30,000 pounds of bananas, 37 pounds of HCN and why Republicans hate Biden
Hydrogen cyanide is a very dangerous chemical. It is most famous for being the killing agent in both prison and Nazi gas chambers. It’s also an industrial chemical with many uses. And…it’s a byproduct of carbon fiber production. And so our story begins.
The world’s biggest carbon fiber plant is SGL Carbon in Moses Lake, WA. It used to belong to BMW. It still belongs to Germans, who use German environmental standards because theirs are higher than ours. They make this product by the trainload, which means they also make hydrogen cyanide by the trainload. It is, in general, a good company.
At three times during the Trump administration, SGL’s hydrogen cyanide burner operated at reduced efficiency and managed to release a total of 37 pounds of the chemical into the atmosphere. The first was in 2017, then one in 2018 and the last in 2019. Sunlight destroys hydrogen cyanide and this factory is way the hell out in the middle of the desert so there was no huge danger to human life or the environment, and the factory fixed the problems. However, you’re supposed to report hydrogen cyanide spills within 15 minutes of discovering them, and they missed this target. Instead of calling it in while they’re fixing the problem so the Coast Guard and the fire department could respond, they fixed the problem and then called it in.
For this, Biden’s EPA fined them $139,100. This was a $1000 per fine under CERCLA and the rest was an EPCRA fine. Trump’s was apparently okay with it. The root cause of Biden hatred is that no longer can business do whatever the hell it wants.
https://yosemite.epa.gov/oa/rhc/epaadmin.nsf/Filings/581D467A598BE4A5852587BF0065476D/$File/SGL%20Composites%20LLC%20Consent%20Agreement%20Final%20Order.pdf
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