Coors and the Pollution of truth.
Well this didn't take very long. As soon as Pete Coors won the Republican primary the attacks started. Coors company is the worst polluter in the state. Land, water and air. The uncaring SOB.
Of course this is Boulder but it is wise to pay attention to the shouting because it is usually a good preview of the attacks that the opposition will use during the campaign.
Over the course of the next couple of days I'll try to review the actual record.
The Coors company could not possibly be the worst polluter in a state that has the Summitville mine.
This is a superfund site. Take a look at the EPA report on it. The state of Colorado is exposed to more toxic pollution -- land,air,water -- in an afternoon here than from the Coors Brewery in a lifetime.
This is the Coors Brewery plant in Golden.
Has the Coors Brewery had some problems and been fined by the EPA? Sure. The most recent one I could find was this.
Coors Brewing Co. will spend more than $500,000 to make amends for a beer spill in 2000 that the state says killed more than 50,000 fish in Clear Creek.
An agreement between the company here and the Colorado Division of Wildlife calls for Coors to:
Construct and monitor a wetland of at least two acres to filter the brewery's wastewater before it flows into Clear Creek. The wetland should reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater effluent and provide wildlife habitat.
Purchase thousands of fish for stocking in metro-area waters. The number of fish, and the species, will be determined by Coors and state officials next year.
Provide funding for two graduate students to participate in studies related to the wetlands project.
The settlement is far below the $35-per-fish ceiling set by state law -- an amount that could have brought a $1.7 million fine. But it's rare for the agency to go to court for the maximum amount, Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd Malmsbury said.
Now as a serious fly fisherman, I'm very concerned about these kinds of things but the history of Coors Brewery is that of the model corporate citizen. Over the course of the last few years they have always been up front about their problems. This accident happened when a new operator mistakenly overloaded the water treatment plant.
But even when you try to do things correctly and go above and beyond what is required, sometimes there are problems.
One man's brewsky, of course, is another man's "volatile organic compound." VOC -- that's how Colorado environmental officials classify the evaporating ethanol given off by all that spilled beer. VOCs can be harmful in large amounts, but until 1993 breweries like Coors were thought to be minor-league emitters of these naturally occurring toxins.
But then Coors did something controversial, and increasingly popular among American companies: It tested itself. The company conducted a voluntary self-audit of its operations to see whether they complied with state environmental standards. It discovered that they didn't -- regulators had underestimated the brewery's VOC emissions by a factor of 17 -- and promptly reported its infraction to state environmental authorities.
As a reward for playing the good corporate citizen and turning itself in, Coors was slapped with a record $1-million fine by the Colorado Department of Health. (emphasis added) The company protested the fine, arguing that a million bucks was too much to pay for alerting the state to pollution that neither party had known was occurring. The state legislature and Democratic governor Roy Romer agreed, and in 1994 Colorado became the second state in the nation to pass a law to protect the results of self-audits from being used against companies that voluntarily disclose and correct their environmental infractions.
More soon.
Of course this is Boulder but it is wise to pay attention to the shouting because it is usually a good preview of the attacks that the opposition will use during the campaign.
Over the course of the next couple of days I'll try to review the actual record.
The Coors company could not possibly be the worst polluter in a state that has the Summitville mine.
This is a superfund site. Take a look at the EPA report on it. The state of Colorado is exposed to more toxic pollution -- land,air,water -- in an afternoon here than from the Coors Brewery in a lifetime.
This is the Coors Brewery plant in Golden.
Has the Coors Brewery had some problems and been fined by the EPA? Sure. The most recent one I could find was this.
Coors Brewing Co. will spend more than $500,000 to make amends for a beer spill in 2000 that the state says killed more than 50,000 fish in Clear Creek.
An agreement between the company here and the Colorado Division of Wildlife calls for Coors to:
Construct and monitor a wetland of at least two acres to filter the brewery's wastewater before it flows into Clear Creek. The wetland should reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater effluent and provide wildlife habitat.
Purchase thousands of fish for stocking in metro-area waters. The number of fish, and the species, will be determined by Coors and state officials next year.
Provide funding for two graduate students to participate in studies related to the wetlands project.
The settlement is far below the $35-per-fish ceiling set by state law -- an amount that could have brought a $1.7 million fine. But it's rare for the agency to go to court for the maximum amount, Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd Malmsbury said.
Now as a serious fly fisherman, I'm very concerned about these kinds of things but the history of Coors Brewery is that of the model corporate citizen. Over the course of the last few years they have always been up front about their problems. This accident happened when a new operator mistakenly overloaded the water treatment plant.
But even when you try to do things correctly and go above and beyond what is required, sometimes there are problems.
One man's brewsky, of course, is another man's "volatile organic compound." VOC -- that's how Colorado environmental officials classify the evaporating ethanol given off by all that spilled beer. VOCs can be harmful in large amounts, but until 1993 breweries like Coors were thought to be minor-league emitters of these naturally occurring toxins.
But then Coors did something controversial, and increasingly popular among American companies: It tested itself. The company conducted a voluntary self-audit of its operations to see whether they complied with state environmental standards. It discovered that they didn't -- regulators had underestimated the brewery's VOC emissions by a factor of 17 -- and promptly reported its infraction to state environmental authorities.
As a reward for playing the good corporate citizen and turning itself in, Coors was slapped with a record $1-million fine by the Colorado Department of Health. (emphasis added) The company protested the fine, arguing that a million bucks was too much to pay for alerting the state to pollution that neither party had known was occurring. The state legislature and Democratic governor Roy Romer agreed, and in 1994 Colorado became the second state in the nation to pass a law to protect the results of self-audits from being used against companies that voluntarily disclose and correct their environmental infractions.
More soon.
posted by Richard | 7:21 PM
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