Environmental work is expensive, and the time frames for cleanup and monitoring can be years to decades to “in perpetuity” for some issues.
My immediate reaction when I read something like this is
it would be hella cheaper to not let it get that way, yet we keep letting it
both the purchasing companies and whatever level of government don’t want to get stuck with the bill for someone else’s mess - why isn’t that yet more incentive to not let it get that way?
Totally valid. Most of the sites I work on, the contamination happened before regulations were written. Chlorinated solvents are a big problem from metal degreasing, industrial cleaning, etc. Pre-hazardous waste laws, the manufacturer instructions were to pour spent solvents on the ground and let it evaporate. With current knowledge that is clearly not a good thing to do, but the hazards were unknown to the general public. So that stuff happened in the 1950s to early 1970s is still being cleaned up. It would have been ideal for it not to have happened in the first place, but it’s not like companies are doing that anymore (if they are operating appropriately).
My immediate reaction when I read something like this is
Totally valid. Most of the sites I work on, the contamination happened before regulations were written. Chlorinated solvents are a big problem from metal degreasing, industrial cleaning, etc. Pre-hazardous waste laws, the manufacturer instructions were to pour spent solvents on the ground and let it evaporate. With current knowledge that is clearly not a good thing to do, but the hazards were unknown to the general public. So that stuff happened in the 1950s to early 1970s is still being cleaned up. It would have been ideal for it not to have happened in the first place, but it’s not like companies are doing that anymore (if they are operating appropriately).