Monday, May 14, 2018

Manitowoc writer not buying what Walker & Foxconn are selling

You can add to Walker's failing Foxconn's 'Good-for-WI statewide' sales pitch this documented dissent from Manitowoc County:
Foxconn in Wisconsin could hurt Manitowoc air, water, fishing industry 
Although located 100 miles north of Foxconn, Manitowoc County's air quality is already rated "F" by the American Lung Association, leaving residents more vulnerable to lung and heart disease. Bad as that is, water quality is also at risk. 
The manufacturing process for LCDs involves the use of heavy metals, "such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, zinc and copper," said Peter Adriaens, professor of environmental engineering at the University of Michigan. Heavy metals are "bioaccumulative," meaning they remain in our bodies and the environment.
I'd included Manitowoc County in a recent post about Foxconn's just-approved air pollution annual spew and its impact made worse by Trump's EPA's relaxation of clean air standards in SE WI at Walker's request:


Smoke stacks from a factory. 

Today it's the US EPA approval at Walker's request to exempt much of SE Wisconsin from clean air standards that will apply to much of the state and country.
The EPA found that portions of Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Door and Kenosha counties along the lake were in violation of a new tougher ozone standard. 
Racine County — the future home of the Foxconn Technology Group — was declared to be in compliance with the standard. 
The EPA also exempted Waukesha and Washington counties from 2015 standards advanced under Obama administration. 
By the way, data from the American/Wisconsin Lung Associations had already graded Kenosha, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Ozaukee and Sheboygan Counties "F" for particulate (read: ozone) pollution, and more data show the thousands and thousands of Wisconsinites in those counties and elsewhere in the state already at risk from pediatric asthma, adult asthma, lung cancer and cardio-vascular disease.

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