Great follow up ZM.   These are great questions, and tough ones.  It makes all the more sense to have process controls that constantly? monitor our waters for blunders like this one.  Are the right people in the right places to rectify ALL the secondary effects beyond the imminent ones?

You raise lots of important questions ZM. I also think the whole matter is being downplayed in the media, perhaps to keep fear down, or even out of home land security directive - what better terrorist target than a nearly abandoned valley full of sulfuric acid tanks and big tall bridges. All the more reason to be worried about everything you mention above.

My understanding is this incident didn't even activate the reverse emergency warning system to notify area businesses of an emergency. There is no doubt the response systems and process controls need to be reengineered. This is especially true as the entire Tremont lip overlooking this toxic valley is now overdeveloped with high density townhomes seeking that industrial view. They are now right in the line of fire from any toxic releases in the air in the flats.

I'm not convinced the hazard was well contained, so water and air in the area should be monitored. We also need to take a look at all the business in this industrial valley to make certain they are not harming public health. Imagine a bit worse disaster effecting a few more facilities in toxin valley, down by GEM or even closer to downtown, and picture 100,000s gallons of oil, gasoline, acid and other toxins flowing into the river and down to the lake, killing everything it touches... toxic fumes filling the Cuyahoga Valley now surrounded by offices, public gathering places, housing and soon in the depths of that death valley the proposed upscale East Bank developments... perhaps that's why the press is downplaying our industrial exposures. While I dn't think we want to promote Cuyahoga as the toxic valley, so we need to keep it safe and clean.

Until everyone in this region at every level get serious about pollution and toxic hazards, we will not have serious economic development in Cleveland. It may happen in trusting little pockets like the East Bank Flats and around Tremont but who seriously wants to raise kids within minutes of a toxic gas cloud potential, or downwind from Mittal? If we can't get rid of them, we'd better get serious about minimizing the damage they cause our health, economy and society.

I sent an email to alert 3M that their product "duct tape" is being used as a solution for a chernobyl like hazmat situation in Cleveland, just in case they want to go public with a disclaimer and suggest that GEM did not read the package instructions. Maybe they should consider rewriting them. Anyway, I thought to put a fright into a major corporation might re-energize the news media. A class action suit might be just the thing to awaken EPA operatives who are asleep at the wheel.

This is all dramatic as it is, some people made mistakes and other people payed for those mistakes. This reminds me of other things in our history, it reminds me of asbestos ignorance, people with mesothelioma cancer pay for others ignorance, it reminds me of nuclear accidents, and the list is too long to even mention it... I just hope those injured will have the chance to have a normal life again.