WHOA!!! ...and we're concerned about water quality for our plants?

[moogiemama]

I am situated between 2 Superfund sites. The water there has been contaminated by chemicals illegally dumped by businesses. Some of those poor people also have vapor intrusion and must have complete ventilation and water treatment systems in their homes. We've become friendly with a woman from one of the sites who recently received an EPA award. Never in her life did she think she'd end up being the poster child for water contamination. Who knows how the aquifers flow? I'm not surprised at all to learn about drugs in the water. People regularly dump them in the toilet and also in the garbage - therefore the landfills. And whatever drugs you happen to be taking are excreted from your body and aren't removed from waste water. Water bottles (plastic) leach chemicals into whatever contents they hold. I became very involved in a watershed committee some years back and it's pretty frustrating when the powers that be don't take water contamination seriously. Filling of wetlands and runoff from impervious surfaces are all contributing to water woes.

[Ross]

Originally Posted by moogiemama

I am situated between 2 Superfund sites. The water there has been contaminated by chemicals illegally dumped by businesses. Some of those poor people also have vapor intrusion and must have complete ventilation and water treatment systems in their homes. We've become friendly with a woman from one of the sites who recently received an EPA award. Never in her life did she think she'd end up being the poster child for water contamination. Who knows how the aquifers flow? I'm not surprised at all to learn about drugs in the water. People regularly dump them in the toilet and also in the garbage - therefore the landfills. And whatever drugs you happen to be taking are excreted from your body and aren't removed from waste water. Water bottles (plastic) leach chemicals into whatever contents they hold. I became very involved in a watershed committee some years back and it's pretty frustrating when the powers that be don't take water contamination seriously. Filling of wetlands and runoff from impervious surfaces are all contributing to water woes.

Ever hear of the Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY? I was brought up near it (within walking distance). My Dad helped on the project to dump chemical drums in the ditch (even though he pointed out the problems with that back in the 1950s). Before Dad moved from NF to Florida, he talked about how the air in NF would disintegrate Stainless Steel screws in deck wood and how galvanized nails were a joke. We lived not far from Lackawanna, where the Niagara River caught fire one day back in the 1940s or 1950s from the chemicals. Maybe this all is why I have a tendency to seek the strange orchids (yes, I had to make this orchid-related ) like minis.

[Ray]

....and while we're crapping on the chemical industry, I will mention that I have to ventilate my basement (I do so sub-floor) so that we don't get lung cancer from the naturally-occurring radon that is ubiquitous around here.

[moogiemama]

Well, you're just not free from contaminants anywhere! People who claim that they have clean water have probably never had it tested for organic or inorganic compounds. Incidentally, my youngest son is a Chemistry major....

[Dorothy]

Ross?
Do you glow in the dark?

[moogiemama]

I think I need to clarify: I'm not bashing the chemical industry, but poor practices with water treatment and things we did in the past which no one gave a second thought about. (Like dumping car oil in a field after performing an oil change). Today it's medications. And we are now paying for the ignorance! My orchids live better than I do!

[kimstwin]

All this talk makes me think of hot dogs. If I don't know what's in it, I can still eat, or in this case, drink it.

[goodgollymissmolly]

"Like dumping car oil in a field after performing an oil change"

Duh! What the heck am I supposed to do with it? I thought it came out of the ground. My Camero is on blocks in the drive way beside the trailer and I just let the oil run out on the ground. I know what you're thinking....if it's on blocks why is he changing the oil? Because it's 3000 miles OR 3 months.

[Ray]

Moogiemama, I agree with you whole-heartedly. We cannot live without the chemical industry, but the industry now is entirely different than it was many years ago.

I work in that industry, and there is a manufacturing plant near Brownfield TX that I used to visit a lot. They pump brine from underground lakes to extract the sodium sulfate (which constitutes 90% of your powdered laundry detergent). Their "waste product" is laboratory-pure water, which they use to redissolve any contaminated salt so it percolates back down through the lake bed.

As that part of TX is in the Gulf flyway, birds use the facility as a stopover, sloughing brine shrimp eggs into those ponds, and the chemical plant is now a protected nature preserve as it serves a huge population of Sandhill Cranes.

Not our Mom & Dad's chemical plant.

[goodgollymissmolly]

Moogiemama, I'm going to be serious here for a second. From 1900 to 2000 the life expectancy of an American at birth (all races, all genders combined) increased from 47 years to 77 years.

So for all the hand wringing about the chemical industry and pollution and warming, life expectancy has zoomed upwards. Much of this is to the credit of the chemical industry in providing medicines, materials, fertilizers, biocides of various kinds, and yes, sometimes cleaning up messes made earlier. For the most part the messes were not intentional, but they were messes nonetheless.

Without the chemical industry it would impossible to feed the bloated world population, no new medicines would exist, and no modern conveniences like cars would be possible. People get all excited about oil, but I don't see anybody refusing to use it. I have no desire to return to being a caveman and I doubt you do either.

All this panic in the general population will be solved not by screaming and crying, but by the very industry falsely accused of causing the problems. If people really cared about the earth, what would they do first?.....Quit having babies, that's what. It is not what we do, but how much of it we do. Humans will survive the great epidemics, wars over resouces, and starvation to come, but not without a lot of pain. It isn't the chemical industries fault. It is the fault of overpopulation and it will be cured by mother nature....rather cruelly!!

Jim, Damn proud to be a chemical engineer
Lexington, KY