEXINGTON, NE 6,000,250
4. SMITHFIELD PACKING CO. INC. TAR HEEL DIV., HWY. 87 2 MILES N. OF TAR HEEL, TAR HEEL, NC 5,448,599
5. EXCEL CORP., 1505 E. BURLINGTON AVE., FORT MORGAN, CO 4,484,820
6. DSM CHEMICALS N.A. INC., #1 COLUMBIA NITROGEN RD., AUGUSTA, GA 4,197,140
7. AK STEEL CORP. COSHOCTON WORKS, 17400 STATE RTE. 16, COSHOCTON, OH 3,905,117
8. TYSON FOODS INC. SEDALIA COMPLEX, 19571 WHITFIELD RD., SEDALIA, MO 3,398,516
9. BP INC., HWY. 92 & I-88 - 28424 38TH AVE. N., HILLSDALE, IL 3,001,250
10. USS GARY WORKS, 1 N. BROADWAY, GARY, IN 2,971,479

To check out the Top 100 or view polluters by state, click here. You can also see who is violating in your area here.

Wanna be really scared? You can search the EnviroMapper website by zip code and look up the polluters the same way you can search for registered sexual predators.

I live by three rapists AND hazardous waste.

Happy day!