The Koch brothers are coke dealers– petroleum coke, to be more precise– a refining byproduct of tar sands oil, and they sell over 11 million tons of the stuff annually, mostly to China, India, and Latin America where they do not have an EPA under the leadership of President Obama refusing to grant permits to burn it as a fuel. Thanks, Obama.
But their product is piling up along the Calumet river on Chicago’s Southeast side, and the metallic dust, high-sulfur/high-carbon waste, which has been known to cause asthma and other respiratory illnesses, is just sitting there, pretty much blowing into the wind and water– passing on the hidden costs to America’s healthcare system.
A worker with Beemsterboer company sprinkles water on a pile of petroleum coke piling up along the Calumet River in Chicago — Zbigniew Bzdak, Via Chicago Tribune, Sept. 9, 2013
Locals have complained about the soot for years, but with BP planning on tripling the amount of petroleum coke it produces at its Whiting, Indiana refinery– on Lake Michigan, no less– it’s up to Koch Industries to store it, while continuing to fund the anti-science behind climate change and thwarting environmental regulations.
I’m sure the guy with the hose can totally contain these heaping mounds of open-air poison.
The free market says so.