Going Off the Rails

The Ohio Toxic Train Derailment

Whittling Away Safety Measures 

You would think the railroad companies would be eager to avoid a toxic train derailment. But if doing so interferes with their profits, they’re just not too gung-ho. Used by most American railroads, PSR (precision scheduled railroading) is a business philosophy/operational model which focuses on cost-saving measures at the expense of safety. For the sake of hyper efficiency, they keep the trains running for as long as possible, and with as little downtime as possible. But downtime is when the trains are supposed to be inspected. Under this foolhardy plan – which values shareholders over stakeholders - over 40% of equipment maintenance workers were cut, and over 20,000 railroad workers were laid off in 2019 alone. This is why inspection times have been so drastically cut.

Carmen, the freight car mechanics who are responsible for the train’s safety, are extremely frustrated because they no longer have the time to properly inspect the train cars. It usually was only two minutes to start with, but now that time has been cut by 75% down to less than thirty seconds. Not only is this very risky, but it’s impossible too. So the train companies are now having the trains inspected before they even hit the rail yard by the train crew. This is completely inappropriate because they’re not qualified to perform them. They do this because carmen are specifically required to perform them unless they’re not available. So they set up this rudimentary pit stop just to save a little money and time. 

In response the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) sent letters to the rail companies’ CEOs, asking them not to take advantage of that loophole, and to actually perform the safety inspections. But they didn’t listen, nor did they have to. This is because of regulatory capture, which is when the industry being regulated is more powerful than the regulators. 

Taking on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, One Bite at a Time

Boyan Slat and his Ocean Cleanup project are aiming at no less than clearing all the oceans of plastic by 2050. His first target was the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This floating concentration of trash (mostly plastic) in the North Pacific Ocean is massive, reportedly twice the size of Texas. Slat launched his fleet of giant floating booms, which collected and funneled the garbage to a central tank. Sea Anchors which float deep in the ocean helped keep the booms mobile, along with gyres and deep-water tides.

Slat says this endeavor is very time-sensitive because the plastic must be collected before it breaks down into dangerous microplastics. After some technical difficulties with his booms, Slat switched his focus to how plastic is entering the oceans to begin with, which is mainly from extremely polluted rivers. This brought on the creation of his Interceptors, solar-powered trash collection barges which use the rivers’ natural currents to “close the tap” before the rivers’ plastic refuse can reach the oceans.

Making Waves

I’m impressed these young activists are addressing the consequences of global plastic pollution. Where federal agencies have dropped the ball (due to being controlled by the very industries they’re supposed to be overlooking), the Bencheghib brothers and Slat are just some of the many activists helping to fill the void. Significantly they’re very adept at reaching people and communicating with them on an intimate level. Solutions are needed now more than ever, especially with the dearth of real leadership in the world today.

I feel some hope knowing young people – outside of the system – are still striving towards a viable future, especially when so many have sadly deemed it a lost cause.                                                                                                    

                                                                                                   -Much Love, T. Stickle/2020 

Halliburton Loophole Exemptions

Big Oil & Gas are very similar to Big Tobacco, in that they go to extreme lengths to hide their incriminating evidence, while publicly claiming their product is safe. Halliburton created fracking back in 1949. Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. As Vice President, Cheney would help create the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This gave the fracking industries exemptions to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. This act, commonly known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” is a bastardized use of American legislation to serve corporate interests. If fracking were truly safe, why did they create/need all the exemptions to environmental safety regulations?

The people (some duped, some very willing) who sign lease agreements for Big Oil & Gas to frack their land are often ripped off. Their royalty checks are sucked dry by “new” expenses. Transportation costs, vague gathering fees, and blatant lies regarding the amounts of gas collected are just some of them. The landowners soon discover just how deceptive (and insatiably greedy) the oil and gas companies are. They hide profits, obfuscate their myriad deductions, use intentionally ambiguous contractual language, operate with little to no regulatory oversight, and so on.

Feeling Fracked

So not only is the environment fracked, but so are many of the landowners who sold their mineral rights. When these greedy behemoths try to rip off the government (which they do attempt to do, as leases are also sold on federal lands), the government has many resources to recoup the billions of royalty payments stolen. Yet for the average landowner, paying thousands for auditing and/or arbitration just isn’t a reality. Accordingly they need to do some serious homework before getting into bed with those wolves.  

With green energy being capable of giving us all the power we need, why is this dirty business still happening? (Obvious answers: Big Oil & Gas, their lobbyists, venal pollies on the take, etc.) We’re continuously careless with our water. Thus, I can’t help but wonder if water scarcity is part of a bigger (and even more insidious) plan. Is fracking laying the tracks toward water privatization?                                                                                                                        

- Much Love (and distress), 

                                                  T. Stickle/2018

Standing Rock #NODAPL

 A SLAPP to the Face

Standing Rock #NODAPL: Stopping Fossil Fuel Development 

The Sioux’s concerns for their water and sacred grounds were ignored by the corporate interests involved. Yet millions of people around the world heard them loud and clear: stopping fossil fuel development is a global priority. We have no time left for the insatiable greed of the fossil fuel industry. And as they paint humanity into a corner, we have no room left for denial of the dire situation we’re all facing.

In May 2014, ETP (Energy Transfer Partners) decided to build the Dakota Access Pipeline, to transfer oil from the Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota down to Illinois. The original planned route had the pipeline crossing underneath the Missouri River near Bismarck. It was rejected by the USACE (the United States Army Corps of Engineers) because it ran too close to municipal waters. With blatant disregard for the Treaty of Fort Laramie, it was rerouted a half mile from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. 

Pipelines Threaten Rivers

Continued fossil fuel development this late in the game is backwards thinking period, but it shows the relentless self-serving interests of Big Oil. Their false claims of improvements to public safety and that we can achieve “energy independence” by building more and more pipelines are laughable at best. Less than six months after the DAPL was operational, the Keystone Pipeline leaked more than 400,000 gallons (not 210,000 gallons) of oil in South Dakota.

If we remember all the other rivers (Kalamazoo River, Yellowstone River, etc.) devastated by faulty pipelines, wanting to vigorously protect the Missouri River makes perfect sense. Big Oil epitomizes the dark side of capitalism. Regardless of how many times they painfully sully our environment, they manage to thrive as they wield formidable control of our political system. Rigging the game in their favor, they receive billions of dollars in subsidies and reap billions of dollars in profit. They inflict horrendous damage on our environment (yet remain unscathed for their crimes).