Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele)
Driftless Area South Central Wisconsin, Dane County USA
2021-06-17 _F2A5972aaa2p
Nobody in washington will challenge Charles Koch,...
despite his repeated violations of all manner of laws. Consequently he basically controls the EPA and has the US Supreme Court doing his bidding, all while polluting deadly toxins without a care in the world: He is truly an American above the law.
Read: “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” by Jane Mayer or countless other books.:
“The trouble began in the middle of the night.”
“Around 2 a.m. on January 10, 2017, an air quality monitor in Port Arthur, Texas, began recording sulfur dioxide readings well above the federal standard of 75 parts per billion, or ppb.”
“The monitor had recently been installed by regulators to keep an eye on Oxbow Calcining, a company owned by William “Bill” Koch that operates massive plants that purify petcoke, a petroleum byproduct that can be used to power steel and aluminum manufacturing.”
“That Tuesday morning, the wind shifted due north and carried a noxious slew of emissions from the plant a half-mile away to the monitor. By 2:20 a.m., the monitor was reading 122.3 ppb.”
“3:30 a.m.: 128.7 ppb.”
“5:00 a.m.: 147.8 ppb — almost double the federal standard.”
“By the afternoon, emissions readings had topped the public health standard 25 times. For the next 18 months, they would periodically flood the 55,000-person city with a pungent pollutant that can cause respiratory disorders.”
“Each time monitors recorded a spike in emissions, Oxbow employees received email notifications on their cell phones. A Grist analysis suggests that they used this information — experts say illegally — to then alter the facility’s operation to prevent the monitor from detecting emissions. More than six years later, the facility remains the sixth-largest polluter in Texas.”
“Any Way the Wind Blows
A Koch-owned chemical plant in Texas spent years running from the Clean Air Act. New evidence suggests it bent the law until it broke.”
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