Spewing Waste

Can I give you an example of governmental stupidity?  On the Big Island of Hawaii we have an active volcano, Kilauea. It spews all kinds of crap into the air to the tune of up to 2000 tons of sulfur dioxide per day. A conservative output for Kilauea is 660 tons of sulfur dioxide. Grasp this fact.

It is important to realize the environmental impact this volcano has on the island. On the mild side is the visible blight known as vog which casts a dull haze over blue tropic skies.  Of course, in this thick cloud lives all sorts of chemicals. Also spewed are things like hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, carbon dioxide.

The junk emitted from the volcano causes metal to fatigue, clothes to rot, grasses and other plants to die, and when eaten by animals can be harmful to them causing such things as bone loss. For humans the gases cause respiratory conditions, body aches, lethargy, eye irritation and even depression.  Yes, paradise living at its best.   

Now consider the EPA, our good intention government friends who oversee the rules and regulations to keep us safe from shit that comes out of volcanoes by proposing caps on emissions on electrical plants.  That's right. We have three electrical plants on the Big Island.  Fossil fuel burning menaces. The Hawaii Electric Light Co, known as HELCO, pumps out a whopping 575 pounds per day.  Look at the numbers…pounds from the plants, tons from the volcano.  That means the emission from the three plants is .04 percent of the volcano.

Nevertheless the EPA proposes to cap emissions at the three plants to “improve visibility to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.”  EPA’s associate director, Kerry Drake, out of the Air Division at EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco says, “We did take into account the volcano.”

Please! 

Now, I am all for clean air and reducing pollution. But as our government spends more and more as Americans struggle to keep up, and worry about job loss in hard economic times,  I wonder how much this cap is going to cost for a negligible result?  Hawaii already has the highest electricity rates in the nation.  We already pay $5.00 a gallon for gas. Here’s just another reason for HELCO to increase rates to pay for an "improvement" that will have same impact as you not pissing in the ocean.