|
|
Back to UserFriendly Strip Comments Index
|
Wow, Canadian lakes to convert to mining dumps | by Myke | 2008-09-15 11:40:13 |
|
"Environment good. Industry bad." | by run.dll | 2008-09-15 12:32:21 |
| I have nothing against industry. |
by nix |
2008-09-15 13:25:36 |
But it needs to clean up its own mess. Besides, natural lakes are not designed to be effective for long-term containment of toxic waste.
Here, the costs are that there's a lake of sludge leaking mercury cyanoarsenate into someone's drinking water, which will continue to do so until the government pays $vast_sum to clean it up. The benefit is that some mine is cheaper to operate, allowing some corporation to pay greater dividends. This amounts to a subsidy of >$vast_sum to the mining company.
If the government really feels that such a subsidy is warranted, then it should pay to detoxify the waste as soon as it is produced, rather than letting it sit for a few decades first. I'm assuming here that it's cheaper to process the waste immediately rather than digging it out of a lakw bed, but that seems reasonable. The only reason why the option of polluting lakes is on the table is that the politicians think that they can make short-term gains by sweeping the issue under the rug and sitting on it until it becomes someone else's problem. |
|
[ Reply ] |
|
|
[Todays Cartoon Discussion]
[News Index]
|
|
