An amateur drone pilot in Texas was flying a simple rig with a point-and-shoot camera attached for fun, and noticed something strange in a creek. There was an awful lot of dark red in the water. He notified the county, and a Department of Health and Human Services investigation showed that the substance discoloring the water was blood. Raw pig blood from a nearby meatpacking plant.
A search warrant executed on the nearby slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant found that there was an underground pipe leading to the creek. That’s very, very illegal, and the various government agencies involved won’t comment on what kind of charges could be in store for whoever installed that pipe.
Investigation: Pig’s Blood Flowing into Trinity River: MyFoxDFW.com
Investigation: Pig’s Blood Flowing into Trinity River [Fox 4]
Dallas Meat Packing plant investigated after drone images reveal pollution [sUAS News] (via Gizmodo – thanks, anti_activist!)
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Is it tasteless to make a quip about trying to refrain from making a tampon related comment?
Is asking whether it’s tasteless to make a joke about refraining from making a tasteless joke about something effectively the same thing as making the joke in the first place?
Jokeception
Love your new nick addition
It is #thegreatest.
My subtlety has eluded me once again!
Hey there, it looks like you’re trying to be funny. Would you like me to help you draft an application letter to Clown College?
‚ù§
Please.. That’s an insult to all Clown College alumnus and undergrads.
Helping someone get accepted into Clown College is no laughing matter.
Is it rude to make a quip about trying to refrain from calling you a moron? Is so, I’ll just straight out call you a moron. If not, I’ll just make a quip about trying to refrain from callling you a moron.
; – )
Yes!
oh for the love of eeeeewwwwwwwwww
Why??? Why do people care that little about the environment and the people who live around them? I try so hard to keep my misanthropy at bay, and then I read something like this.
Money
And with enough of it, you don’t have to live anywhere near where the little environmental disasters are located. That’s why some crazies can seriously say we don’t need the EPA, because they really believe the land is as nicely pruned as the manicured lawns for the mansions they live in, the water is as pure as the Fiji water they carry around everywhere, and the air is as pure as that refreshing vacation in the Swiss Alps.
That’s what I’ve been saying. Ignorance is bliss, and for some, if they live near no problem, there IS no problem.
Don’t worry…loosening regulations will allow industries to police themselves.
/GOPRhetoric
Plain old greed. That’s why people do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KZWAQ_3yoj8
Simple. Large fine. Shut them down. Go to jail. Make them work in the water treatment plant wading around in crap for 8 hours a day.
What really happens:
Campaign bri.. “contributions”
Slap on wrist
Gov/politician “We gotta save them jerbs!!!”
Everybody in the plant? Even the nice 55 year old lady who answers the phone?
1. Did she know?
2. Did she tell anyone?
If one and not two, yes.
Off Topic, but WTF is wrong with Jesus Diaz on Gizmodo yesterday?
Holy crap, they banned him! Finally!
http://gizmodo.com/5879213/i-just-banned-jesus-diaz
What does this have to do with *anything*?
I said OT. GitEmSteveDave knows exactly what I’m talking about. Probably should have been a PM instead of public post, apologies for the disruption of bloody river discussions.
That sounds a lot like the dumpsters behind our county animal shelter. It’s not all that uncommon to see blood dripping out of the rust holes in them during rainy days.
Strange place to hang out. That said, I’d probably report them to the city health department. Sounds like a health code violation.
I volunteer there about two weekends a month. They have to put down about 7,000 animals a year, so it’s a pretty constant stream of animals going through. The health department is aware of the situation and the carcasses are just bagged and taken to the dump.
they don’t have an incinerator? if they do, they also apparently need a bone grinder if my past experience with a local shelter means anything.
Wow, that’s sad and disturbing. I could try to argue that the animal shelter is too underfunded to follow safe disposal protocals (assuming that they are violating them with their bleedy dumpsters)… but meatprocessing facilities are often in the position of having to cut costs, too, to keep their prices competitive. But a dumpster that leaks blood after the rain is not the same as turning a whole creek into a macro artery just so we could all enjoy some cheap ribs.
And it’s not like those pigs would still be alive if only someone thought to adopt them.
It’s not the same thing but it’s still pretty nasty.
It’s not the same thing but it’s still pretty tasty.
/FTFY
But… It’s ORGANIC!
and natural.
Not only that but ALL NATURAL!. Clearly the eeevvviiill govt’ sttoges will harm the planet by taking away this company’s right to dump a ALL NATURAL product back into the ecosystem.
I was thinking the same thing. Indians used to fertilize their crops with blood.
On another note, our local Asian markets sell pig’s blood by the bricks and yes, I’ve eaten it. My dad told me nobody who eats pig’s blood will be allowed into heaven. He was that disgusted. LOL Next to the pig’s blood they have pig’s uterus, which my Chinese wife no doubt has served me. These guys are pouring money down the drain when they could be selling it in Asia along with the ears, uterus, and who knows what else.
Soon pig Moses will lead his people to freedom.
Let my mammals go!
Sure, Moses will free them, but then Napoleon will say he was really the one who did it and that Moses was a commie who really wanted to enslave them all!
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others!
#animalfarm
Welcome to Perry’s Texas.
Sounds like a couple more “nosy government agencies” that need their budgets cut!
“What you say? Water is red? Just food coloring! Nothing to see here!”
So which government agency was the drone operator working for?
That’s exactly the point. It took a private citizen flying drone taking pictures and, by sheer luck, catching this company deliberately breaking the law because we’ve underfunded and slashed resources needed to discover these polluters.
What Mr. Simpson is saying is that the argument that corporations can police themselves and so we could do with fewer regulations and inspectors is disproven by this story. While a majority of companies don’t purposely flout laws designed to protect the environment and its inhabitants, all it takes is one to destroy the reputation of all of them and the ecosystems of the surrounding area.
What if this facility was not a slaughter house and instead was a heavy metals processor?
That is a truly idiotic comment. What the company is doing is illegal, and as soon as it was discovered it was shut down and an investigation launched.
Perry is a moron and an embarrassment to the State but this is not his fault. It could just as easily happened in CA, OK, or NY
Yeah, but when you run on “I want to shut down government oversight agencies because regulations about pollution and whatnot are too onerous for corporations.”…then a corporation shows it doesn’t give a crap about people or the environment…..
It might not be his fault, but he’s advocating making it easier for it to occur.
Under him, we could be calling this Thursday.
Vote for Parry… that’s with an A, for Americaaaaaaaaaaa.
This. Texas is really starting to suck.
Yes, it’s all Perry’s fault that someone was doing something illegally.
If Perry and his anti-environment GOP cohorts had their way, this wouldn’t even be illegal.
It probably would have been cheaper to dispose of properly rather than to build an underground pipe to spit it out in a creek.
This is just stupid.
It was cheaper for them to dump it, and here’s why.
1. They’ve probably been dumping it before it was illegal to dump it, 99 years is a lot of dumping and change of the laws concerning it.
2. Since whenever those laws passed till now, dumping has essentially been free, if they disposed of it properly they’d have to pay somebody else to remove it, dumping it down river cost nothing till now.
3. Their lawyers will likely manage to turn the millions of dollars in fines that they should probably get into a $20k slap on the wrist. Remember the exxon valdez oil spill, an actual major event that resulted in 55 million gallons of oil being spilled? After 22 years of bouncing around the courts, all the while making profit, the damages were reduced to $500 million, from the initial $5.3 billion. Even if its on a smaller scale that principle stands, this meat packing plant might lose a little money this year but on the whole will make a profit from the illegal dumping.
This kind of shit happens all the time, companies, corporations shortcut shit as often as it makes them a profit overall. Look back at the ford minivan fuckups where the axle could fall off the van. Look back at the ford explorer tire shortcuts, where ford later went back and called the tire defective. Horseshit, they knew about it when they sold the fucking things, they just didn’t want to pay an extra hundred million bucks to fix the problem then, and have only had to pay out $4 million in lawsuits. And all this is what I can pull off the top of my head, if you look at whatever field you work in you can probably dig up lots of shit like this where corporations shortchange things now because it will cost them less in the long run to just pay the lawsuits.
http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2012/01/24/34546/lawyer_brian_oneill_battling_exxon_for_more_than_20_years
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/ford-recalling-575000-windstar-minivans-for-rear-axle-problem/
http://www.fordexplorerrollover.com/rollover_rates/Default.cfm
I have more examples, but those are just the ones that I could think of that are easily sourcable.
I hereby appoint you the new head of the Consumer Protection Bureau.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Florida have introduced a bill that would make taking pictures of farms, ranches, and agricultural sites without permission of the land owner a crime punishable by up to a year in jail.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120121/COLUMNIST/120129874
Like to see that one tried.
How dare I not have the right to photograph someone else’s property! I’m entitled to it! Read the constitution!
I think so, from the air for example.
Do you not understand the comparison? It’s to keep people from writing about things like this. If the pictures were deemed illegal, then the pig blood could keep flowing into the river. How dense are you?
As long as you’re 1) not physically on someone’s property where you’re not allowed to be and 2) not violating someone’s reasonable expectation of privacy, you’re usually in the clear. This bill would change that.
I expect a constitutional challenge to that if passed.
Wow, I thought you were being snarky–you know, “ha ha, Florida”–until I saw the link.
That’s seriously messed up.
That kind of stuff is really scary.
There are also 13 states that have food libel laws on the books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws
Yikes I say. That bill is an abomination.
That was a beautiful and relevant link. I cannot believe that you aren’t joking. Thank you for reminding us that no one (esp. politicians) can be assumed to be a decent human being.
Welcome to 2006!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Enterprise_Terrorism_Act
Don’t see what everyone’s whining about. Obviously it’s all-natural. Like arsenic and uranium.
Corporate death penalty. This is Texas right?
It’s not hard to clean up blood like that. All you have to do is sprinkle a little cash in the right area and it will be as if that blood never existed.
Sorry i see your spelling mistake there. You meant to say “…sprinkle a little cash in the right area and it will be as if that picture never existed.”
There fixed it for ya.
j/k
Meanwhile, Republicans in Florida have introduced a bill that would make taking pictures of farms, ranches, and agricultural sites without permission of the land owner a crime punishable by up to a year in jail.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120121/COLUMNIST/120129874
Meanwhile, Republicans in Florida have introduced a bill that would make having sex with animals unlawful.
And then one of them is caught doing exactly that.
The blood leaves the facility, winds it’s way north a bit and enters a nearby river.
Here’s a close up shot of the blood entering the river, courtesy of Google Earth/Maps. http://g.co/maps/25k6f
Makes me want some bacon
My bad. That link shows the plant itself. Try this one (humble apologies.) http://g.co/maps/fbsfg
Looks like the link goes right to the parking lot–for those who want to check this out, drag the map north a bit, you’ll find some fields, the creek, and then the river.
And … YUCK.
As polluters were fond of saying in the 60′s, “dilution is the solution to pollution”
Where’s Schoolhouse Rock when you need it?
Shut the business down – harsher punishment for corporations.
BUT…TEH…JOB…CREATORS!!!!!
but, but, a corporation is now a person, as ruled by our supreme court. just send him (the corporation) to prison. save the pigs!
Another sign of the coming apocalypse…wait, no…it’s just one of the plagues of Egypt. We should be all right.
How dare you attack those job creators who are just trying to keep people employed! This is exactly the reason why we should do away with the EPA!
/s
Brought to you by the Generic GOP Candidate For America Council!
If it weren’t for these kinds of “gotcha” stories, our economy would be shitting diamonds and our creeks would run clear with the tears of all the gainfully employed, washing away the oil, pigs blood and fracking produce from our waterways.
We wouldn’t even call them waterways, we could just call them “full employmentways”.
Darn these government agencies and their job killing regulations. If I were President, I’d get rid of all corporate oversight! I’d go to war with Iran! I’d make all people of color finally get a job! I’d lower taxes on the rich! I’d make sure my religious beliefs influenced my governing!
Whew, sorry about that – I don’t know what came over me. I’ve seen too many snippets of Republican debates on TV recently I think.
I actually would be interested to see all people of color have a job – just to see what would happen.
Together, we can all damn those freeloading transparent people
“Seriously though, fuck purple people. Unless they’re choking, in which case, help them for God’s sake!”
~ RIP Mitch
Sell it to the chinese, it’s a delicacy there (no joke)
Exactly! Why are they throwing away the makings of blood pudding and black sausage? Sell that stuff!
I also bet it would make awesome fertilizer. High in iron!
Careful, neither of those foods has anything whatsoever to do with China. You’ll burst his racist bubble!
make the plant manager drink it. for the rest of his life.
Have been reading about this in the local news since yesterday. ( pardon me if I repeat something from the article but the video based fox sites are blocked here.)
This is not just an underground pipe. This is a bypass pipe that was put there specifically to evade the filtered, proper disposal of the waste.
The streets will flow red with the blood of the nonbelievers!!!
/Beavis
Come on…it’s Texas, they won’t do anything but a small fine. Anything else would be considered a job killer and the plant would move to south of the border. Probably to a location with a creek that flows north.
Reminds me of when I lived in Argentina. I lived in a town with a river much wider than this full of cow’s blood and other chemicals from ‘mataderos’ (slaughterhouses). The stench down wind was bad enough to make you dry heave constantly. It was disgusting.
Not like they haven’t been doing it for a while. I’ll just leave this here: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Columbia+Meat&hl=en&ll=32.751275,-96.787695&spn=0.001405,0.002068&sll=32.802955,-96.769923&sspn=0.47903,0.576782&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=19
fells sorry for those not allowed to eat pork but get water from that creek.
Don’t forget that historically, the Trinity River used to have a reputation for being polluted with stuff from the meatpacking industry. The river is also currently a major source of water for the Houston metropolitan area.
This isn’t exactly the spilled milk President Obama was talking about last night.
GROSS!!!!!
I kinda wish I wasn’t reading Consumerist at lunch….
And this is why regulations exist.
Well if you people would just eat blood sausage, we wouldn’t have to do this.
At least it wasn’t motor oil
PLUG IT UP!
PLUG IT UP!
PLUG IT UP!
Is blood sausage a lost art? why are they wasting all that precious pig blood? sell it!
next will be a surprise airstrike by an unmanned drone. oops, we were aiming at pakistan!
Reminds me of that underground river in ghostbusters 2, anyone else remember that shit?