Posted on 04/09/2002 2:58:53 PM PDT by WhoisAlanGreenspan?
Edited on 05/07/2004 7:08:47 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
If you've been thinking about building a new deck, act now. Otherwise, you may find yourself paying an additional 20 percent or 30 percent for your project, and you might have to replace that deck sooner than expected.
The reason: a group of "green builders" and environmental activists think they know better than you what materials are safe for your families. They have pushed for -- and have won -- the elimination of the chemical that preserves the wood that you would use in those projects. You may have received letters in which environmentalists "inform" you of the "dire risks" posed by your deck, and they may have asked for help in this "crisis": Please send money.
(Excerpt) Read more at detnews.com ...
DDT, Asbestos, PPB, mercury, second hand smoke, hole in the ozone, global warming, now pressure treated lumber...when will it end?
Michigan air cleanup is costly
Up to 20 counties will fail new standards
By Gary Heinlein / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
ROCHESTER HILLS -- As many as 20 Michigan counties -- including all of Metro Detroit -- won't meet air quality requirements that the federal Environmental Protection Agency will now dictate.
A four-year challenge to the stricter standards by Michigan and several other states ended with a federal appeals court decision last week. The ruling means that over the next several years the nation's air should be cleaner. That's good news for 1.13 million Michiganians who suffer from asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer.
"It feels like I'm breathing through a dirty furnace filter," said Cecilia Strine, a 50-year-old Rochester Hills elementary school teacher with asthma. Even on good days, she has to use an inhaler to control coughing. "I absolutely agree with the EPA regulations."
But the impact is likely to be costly. The requirements could trigger new restrictions that make a whole range of consumer goods and services more expensive, including electricity, gasoline and anything delivered to stores in trucks.
The EPA estimates that 270 counties in 33 states won't meet the standards. The agency says compliance could cost government and industry a total of $9.7 billion a year in those areas. Business leaders have said the costs would be much higher -- $46 billion or more a year. By one estimate, the cost in Michigan could be at least $340 million annually.
Measures here might include tighter emission controls on power plants; tougher tail-pipe rules for cars and trucks; and added environmental analysis for highway projects. Some counties may have to enforce offsets -- policies of allowing new factories or factory expansions only if they are replacing plants that are closed.
It's too early to tell how extensive the new anti-pollution efforts in Michigan's non-complying counties will have to be. Some fear there will be measures as tough as those used in fog-shrouded California: bans on barbecues, vapor recovery equipment on gas pumps, annual vehicle emission testing, and tighter limits on exhaust from lawn mowers and snowmobiles.
Besides the seven-county area around Metro Detroit, Michigan regions likely to be out of compliance with the new standards are in the Flint-Saginaw area and along Lake Michigan. State environmental officials contend air quality problems in the Lake Michigan counties are caused mostly by pollutants that blow across the water from industrial plants in Chicago and Gary, Ind.
The new air quality standards were drawn up in 1997 during the Clinton administration. His EPA director, Carol Browner, developed policies that were seen as threats in states jockeying for manufacturing plants, development and jobs.
Michigan officials hope for friendlier policies from the Republican administration of President Bush. Bush's EPA director, Christie Whitman, has pledged to implement the standards but work with states in doing so.
The requirements will limit ozone -- a lung irritant and major component of smog -- to 0.08 parts per million, down from the current allowance of 0.12 parts per million. Also, microscopic soot from power plants, cars and other sources, can't be more than 2.5 microns in diameter -- 28 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Michigan's two energy giants, Detroit Edison and Consumers Energy, already are installing new technology at their coal-fired generating plants -- the equivalent of huge catalytic converters. The costs, eventually to be felt by home and business owners: $700 million for Detroit Edison and $500 million for Consumers.
"That will, at some point, be recovered from customers," said Consumers spokesman Dan Bishop. "While we still have serious questions about the validity of the science underpinning the requirements, we've been working on this for two years."
Mike Rodenberg, supervisor of regulations and compliance strategies in a branch of Detroit Edison, said power companies in 22 states are installing new emission controls to stem the drift of pollutants across the eastern half of the country. There's fear that the federal government will order still more stringent measures before the full benefits of the new emission controls are seen in 2004-2005, Rodenberg said.
Cleaner air can't come soon enough for Shelby Townships' Frank Couckuyt, who was forced into retirement after his emphysema was diagnosed 18 years ago. Couckuyt, 67, blames the disease partly on himself, for smoking, and partly on grinding dust he breathed daily in the Detroit shop where he worked. He now volunteers for the American Lung Association, giving youngsters a blunt, first-hand lesson in why they shouldn't smoke.
"When there's high ozone and humidity in the summer, I've got to stay in the house in the air conditioning," Couckuyt said. "I don't dare even go out in my own yard. When I get behind a bus sometimes on a summer day, that diesel exhaust is the hardest thing on my lungs."
The EPA says cleaner air from the tougher standards will result in $1.5 billion to $8.5 billion in annual benefits -- reduced cases of lung disease and a decrease in hospital emergency room visits by people such as Couckuyt.
The Lung Association says the standards will prevent 15,000 premature deaths, 350,000 cases of aggravated asthma and as many as 1 million pediatric lung disorders.
Such assertions were challenged in court by Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, the American Trucking Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers. They argued the EPA was promulgating requirements that had no definitive scientific basis. There's no proof, they said, that lowering the particulate or ozone levels will provide those benefits.
Officials in Michigan's Economic Development Corporation and Department of Transportation fear the standards will dampen development in prime growth areas, such as Oakland County, and boost highway costs by requiring more proof that major road projects won't add to pollution. State transportation spokesman Ari Adler also noted that the federal government can withhold highway funds and impose growth sanctions on counties failing to meet the standards.
But the Lung Association says in the five years the EPA has been trying to get its new standards in place, more than 800 studies have confirmed the link between pollution and lung diseases.
Cases of asthma and other disorders continue to increase in the U.S., even while the air has gotten cleaner as a result of current environmental regulations. Fourteen Americans now die each day from asthma, a rate three times greater than 20 years ago, the Lung Association says.
Dr. Michael Harbut, an environmental physician at Providence Hospital in Southfield, is incensed that the state tried to block the new requirements. Michigan's arguments against the standards are specious, he said.
"The kernel of truth is that we've never had a standard like this," Harbut said. "The last time the air was as clean as it will be (under the new standards) was probably 1915, and we've didn't have the capability to study it back then," Harbut said.
You can reach Gary Heinlein at (517) 371-3660 or gheinlein@detnews.com.
You know it wouldn't be that bad if the EPA were right only half of the time, then you could look at the danger head on and figure it's a 50/50 chance. The trouble is everything you could possibly deal with is already at 50/50 odds of being a disaster, so why do we need the EPA?
The correct term is HALF-ASSED !
Somehow that reminds me of the 5000 Constitutional Scholars who agreed Clinton hadn't done anything wrong. Why do you need more than 800 studies? My first guess is that there wasn't 800 studies. It's like the kid who begs his parents by saying everyone is doing it. Exaggerating the number of studies, or implying that more than 800 credible independent studies found the same answer is as fraudulent as banning a substance that hasn't been proven to be harmful.
question: Why can't we just manufacture ozone and pump it back into the atmosphere? (ozone is lighter than air)
answer: It couldn't make it up high enough into the atmosphere to help.
question: If that's the case how can R-12 (freon) which is heavier than air get up there to destroy the ozone?
answer: uhnn (shoulder shrug)
Keep in mind that all of the training classes were held by equipment manufacturers who made a killing selling the Gov't mandated equipment. One of the instructors was showing off his new R-134a machine (which you must buy or stop doing a/c work) when somebody raised his hand and asked: "If the new 134a refridgerant is safe for the environment then why do we have to spend $4000.00 for your machine?" answer: "uhnn"
When man -- described by one ecofreak as the "ultimate disease of nature" -- is finally expunged from the planet and nothing but termites and cockroaches remain.
That's when.
And it looks like it won't take much longer...
That being the case, I'm definitely going to go get something for dinner now.
I can see it now. Trucks with lumber harvested from Washington and Oregon heading south to get the lumber treated. Then it returns to the US treated and with a load of consturction workers ready to build your deck!
the new fad is to tear down all the playgrounds that have been built with pressure treated lumber. it's like the domino effect.
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