The toxic waste problem
Idaho Governor to Feds: Not On My Watch
The INL is one of seven sites being considered for storage of up to 17,000 tons of mercury.By Jill Kuraitis, 7-17-09
17,000 tons of mercury stored at the Idaho National Laboratory? Idaho Governor Butch Otter is flabbergasted.
“The first time I heard about it was when I read it in the newspaper,” Otter told Boise’s KBOI radio this week. “I don’t know whether it is arrogance or ignorance at its worst.”
The INL is one of seven sites being considered for storage of up to 17,000 tons of mercury. Mercury exports will be banned in 2013, and the Department of Energy is required by law to have facilities ready to manage and store mercury by then.
But Otter said he would not let the federal government make Idaho its mercury dump. In a Thursday press release, Otter said he would do everything within his power to keep the U.S. Department of Energy from storing highly toxic elemental mercury at the INL.
“No one in our state government and no one in our congressional delegation was aware this was up,” said Jon Hanian, Otter’s spokesman, according to the Idaho Statesman.
To say that the governor is angry is no stretch, especially after he said, “If they want to put it in a desolate and useless place, they should put it on the Capitol grounds.”
Mercury exposure is extremely dangerous. A liquid metal, mercury can damage the central nervous system, endocrine system, kidneys and other organs, as well as the mouth, gums and teeth. Prolonged exposure can cause brain damage and death. Mercury and its compounds are particularly toxic to babies and pregnant women. The infamous poisonings in Minimata, Japan, in the 1950s and Iraq in the 1970s were from mercury, and hundreds of children born to exposed women afterward had serious physical and developmental defects.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Add your comment below
Frankly, Jill, if you truly were intellectually up to writing an article like this, and actually knew enough to objectively report on the ridiculous rantings of "Butch" (what adult uses a nickname like that, much less a governor?), then why wouldn't you know enough to have raised the very same points that I just did? You felt competent to write an article about an idiot impugning Idaho's only national lab; but, have you visited the site or contacted the public relations staff and asked to be briefed on it? Jill, don't forever be tool for "Butch" and his fellow buffoons; do a little research and investigative reporting before you broadcast somebody's fake outrage so that they can look good to their whacked out extremist core supporters.
Although you may be correct that the Gov. could have or should have known about the propsal to store Mercury at the INL, your comment added no substance to the real question: Should we store it here? It makes no sense to store this toxic element here, where none of it was previously managed here, because of the risk of storing this neurotoxin above the Snake River Aquifer. The DOE is attempting is to make Idaho the dumping ground for all sorts of toxins. Before you comment back that it is "safe", remember that DOE has said EVERY project out there is safe. But then DOE approved underground injection of wastes into the aquifer, allowed radioactive leaks at the Chem plant, and RWMC, to the extent that INL is one of the largest Superfund Clean-up sites in the country. You should appologize to Jill, who wrote an excellent article. (Which DOE contractor do you work for?)
Thanks
Ron