Forbes’ Inaugural List: Top 10 Most Miserable Cities
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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Forbes Magazine introduces the Forbes Misery Measure, based on a city’s unemployment rate, personal tax rate, commute time, weather, crime, and toxic waste proximity. The top ten “most miserable” cities, according to Forbes:
September 19th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Herculaneum, Mo., is home to the world’s largest lead smelter and the only active smelter of its kind in the US. The citizens are exposed to very high levels of lead daily — both airborne and dust particles. The EPA has taken some measures, but just a fraction of what is needed. Although the company that owns this smelter, Doe Run, bought up land immediately surrounding its plant because of deep lead pollution in the homes and soil, it was a small portion of the actual polluted area. Children in Herculaneum were found to have severely high lead levels in their blood. Lead poisoning causes permanent brain damage, neural damage, learning disabilities and a host of other medical problems. A new documentary on the disastrous situation in Herculaneum, titled Unleaded, was completed in August 2008 and soon should be available for release. A college-bound student named Will Godar of Kirkwood, Mo., filmed, wrote and directed this informative and very professional half-hour documentary. (Contact http://www.MyersInk.com for info. on the documentary.) Herculaneum’s residents are trapped in this town because nobody will buy their houses, so they can’t afford to leave. This rural town is only about 25-30 miles south of St. Louis, Mo. You can see the black and orange pollution churning out of the Doe Run smelter’s smoke stack for a 50-mile stretch of Interstate Highway 55. It’s unbelievable that this extreme pollution still is allowed in this country. Worse still is that Doe Run now has an even worse lead smelting operation in Peru, where no environmental rules are curtailing them. If you look on the city of Herculaneum’s Web site, they tout their town as a great place to live. It’s very troubling that anyone could accidentally move there, thinking they’re finding the American dream, yet really moving into the hell of America.