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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHaving A Fertilizer Plant In A Residential Area Is Insane. Throw In A Nursing Home...
and a middle school and you get incompetence on a level only Republicans can achieve.
neverforget
(9,434 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)in civilian neighborhoods. We not only locate dangerous and hazardous operations among civilians we also make sure we dump wastes in poor and minority neighborhoods, to say nothing about who pollutes our waterways.
ag_dude
(562 posts)It's a narrow town about two miles from one end to the next.
This isn't Simcity. There's no such thing as a "residential area", it's just a rural farm town similar to hundreds of others.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Partly to prevent stuff like this.
ag_dude
(562 posts)That town was built up the way it is long before it got to the point that zoning would have been effective.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)The plant is bottom right, all the houses are left side, top to bottom.
ag_dude
(562 posts)You don't have to describe West to me.
I can post pictures of numerous residential neighborhoods where there isn't detailed zoning.
You should probably point out that the city limits stop at about the bottom of that picture on east side of the rail road.
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)settled by Czech immigrants.
They sell these plants to towns as jobs.
Then. Deregulation.
It is the perfect storm.
ag_dude
(562 posts)The fertilizer plant's been there for at least several decades.
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)ag_dude
(562 posts)You don't "sell plants to towns as jobs" in towns like West. You buy the land and build.
Have you ever been to West?
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)Have you?
ag_dude
(562 posts)You do know the office of the plant wasn't even in the city limits right? You're talking about the town like it was some intricately managed urban city. There was no bait and switch de-regulation.
How do you make that "sell these plants to small towns for jobs" foolishness if you know just how small West and West Fertilizer are?
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)but carry on.
Sorry, I'm just not that into ya!
ag_dude
(562 posts)You are talking about something that has nothing to do with West.
But keep the smug ignorant attitude. It suits you well.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)not worth the alert in my book.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)At Thu Apr 18, 2013, 12:44 AM an alert was sent on the following post:
Seriously
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2697811
REASON FOR ALERT:
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)
ALERTER'S COMMENTS:
Rude and insulting
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Apr 18, 2013, 12:47 AM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.
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Response to ag_dude (Reply #19)
Horse with no Name This message was self-deleted by its author.
ag_dude
(562 posts)How about 20 miles from West?
That's how I know things about the actual subject at hand.
I'm not making vague generalizations about a situation I don't know anything about.
And no, you have no right to call somebody an "ass" after you made those absolutely ignorant comments about the situation.
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)I bet you sell swampland too!
Oh wait!
You live in Waco?
Is that you Ted?
ag_dude
(562 posts)Our farm is east of Hillsboro.
I've met the Uptmore family before.
How many times do you want to show you don't know what you're talking about?
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)in any kind of proximity.
Texas had 581 people die due to a fertilizer explosion in 1947. It's not as if this was some sort of surprise it could happen.
ag_dude
(562 posts)What's your plan for the hundreds of rural towns with similar situations?
BTW, Texas wasn't a republican state when that fertilizer plant was built.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Google Earth:
If you look around the rest of the town, the only other 'large' businesses are gas stations/restaraunts/hotels along the interstate and the high school.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)It's a horrible, tragic accident.
Perhaps we ought to leave politics out of it, especially for now.
JI7
(89,182 posts)when we could have prevented it . just like the gun control issue.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Apr 16, 1947:
Fertilizer explosion kills 581 in Texas
A giant explosion occurs during the loading of fertilizer onto the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas, on this day in 1947. Nearly 600 people lost their lives and thousands were injured when the ship was literally blown to bits.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)I went to elementary school within two miles from one. I lived within a blast zone from one.
These things shouldn't be next to anything, much less a neighborhood.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)And I'm very sorry about your hometown.
I live in Boston and I didn't want all of you to think on top of the tragedy the victims/town were being piled on.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)Last edited Thu Apr 18, 2013, 02:22 PM - Edit history (1)
Which was there first -- the factory or the homes?
Logical
(22,457 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)And the plant was likely there before the homes.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)If there are pre-existing houses= no fertilizer plant
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)joeglow3
(6,228 posts)We have a couple plants with houses nearby. However, both are well over 50 years old.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)small midwestern towns. Often right across the street. I was nervous enough working by the silos, hoping the dust-removal systems were working and nothing would spark, but at least I didn't have to live there.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)dems_rightnow
(1,956 posts)... it wouldn't have blown up, of course.
jollyreaper2112
(1,941 posts)This is a teachable moment. We shouldn't let it pass unused.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)and like airports, they were there before most of the residential facilities were built.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)Drive through the state and you see this everywhere.
Zoning means jack shit to local government.
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)when that all happened. And a commission that was easily bought.
ag_dude
(562 posts)Perhaps you should investigate what you are talking about before making such blind accusations.
I wish you knew more about the situation so you'd know just how silly you look talking about a zoning commission that could have been bought in West when that facility was built.
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)plans? Because, that would be even worse!
If not a municipality, then a county board. If not a county board, then a state board.
It's not that complicated.
ag_dude
(562 posts)It was well over three decades ago. I know it was there and well established in the early 80s. That's not a town with some zoning board to be bought off, stop making unfounded and ignorant accusations.
I think you'd be absolutely floored to find out just how many small rural towns have a fertilizer yard (it wasn't a factory) right next to or in the middle of town.
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)Even Florida, which has the most deplorable local government process that I have ever witnessed, has a County government which takes up ALL the property that a municipality does not annex into their boundaries. We even have odd situations where county property became enclaves within the city limits. This goes back to the seventies and before then.
So, I repeat. It's an issue that may be exclusive to Texas, and any other state who is too boneheaded to run a competent community development office.
ag_dude
(562 posts)...I'd suggest you stop making assumptions because you are very very wrong. Frankly, there's a certain level of animosity toward Texas on here that's giving people a false sense of confidence in making such wildly incorrect accusations.
Drive through the grain belt and you will see small rural towns built like this in bulk.
It's an extremely common practice.
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)There is a lot about Texas that should stay in Texas. This is one of them. George Bush is the other.
ag_dude
(562 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)And when Jeb Bush was governor, we had a lot of that crap seeping across the border.
ag_dude
(562 posts)It's nice to see somebody actively bathing in their bigotry rather than trying to pretend you are making your argument on rational grounds.
Good day sir.
randome
(34,845 posts)Some of us appreciate the perspective of someone who is practically 'on the scene', so to speak.
Paladin
(28,204 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)Jeb started the shit. We got stuck with his "education" plan.
Sure Texas has bush and perry. We also had Barbara Jordan and Molly Ivins. Florida has been where Texans retire when they get tired of all that liberalism in Texas.
(See how productive this kind of shit can be?)
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)Hey. Neither Texas nor Florida has much to be proud of right now. And you expect some asshole slime to be our thumping their chests whenever tragedy strikes. You just expect it to come from some place that might have some basis for thinking they had it better. But then here you are.
(Still think this is productive?)
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)to the end of a productive exchange.
Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)So you came to the end before you began. It is telling that such a name caller wants to start whining about being called names.
(See how productive and purposeful a post as mean-spirited and prejudiced as yours is?)
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)You said that Florida would never allow such an idiocy as letting a fertilizer plant be built in a town - near schools and such.
Try this. Google Florida fertilizer plant. Then map the locations. In the five minutes since my last post, I found four maps of fertilizer plants in Florida with houses all around them. Two had schools within a few hundred yards.
How about an apology?
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)What DU Member did I name call? The answer is that I didn't call a member out, yet you folded that into your argument as if it was a given. And now you want an apology because I caught you.
Is this the best that GD has to offer?
Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)Unless you are self-identifiying. I called no more names than you did.
Of course you could just be playing stupid games with words. Suppose I said that you lie, that you can't read, that you are unable to discern reality from you ass. See? By your game, I didn't call you a name. Suppose i said that people who post things like you did are bigots and freeper trolls. See? By your game, I didn't call you a name.
Straight up - if you can do that - you called out Texas for allowing a fertilizer plant in the middle of a town. You said that Florida was way too smart to do that. Then you you crawled into the hole of "he picked on me" whining to avoid admitting that you were either just making shit up or that you just don't know what you are talking about.
So your whining isn't the issue for you to apologize for. You owe an apology to DU because, as I showed you, your initial high handed and self preening post was shit.
But GD offers a lot. Neither you or I are among the best. But you could at least admit your stupid post was stupid. I don't see that coming from you given your back-pedaling and side-stepping. Look. You just popped off. A nice little town had a tragedy. You used it as a means of exorcising some of your prejudice. It was the wrong thing to do. It was not the action of your better angels. But your subsequent need to defend that nastiness is only getting you deeper. Address the issue and stop playing games.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)This is what Texans at large want, and vote for, isn't it?
dembotoz
(16,740 posts)things built before urban planning
grandfathered in
hindsight is always 20/20
a lot of people bought chevy vegas
a lot of people bought ford pintos
a lot of people bought yugos
seemed like a good idea at the time
mikegray
(15 posts)cheap real estate?
Response to mikegray (Reply #51)
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Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)from where I live. You rarely smell it. Every once in a while a check valve leaks a the fire dept. checks on it. I am not worried about it at all. Accidents like this must be super rare.
Response to Mnpaul (Reply #63)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)Hydrogen is highly explosive. An indoor leak could be very dangerous.
Response to Mnpaul (Reply #65)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Jakes Progress
(11,121 posts)If you think this is unusual, you are naive. Check out aging natural gas lines, cement plants, refineries, railroad lines that carry hazardous material, sewer gas problems, airports. I'm sure I've missed several.
Unless you live like some hermit, deep in a wilderness, you are at risk too.
randome
(34,845 posts)A great opportunity for a jobs program.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Try http://www.historicaerials.com. The 1971 topo map shows some residential structures within a mile of the plant. The 1957 map does not.
ananda
(28,783 posts)My relatives used to own and run the dry cleaner's there, back in the day.
I visited them several times to play with my cousins and for family get-togethers.
Of course, they're long gone now; and the town has changed. There wasn't any
big fertilizer company back then either.
ag_dude
(562 posts)That fertilizer and grain yard has been around since at least the early 80s.
It's on the edge of town, perhaps you just didn't see it?
librechik
(30,663 posts)zoning regulations is just commie bullshit, right? Make everything as easy as possible for the rich, and fuck the poor.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)Such facilities tend to be either in lower income urban areas or in rural communities. Perhaps the suburbs should share the risk.
Lone_Star_Dem
(28,158 posts)I checked the CAD property search. The neighborhood that was adjacent to the plant was built back when Texas was blue. For that matter the plant itself was built back in 1958 when Texas was also blue. For the most part the homes were built in the mid 1960's. I really think this is a case of an old, small town that had little to no zoning when it was developed. Over the years the people who lived there began to feel secure since nothing had ever happened to them in all those years. I'm sure they'll never make that mistake again.
The plant may well have not been complying with safety regulations, but that's a different topic than what you're addressing. The plant and the neighborhood which was adjacent to it were both products of back when Republicans didn't rule/ruin Texas. The explosion at the plant may be a trickle down product of lax standards and greedy owners fuzzing the facts to make the most profits. That won't surprise me in the least if it turns out to be true, and that is a product of the current Republican mindset in Texas.