July 25, 2008

Cosmic Markdown: EPA Says Life Is Worth Less

Lifesaving pollution reductions are not worth the cost. Except for Billionaires horses in Tipperary ...
_______________________________

Cosmic Markdown: EPA Says Life Is Worth Less

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/19/ST2008071900185.html

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 19, 2008; A01

Someplace else, people might tell you that human life is priceless. In Washington, the federal government has appraised it like a '96 Camaro with bad brakes.

Last week, it was revealed that an Environmental Protection Agency office had lowered its official estimate of life's value, from about $8.04 million to about $7.22 million. That decision has put a spotlight on the concept of the "Value of a Statistical Life," in which the Washington bureaucracy takes on a question usually left to preachers and poets.

This value is routinely calculated by several agencies, each putting its own dollar figure on the worth of life -- not any particular person's life, just that of a generic American. The figure is then used to judge whether potentially lifesaving policy measures are really worth the cost.

A human life, based on an economic analysis grounded in observations of everyday Americans, typically turns out to be worth $5 million to $8 million -- about as much as a mega-mansion or a middle infielder.

Now, for the first time, the EPA has used this little-known process to devalue life, something that environmentalists say could set a scary precedent, making it seem that lifesaving pollution reductions are not worth the cost.

"By reducing the value of human life, which is really a devious way of cooking the books, the perceived benefits of cleaning up the air seem less," said Frank O'Donnell of the District-based group Clean Air Watch. "That has the effect of weakening the case for pollution cleanup."

To grasp the mind-bending concept of a Blue Book value on life, government officials say it is important to remember that they are not thinking about anyone specifi c. That happens in lawsuits, when plaintiffs seek to be compensated for a life lost -- and there, it can involve personal factors such as the deceased's lost income.

Here, officials say, they are trying instead to come up with the value of a typical life, without any personal information attached.

They might know, for instance, that a new cut in air pollution will save 50 lives a year -- though they don't know who those people might be. Still they want to decide whether saving them is worth the cost, officials say, and it helps to assign a dollar value to each life saved.

An example of this kind of analysis was used by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission this year:

A proposal to make mattresses less flammable was expected to cost the industry $343 million to implement. But, a spokeswoman said, the move was also expected to save 270 people. The commission calculated that each life was worth $5 million, which meant a benefit of about $1.3 billion.

That was greater than the expense, she said, so the move made sense.

"It is, sometimes, a weird idea" to weigh lives against other costs, acknowledged Jack Wells, chief economist for the U.S. Department of Transportation. "But, if you think about it, people behave that way all the time. . . . We could eliminate a lot of the [highway] fatalities by imposing a 10-mile-per-hour speed limit." But, he said, society implicitly tolerates greater highway deaths in return for the economic benefits of faster travel.

But how do you put a dollar value on a life, even in a generic sense?

It wouldn't work for researchers to survey Americans at gunpoint and ask how much they would pay not to die. Instead, an unlikely academic field has grown up to extrapolate life's value from the everyday decisions of average Americans.

Researchers try to figure out how much money it takes for people to accept slightly bigger risks, such as a more dangerous job. They also look at how much people will pay to make their daily risks smaller -- such as buying a bike helmet or a safer car.

"How much are you willing to pay for a small reduction . . . in the probability that you will die?" asked Joe Aldy, a fellow at the D.C.-based think tank Resources for the Future.

The rest is more or less multiplication: If someone will accept a 1-in-10,000 chance of death for $500, then the value of life must be 10,000 times $500, or $5 million.

But it is one thing to calculate the numbers and another to explain them to the public. The EPA has been fighting that battle since last week, when the Associated Press revealed that the agency's air office had reduced its Value of a Statistical Life.

Al McGartland, the director of the agency's National Center for Environmental Economics, said the air office had revised the old figure in 2004 after new academic research showed it was skewed too high.

"It's based on better methods," McGartland said of the air office's assessment. He said the new number would increase over time, in part because of inflation.

The EPA's value for life remains one of the highest. Earlier this year, the Department of Transportation raised its value -- but even after the increase, it stood at $5.8 million, more than a million dollars less than the EPA's.

Still, environmental activists said the decision made it more likely that the EPA's regulations would allow greater air pollution, because deaths triggered by the pollution would seem to count for less. Experts say serious air pollution can make heart and lung conditions worse, sometimes resulting in death.

One of the researchers whom the EPA cited said he was puzzled at the agency's calculations on the value of a human life.

"Nobody's ever lowered it," said W. Kip Viscusi of Vanderbilt University. EPA came closest: In 2003, it tried to count senior citizens' lives as worth less than those of other adults. After a loud outcry from seniors, the agency backed off.

Viscusi said most researchers believe the value should generally be going up, as Americans have become wealthier and more willing to spend money to avoid risks.

"I personally wasn't in favor of lowering the value of life, let's put it that way," he said.

Lowering the value of life. In some bureaucratic corners of Washington, it is the kind of phrase that nobody blinks at anymore.

But it still can sound odd to those accustomed to thinking of life's worth in other ways.

Daniel Zemel, rabbi at Temple Micah on Wisconsin Avenue NW, said Wednesday that the idea of a dollar value on life brings to mind the teaching that "you put one human life on the scale, and you put the rest of the world on the scale, the scale is balanced equally."

Zemel said h e could understand officials' logic for making decisions this way. But he said he would counsel anybody whose job involved "Statistical Lives" to think about what they really represent.

"Numbers on a piece of paper are, at the end of the day, somewhere out there," Zemel said, "real people whose lives are being impacted."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

July 23, 2008

Dublin Bay Task Force - Scam


Madam,

Whether the news that a Dublin Bay Task Force has been set up to deliver a "sustainable vision" master plan for the future use of the entire bay is good news or bad depends on a number of factors, including the composition, knowledge and real intent and purpose of the task force (July 17th).

Various proposals for the creation of a mini-Manhattan and the siting of an incinerator on the "Poolbeg peninsula" in Sandymount plus the infilling of Scotsman's Bay in Dún Laoghaire are the brainchildren of members of the task force. Environmental groups such as Sandymount and Merrion Residents' Association (set up 50 years ago to protect the south bay beaches), the Naturalists' Field Club, seal and dolphin groups, together with fishing and diving interests, amongst others, do not appear to have been consulted or included.

The need for hydrological, oceanographic and morphology studies has not received a mention. Relevant EU environmental directives are still being ignored as I write.

Unless and until the ecological value of the bay (sea and coastal lands) to our capital city and country is given precedence I will be forced to conclude that the main purpose of the task force will be to promote commercial development and the loss of Dublin and Dún Laoghaire harbours.

It would be nice to be proven wrong.

Yours, etc,

LORNA KELLY,

Castle Park,

Sandymount,

Dublin 4.


_________________________________________

July 18, 2008

Bono Elevated To Galway Tent

"[Bono's destruction of listed buildings] undermines ... the basis of the city's attractiveness for tourists".
Bord Pleanala Inspector.
Before His Execution.
___________________________________________________________________

The Purple & The Pinstripe.
_________________
BANANA REPUBLIC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF_HSCmnFTA


The purple and the pinstripe
Mutely shake their heads

A silence shrieking volumes
A violence worse than they condemn

Stab you in the back yeah
Laughing in your face

Glad to see the place again
It's a pity nothing's changed
_____________


Four Seasons - The Ice Bar - Brickie Section.

Did you hear the honorable executive board of Bord Pleanala only enters The Clarence using the Revolving Doors? These days Billy Gates can't get a job 'cause the band ain't hiring. But as for friends of An Bord Pleanala'a executive board, the Revolving Doors are always open .... ?

This time the Clarence's bouncer tore off the head of the Bord Pleanala Inspector before he pissed down his neck. The little schijt had said His Holiness Bono and Monsignor The Edge would destroy Georgian Dublin with their hotel featuring Holiness Bono's halo up on the roof.

Holiness Bono is the true saint, not Geldof. Saint Bob with The Boomtown Rats only sang about The Banana Republic, and that was 1978. Bono & Co truly embody the spirit of The Banana Republic and are The Boomtown Rats. Bono's so 20th century, oh yeah. A modern girl yeah, ga-ga-ga-ga-ga.

BANANA REPUBLIC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF_HSCmnFTA

____________________________

Senior inspector's strong disapproval rejected
[Extract]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0718/1216330999704.html
[In Full]

FRANK McDONALD

AN BORD Pleanála approved plans to redevelop the Clarence Hotel in Dublin despite a strong recommendation by one of its senior planning inspectors that permission be refused because of its

  • "uncompromising, ominous and overstated" impact on the Liffey Quays. ...
  • "a significant loss of historic streetscape [ which] would undermine the integrity of the Liffey Quays conservation area".
  • conceptually brilliant but contextually illiterate
  • sets an "undesirable precedent" for the demolition of protected structures generally.

_______________

July 16, 2008

The Urban Beach Big Lie From DCC-DDDA

DCC-DDDA's current platform for The Big Lie is the Urban Beach.

Apparently DCC-DDDA is spending large sums of Big Lie cash with The Mad Men to make itself look cool and friendly. The Hawaiʻi theme used in DDDA messaging is curious as The Big Island has just rejected its proposed waste-to-toxics incinerator.

Cynically, DCC-DDDA makes what appears to be the barest legally required minimal effort to go through the motions to inform the public of its actual goals and tactics, allegedly. Newspapers fail to gain full disclosure to DCC-DDDA information even when using the Freedom of Information Act. Is it cynical or just curious to place a small non-colour legal notice in a newspaper on a bank holiday weekend? Is this best practice as a means of informing the public?

________________

DCC-DDDA is shorthand for DCC and DDDA. Legally they may be distinct sub-entities of a larger entity, just as Covanta-Poolbeg and Energy-Answers-Rathcoole appear to be legally distinct entities. In practice, many people view DCC and DDDA to be the same entity resulting in cynically Balkanised control of land planning around Dublin Bay. It is very curious that an entity owning equity in property on Sandymount Strand also controls planning for the same property. And reports to a government minister in a constituency which is curiously being split, or possibly greenmandered, against al historic logic.

DCC-DDDA's propaganda about The Urban Beach is totally absurd. DCC-DDDA in its former guise as Dublin Corpo filled in the real urban beach at Beach Road, after easy access to the beach by tram was removed. The community gain is the degraded health of local residents, studies of which have been cynically avoided.

______________________

Dail Questions on DCC-DDDA's Real Urban Beach

Dáil Éireann - Volume 174 - 29 April, 1959

http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0174/D.0174.195904290023.html

Questions. Oral Answers.

- Sandymount Dump.

25. Dr. Browne asked the Minister for Local Government whether he is aware that the continued indiscriminate dumping of rubbish at Sandymount is causing a serious nuisance and inconvenience to the local residents, and constitutes a serious danger to their health in so far as it is likely to become a breeding ground for rats, disease bearing flies, mosquitoes, and other pests; and if he will take steps to advise the health authority responsible that, if the dumping cannot be discontinued, it should be so controlled as to obviate the dangers to health which it at present constitutes.

Mr. Blaney: I have seen some newspaper references to this matter but I have received no complaints about it. I understand that the Dublin Corporation takes all practicable steps to ensure that the dumping involves no danger to health and that any temporary injury to amenity is kept within the narrowest possible limits.

July 15, 2008

Lawsuits Over "Model" UK Incinerator

(Click title for original article).

Some comparisons between the
  • Operational Model UK Incinerator
and the
  • Promotors of the Dublin Bay Incinerator on Sandymount Strand at Poolbeg.

"Soon after the £32m plant opened in 2002, neighbouring residents complained of odours coming from it. "
>>> DCC's Sewage Factory has generated best-available-technology odours since 2003 and now requires an extra €36 million of taxpayer cash. Homer would not employ this management culture.


"It was temporarily shut down for environmental breaches in 2003"
>>>2006: Covanta Repeatedly Fined for Dioxin Releases, Other Toxics http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/2006-covanta-repeatedly-fined-for.html

>>>EPA: 6,000 violations at Covanta Incinerator in 2 Years
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/us-epa-counted-6000-violations-at.html


"and later damaged by fire".
>>> In 2007, residents were advised to tape their windows and to venture outdoors only if necessary, following a massive fire at a Waste-To-Toxics incinerator located south of Boston, Massachusets.
Housewives or househusbands were blamed by a city official or perhaps by the incinerator's management for sending the wrong kind of thrash. Luckily there was no snow of the wrong type on the tracks nor any illegal radioactive waste. Or was there? Nobody knows says Homer.

Apparently asking the truck drivers for an ID did not work - the strategy to prevent illegal or dangerous toxins being incinerated, as outlined by Dong's Senior Engineer at The Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing.

Locals claimed explosions are fairly common at the incinerator and can shake local houses - an official dismissed this saying the explosions are fewer than once a month.

Here's another massive incinerator fire, this one is in Florida in June 2008:
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/06/inferno-at-incinerator.html


"“The council is seeking damages following the failure of the materials recycling and energy centre to achieve anything like its contracted performance levels, particularly in terms of diverting waste from landfill, recycling and the production of compost.”"
>>> Covanta, Florida: A Decade of Lawsuits. Recycling Undermined.
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/covanta-florida-decade-of-lawsuits.html



"But local authorities, who point out the incinerator has to comply with emission standards,... "
>>> The UK does not monitor deadly small particles ('PM 2.5')
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/uk-does-not-monitor-pm25s-increased.html

Were any environmental standards enforced at Cork shipyard? It seems to be full of deadly Chromium Six. The Director of EPA-Ireland (apparently at the time when papers were issued wrt Cork) is now a paid contractor promoting waste-to-toxics incineration for American offshore entities. This ethics issue is apparently kept quiet - by a company using different aliases, apparently. Google The Sunday Business Post and the Irish Independent to gain more background on EPA-Ireland.
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/07/environmental-enforcement-epa-300.html

_________________________________________

£54m claim turns up the heat over authority’s incinerator

A LOCAL authority has launched a £54m lawsuit over a troubled waste plant that was once hailed as a model for the whole of the UK.

Neath Port Talbot Council has issued a High Court writ against two dormant companies in the Currie & Brown Group, which offered technical advice over the project at Crymlyn Burrows, near Neath. It is one of the largest sums ever claimed in litigation relating to the construction industry.

Soon after the £32m plant opened in 2002, neighbouring residents complained of odours coming from it. It was temporarily shut down for environmental breaches in 2003, and later damaged by fire.

The defendants in the action are Currie & Brown Project Management and Currie & Brown Consulting, both of which are dormant companies.

Currie & Brown Project Management produced a technical due diligence report on the project for investors in 2000. Currie & Brown Consulting was appointed technical adviser to the investors in 2000 and the division was also appointed technical adviser to the council in 2002.

The case is scheduled for April 2009 and will be tried in Bristol by a High Court judge.

Will Watson, corporate director for the environment at Neath Port Talbot council, said: “The council is seeking damages following the failure of the materials recycling and energy centre to achieve anything like its contracted performance levels, particularly in terms of diverting waste from landfill, recycling and the production of compost.”

A spokeswoman for Currie & Brown confirmed the two companies in the group were facing a £54m claim from the council.

“The matter is in the hands of our insurers,” she said. “We do not wish to comment further.”

In May it emerged that Neath Port Talbot Council was suing neighbouring Bridgend Council for around £5m in connection with problems relating to the plant, which is officially described as Crymlyn Burrows Materials Recovery and Energy Centre.

Domestic rubbish from both council areas is disposed of at the plant, which processes material for recycling and incinerates other waste.

It is understood that during legal arguments between the two local authorities, Neath Port Talbot threatened to ban Bridgend from sending waste to the plant.

The Crymlyn Burrows waste processing plant has been controversial since before it opened in 2002.

Residents opposed it on health grounds, claiming there was no truly safe limit for the dioxins emitted by the incinerator. Dioxins are associated with birth defects, heart disease, infertility, respiratory problems and cancers.

But local authorities, who point out the incinerator has to comply with emission standards, saw it as a way to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill in advance of targets set by the European Commission in 2010.

From the outset the plant processed around 150,000 tonnes of domestic refuse a year from Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend.

The plant was built and initially run by Portuguese operator HLC, but in 2005 Neath Port Talbot Council pulled the plug on HLC Neath Port Talbot after the firm went into administration.

Neath Port Talbot Council took over running the plant and in 2006 it was reported losses totalling more than £67m could accrue over 25 years unless a new operating partner was found. A legal tug-of-war ensued between the council and HLC’s creditor, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was seeking to recoup some of its £40m debt with the plant’s assets. The dispute was settled out of court in November 2006, putting the plant firmly in the hands of Neath Port Talbot Council.

Early last year, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend councils said they were planning to award a new 25-year contract for operating the facility.

In late April the two authorities issued a joint statement, saying: “Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot councils are in discussions concerning a contractual matter related to waste disposal arrangements and both are hopeful that an early resolution will be possible. At this stage, neither council is prepared to make any further comment.”

July 12, 2008

Ringsend Health Impact Big Lies?

Ringsend Health Impact Big Lies?

Even an expert using the required diplomatic language says work from DCC is "inadequate" and even "derisory".

Many people, but certainly not all, would conclude that DCC has apparently produced another Big Lie. This is a Big Lie with the potential to be used by DCC-DDDA's well-funded PR agency or by the Marketing Communication departments of foreign Waste-To-Toxins corporations to spread disinformation about your health or your early death. With the Big Lie established literally on a European Beachhead, the Big Lie can then be re-purposed worldwide including in China.
___________________________________



Below are Key Sentences from The human health impact of the proposed municipal waste incinerator at Ringsend: a critique of the health assessment in the EIS submitted with the planning application.

Dr. Anthony Staines,
Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology,
Dept. of Public Health Medicine,
University College Dublin,

The whole document is here:
http://fiasco.ie/incinerator/resources/Critique_of_Health_Assessment_in_EIS_-_Dr_Anthony_Staines.pdf

Key Sentences
The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) contains several sections addressing health issues. The main discussion is in Chapter 13 'Impact on Human Beings'.
  • The process use to carry out this piece of work is unclear, and no specific justification or rationale is given for it.
  • In no case is there any serious consideration of the actual impacts of the estimated emissions on people in the local community or on human health.
  • It is at best careless, and more realistically reckless, to proceed with a major development without considering methods of minimising harm and maximising benefits to the localcommunity from the development.
  • Overall the human health assessment of the EIS seems very inadequate.
  • The section on the most important issue of 'Cumulative impacts and Interactions' is almost derisory – four pages in total, one table, one page of contents, one blank page and about one hundred words.

A final issue is the scientific evidence for health effects on populations adjacent to municipal incinerators. Prof. Schrenk, who is a most distinguished toxicologist ... [text omitted, Click here for full text] ...
  • [Prof. Schrenk]'s review contains some questionable interpretations of the existing literature, and shows a very common misunderstanding of the principles and limitations of epidemiology.


___________
Galwaytent Footnote:
EU Toxicology standards setting seems to be dominated by the German Chemical Industry. BASF (fka IG Farben) apparently openly has contracts with 235 politicians.

July 11, 2008

Billionaires' Horses Better Than Ringsend Knackers

Billionaires' Horses Are Better Than Ringsend's Knackers

Obviously
Billionaires' Tipperary horses are more valuable than wife-beating Ringsend knackers.

Tiny Tipp Incinerator beside a few Billionaires’ Horses: Not Approved.
Huge Waste-To-Toxins Incinerator beside one million People: Approved.


___________

Executive Board of An Bord Pleanala,

Four Seasons Bar.

Sean:
We've used the best-paid political scientists to pre-approve the Banana Republic's Biggest incinerator smack bang in the centre of a city with one million people. EPA-Ireland will supply the where-else-can-we-earn-a-crust-after-public-service professionals to "monitor" the toxins - they might show up just a few times a year with their jam jar.

The Galway Tent's horses are more valuable than those Ringsend knackers. Sure they are already sick from the local toxic dump and can't prove nothing because according to our PR, they all smoke!! And we killed the dangerous idea of a
human-health baseline study in Ringsend. Especially in Legoland opposite the glass recycling factory where we fired 350 locals to make way for DDDA's empire!

Seamus:
Now then, how do we stop the small incinerator beside our Billionaires' stud farms?

John Gormley:
I can say nothing, in public.
In public, I am restricted by the legislation.
Even my secret meetings with Covanta are reported by The Indo.

John Gormley:
Am I in the tent? ... Please ... I'm not just a Little Green Man ... Please ...

Sean:
John, we'll get back to you. Now just feed our usual press release to the Irish Times section of The Galway Tent.

________________________

Irish Times Breaking News

Last Updated: Friday, July 11, 2008, 15:41

The decision to refuse planning permission for a waste facility plant (waste-to-toxins incinerator) in Co Tipperary has been welcomed by the country’s leading racehorse trainer Aidan O’Brien.

...

Tipperary South TD Tom Hayes also welcomed the decision saying the plant would have been totally unsuitable for the area due to its scale and potential damage to the local equine, agricultural and tourism sectors within the region.

Lawyers for John Magnier’s Coolmore group had argued that the site was "wholly unsuitable", and insisted that the facility "would be prejudicial to human and animal health".

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0711/breaking54.htm
© 2008 irishtimes.com

The Irish Times Swallows Press Releases?

The Irish Times Swallows DCC-DDDA Press Releases?

The Irish Times now actively participates in generating disinformation, apparently.

EPA Hearing
On the last day of the EPA Oral Hearing the Irish Times reporter seems to have swallowed a whole DCC-DDDA press release. Harassment of a highly-credible witness by DCC-DDDA's legal team was not reported by the Irish Times. Reporting on a submission on World Health Organisation air quality standards - WHO standards far in advance of Brussels standards - was actively rejected by the reporter: 'Health is not my job' (paraphrase).

July 8, 2008
On July 8, 2008 another Irish Times 'reporter' printed more text characteristic of DCC-DDDA press releases. The 'reporters' tune is that when evidence is lacking there is no proof of damage (Sellafield, mobile phones, EMI). Therefore the cause for concern can be dismissed and the public are idiots. That's the Tobacco Industry defence as spun by DCC-DDDA on behalf of a foreign company with a record of lawbreaking. Has The Irish Times swallowed that Big Lie?

Newspapers worldwide are under immense pressure from the web. The Irish Times is heavily dependent on DCC-DDDA advertising and on Galway Tent advertising. By apparently swallowing press releases The Irish Times has severely damaged its reputation.

Irish Times Omission

In July 2008, The Irish Independent
  • reported on secret meetings between Environment Minister Gormley and the Rathcoole Incinerator promotors.
Mr Gormley has since shut down his blog, 'for maintainance'; Covanta is attempting to build TWO incinerators around Dublin at Rathcoole and at Poolbeg, using different names.

The Irish Independent reported
  • the Incinerator company (Covanta-Energy-Answers) was represented by the former 10-Year Director of EPA-Ireland.

In other countries this revolving door between the industry and the policeman of the industry is apparently illegal -Canada, USA, UK.

The Irish Times has not reported these facts to the public, apparently.

If the Irish Times does indeed swallow press releases, is this consistent with The Big Lie strategy apparently used by DCC-DDDA?

July 5, 2008

Environmental Enforcement: Badda Bing

EPA's Piece of Paper licence for Irish Steel in Cork in 2001 will cost taxpayers €300 million.
  • Who drove that EPA ship in 2001?
  • Where's the Revolving Door?
  • Any Energy Answers?
_______________________________________

Environmental Enforcement: Badda Bing.


Exotic Dancing Authority.
10-Year-Director Badda Bing.
Waste-To-Toxics (WTT) Contractor.

Tony Soprano, CEO, Waste-to-Toxics (Virgin Islands) B.V., N.V., Pte.
:
Tony's Cohíba Coronas Especiales is burning up the green fields of Cuba.

Exotic Dancer:

"What are people supposed to do when they finish their contracts?" she said.


Tony Soprano:
Ya gotta put food on the table.
Ya gotta earn.

Frank Vincent:
It's Tony from Orlando.
No, not from Fairchild or our beautiful Fairfield.
This F#*k is the Tony F#*k From Florida, Tony.
Tony's not Gay.
Nobody in Waste-to-Toxics is gay.

Frank Vincent:
Its the Micks from Exotic Paper Authority (EPA).

Tony Soprano:
About the asbestos we accidentally dumped into the East River from a truck ...

EPA-Mick:
F#@k me, fuggedaboutit already!

Tony Soprano:
About the hexavalent shit ... the Chromium Six at the shipyard ...
Can they absolutely prove any cancers?

EPA-Mick:
We'll send ya a licence.
A piece of paper.
A card for geddin de f#*k out of Fairfield, New Jersey.

Reburn, recycle, reuse.
Reburn, reburn, reburn.

EPA-Mick's hangover clarifies itself.
Rayburn, Rayburn, Rayburn.
Rayburn, Rayburn, Rayburn.

EPA-Mick's hangover has gone away.
De Germans, dey never burned nothing, no records burned like, nothing, de stoopid f#*ks. At least EPA-Ireland never creates records. Never!! Now the stooped Germans take illegal radioactive waste from the Naples Camorra - because the papers say its OK. So the Lidl people do follow orders, and that didn't work in the fair and balanced trial in Nurnberg.

Burn the EPA-licence in yer Waste-to-Toxics incinerator.
Biffo's ticko taxpayers will cough up the three hundred million.

Tony Soprano:
About the Waste-to-Toxics plants operated offshore ...

Dis is my concern.
On the last day of the Mick-EPA hearing your GCHQ did an interception in The Gresham's elevators. The Irish-Times-our-shit-sniffs-better-than-the-Noirt-Soides reporter had already effed off on her green bicycle with our press release. NSA says the Conadvantage fat f#*k who never uses the stairs was looking on the last day! for another $50,000 in expenses for certain planning matters.
Loose lips sink ships.

Dis is my concern.

EPA-Mick:
Will I earn after public service?

Tony Soprano:
Welcome to the family.
___________________


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/newsfeatures/2008/0705/1215184125634.html

Googling today? [ "What are people supposed to do when they finish their contracts?" she said. ]

Culture of complicity and complacency http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,446889,00.html

Environmental Enforcement: Poolbeg & Covanta

Ann Butler
"Independent Consultant"

10-Year-Director EPA-Ireland.
Covanta-Poolbeg-
Dublin-Waste-to-Energy Contractor
Covanta-Energy-Answers-Rathcoole Contractor.



Dublin WTE Public Information Session:

Question (Member of Public to Dublin WTE at a public 'information' session):

Who staffs the office of Environmental Enforcement?
Who will conduct the monitoring of the [incinerator] plant and at what frequency?


Answer (Ann Butler, 'Environmental Consultant', Representing Dublin WTE):

The licence which the EPA issues will set out what monitoring and reporting must be carried out, for example, real time monitoring, intermittent monitoring of other emissions and the requirements to submit information on a regular basis. The EPA will also undertake checks and independent monitoring, as is required in legislation.

Source: "Statutory Process - Session 1.doc", Statutory Processes, 25 September 2004, Dublin Waste to Energy - Information Day 5.


Information & Misinformation

Was the question answered in a meaningful way?

The
Dublin Waste to Energy Project website omits any mention of the revolving door relationships between EPA and the Incineration Industry, however innocent or professional they may be. This statutory process document does not highlight the consultant's Ten Year Directorship at EPA-Ireland and the potential conflicts of interest where the gamekeeper could turn poacher. Is thisThe Big Lie in Practice? Is it an ethical use of taxpayer money?


Footnotes:

The project title "Dublin Waste to Energy" is cynical spin for the more accurate "Dublin Waste to Toxins".

The Dublin Waste to Energy Project website prominently features a cynically misleading image of the proposed waste to toxins incinerator.

Dublin City Council has generated this alleged misinformation using €19,000,000 of taxpayer money. Dublin City Council has spent in excess of €19 million to promote the business goals of Dublin Waste to Energy Ltd, apparently. That's equivalent to tapping each person in the surrounding area for €2,000 each.

Dublin City Council has financially stressed or penalised Dublin citizens looking for information. At Bord Pleanala and at EPA public hearings Dublin City Council has used lawyers to interrupt and apparently harass(a) honest Dublin citizens.

Chinese Walls: Dublin Waste to Energy is essentially Covanta, a Luxembourg incorporated offshore entity billed as "Covanta USA". Tobacco companies have been fined billions of dollars within the USA, but not inside the Luxembourg legal firewall. Cigarettes deliver toxic particles in to lungs, perhaps not unlike incinerators. Dublin Waste to Energy Ltd is billed as a joint venture between "Covanta Energy, USA" and DONG Energy Generation, Denmark. Covanta also owns Energy Answers. Energy Answers International is apparently a legally independent or firewalled corporation based, for whatever reason, in the Virgin Islands and in Dublin. Energy Answers hired the former EPA-Ireland Director in July 2007.

_____________________
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/green-leader-in-secret-meetings-over-second-incinerator-for-city-1426003.html
.

http://www.dublinwastetoenergy.ie/html/dublin-waste-to-energy.html

Culture of complicity and complacency
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,446889,00.html

(a)
as some honest people and not necessarily The Galway Tent would conclude.

Environmental Enforcement: EPA's Piece of Paper

Waves paper to the crowd- receiving loud cheers and "Hear Hears"

EPA's Piece of Paper

While the Environmental Protection Agency EPA issued an awesome piece of paper termed a draft Integrated Pollution Control licence in 2001, it was never implemented by Irish Ispat (Cork shipyard).

How many people in Cork are now dead or have compromised health from the Chromium Six and other toxins?
  • Guess who directed the EPA at that time.
  • Guess which incineration company has apparently hired that same Director to promote their proposed Waste-To-Toxics factories in Dublin.
An "attempt" by the EPA in 2004 to compel the liquidator, Ray Jackson (of KPMG), to fund the clean-up of the Cork site failed, leaving Irish Taxpayers to foot the clean-up bill, which at the time was estimated to be around €30 million but which the contractors claim is likely to cost taxpayers €300 million.

EPA-Ireland has already or will soon issue more valuable pieces of paper awesomely termed licences for incinerators in Meath, Cork and Poolbeg.


Guess who will pay for the 100's of stroke victims or the 50 to 300 premature deaths across Dublin each year?
  • Firewalled American Special Purpose Entities in the Caribbean?
  • Firewalled American Special Purpose Entities in The Grand Duchy?
  • Galway Tent Insiders protected by the HSE firewall?
  • You.
Sources: Irish Times, Irish Independent, July 2008.

July 4, 2008

Grüne Führer im 'geheim' Sitzungen über zweite Verbrennungsanlage.

Grüne Führer im 'geheim' Sitzungen über zweite Verbrennungsanlage.
Donnerstag Juli 03 2008
GREEN-Minister John Gormley und Eamon Ryan gehalten 'geheim' Sitzungen mit Vertretern der US-Unternehmen Energie Answers (Covanta) um eine Verbrennungsanlage in Dublin.
Die Energie Answers (Covanta) Unternehmen vorgeschlagenen € 200 m vor der Anlage N7-Autobahn in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, würden im Wettbewerb mit der geplanten Verbrennungsanlage in Poolbeg Herr Gormley eigenen Wahlkreis.
Einheimische äußerten Befürchtungen, dass Herr Gormley würde es vorziehen, haben die Rathcoole Anlage laufen, so dass die Verbrennungsanlage Poolbeg wäre nicht erforderlich.
Fine Gael Senator Frances Fitzgerald gestern in Frage gestellt, warum Herr Gormley und Herrn Ryan Sitzung wurden "heimlich" mit Menschen, seien "zu Gunsten der Verbrennung".
"Die grüne Politik scheint sich geändert haben ganz auf die Sache - nicht lange her, dass der damalige stellvertretende John Gormley war staunchly gegnerischen einer Verbrennungsanlage in seinem eigenen Wahlkreis", sagte sie.
Doch ein Sprecher von Herrn Gormley, sagte der Sitzung war nur zum Zwecke des Lernens über das Projekt.
"Die Abteilung gibt keine Art von Segen für jede spezifische Entwicklung, weil die Abteilung und der Minister ist für Sie absolut ausgeschlossen von der Mitwirkung am Planungsprozess", fügte er hinzu.
Herr Gormley war stark gegen die Verbrennung und daran arbeiten, den das Recycling der "Eckpfeiler" der Abfallpolitik, sagte er.
Details zu den Sitzungen kam ans Licht als Antwort auf eine parlamentarische Anfrage von Frau Fitzgerald und Grüne Partei TD Paul Gogarty, Protest, an Sitzungen gegen die geplante Verbrennungsanlage Rathcoole in ihrem Dublin Mid-West-Wahlkreis.
Herr Gormley traf Anne Butler, ein Umwelt-Berater anheuerte Energie Answers (Covanta), im vergangenen Juli. Zuvor war sie Leiterin der Environmental Protection Agency für 10 Jahre und Präsident des Institute of Engineers für ein Jahr.
Herr Ryan traf das Unternehmen im Januar gesagt, aber dies war im Wesentlichen ein "Zuhören Übung".
Energie Answers (Covanta) konnte zu umgehen traditionellen Planungsverfahren nach An Bord Pleanala entschieden, im Dezember letzten Jahres, dass ihr Projekt wurde eine strategische Entwicklung der Infrastruktur. Es ist noch nicht Bord Pleanala Anhörung als Opposition wächst in Rathcoole.
Rathcoole Community Council Sprecher Sean Reid gesagt hatte 400 Menschen nahmen an einer Sitzung im letzten Monat aus Protest gegen die Pläne Verbrennungsanlage. Seine Gruppe vorher gewarnt, dass Herr Gormley wünschen konnte die Rathcoole Verbrennungsanlage gebaut, bevor die Poolbeg Verbrennungsanlage.
"Die Leute können nicht helfen, fragen und möglicherweise gäbe es ein Element der Menschen setzen zwei und zwei zusammen. Aber die Indikationen wurden von Vertretern seiner Partei, Herr Gormley ist nicht (zugunsten der Verbrennungsanlage)", sagte er.
Herr Reid sagte seine Gruppe habe Belege von US-Experten, dass es möglich war, für das Recycling bis zu 80pc von Abfällen - Deponie und der Rest -, anstatt auf die Verbrennung.
"Wir tun nicht das Gefühl, dass die Verbrennung ist die beste Methode für die Entsorgung von Abfällen", sagte er.
Indoors
Energie Answers (Covanta) hat gesagt, die Möglichkeit, beschrieben als "Resource Recovery Project ', würde auf den höchsten ökologischen Standards, mit allen auftretenden Operationen Abfälle im Freien.
Eine Sprecherin bestätigt, Frau Butler traf Herr Gormley im Namen des Unternehmens sagte, aber diese war rein zu informieren ihn über das Projekt.
Das Unternehmen hat sich ein Unternehmen aus dem Departement für Verteidigung, dass sie keine Einwände gegen die Verbrennungsanlage, wäre der Standort von weniger als fünf Kilometer von der Air Corps "Baldonnell Aerodrome.
___________________
Machine translation
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/green-leader-in-secret-meetings-over-second-incinerator-for-city-1426003.html

July 3, 2008

Green leader in 'secret' meetings over second incinerator

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/green-leader-in-secret-meetings-over-second-incinerator-for-city-1426003.html

Click title for direct link to Irish Independent article

Green Leader in 'secret' meetings over second incinerator for city

GREEN ministers John Gormley and Eamon Ryan held 'secret' meetings with representatives of a US company seeking to build another incinerator in Dublin.

The Energy Answers company's proposed €200m facility off the N7 motorway in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, would compete with the planned Poolbeg incinerator in Mr Gormley's own constituency.

Locals expressed fears that Mr Gormley would prefer to have the Rathcoole facility running so the Poolbeg incinerator would not be needed.

Fine Gael Senator Frances Fitzgerald questioned yesterday why Mr Gormley and Mr Ryan were meeting "secretly" with people who were "in favour of incineration".

"The Green policy seems to have changed entirely on the matter -- not that long ago the then Deputy John Gormley was staunchly opposing an incinerator in his own constituency," she said.

However, a spokesman for Mr Gormley said the meeting was purely for the purposes of learning about the project.

"The department does not give any sort of blessing to any specific development because the department and the minister is absolutely precluded from involvement in the planning process," he added.

Mr Gormley was strongly opposed to incineration and committed to making recycling the "cornerstone" of waste policy, he said.

Details of the meetings came to light in response to a parliamentary question by Ms Fitzgerald and Green Party TD Paul Gogarty, who attended protest meetings against the proposed Rathcoole incinerator in their Dublin Mid-West constituency.

Mr Gormley met Anne Butler, an environmental consultant hired by Energy Answers (An alias for Covanta-Poolbeg? -Blog Text Insert-), last July. Previously, she was director of the Environmental Protection Agency for 10 years and president of the Institute of Engineers for one year.

Mr Ryan met the company in January but said this was essentially a "listening exercise".

Energy Answers was able to bypass traditional planning procedures after An Bord Pleanala ruled, last December, that its project was a strategic infrastructural development. It is awaiting a Bord Pleanala hearing as opposition grows in Rathcoole.

Rathcoole Community Council spokesman Sean Reid said 400 people had attended a meeting last month in protest at the incinerator plans. His group previously warned that Mr Gormley might want the Rathcoole incinerator built before the Poolbeg incinerator.

"People can't help wondering and possibly there would be an element of people putting two and two together. But the indications were given by representatives of his party that Mr Gormley is not (in favour of the incinerator)," he said.

Mr Reid said his group had evidence from US experts that it was possible to recycle up to 80pc of waste -- and landfill the rest -- rather than rely on incineration.

"We don't feel that incineration is the best method of disposing of waste," he said.

Indoors

Energy Answers has said the facility, described as a 'Resource Recovery Project', would operate to the highest environmental standards, with all waste operations occurring indoors. (Except when they don't. Covanta has a recent record of unlawfully exceeding Dioxin limits at all its incinerators in the highly polluted state of New Jersey. When known as Ogden, Covanta was cited by the US legal system for 6,000 violations in just two years. -Blog Text Insert-).

A spokeswoman confirmed Ms Butler met Mr Gormley on behalf of the company but said this had been purely to inform him about the project.

The company has secured an undertaking from the Department of Defence that it will not object to the incinerator, which would be sited less than five kilometres from the Air Corps' Baldonnell Aerodrome.

-End of Irish Independent article (text corrected, July 14, 2008)

_______________
For a paper owned by Billionaires it seems the Irish Independent actually does inform the people. Surprisingly, for a paper owned by a "trust" it seems the Irish Times has slipped back to its past imperial role where it did not necessarily work on behalf of the peasant people.

Is EPA-Ireland Inside The Galway Tent?

Is EPA-Ireland Inside The Galway Tent?

Environment Minister Mr Gormley ("secretly" says the Indo) met Anne Butler, an environmental consultant hired by Energy Answers/Covanta.

Previously, she was
Director of the Environmental Protection Agency for 10 years
and president of the Institute of Engineers for one year.

(Butler was hired by Energy-Answers-Covanta in July 2007)
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/green-leader-in-secret-meetings-over-second-incinerator-for-city-1426003.html
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/12/07/story257079427.asp


--------------
Anne Butler.
An Earner.

DIT:
C
urrently working as an environmental consultant, she was on the board of the EPA for ten years, and headed up the EPA’s waste division which for the first time regulated waste facilities in Ireland at a time of great change.

http://www.dit.ie/DIT/news/2005/anne-butler.html

-----------------------------------
CRH:
Anne Butler joined the EPA when it was set up in 1993 and left last April (2003). She said she was working as a consultant for CRH at a "strategic" and "high level".

CRH subsidiary Roadstone Dublin was drawn into the illegal dumping controversy in Wicklow when hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste were found on CRH lands at Blessington.

The company is in talks with Wicklow County Council and must apply to the EPA for a licence to clean up the site.

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/12/07/story257079427.asp
_______________________________________

Which stinks more?
  • DCC-DDDA's politicially managed Sewage Factory at Poolbeg
or the
  • Revolving Doors between "consulting" businesses and waste-to-toxics companies HQ'ed offshore and EPA-Ireland and Bord Pleanala?

  1. An ex-Indaver employee is with EPA-Ireland.
  2. July 2007/8: Energy Answers/Covanta hired an ex-Ten-Year-EPA-Ireland Director.
  3. April 2008: Covanta hired a senior ex-EPA-USA employee.
  4. Taoiseach Ahern appointed his friends to the management levels of DDDA and Dublin Port Company.
  5. Currently an ex-employee of RPS is on the executive board of Ireland's An Bord Pleanala. This board apparently uses political science to override its knowledgeable and honest inspectors (Cork, Meath, Poolbeg).

DCC has spent 19 million Euro of taxpayer money on "consultants" to promote Waste-To-Toxics incineration. DCC's chief pro-incinerator business consultant is RPS, apparently focused on certain planning matters and legal tick-boxes. RPS is also involved with the Poolbeg Sewage factory (under a different name on the site signage) and also apparently with Shell in Mayo.

The stink over five years from the Poolbeg Sewage factory and the unexplained new payment of €36 million is the prime example of the capabilities of DCC-DDDA. This is the smell of the outcomes of political management. Incinerators do not smell. And like tobacco-industry best-available-excuses you can not prove they compromise your health.

Guns don't kill, Incinerators do.
____________________
More:
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/incinerator-revolving-doors-at-epa-abp.html

July 2, 2008

Once officials, Now consultants

Once Officials, Now Consultants

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/12/07/story257079427.asp

Unlike the United States, Britain and Canada, the Republic has no regulations governing the movement of state officials to consultancy positions in the private sector. [Sunday, December 07, 2003].
  • Kevin McDonnell, a former Dublin inspector with the EPA, works as adviser to Ray Stokes, the Dublin businessman who recently bought a dump at Whitestown in west Co Wicklow. McDonnell's company, Agritech Solutions, based in Dublin, is carrying out the work.
  • Ted Nealon, another former EPA inspector,works for Dean Waste Co, which trades as A1 Waste, the waste company owned and controlled by Dublin businessmanTony Dean.
  • Hubert Fitzpatrick, a former assistant manager of Wicklow County Council, was a consultant to A&L Goodbody solicitors. He works for the Construction Industry Federation.

  • Frank Kavanagh, former county manager with South Dublin County Council, works as a planning consultant to multimillionaire property developer Jim Mansfield.

  • Ciaran Ryan, formerly of Fingal County Council, runs a planning consultancy in Dublin with Mark Walsh, former deputy county manager and director of planning in Fingal County Council.

  • Willie Murray, a former planning official in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, has been working for the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Light Rail Company, a private consortium backing a Luas extension from Sandyford to Cherrywood in south Co Dublin.

  • Donough Murphy, who was a board member of An Bord Pleanala from 1989 to 1999, is an architect and planning consultant. He now works for property company Treasury Holdings.

  • Jim Barrett, recently retired Dublin City Architect
  • Jim Barrett gave evidence as part of Developer's project team (Dunne/Ballsbridge, 2008).

EPA Uses Political Science - Not Medical Science.

The EU's newest standards for air pollution are much less effective than the 'disappointing' US standards.

Incinerators are not effectively monitored for deadly PM2.5 particle pollution.
_____________________

"We know that soot (PM2.5 particle pollution) can cause significant harm, especially to children and senior citizens, at levels well below this standard," said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club�s environmental quality program. "

By choosing politics over science, EPA is jeopardizing the health of our communities."

"It's disappointing that the EPA (USA) has once again put industry before public health," said Alice McKeown, air analyst for the Sierra Club. "This decision goes against the combined recommendations of over 2,000 peer-reviewed studies, medical and health groups and the EPA's own independent science advisers.
It was clearly based on political science, not medical science."

http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/releases/pr2006-09-21.asp

http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/soot/
================

July 1, 2008

Greenmandering in Dublin

Greenmandering in Dublin South East


According to
The Nervous Little Green Man cycling back to Ringsend from under the green slime generated by his DCC-DDDA's toxic dump on Sandymount Strand, the Dublin South East Area is to be Greenmandered.

To call this a Gerrymander would degrade Sinn Fein to Green Party status. A status consistent with brown circles and shoelaces and people disappearing inside the said brown circles.

John Gormley barely got elected by as little as twenty three 5th preferences in the past two elections. Driving a coach and horses through Dublin South East will remove at least 5000 anti-Gormley votes - that is the 5,000 people who were confidence-tricked to vote Green Party in 2007.

DDDA's empire will then be extended from Sean Moore Park into Irishtown and Sandymount up to Lansdowne Road to bypass the already compromised planning culture.

John Gormley is already under construction on the banks of The Dodder, after apparently blocking public comments on his blog. Another winner for the Galway Tent.

http://www.johngormley.com/underconstruction.html
Fianna Fail's John Gormley Under Construction


Hello Suckers
Mr. Gormley might gain some votes in "The Inner City" by providing subsidised housing on Sandymount Strand at "Poolbeg", diddling the taxpayers and benefiting The Galway Tent. As at Sean More Road, the real health hazards of living on a dump will be suppressed as "there is no proof". For each flat priced by Galway Tent estate agents at one million Euro the taxpayer will be extracted to the tune of E750,000, to the cynical green bongo-drums of 'social justice' in The Four Seasons.

Thus the Green Party may transfer Billions of Taxpayer Euro to Big Money developers.
And save the four pyramid-scheme companies, allegedly, who comprise the small Irish Stock Index (Cement & Banks funded by Irish pension plans). The Irish Stock Index includes the bank which transferred ownership of Sandymount Strand to a private corporation and a cement company which created a causeway for its trucks, outside the law (allegedly as per transcripts).

How else can liquidity events occur for flats located on a Toxic Dump beside a Waste-To-Toxics factory? If you know, come inside the tent.

_____________

Community Gain - Ripping The Taxpayers
In 2008 taxpayers paid €35,000 to repair the 3 metre seawall breached
outside the law by a cement company. This seawall breach flooded local houses but did not dent profits of the pyramid scheme banks or cement companies, allegedly.

Did the
cement company pay for this repair? Its not likely they eve donated the cement. It's more likely the taxpayers were royally charged for the cement. That's community gain in DCC-DDDA lingo.

And despite the taxpayer millions spent on PR propaganda, DCC-DDDA has not informed the general public about the €35,000. Currently DCC-DDDA is spinning about its absurd Urban Beach - this Big Lie hides the fact that DCC-DDDA actually stole the whole of the real beach at Beach Road.

Furthermore, DCC-DDDA does not conduct, or perhaps more likely prevents peer-reviewed health science about the millions of tons of toxic waste they dumped on the real beach at Sandymount Strand.