Thanks again. What is spectacularly gruesome about this situation is that this is all occurring under the legal permitting process. There are no accidents associated with these quickly deteriorating and unsustainable conditions. All are occurring quite legally. In fact the 18.4 million pounds of toxic releases into our air-shed are self reported. These industries are quite capable of navigating the permitting and legal systems. They pose no risk to them, for the economies of scale work in their favor. There are consequences, however, other than financial, to the notion “Too Big to fail.” It is often thought that only astronomers work with big numbers, well, I’m here to say - so do our great polluters.

No one has the time, money or inclination to review these numbers. A good example of the lack of oversight is how BP was able to evade detection of their illegal benzene releases for more than 6 years (the span of my daughter’s entire life), which are not part of the TRI (95 tons of benzene waste in 2008 — nearly 16 times the 6 tons allowed under permitting)

“Oil refinery draws fire after EPA cites release of benzene in Whiting” By Gitte Laasby

Let’s remember that it only takes one-part-per-million of benzene to cause cancer. I suppose this is a risk American’s are willing to force the people of East Chicago to take - Ain’t democracy swell? Well, it ain’t working for me. Do you suppose it is possible to conclusively attribute any future cancers in my community or family to this exposure? And differentiate it from all other known risk factors in this community. No, probably not - And that is how BP gains an awesome financial benefit (somewhere in the range of $10 billion in profits quarterly) by shifting the risks to the tissues and life sustaining systems of the people in my fence-line industrial community.

Perhaps someday we will decode the signatures associated with accumulated factors for illness in each individual.

Let me draw a comparison about the oil plumb that sits under my house. As America grows more concerned about the 200,000 gallons per day of oil released into the Gulf by BP, we have ~16.8 million gallons of oil contaminating our groundwater here on the Southern Shores of Lake Michigan - the worlds greatest fresh water resource (or is it any longer?). At 200,000 gallons/day, it would take more than 84 day of continued releases to measure up to what has been allowed to occur here.

Thanks Mike. I am going to update the post with these classifications.

Paul, I agree.

You end with the “Artist” as a counter to the ills of our political/economy. Knowing a little of your understanding of the artist I fully agree with you.

A problem we face is that there are an enormous number of very able and competent people working in our popular visual culture who contract with and are employed by these agents. To be nice - despite their visual achievements, their work simply lacks any critical or complex acuity/thinking. They are just producing for a fee. You see this in every corporate presentation, from the oil industry to technology to the financial industry. What gets me is that these same “visual artist” will then volunteer or offer up their skills for other “good causes” WTF! All they are producing are lifestyle choices in a mass-customized, green branded cluster-fuck. They are simply continuing the prevailing political/economy in a mass-customized FASHION.

Too often it is a fight between visual artists to control the message. On the one side you have the highly capitalized visual artist employed by industry and on the other you may have the same visual artists working to counter the industry message or some under capitalized visual artists with critical acuity.

Michael,

Thanks, please pass this on far and wide. The data is drawn from the EPA’s environ map data sets, the Toxic Release inventories (TRI), Area of Concern (AOC) data on the Grand Calumet and Indiana Harbor Shipping Canal, and East Chicago’s Comprehensive Plan.

I’ve spoken several times about the “Black Hole” of identity and information that exists around this region. This process of selective inattention benefits and protects the image of our nations most corrupt industrial polluters.

Political corruption in the region is driven and financed by these same industrial interests. How else can you explain the millions-of-dollars for local political campaigns in this very poor community with few local businesses. These campaigns are financed by those interests with the most to benefit (Billions-of-dollars annually) - BP, ArcelorMittal, and US Steel. You ought to come down a witness the next Mayoral race which is heating up right now - It will blow your mind the amount of money that is thrown around this community. In the region their are plenty of political operatives to broker these exchanges. The most influential broker is Mitch Daniels himself. From Mitch you can draw a line to many of our political street dealers such as Bobby Cantrel, Cappas, Mark Lopez, etc.