Oklahoma town polluted... makes me wonder

Mountains

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/141990498/powdery-pollution-coats-oklahoma-town

This story on NPR today had me thinking all the way through - as gut-wrenching as the situation is, I have to wonder how many people in Ponca City would identify as Tea Partiers or otherwise GOP aligned. And thus, would, by definition be in favor of essentially gutting the EPA and taking away its authority to police situations exactly like this one. As is typical with the right, the government is bad until it comes to something that hits close to their home. Then if there's a hurricane, or a flood, or some nasty pollution like this, they cry and moan about why the federal government didn't jump in sooner.

Dakini

There's more than just black powder polluting Ponca land, I learned from a Ponca woman a couple of years ago. There's oil pollution from oil wells. The Poncas have taken the issue to the UN.

compassionate_warrior

I wonder why the Poncas haven't done much to build awareness and form coalitions in the environmentalist community, and the population at large. It's not right that this environmental despoiling and what could be called environmental racism should have gone on so long without anyone knowing. I wonder how many more cases of this sort of thing are going on nationwide that no one's heard of.