EPA says Tucson’s drinking water is contaminated but air force claims agency lacks authority to order cleanup

EPA says Tucson’s drinking water is contaminated but air force claims agency lacks authority to order cleanup

The US air force is refusing to comply with an order to clean drinking water it polluted in Tucson, Arizona, claiming federal regulators lack authority after the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned the “Chevron doctrine”. Air force bases contaminated the water with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds.

Though former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and legal experts who reviewed the air force’s claim say the Chevron doctrine ruling probably would not apply to the order, the military’s claim that it would represents an early indication of how polluters will wield the controversial court decision to evade responsibility.

It appears the air force is essentially attempting to expand the scope of the court’s ruling to thwart regulatory orders not covered by the decision, said Deborah Ann Sivas, director of the Stanford University Environmental Law Clinic.

“It’s very odd,” she added. “It feels almost like an intimidation tactic, but it will be interesting to see if others take this approach and it bleeds over.”

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
      1172·
      3 months ago

      there are also humans at the top of the ‘air force’ that made this decision not to clean up. its two sets of irresponsible…no… negligent humans at play.

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        631·
        3 months ago

        That would be the Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall.

        Also, he is appointed by, and reports directly to, the president. Biden could easily call this guy up and tell him to unfuck himself.

          • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
            61·
            3 months ago

            And playing with lives over to respond or not with unclear rules over the next 50 years is better? Folks will get sick either way. I’d prefer to force a decision sooner rather than later.

          • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
            3·
            3 months ago

            Well… Just poison the right watering holes that the people who have the power to act care about, and suddenly they’ll care about the EPA and water quality regulations.

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
          16·
          3 months ago

          You think the drinking water of Supreme Court justices is going to be contaminated as a result of this? They’re not being punished for making a mistake, a bunch of innocent powerless plebs will be.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
        16·
        3 months ago

        I can’t tell if this is a genuine attempt to dodge cleanup or an attempt to test a Supreme Court ruling before companies can get out of hand during the next administration.

        But maybe I’m reading too much into the context.

      • index@sh.itjust.works
        71·
        3 months ago

        They also made the decision to pollute in the first place. Let’s not divert the attention off the cause of the pollution.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          4·
          3 months ago

          To be fair, much of this pollution was done decades ago. The people responsible for the bulk of it are retired by now.

    • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
      158·
      3 months ago

      We have a nation of people who voted for the people who selected the extreme far right conservatives into the court.

      Voters deserve much of the blame too.

      • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        72·
        3 months ago

        …and who vote for a Congress that refuses to pass laws to address these problems.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          3 months ago

          What are you talking about? Congress did pass a law to address this: it’s called the Clean Water Act. The issue is that an illegitimate SCOTUS packed by traitors basically invalidated it.

          • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            The article spells out what I’m talking about pretty clearly. I work with the CWA literally on a daily basis. Congress hasn’t made the CWA more clear or specific since the Water Quality Act of 1987. Congress could literally fix this dispute between federal agencies tomorrow, but we elected Republicans to control the House, which means it has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening.

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              32·
              3 months ago

              The CWA as of 1987 is plenty clear under any reasonable standard. The relevant problem here is that SCOTUS has ordained an unreasonable standard. Yes, Democratic control of both houses of Congress could “fix” that issue, but the point is it shouldn’t need to because the EPA should be allowed to do its job (which, contrary to the illegitimate tyrannical stooges’ diseased opinions, does include interpreting the law!).

              • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
                11·
                3 months ago

                Yes, Democratic control of both houses of Congress could “fix” that issue

                Glad we agree.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        3 months ago

        Erm, all Americans who could vote share the blame but Mitch McConnel gets a big heaping serving of it.

    • capital@lemmy.world
      61·
      3 months ago

      The consequences of people staying home and/or general apathy in regards to voting.

      • Waveform@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 months ago

        It’s either a sign of false leadership, or it’s the type of behavior we value in our leaders. Either way, it doesn’t look good.

  • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
    52·
    3 months ago

    Cool, the thing we were assured wouldn’t happen because free market or something.

    Even if it’s decided that the EPA has the proper authority, the damage will be done by the time it makes its way through the courts.

    The EPA order requires the development of a system specifically designed for PFAS. A similar system is estimated to cost about $25m to develop, or about 0.1% of the air force’s annual budgeting.

    Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool…

    • frezik@midwest.social
      3·
      3 months ago

      Do you realize how many Generals and Admirals will have to put off their monthly mahogany desk polishing because of this?

  • Deconceptualist@lemm.eeEnglish
    41·
    3 months ago

    So “federal regulators lack the authority” to order a cleanup, even though feds made the orders that led to environmental damage in the first place. Riiiiight.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
      37·
      3 months ago

      This is nothing. Wait until you see what the corporations will do when they’re told to stop polluting say the water source of a major city and they say fuck you to the EPA

      It’s gonna get so so so much worse

      "Millions leave Chicago because Dow Chemical poisons the water table. When asked for comment a DOW chemical PR representative said: ‘Yeah, suck a dick losers’ "

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        6·
        3 months ago

        The EPA can still take them to court with a jury over things like this, but they won’t have the resources to take everyone to court.

        So you still gotta be smart about it and not do something like completely wreck the water source for Chicago, because they’ll use their limited resources to go after them.

        But some small town no one cares about? Probably much easier.

        • xenoclast@lemmy.world
          1·
          3 months ago

          You’re talking about the same companies that own entire local governments. That get to choose the rules they play under in normal situations.

          This is like nothing any human currently alive in America has experienced. It’s worse than 1800s robber Baron America. It’s the same attitude and people with (and I means this literally) million of times greater resources than the government.

          The 44 years of dismantling and disrupting any power the government had is starting to pay off in spades.

          The reality is, we’ll look at my original comment and laugh at how naive and quaint it was. Like people saying “Trump will never win” then "How bad could he fuck it up really?.. and then…

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
    16·
    3 months ago

    I’m more interested in who told them to do this.

    I seriously doubt some jackass decided to attempt to expand the already bullshit result of Chevrons undoing from within the air force of their own decision. I’d almost guarantee some bought and paid for politician is pushing for this to go up to SCOTUS too.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      9·
      3 months ago

      I seriously doubt some jackass decided to attempt to expand the already bullshit result of Chevrons undoing from within the air force of their own decision

      I find it very easy to believe some jackass said, “My job is represebting the Air Force and this could be a way to save them hundreds of millions of dollars, and worrying about the environmental and political consequences is somebody else’s job” and just charged on forward

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 months ago

      The military exists to funnel large amounts of money into private hands. If they have to spend billions on cleanup that means that private companies are being left out.

  • MSids@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 months ago

    I work just outside of the Pease air force base and drank the coffee and water for ages. They were on the base well system which was heavily contaminated. Thanks a bunch.