The Washington Times reports:
Federal officials hailed Solyndra LLC’s plan to create clean energy when they awarded the company more than a half-billion dollars in loans, but the solar-panel maker’s abrupt closure now threatens to leave behind an environmental mess.
The company plans on paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up its own property in Fremont, Calif., but a separate leased property in nearby Milpitas sits vacant with barrels of unknown chemicals and lead-contaminated equipment, attorneys for the landlord, iStarCTL I L.P., said in recent bankruptcy court filings.
The full extent of the potential environmental problem at the leased Solyndra facility remains unclear. Officials at iStar say in court papers that they were not given the keys to the premises until this month, though Solyndra stopped making its lease payments in September when it filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
“There may be environmental, health and safety issues and regulatory violations at the premises based on the materials the debtor has left behind, which consist, in part, of open containers of unidentified chemical waste and lead processing machinery,” iStar attorney Karen Bifferato wrote in a recent court filing.
Photographs attached to the iStar court filing provide an inside look at Solyndra’s stripped-down facility after the company hauled away whatever equipment might fetch money at auction.
In one picture, two large blue drums are filled with a black substance with no secure lids and covered instead with clear plastic wrap. Another photograph shows a yellow drum about the size of a large garbage can containing a yellow-brown gooey substance.
Yet another picture shows a large machine with a metallic tube coming from the top and another tube from the side. Both tubes display the words “lead exhaust.” A smaller sign on the front of the machine says “toxic” next to what appears to be a small skull and crossbones. A large structure outside the facility has the words “Argon Refrigerated Liquid” on its side.
Court filings from the landlord also describe a high temperature oven assembly that is connected to an outside collection system, all of which are contaminated with lead.
The rest here.
"Another photograph shows a yellow drum about the size of a large garbage can containing a yellow-brown gooey substance."
OK, picking nits here. But how did they know that it is gooey?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, just think of all the jobs created by cleaning up this toxic dump!
More green jobs! Wheee!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm reminded of a recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
There (and elsewhere), environmental regulators at EPA demanded that any new drilling of oil take place miles off shore, and miles under the surface of the water.
So, any resulting damage to the wells would take that much longer to correct, and would therefore be much more damaging to the aquatic environment in which the wells are located.
Environmentalists actually helped to make the environment worse.
Then, there is the environmental catastrophe known as ethanol, a/k/a Iowa Welfare. That stuff is so bad for the environment, even Al Gore has sworn off recommending its use.
The chemical mess left behind at Solyndra's dormant facility is yet one more example of the environmental damage environmentalists cause. But it's not like they care about results. The political left only pretends to care. So long as socialism gets advanced.
(Does the political left EVER review the efficacy of the programs they promulgate, to check to see if any such problems ever get solved?)
The chemical mess at the Solyndra compound is much akin to all the garbage that the leftists would dump in the parking lots of Dead Shows, and more recently, in public parks along with fecal matter in conjunction with the "Occupy movement".
Don't be fooled: "Green" is merely the new "Red", or, preferred color for die-hard socialists. They figured, perhaps correctly, once the USSR disbanded, that they could use concerns of clean air and clean water to cajole uninformed suburban women driving around (dangerously!) in minivans to accept more and more governmental intrusions.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseClean, green energy...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHey moderators: I posted on FRIDAY but my comments aren't here. Simply deleted?
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