Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Governor Quinn just angered the Koch Brothers because of their Petcoke dumping

Governor Pat Quinn has stepped up and issued an emergency orders for the management of petroleum coke (petcoke), a toxic, choking, foul, hazardous byproduct of oil refining which Petroleum Pigs like the Koch Brothers have been dumping upon the residents of Detroit and Chicago in massive open air piles.
"We want to make sure that every neighborhood in the state of Illinois is protected from the hazard of petroleum coke," Governor Quinn said at a press conference Monday afternoon. 
Quinn delivered the announcement from the outskirts of KCBX Terminals’ 90-acre property, at 3259 E. 100th St., on the Southeast Side of Chicago. The company, controlled by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, temporarily stores petcoke along the Calumet River for a nearby BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana. 
The rules will be submitted to the Illinois Secretary of State before the end of the week, Quinn said. The rules are expected to take effect before the end of the month, after a review by the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB), which has the option to host a 14-day public comment period on the issue. 
Back in October, BP Whiting was producing 6000 tons of Petcoke a day. Detroit’s Marathon refinery wasn’t producing petcoke before its expansion, but produced 1,720 tons per day throughout 2013, while the Phillips 66 refinery in Wood River, Illinois, increased its petcoke output from 1,300 to 5,700 tons per day.

In December, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan successfully won a lawsuit against Hammond, Indiana-based Beemsterboer Slag Corp., which operates a facility along the Calumet River. Beemsterboer Slag was accepting out-of-state petcoke residue and illegally storing it in and around the Calumet River.

Plutocratic Candidate Bruce Rauner has probably already called the Koch Brothers to tell them that when he is elected he'll undo Quinn's Emergency Orders and defund the Illinois EPA and allow the Petroleum Pigs the power to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic Petcoke wherever they wish in Illinois. After all it's not being dumped inside the palatial estates of Bruce Rauner or the Koch Brothers.

Rauner's best buddy Mayor 1% (Rahm Emmanuel) quietly stopped Chicago Alderman attempts at outright banning the accumulation of petcoke inside Chicago.

You know who isn't mentioned in the Progress Illinois Report? Republicans. No comments about this from State Senator Jim Oberweis or Congressman Peter Roskam or US Senator Mark Kirk. And why is that? Because Republicans don't care where Corporations dump their pollution and toxic waste because it isn't being dumped in their backyards.

For far too long Republicans have been allowed to get away with the blanket assertion that 'Regulations are bad' and when a West, Texas Fertilizer Plant explodes because of Rick Perry's hatred for the EPA or Freedom Industries poisons the entire drinking supply of 300,000 people in West Virginia well who could have predicted that?!?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Show me the evidence. Petcoke may look ugly but there is absolutely no scientific evidence it is toxic or harmful to anyone or anything.

The studies that have been done on it refute any and all the bullshit about it being a health hazard.

The left hates the people who have done well for themselves. It's a hard sell that you are dependent on the government for your sustinance when some people do it orders of magnitude better without any government involvment.

Suck it big government lovers. We do it better with less government. Don't hate us for being successful.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Brave Anonymous,

I invite you to pave your driveway with petcoke and to sprinkle it on your cheerioes in the morning and finally you can "Suck It" by having vortices of dust blow in your face all day long.

Document yourself doing all these things and when you get cancer don't accept Obamacare because that's evil Socialism.

Dervish Sanders said...

A class action lawsuit filed in Chicago says "Petcoke, a byproduct of petroleum refining, contains sulfur, nickel and vanadium, a carcinogen". It also refers to Petcoke as "a highly dangerous, hazardous contaminant". A Koch Bros owned company is one of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit.

I'm guessing the anonymous commenter would NOT consent to having it blown in his face.