Straight out of the gate newly sworn-in Governor Kitzhaber is talking economy. The economy and jobs. There's the $2 million in unspent federal stimulus money to conduct energy audits at 500 Oregon schools. There are Administrative changes designed to better integrate the state's On-the-Job Training and Career Readiness Certificate Programs, which prepare Oregonians to find work. There's the commitment to meet regularly with businesses leaders to identify industrial land to be developed. And then there is this: A pledge to grow Oregon's biomass industry by including biomass boilers in school energy retrofit programs. Kitzhaber said he'll also personally meet next month with officials at the federal Environmental Protection Agency, "which is developing rules for producing energy by burning woody forest or agricultural products."...That is when the EPA isn't otherwise occupied laying the groundwork for privatizing Portland's water perhaps involving chlorine, maybe introducing hexavalent chlorine which the agency can then monitor....Just...Like...This...
In an astonishingly hypocritical display of cognitive disconnect, The Environmental Protection Agency recommended that utilities nationwide test drinking water for hexavalent chromium. Chlorine, the most common disinfectant in Oregon systems that treat water, can chemically transform the nutritional form of chromium, chromium-3, into the harmful one. And yet the EPA still has its panties in a bunch over cryptosporidium in Bull Run water. Cryptosporidium is an ubiquitous bacteria that human creatures manage to coexist with most of the time. When immune systems go unchallenged that's when the bug becomes dangerous. and millions of Americans are addicted to compulsive handwashing, handwringing and the dubious benefits of battling bacteria. Still at least the EPA did something. The new guidelines are a too little, too late reaction to growing concern over the cancer-causing form of chromium, known as chromium-6.Environmental advocates and Oregon water officials lauded EPA's swift response to an advocacy group's December report that it found hexavalent chromium in 31 of 35 U.S. cities where it tested water. Among them: a privately owned water system in Bend.
- KBOO