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- Cogito ergo sum
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With E.P.A. Cuts, States Would Lose Help in Emergencies
With E.P.A. Cuts, States Would Lose Help in Emergencies
WASHINGTON — Late one Friday night in 2014, Ohio’s environmental agency received word of a frightening test result from Toledo’s water supply: A toxic greenish substance had rendered the drinking water of half a million Toledo residents unsafe to drink.
“Immediately we reached out to the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Craig Butler, the director of Ohio’s environmental agency. “Because of the scale of the problem, and the technical knowledge required, we needed their expertise.”
State officials flew water samples from Toledo to an E.P.A. laboratory in Cincinnati, where staff scientists identified the substance as microcystin, a rare but toxic substance that is produced by algae blooms in water and causes liver damage in humans.
The resources to respond to those emergencies, along with much of the other state-level work performed by the agency, would be eliminated or sharply reduced by President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018, which cuts the E.P.A. by 31 percent, more than any other agency.
Continued @
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.