via the [ Washington Note ]

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people…

- President Eisenhower, Chance for Peace Speech
April 16,1953

Thomas Adaptive Reuse, Infrastructure, International, Misc, National, Ways of Seeing, What I am Looking at

Always looking for Case Studies for the future options for BP.

via [ Post Trib ] “Westville Oil Refinery Will Be Cleaned” By Gitte Laasby

WESTVILLE — After more than two decades, one of the nation’s most polluted sites — the former Cam-Or waste oil refinery in Westville — will finally be completely cleaned up around 2013.

It will also mean fewer public health risks from exposure to lead and other dangerous pollutants, and improve the environment, officials said.

The companies were Cam-Or customers and helped generate the waste oil at the now-vacant 15-acre site north of Indiana 2 near U.S. 421.

The site is bordered by private homes to the east and located within the West-Tech Redevelopment Area.

Originally owned by Westville Oil, the facility operated as a refinery for reprocessing waste oil starting in 1934.

From the 1950s to 1978, waste oil discarded at the facility was stored in 11 unlined lagoons, which allowed contaminants to leach into soil, groundwater and Crumpacker Ditch.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a cleanup in 1987, treating 9.5 million gallons of contaminated water and removing about 112 drums. The agency later determined more remediation was necessary.

“The pollution at this industrial site occurred over several decades and the clean-up of contaminated soil and groundwater is expected to take years, so it was a complicated process to hammer out a legal agreement to fully fund the remediation of the site,” said Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller in a statement.

“This agreement helps resolve a lingering environmental impediment to future economic development and hopefully jobs for the LaPorte and Porter county areas.”

Groundwater along a one-mile plume extending from the site is contaminated with a solvent, benzene and other pollutants. Soil at the site is contaminated with the carcinogen benzene and heavy metals, such as lead. In June 2008, EPA decided lead-contaminated soil will be excavated and safely consolidated on-site, and contaminated groundwater will be extracted and treated.

According to the EPA, low levels of contamination have been detected in several of the private wells downgradient of the site. Read more…

Thomas Case Studies, Environment

[ Everyone's Downstream IV ] International Conference - November 25 - 28, Edmonton, Alberta

Below is my presentation on East Chicago and BP’s Canadian Crude project.

Click on image to begin slideshow.

[ Video Archive ] of Conference

Thomas East Chicago, Energy, Environment, Northwest Indiana, Tar Sands

[ SUPERFUND365 ]

Each day for a year, starting on September 1, 2007, Superfund365 visited one toxic site in the Superfund program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We began the journey in the New York City area and worked our way across the country, ending the year in Hawaii.

Today the archive consists of 365 visualizations of some of the worst toxic sites in the U.S., roughly a quarter of the total number on the Superfund’s National Priorities List (NPL).

Thomas Case Studies, Environment, What I am Looking at

via [ Sierra Club ] Toxic Tar Sands: Indiana

Carolyn Marsh, Whiting Indiana

Carolyn Marsh’s house in Whiting, Indiana, just southeast of Chicago, sits within walking distance of both Lake Michigan and the BP Whiting Refinery. One is beautiful and the other, Marsh says, looks like “a death trap zone.” Now BP is pushing to expand the capacity of its refinery to process tar sands crude.

The synthetic heavy crude produced from tar sands is laden with more toxins than conventional oil. If the expansion goes through, people like Marsh, who live in the shadow of these refineries, will face increased exposure to heavy metals, sulfur, and carcinogens like benzene.

After learning of BP’s plans to pump tar sands pollution into the air and her community, Marsh was galvanized to action. She joined a legal challenge to the oil giant’s air permit.

Marsh believes BP’s permit application dramatically underestimates the potential air pollution from their tar sands expansion. The company understated the amount of toxic gases vented from flares, claiming they would only be released occasionally. But flaring will only increase as the refinery handles more of the world’s dirtiest oil.

Flaring is only one part of the refinery’s massive polluting process, and air pollution is not the only threat that Marsh fears from the tar sands expansion.

“We don’t want Lake Michigan to become another oil industry sacrifice zone. Quality of life here in Indiana should not suffer for foreign oil profits.”

The refinery is already one of the largest sources of mercury pollution in Lake Michigan. Mercury is a

Tar sands crude spells disaster for clean water in every step of its life cycle. If tar sands operations continue to expand in America, Lake Michigan will be exposed to the same types of contamination spreading through the once pristine water sources along the Athabasca River in Alberta, where tar sands are mined.

A recent study published by leading Canadian scientists found elevated concentrations of toxic heavy metals including arsenic, lead and mercury around and downstream from tar sands mining operations, suggesting a strong correlation between tar sands mining and toxic discharges to water resources.These poisonous impurities are released in refining as well, and discharges from BP’s tar sands expansion will bring the pollution of the Athabasca directly to Lake Michigan.

Marsh believes the citizen struggle to stop the tar sands expansion is her community’s best line of defense, and she has committed to the fight. She has little faith in state regulators, whom she believes are too complicit with toxic conditions created by BP’s refinery. Marsh knows what’s at stake.

Lake Michigan, which provides drinking water for 10 million people, will be exposed to new levels of contamination from particulate emissions and huge increases in ammonia and other discharges into the water from the refinery’s tar sands expansion.potent neurotoxin that causes severe fetal damage, impaired motor function, and kidney and respiratory damage in humans. ”We don’t want Lake Michigan to become another oil industry sacrifice zone. Quality of life here in Indiana should not suffer for foreign oil profits,” she says.

Thomas Environment, Local, Northwest Indiana, Regional, Tar Sands

via [ OurWorld 2.0 ] “Mapping critical politics: a land use expert talks tar sands” By Max Ritts

The late geographer Bernard Nietschmann once observed that “more indigenous territory has been claimed by maps than by guns”. Whether or not you agree that more can be taken back with maps, it is hard to overestimate the role of representations in the shaping of collective understandings and modes of possible intervention in political struggle.

Land use maps can have a number of applications. In many countries, they are prepared by government agencies, for a variety of reasons, or by individual groups and organizations. Often, land use maps are made publicly available for the benefit of those interested in land use trends. These maps can also become important in zoning and property disputes. Read more…

Thomas Case Studies, Tar Sands, Ways of Seeing

via [ Vancouver Media Co-op ] “The Whole World is Downstream - Community members say negative impacts of the tar sands have a global reach” By Sandra Cuffe

Community members impacted by tar sands development came together in Edmonton this weekend to make it explicit that the tar sands isn’t just an issue in Alberta, or even just in Canada. Climate justice activists have long made the point that the tar sands are a leading driver of emissions worldwide.

But in addition to changing the climate, the direct impacts of tar sands extraction are already making themselves felt across the globe. Even though the principle extraction area is in Alberta, transportation and refining of tar sands oil is touching the lives of people from Madagascar to B.C. to Trinidad.

The community of Fort Chipewyan is located approximately 250km downstream from biggest tar sands projects near Fort McMurray. Because of its proximity to what some call the tar sands gigaproject, folks in Fort Chipewyan have felt the impacts of the tar sands on ecosystems, health, and communities, and their people have been on the front lines, fighting back hard.

“Fort Chipewyan has been at the forefront of this challenge,” said former Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief George Poitras, adding that the name of the community is now synonymous with resistance to the tar sands. ”We’ve made a lot of progress on making the tar sands an international issue,” said Poitras.

Due in large part to the outspoken resistance by Fort Chipewyan, other Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities now have more information and case studies to defend their own lands from the onslaught of the tar sands giga-project. Actual and proposed pipelines, refineries, and ports designed to transport tar sands oil from Alberta to destinations around the world crisscross the continent.

“One of the reasons we’re fighting so much is because of what’s happening there [in Fort Chipewyan],” explained Toghestiy, a hereditary chief from the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in north central British Columbia.

There is clear vocal opposition to the five pipelines proposed for construction through the 22,000 square kilometers of unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. grassroots Indigenous resistance has been a thorn in the side of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would transport oil from the tar sands to the coastal port of Kitimat, BC, in order to facilitate its export to Asia.

At the end of the pipelines are the refineries, which can have serious consequences for local residents. Visual artist and former urban planner Thomas Frank discussed the impacts of a BP refinery project in East Chicago, in northwestern Indiana.

Using his own research, Frank showed maps of East Chicago, with small pockets of neighbourhoods steeped in steel worker culture surrounded by a myriad of industrial projects, from steel mills to oil refineries. The poverty-ridden core communities, principally made up of Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and African-Americans, live between smokestacks, toxic waste sites, and the Indiana Harbor Shipping Channel, which is considered the most contaminated waterway in the United States.

“This is a serious environmental justice issue that accumulates wealth and benefits in one location while clustering risks and blights in another,” said Frank.Ninety percent of the water in the Channel consists of wastewater from industry and sewage, explained Frank, adding that Indiana discharges 33% more toxins into waterways than any other state. The sheer quantity of toxic discharges in Indiana, with 6.4 million people, amounts to more than the last 26 states combined, the latter representing over 100 million inhabitants.

BP was cited in 2009 for releasing multiple times the permitted level of benzene in a period spanning six years. Permits issued to the company also allowed for 1600 pounds of ammonia to be released into Lake Michigan per day, in clear violation of the Clean Water Act. In fact, explained Frank, BP moved its training facilities from the area to Illinois, citing concerns about “quality of life” issues for the company’s professionals.

Priya Ganness-Nanton, a community organizer from the Rights Action Group in Trinidad and Tobago, told the story of successful community struggle against an aluminum mill in the country. Ganness-Nanton hopes to take the lessons from the long history of struggle in Trinidad and use them to fight the tar sands exploitation recently announced by the government.

“In February of 2009, Minister of Energy Conrad Enill announced that the bitumen should be extracted using Canada’s experience as a model,” wrote Macdonald Stainsby of Oil Sands Truth in an article written after a visit to Trinidad earlier this year.

Other conference participants shared information about places where companies are planning to exploit tar sands deposits. Ashley Anderson of Peaceful Uprising in Utah talked about their resistance to Calgary-based Earth Energy Resources’ plan to develop tar sands deposits near Moab, in an area well-known and well-visited for its natural beauty. Macdonald Stainsby explained about corporate plans to develop tar sands deposits in Madagascar, Morocco, and a joint project between Jordan and Israel.

Videos of all of the presentations made on Saturday, dedicated to community reports from Fort Chipewyan to Trinidad, are available for viewing online. Sandra Cuffe has been reporting from the fourth annual Everyone’s Downstream conference in Edmonton for the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Thomas Energy, Infrastructure, International, Tar Sands

Landslide Swallows Brazilian Port

Thomas Planning Mishaps

[ Form Follows Tax Laws ] By Candy Chang.

Shotgun houses are so damn cute I want to pet them. It’s all thanks to New Orleans’ tax laws and people trying to get Best Value. The government taxed property based on lot frontage; so people made their houses as narrow as possible. The government taxed two-story houses more; so people added second floors to the rear, where it didn’t count. The government taxed houses based on the number of rooms; so people didn’t make closets or hallways, which counted as rooms.

And then there is this amazing example of plantation plots along the Mississippi river from Dave Tufte.

“The frontage tax, in turn, had its origins in the plantation and river transport system of colonial Louisiana… Each plantation had a small waterfront – to ship out sugar or whatever, and deliver supplies – and a very deep farm. This was so that every owner could have access to cheap transportation. Since operating the plantation on cleared land behind the levee was problematic, it didn’t make much sense to tax its value. Instead, the frontage could be taxed since it was representative of the number and size of ships that could dock for transsshipment.” – Dave

Thomas Case Studies, Planning Mishaps, Urbanism

Thomas Adaptive Reuse

Thomas Adaptive Reuse, Urbanism

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thomas Infrastructure

via [ Discovering Urbanism ]

Thomas Infrastructure

Land use patterns in fence-line industrial communities are perfect examples of brand territory. The brand is a protected collector of profit. Infringe on potential future profits by dreaming of community focused development on adjacent properties, and industry will be quick to block development. For doing so could cap allowable toxic releases at lower levels.

However, the inverse practice of locating industries adjacent to incompatible community focused uses does not apply. That would require an interested party with deep pockets and broad influence.

Thomas Case Studies, Economics

Like most fence line industrial communities Northwest Indiana’s political attitudes toward environmental issues are determined by local industrial interests.

Northwest Indiana is a Big Oil & Big Steel region.

When faced with the kinds of environmental devastration that I have illustrated on this blog elected officials have the all too familiar instinct to double-down on their love of these industries.

A simple thought - Solve the environmental problems for fence-line industrial communities and you solve the problem for middle-class America and the causes of global warming.

Thomas Environment, Northwest Indiana

Sometimes it takes a disaster like the Earth Day Disaster to realize our hometowns and our future have been colonized.

Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series, Economics, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Politics

Last weekend I visited Vinton County to help my brother in-law run for county commissioner. The trip gave me a little education into this region of the country. - Phone Photos

Information on Vinton County via [ Wikipedia ]

Thomas Case Studies, What I am Looking at

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has begun to map out housing costs by factoring in transportation. We are not far from indexing other costs associated the overhead that comes with choosing a community in the purchase of a home (property or sales tax, produce, local services, health care, education, industrial externalities - pollution, etc). It is only a matter of time that a rating system based on such indexes becomes widely adopted.

This doesn’t bode well for regions that continue developing along the last centuries model of outer suburban development. At some time a comprehensive index will be developed to help home buyers make informed decision. And once this occurs it will be much easier to make regional comparisons. Perhaps regional leaders ought to ready their communities for this new playing field on which to compete.

According to the H+T Affordability Index Lake and Porter counties in Indiana (where I call home) don’t measure-up so well.

In the lefthand map above, the yellow areas show where housing is less than 30 percent of average income and the blue areas show where it’s more than 30 percent. On the righthand side, the yellow areas show where housing costs plus transportation costs are less than 45 percent and the blue areas show where that combined measure is more than 45 percent. It’s an indirect comparison, but as you can see, a lot of places look cheap when you just look at housing (on the left), and that picture changes when you factor in transportation.

To make matters worse if you factor in the additional costs of living in Lake County, it simply doesn’t make sense for a home buyer to burden themselves with such overwhelming costs.

Additionally, how would Lake County measure-up if we also factored in costs associated with industrial pollution?

• Lake county’s air-shed ranks 9th of 3140 counties as the most polluted.
• Lake Counties waterways are also some of the most polluted in the country.

What if this index was combined into an Energy Performance Scorecard (EPS) for home buyers to make a more accurate assessment of the value of a potential purchase? Shouldn’t all costs associated with the purchase of a home be made available to the buyer as part of disclosure.

Thomas Case Studies, Economics, Energy, Environment, Information Graphics

via [ airoot/eirut ]

Thomas Planning Mishaps, Visual Culture

Aaron Renn of the Urbanophile has a valuable series of posts on government consolidation. This is a timely discussion as municipal leaders in Northwest Indiana consider options for cutting costs.

… as a discussion of some of the pros and cons of “big box” vs. “small box” government.

• Replay: An Examination of City-County Consolidation

This piece will serve as a warm-up to a forthcoming series on the downsides of the consolidation of US city and county governments

• Downsides of Consolidation #1: Neighborhood Redevelopment

• Downsides of Consolidation #2 – Cost Increases, Dilution of Urban Interests, Deferred Problems

Thomas Case Studies