Monday, January 29, 2018

Foxconn will be major emitter of air pollutants

Foxconn is going to put Wisconsin on the map - - the kind that shows potential sources of greenhouse gas and lung-damaging pollutants.

The Journal Sentinel is reporting that Foxconn is applying for an initial permit to release pollutants into the air at three proposed facilities at its projected Racine County site, and the discharges' scale and breadth could degrade air quality and its management along Lake Michigan.

Walker and the GOP-led legislature dutifully exempted Foxconn from wetland-filling permit obligations and other water-related oversight, but the company has to follow existing clean rules.

So counties to the north and west along with residents close by, depending on the wind, take note.

Clean air administration at the Scott Walker 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR has long been the province of former WMC, builders and highway interests' official Pat Stevens.

You can expect Walker, the WMC and big business tool AG Brad Schimel - - and don't forget his kid-gloves response to another major air polluter's record - - to press the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era clean air standards and make it easier counties near the Lake Michigan shoreline to remain in 'compliance.'
Smoke stacks from a factory.
Though Wisconsin interests have long argued that clean air violations along the lakeshore migrate on the wind from Chicago, and if Foxconn development wee to become a regulatory tipping point, the blame-Chicago narrative evaporate..

The DNR has established a webpage for Foxconn-related regulatory developments. You will want to bookmark it.

I'll be adding these developments to my Foxconn archive, here.

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