Thread: Houston Ship Channel -- Leukemia Alley?

Source: (CNN) http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/18/poo...ent/index.html

"...the Manchester area of Houston, next to the Houston ship channel, the largest petrochemical complex in the United States."

[...]

...earlier this year, the University of Texas released a study showing that children who live within two miles of the ship channel have a 56 percent greater chance of getting leukemia than kids living elsewhere."

[...]

Companies in the ship channel told CNN they've started voluntarily limiting their emissions. They also point out that they haven't broken any laws. There are no laws in either Texas or at the federal level that limit the amount of hazardous air pollutants these companies pump into the air.
There is an effort under way to get a law passed in Texas, but ... it's going to be an uphill battle because the oil and chemical industry has deep roots in Texas.

This seems utterly absurd to me -- we ban smoking, which while harmful has a smaller range of effect than a large petrochemical complex being allowed to pump out known carcinogens into the air of a given area for decades. Perhaps I really am ignorant, but I thought this type of thing was exactly what the Clean Air Act was intended to snuff out (pun intended)?

It seems, for all the dings "environmentalists" get from conservatives about impeding commerce with "our" legislation, that said legislation really has no teeth. For all the uproar over Chinese imports containing excessive lead, it's sad we're doing even worse to our own citizens here at home... all in the name of commerce? :mad: