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EPA To Buy Small Town In Kansas
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Wichita Eagle reports that Congress has approved funds to relocate the population of the southeast Kansas town of Treece, which is plagued with lead, zinc and other chemical contamination left by a century of mining. Estimates say it will cost about $3 million to $3.5 million to buy out the town, which is surrounded by huge piles of mining waste called 'chat' and dotted with uncapped shafts and cave-ins filled with brackish, polluted water. 'It's been a long, dusty, chat-covered road, but for the citizens of Treece, finally, help will be on the way,' said Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas who has been pushing for a buyout of Treece for two years. The population of Treece has dwindled to about 100 people, almost all of whom want to move but say they can't because the pollution and an ongoing EPA cleanup project makes it impossible to sell a house. The EPA has already bought out the neighboring town of Picher, Oklahoma, stripping Treece of quick access to jobs, shopping, recreation and services, including fire protection and cable TV. Both cities were once prosperous mining communities but the ore ran out and the mines were abandoned by the early 1970s. Of 16 children tested for lead levels in Treece, two had levels between 5 and 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood and one had a level of more than 10 times the threshold for lead poisoning."
Where it will become a nature reserve.
FHA is doing the financing.
Times Beach, Missouri.
...didn't put a DOME around it, barring everyone in the town from the rest of the world!
Just apply the free-market solution to this bunch of pathetic pinko trash: fuck 'em. You want mommy government to buy out the town? No, let it fetch the free market price of $0.01 an acre (if you find a sucker willing to pay that much). This crying about lead poisoning is communist bullshit anyway. If it weren't for the commie EPA they wouldn't know it was bad at all and the town would be rolling in the riches of the free market. They'd also pull themselves up by the bootstraps and not complain about the commie fire department from the socialist town next door not being there anymore. If you can't afford a fire department in your town, tough shit, you fucking commie pinko. They're all probably dependent on pinko commie socialist Welfare, socialist pinko commie Farm Subsidies, socialist commie pinko Social Security, pinko socialist commie Medicaid, and commie socialist pinko Medicare. Probably send their kids to commie pinko socialist public schools. Don't even get me started on the socialist commie leftist fascist public police force, the goddamn unamerican pinko jackbooted islamic thugs. If it weren't for the fact that the mines are depleted, we should declare war on them.
This post brought to you by the Cato Institute.
Parent is 100% correct.
Who modded this flamebait?
Allowing a government to buy a town is clearly unfair competition and socialism. Only private businesses should be allowed to buy towns.
Once again an inept bureaucracy of the federal government tries to solve problems with bigger, more expensive problems. We don't need an EPA, the constitution gives us property rights. If pollution encroaches on your private property you don't need to appeal to Big Environmentalism, just take the polluter to court!