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Mammoth Springs

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Evil Assholes

The news that Trump's EPA blocked the release of a report regarding the release of toxic carcinogens in Illinois didn't exactly surprise me but it is still worth a read.

A former top Environmental Protection Agency official appointed by former President Donald Trump withheld warnings to an Illinois community about a toxic gas linked to several cancers that was being emitted by local plants, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General revealed in a news report.

Bill Wehrum was the assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office for Air and Radiation in 2018 when EPA officials in Illinois became concerned about elevated levels of ethylene oxide at the Sterigenics sterilizing plant in Willowbrook.

The federal government has linked the gas to lymphoma, leukemia, and stomach and breast cancers. The local administrator “wanted to immediately release” air monitoring results to the public by posting them on the agency’s website to “avoid another public health emergency like the Flint, Michigan, drinking water crisis,” according to the IG report, which was released Thursday.

But Wehrum, who had been an attorney for gas, oil and coal companies, ordered officials to “not release monitoring results to the public,” said the investigative report, which was requested by Congress.

As a person who has battled cancer off and on since 1985, a cancer linked to methyl ethyl ketones, is it any wonder I despise these people so? 

2 comments:

Jon Harwood said...

Ethylene gas it thought to be the source of inspiration for the Oracle at Delphi. It doesn't seem so benign in your report.

Wilbur Norman said...

Yes, these bureaucrats are truly evil incarnate who lack any humane characteristics or, apparently, conscience whatsoever. Bringing them to book is, maybe, the only thing we can expect - not even a conviction, in many cases.