PYF Dangerous Chemistry: Fluorine protecting Its Modesty...

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF Dangerous Chemistry: Fluorine protecting Its Modesty...

«‹›524 »

kastein: Aug 31, 2011; Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

I forget where I saw a scanned copy of a poster about this but disposal of chemicals in general was incredibly lax in the past. Hell, handyman type magazines actively promoted pouring used motor oil (loaded with carcinogens) on dirt roads to keep the dust down, in gravel filled holes in the backyard for disposal, and on weeds to kill them. "dump it in the river or a pit in the ground" was the disposal method of the day.

The only thing we can really do is go after the companies that continued to do it after the point where it became known that it was bad to do this. If Hooker Chemical knew that the poo poo they were dumping and burying was likely to cause real problems and was burying it in ways that weren't guaranteed to contain it forever, sure, nail them for all they're worth, criminal charges, etc. Otherwise... I guess make the dumpers clean the mess up.

This is part of what made the asbestos industry incredibly evil - they continued mining and selling horrible stuff for over half a century after it became pretty obvious that their products were causing huge health problems.

# ? Nov 4, 2014 23:13

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 9, 2024 10:11

RedneckwithGuns: Mar 28, 2007; Up Next:
Fifteen Inches of
SHEER DYNAMITE

onemanlan posted:

It makes me wonder what compounds that we're currently disposing off willy nilly will be seen as insane in the future due to their health effects.

I don't know about explicit chemicals, but I remember a few months ago seeing how exfoliating face scrubs are bad now because they use plastic micro beads that like to play hell with modern water recycling stuff as well as typically finding their way to the ocean to join various garbage patches.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 00:18

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

RedneckwithGuns posted:

I don't know about explicit chemicals, but I remember a few months ago seeing how exfoliating face scrubs are bad now because they use plastic micro beads that like to play hell with modern water recycling stuff as well as typically finding their way to the ocean to join various garbage patches.

For that matter, synthetic estrogens from birth control pills (and other sources) wind up in the water after being excreted and do odd things to fish.

But then on the other hand the environmental impact of "woman + birth control metabolites" is a great deal less than that of "woman + offspring." So maybe we deal with some odd fish.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 00:46

RedneckwithGuns: Mar 28, 2007; Up Next:
Fifteen Inches of
SHEER DYNAMITE

Phanatic posted:

For that matter, synthetic estrogens from birth control pills (and other sources) wind up in the water after being excreted and do odd things to fish.

But then on the other hand the environmental impact of "woman + birth control metabolites" is a great deal less than that of "woman + offspring." So maybe we deal with some odd fish.

I'm honestly wondering if there's any reliable way to prevent contamination like that. Some theoretical formulation or better water treatment?

# ? Nov 5, 2014 01:00

Adenoid Dan: Mar 8, 2012; The Hobo Serenader; Lipstick Apathy

RedneckwithGuns posted:

I'm honestly wondering if there's any reliable way to prevent contamination like that. Some theoretical formulation or better water treatment?

There are treatment methods that remove pharmaceuticals more effectively, like ozonation.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 02:06

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

kastein posted:

If Hooker Chemical knew that the poo poo they were dumping and burying was likely to cause real problems and was burying it in ways that weren't guaranteed to contain it forever, sure, nail them for all they're worth, criminal charges, etc.

This 1994 decision, in which punitive damages were denied, is a good read.

quote:

[O]n one occasion I had purchased a new pair of workboots and during that day they became wetted with chemicals from the dump. That evening prior to entering my home I removed the boots and left them sitting in the garage overnight. The next morning in preparation to return to work I found only the soles and heels of the boots remaining. The uppers were entirely eaten away.

quote:

At the Company's direction, Mr. Wilkenfeld went to the site, where the contractor told him that he was concerned about "some black water that they saw around the foundations that had just been installed for the school building. They were concerned that this might be chemicals and might attack the foundation." Wilkenfeld looked at the black liquid and tested it for acidity or alkalinity by tasting it. It had no taste, and he informed the contractor that, "I didn't think that it was acid or alkaline, and it probably wouldn't attack the foundation. He was satisfied with that, and I left."

This Hooker employee was remarkably prescient:

quote:

In 1944, Mr. Van Horn, who was supervisor of the Hooker Process Study Department, stated in an annual report that:

With the expansion of the DDM plant, this became a major item. The thionyl chloride incinerator was altered to burn organic residues. Up to this time, we had buried our residues at Luve [sic] Canal but this is creating a potential future hazard. DDM residue being lighter than water rose to the ground surface as it seeped out of the drums. The author feels that an adequate incinerator for burning all organic residue should be built. It costs about twice as much to burn the residues as it does to bury them but I feel that eventually we will have a quagmire at the Luve [sic] Canal which will be a potential source of law suits in the future.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 02:06

Deteriorata: Feb 6, 2005

Adenoid Dan posted:

There are treatment methods that remove pharmaceuticals more effectively, like ozonation.

Yeah, it's largely a matter of how badly you want to clean it up and how much you're willing to spend to do it.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 02:07

OMFG PTSD LOL PBUH: Sep 9, 2001

onemanlan posted:

It makes me wonder what compounds that we're currently disposing off willy nilly will be seen as insane in the future due to their health effects.

It's deeper than that.

They find just barelydetectable levels of Prozac in the tap water from most homes in the U.K.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 17:21

Exit Strategy: Dec 10, 2010; by sebmojo

deratomicdog posted:

they tend to call cops blue canaries.

Makes sense - Really, they're not actually your friend.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 18:35

KozmoNaut: Apr 23, 2008; Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle

RedneckwithGuns posted:

I don't know about explicit chemicals, but I remember a few months ago seeing how exfoliating face scrubs are bad now because they use plastic micro beads that like to play hell with modern water recycling stuff as well as typically finding their way to the ocean to join various garbage patches.

The worst thing is these bastards *knew* those tiny plastic beads would create an environmental problem, and they still put them in their products.

To make it even more reprehensive, crushed walnut shells/olive pits/etc. would work just as well as the plastic beads or better, with no environmental impact, but of course they're a teeny-tiny bit more expensive than those damned plastic beads, so practically no one uses the environmentally sound option.

The personal vanity industry has been completely batshit insane and out of control for decades. There's no need to buy special facial scrubs in colored plastic bottles, when coarse salt and olive oil works perfectly well, and has done so for millennia. The modern world is hosed.

# ? Nov 5, 2014 18:46

arnbiguous: Feb 2, 2014; Gary’s Answer

It is very difficult to sell olive oil and salt in tiny packages to put on your face for $39.99

# ? Nov 5, 2014 21:45

Soylent Pudding: Jun 22, 2007; We've got people!

tehloki posted:

It is very difficult to sell olive oil and salt in tiny packages to put on your face for $39.99

Slap the words "Dead Sea" on there and you definitely can.

# ? Nov 6, 2014 00:02

kastein: Aug 31, 2011; Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

Soylent Pudding posted:

Slap the words "Dead Sea" on there and you definitely can.

artisanal carbon-neutral free range dead sea salt with organic olive oil.

Bet you can fetch $79 now.

# ? Nov 6, 2014 01:12

rockinricky: Mar 27, 2003

tehloki posted:

It is very difficult to sell olive oil and salt in tiny packages to put on your face for $39.99

Call now and we'll send you a 30-day supply for a Risk-Free Trial!

After your Risk-Free Trial, we'll send you a new 60-day supply for the low low low price of only $39.99 per month! You can cancel at any time! Your Satisfaction Is Guaranteed! For only $10/month more, we'll upgrade you to the Deluxe Formula which smells like flowers, giving you that Spring Fresh feeling!

Call Now, this offer can end at any time!

# ? Nov 6, 2014 01:23

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

KozmoNaut posted:

The worst thing is these bastards *knew* those tiny plastic beads would create an environmental problem, and they still put them in their products.

To make it even more reprehensive, crushed walnut shells/olive pits/etc. would work just as well as the plastic beads or better, with no environmental impact, but of course they're a teeny-tiny bit more expensive than those damned plastic beads, so practically no one uses the environmentally sound option.

The personal vanity industry has been completely batshit insane and out of control for decades. There's no need to buy special facial scrubs in colored plastic bottles, when coarse salt and olive oil works perfectly well, and has done so for millennia. The modern world is hosed.

In toothpaste too!

http://www.dentalbuzz.com/2014/03/04/crest-imbeds-plastic-in-our-gums/

One of the few things I've looked up on snopes and found verification for.

# ? Nov 6, 2014 01:33

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

You should all check out the Pseudoscience megathread in the Science and Academics forum. It's full of bullshit products that do nothing.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3100175

# ? Nov 6, 2014 04:48

GWBBQ: Jan 2, 2005

We had a local dump that became quite a problem. This is an article from 2009, more recent testing found that groundwater was so badly contaminated that the city dug up roads in the middle of winter to run municipal water to nearby homes.

quote:

STAMFORD -- In the woods on the northern edge of Scofieldtown Park are remnants of its days as a landfill. Containers lay strewn among the trees -- milk and 7UP bottles that haven't been used since the 1950s.

More sinister are rusty paint cans and empty, decaying 55-gallon chemical drums. Covered with little more than soil 40 years ago, these reminders of Stamford's industrial past were easily brought to the surface by rain and erosion.

Bob Boucher, a neighbor whose household well draws water less than half a mile away, has taken to photographing the debris. He said the snapshots are proof that even today, as city officials scramble to test residential wells for toxic pesticides and PCBs, the buried landfill threatens not only nearby wells, but the city's aquifer and North Stamford Reservoir, less than a mile away.

On the outskirts of the park this week, Boucher pointed to a map showing Poorhouse Brook, which runs through it and along the south side of Hannahs Road, where the city has found pesticides in several residential wells.

His tour of the woods included a stop at a pond that is lime green, brown and rusty orange, with a metallic shimmer. The former landfill, unlined and permeable to water, is bordered by wetlands to the north.

Farther in, Boucher scuffed the soil with his shoe to reveal another rusty drum. "They're all over the place, " he said

City, state and federal officials have known for decades about the toxic contents of the landfill and its potential to harm city residents. But despite repeated tests showing carcinogens in the soil, surface water and residential wells, no one has taken action to clean up the site.

As early as 1984, a North Stamford city representative had asked for monitoring of water and gases at the former landfill. But neither the city nor state responded. And despite alarm raised by public health officials about contractors' vehicles disturbing the landfill's earthen cap in the mid-1980s, there are no records the state has checked the cap's integrity for at least two decades, according to David McKeegan, an environmental analyst for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Today, as the city focuses on addressing the immediate public health crisis by proposing to allocate $2 million for waterlines to nearby residences, it is still unlikely state or federal officials will require the city to undertake a full-scale cleanup. In August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a decision that removal action at the site is "not appropriate at this time," saying a party responsible for the release of hazardous substances -- the city -- is providing an appropriate response. Another arm of the EPA commissioned the 2008 study that led to the park's closing because pesticides and other toxic contaminants were at 10 times state limits. It then decided the park should not be placed on a list of sites that are eligible for federal remediation money.

And as the city responds to concern over pesticides, it has failed to take other steps environmental experts say are essential at any former landfill, including testing drinking water for heavy metals and testing to ensure potentially explosive gases have not infiltrated nearby homes.

City officials said they will explore the possible remediation once the present emergency is addressed, and state Rep. William Tong, D-147, said state cleanup funds may be available. The city has hired an environmental consultant, TRC, but the company's immediate scope of work is to review existing records about the former landfill.

Janice England, an environmental health investigator and founder of the California-based People Investigating Toxic Sites, said the history of Scofieldtown Park, with repeated studies but no remediation, reflects a pattern nationwide.

"This is what I've seen in site after site across the country," England said. "The government continues to do studies, and there is no cleanup."

The story dates back to the mid-1930s, when the landfill opened as a residential dump. Then in 1949, it began accepting industrial waste, according to a written account of John Canavan, public works commissioner from 1959 to 1963.

The following account is based on city, state and federal records, as well as interviews and newspaper reports.

There were no regulations of what could be dumped at the site. A Stamford native who brought waste there for his employer in the 1960s remembers dumping 10 to 15 gallons at a time of Savasol, a deadly solvent. Thousands of car batteries were discarded. People dumped oil and all types of chemicals, he said. He remembers the stench and how the water there ran bright green, yellow and blue. One day, he had to throw away his shoes after stepping in the gunk.

"For a few dollars or a six-pack, they would let you dump anything," said the man, who did not wish to be identified. "Years ago, we didn't know how dangerous it was."

City officials apparently still had no awareness of the danger in 1974, when the city covered the landfill and converted it to a park. That year, then-city Rep. Marilyn Laitman hailed the recreation area, noting that garbage pushed to the back of the dump and covered with fill -- a pile 35 feet high -- would make an excellent place for children to sleigh ride.

But knowledge of the potential harm of such dump sites grew quickly. In 1978, Lois Gibbs, a mother in Niagara Falls, N.Y., began to investigate a prevalence of health problems in her neighborhood, known as Love Canal. Many women in the area had miscarriages, children were born with birth defects, and Gibbs' son had epilepsy. Gibbs discovered 21,000 tons of chemicals had been buried in 55-gallon drums in a former landfill under the local school and home sites.

The story drew national attention, and former Stamford city Rep. Barbara McInerney made a reference to Love Canal in 1984, when she wrote the director of the city Environmental Protection Board, seeking a system to monitor the site for "leachate, contaminants and decomposition gases."

"It is imperative that this park (dump site) be tested to insure the continued health and safety of our children and residents who use the area," McInerney wrote, noting that hundreds of children were encouraged to use the facilities for fishing, baseball and picnics.

McInerney also wrote to Mayor Thom Serrani seeking funds for such monitoring, calling such public health oversight "a moral obligation." City documents show no record elected officials established the monitoring fund McInerney requested.

McInerney's awareness of the danger reflected the leaps in knowledge in the country regarding chemical health hazards over the previous decade. In 1976, the federal government passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, regulating the disposal of hazardous waste. By 1980, Congress had passed a law establishing liability for hazardous waste sites and creating a national "Superfund" for cleanup activities.

Diane Lauricella, an environmental investigator hired by Scofieldtown neighbors and a former regulator with the state DEP's hazardous waste division, said the potential for water contamination from chemical landfills was well-known by the mid-1980s. She said, "No municipalities can say we didn't know there was a hazard there" by then.

By 1985, the city experienced its first crisis at the former dump. Parks officials, hoping to create a new baseball area, allowed private contractors to dump dirt and other debris on the grass. The trucks left deep ruts in the landfill cap and allowed water to seep in.

McInerney, along with the city's health director, raised alarm over the breach. In a letter to the mayor, McInerney called the situation "grave," pointing out the increased possibility for water pollution on Hannahs Road, to the watershed and reservoir, and to the Smith House, which at the time used a high-capacity underground well, according to her letter.

In April 1985, the DEP cited the city for failure to provide adequate drainage and failure to obtain state approval to alter the former landfill. In October, nearly a year after contractors deposited the material and a day before the state's deadline for the area to be stabilized and seeded, the city had not removed the debris, according to an Advocate editorial that month.

The city eventually satisfied the state requirements, according to current Operations Director Ben Barnes. But in 1986, state officials responding to a resident's complaint discovered rusted, half-buried metal drums adjacent to Poorhouse Brook. Testing found they contained the carcinogen benzene, the toxic substance methanol, chemical solvents isopropanol and toluene, and heavy metals barium, chromium and lead. The state ordered "all drums exposed and buried must be located, secured and their contents properly disposed of" by the city.

By 1988, the city had disposed of 17 drums, but the DEP found more. That year, a federal report warned that runoff from the 10-to-18-acre former landfill could threaten the aquifer that provided well water for 27,200 North Stamford residents.

In 1989, the city excavated and removed about 70 rusted barrels. That year, a study contracted by the city found a dozen potentially harmful substances in soil samples, but newspaper accounts show city officials assured the public the barrels did not contain hazardous levels of toxins or pose a threat to the environment. The same year, the state collected 12 drinking water samples from nearby residences. Though the tests found trace levels of potentially harmful substances, the DEP concluded the site was not impacting the drinking water supply. According to an EPA report, in 1992, the state concluded none of three tested wells contained water unsafe for consumption.

In 1996, as part of a study to establish whether Scofieldtown should be added to the federal Superfund list, a contractor collected water samples from three residences, one on Scofieldtown Road and two on Hannahs Road. The tests found two banned carcinogenic pesticides, dieldrin and chlordane, as well as two metals, and water filtration systems were installed at two Hannahs Road homes. The pesticides are the same toxic substances officials have discovered in a dozen wells on Hannahs Road and Very Merry Road in recent months.

Records do not indicate city or state officials undertook testing of other homes in the area after the 1996 discovery. Doug Zimmerman, the DEP's supervising environmental analyst for the region, said the agency does not regularly test every residence near a landfill site. Zimmerman said there may be many reasons the state would not do such work, such as complications in getting permission to enter homes, but when pressed for other reasons, he said, "I just don't know."

Zimmerman said there is no question that a landfill with a permeable cap will leach to well water. "The question is whether there is a risk from that," Zimmerman said. "Obviously, we need to keep an eye on it long-term to evaluate the landfill periodically."

There is no evidence the city or state undertook such evaluation with any regularity. McKeegan, of the DEP's waste management division, said he could not find records on the Scofieldtown site that date after the late 1980s. There are no state regulations that mandate regular monitoring of old landfills.

State officials said they are not even certain what materials may be part of the landfill cap.

After the mid-1990s, the dump appears to have been largely forgotten until 2004, when Robin Stein, head of the city Land Use Bureau, learned of an old EPA report on potential contamination in the park. A worker for U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays contacted the EPA, and a state official recommended the park again be investigated for inclusion on the Superfund list. That action led to the EPA's 2008 study, which prompted the city to close the park.

Despite finding seven drum carcasses, later removed by the city, and harmful levels of pesticides and PCBs in the park soil, as well as the release of three pesticides and two metals the agency deemed "at least partially attributable to sources associated with the Scofieldtown Road Park property," EPA officials decided the park should not be added to the federal Superfund list and that no further assessments of the site are necessary.

Gerardo Millan-Ramos, an EPA site assessment manager, said the EPA was satisfied the city and state are dealing with the problem. Yet while Millan-Ramos asked that the park be removed from a consideration for a Superfund cleanup, state officials disagreed, he said.

Meanwhile, Scofieldtown neighbors worry about drinking contaminated well water for so many years. On Boucher's street, Heritage Lane, several people have had cancer, he said. His preschool boy suffers hair loss, and his wife has the worst case of psoriasis, an autoimmune disease, that doctors at the region's leading hospitals have ever seen, he said. The city has not tested wells on his street, and Boucher has organized his own testing program.

"By all means, I'm no tree hugger," Boucher said as he trudged through the Scofieldtown woods. "But this just ain't right."

# ? Nov 25, 2014 01:00

cgfreak: Jan 2, 2013

kastein posted:

This is part of what made the asbestos industry incredibly evil - they continued mining and selling horrible stuff for over half a century after it became pretty obvious that their products were causing huge health problems.

The asbestos industry was loving ridiculous. I live in Belgium which was pretty much the heart of the asbestos lobby. While the link between asbestos and mesothelioma, asbesthosis, lung cancer etc was pretty decidedly proven by the '60s, Belgium was still leading the world in asbestos use per capita well into the 70s. Eternit, the biggest asbestos company over here back in the day, pretty much owned entire neighbourhoods near its factories and forced its engineers and labourers to live in houses right next to them. There were asbestos dumps right next to these neighbourhoods and kids were just playing on these dumps full of unusable asbestos plates, asbestos dust, they were driving their bikes in big asbestos tubes, and so on... hell, workers at the factory actually received asbestos plates to use in their house as part of their pay. Pretty much everyone who lived in these neighbourhoods has a huge risk of developing mesothelioma. Keep in mind this was well after the asbestos-cancer link was established.

an inhabitant posted:

Mothers took their toddlers to go watch the offloading of the ships, who transported the asbestos in huge bags. We loved this as kids. Frank, the tower crane driver, was a friend of mine. Offloading these ships made enormous amounts of dust, because the cranes punctured the bags. All of this dust was blown over to the gardens of the inhabitants. I remember the vegetables in our garden nearly always being covered with a fine white powder.

Eternit dismissed all of the studies about asbestos as "vague", "meaningless" or "bad science". They sent scientists to conventions to defend their interests, and to the villages to keep the inhabitants calm. Unions did nothing at all, because they were scared of losing 3000+ jobs.

Son of an Eternit labourer posted:

Especially my mother was worried. "You're sure it's safe, right Pierre?"
But my father trusted the Eternit board, who he almost viewed as family, and they told him there was nog danger. "If it's truly harmful they'd tell me," he told my mother. "Why would they lie?"
One time he was in the CEO's office, who suddenly swept his hand over an asbestos-covered table and licked it clean. "See Pierre, if it's truly bad for my health, would I really eat it?" What are you supposed to do if your boss tells you that?

In the 80s they couldn't deny the danger any more, so they minimalised it. They told people you needed to inhale massive amounts of asbestos to develop cancer - in truth, just a single fiber is possibly enough. They said they were in compliance with Belgian law, which was true, but only because the lobby kept pushing asbestos laws back. Eventually the Belgian law was only changed in '98.

In Western Europe, about 250 000 people will die or have died of mesothelioma between 1995 and 2018. It only starts about 30 years after exposure, so the peak is yet to come. Louis de Cartier de Marchienne, managing director of Eternit, passed away on 21 May 2013 - just a couple of days before the appeal sentence in the trial against Eternit.

# ? Nov 26, 2014 20:19

Venusian Weasel: Nov 18, 2011

kastein posted:

I forget where I saw a scanned copy of a poster about this but disposal of chemicals in general was incredibly lax in the past. Hell, handyman type magazines actively promoted pouring used motor oil (loaded with carcinogens) on dirt roads to keep the dust down, in gravel filled holes in the backyard for disposal, and on weeds to kill them. "dump it in the river or a pit in the ground" was the disposal method of the day.

If you think just plain oil is carcinogenic, oh boy do I have a story. Back in the early 1970s there was a low-income community southwest of St. Louis named Times Beach. Being poor and relatively rural, it had a lot of dirt roads. Maintenance was paying a local handyman to come out and spray oil on the roads at a cost of six cents a gallon.

Meanwhile a pharmaceutical company nearby was trying to clean up a disused portion of its facilities; those facilities had been used to manufacture Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. They start paying another company to haul off clay and wastewater from their facilities, and that company in turn began paid people to dispose of it.

So the guy in this community offers to take some of the clay and water to start mixing in with the oil he's spraying on the roads. Tests it at his own house, works great! Does an extra good job of keeping the weeds down. He takes it to a horse farm and sprays it there - the farm ends up losing 62 horses.

The owners blame the handyman, but he insists he only used straight motor oil. That's a lie, but he assumes it's an innocent one - he doesn't know that the waste he's receiving has 2000 times the levels of dioxin present in Agent Orange. He continues using the spray on the roads and on other farms, but the farmers who lost horses keep an eye on his activities. They find out that horses are getting sick and dying soon after they get weed control treatment. They get the EPA involved, and they discover the true extent of what happened.

Turns out the pharmaceutical company was aware of the dioxins, but didn't tell anyone about them. In 1980 the EPA sues them. Soil investigations in 1982 turn up dioxin, in places up to 100 ppb (1ppb is considered hazardous). By 1985, the town is evacuated. By 1987 nearly the entire town and the upper few feet of soil reside in a mound. An incinerator is built in 1996 to destroy the 286,000 tons of debris. Once finished in 1997, the site is handed back over to Missouri and turned into a state park.

Of course, Missouri has a habit of doing stuff like that - another state park is a lead mine dating back to the 1700s. Bunch of lead leached from tailings has leached into soil.

# ? Nov 26, 2014 20:32

Mikl: Nov 8, 2009; Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!

Just a bit of expansion on the above: for those who are not aware how dangerous dioxin is, ppb stands for Part Per Billion.

As in, one part in 1.000.000.000.

This means that ONE MILLIGRAM of dioxin equally spread into ONE TON of soil, water, etc, is a hazardous level. In Imperial units, that's one ounce in fifty-six million pounds. poo poo's scary.

# ? Nov 26, 2014 21:26

DrBouvenstein: Feb 28, 2007; I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.

cgfreak posted:

The asbestos industry was loving ridiculous. I live in Belgium which was pretty much the heart of the asbestos lobby. While the link between asbestos and mesothelioma, asbesthosis, lung cancer etc was pretty decidedly proven by the '60s, Belgium was still leading the world in asbestos use per capita well into the 70s.

Speaking of asbestos, there's a town in Quebec that is literally called Asbestos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos,_Quebec

quote:

At the 2011 census, 7,096 people resided in Asbestos. It is situated in the centre of a square formed by the cities of Drummondville, Sherbrooke and Victoriaville, and the Nicolet River to the north. It is the site of the Jeffrey mine, until recently the world's largest asbestos mine,[5] which has long been the town's largest employer, and of the now-closed Magnola magnesium refinery. It was the site of the famous 1949 Asbestos Strike.

There's another old asbestos mine a little south of there, here in VT. It used to be the main source of asbestos for most of the US in the mid 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell,_Vermont

quote:

The Lowell (chrysotile) quarry on Belvidere Mountain was the last asbestos mine to operate in the Eastern U.S. It closed in 1993.
.
.
.
The asbestos mine in Lowell was of economic importance from the 1940s to the mid-1980s. In the mid-1940s, the Belvidere mines produced more than 90% of all U.S. asbestos.[10] It closed in 1992.

# ? Nov 26, 2014 22:23

Computer viking: May 30, 2011; Now with less breakage.

See also Wittenoom in Australia. Created as a company town around an asbestos mine, now officially de-towned.

# ? Nov 26, 2014 22:51

Drone_Fragger: May 9, 2007

The black country is hilarious for this kind of thing:

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-news/2014/11/13/metro-work-hit-as-old-mine-is-found/

Essentially, they realised while renovating the tramline to wolverhampton around here, they found out that part of the line is built on an old abandonned mineshaft that is partially infilled. potentially that could of collapsed at any time there was a train on it. good times.

edit: wait crap this isn't the OHSA thread, woops.

Drone_Fragger has a new favorite as of 00:00 on Nov 27, 2014

# ? Nov 26, 2014 23:39

Ignimbrite: Jan 5, 2010; BALLS BALLS BALLS; Dinosaur Gum

They took Wittenoom off maps because people were driving through just to see the Asbestos that's there (Blue Asbestos / Crocidolite, really, really nasty stuff)and it's hazardous enough to your health just driving through the place. One of my geology lecturers at uni has a piece of Crocidolite that he has set in the centre of an acryllic cube because that's the only way he feels comfortable being around it.

Ignimbrite has a new favorite as of 23:48 on Nov 26, 2014

# ? Nov 26, 2014 23:46

Keiya: Aug 22, 2009; Come with me if you want to not die.

That stuff is actually kind of pretty. Why are the most dangerous things always pretty?

# ? Nov 27, 2014 02:29

Venusian Weasel: Nov 18, 2011

Keiya posted:

That stuff is actually kind of pretty. Why are the most dangerous things always pretty?

The allure of danger I suppose.

Back when I was doing mineralogy, I was in a lab learning mineral identification. There was a bag tucked into the corner of a rock tray, so we got curious and opened it. Out plopped a very fine specimen of blue chrysotile, already splintering into fabric. The TA's eyes got huge, scooped it back in the bag and took it to the office. I never saw it again, which is a shame, it would have been an excellent display piece if it had gotten encased in acryllic.

Which reminds me, I have a chunk of rock from a serpintine mine from just outside Death Valley I should probably get rid of. We were looking at an ophiolites (chunk of the ocean crust that gets pinched up into mountains when they form, they turn into serpintine when exposed to the elements) and I found a chunk with a calcite crystal the size of my fist. Didn't really think about the asbestos being in the same rock.

# ? Nov 27, 2014 02:41

onemanlan: Oct 4, 2006

Mikl posted:

Just a bit of expansion on the above: for those who are not aware how dangerous dioxin is, ppb stands for Part Per Billion.

As in, one part in 1.000.000.000.

This means that ONE MILLIGRAM of dioxin equally spread into ONE TON of soil, water, etc, is a hazardous level. In Imperial units, that's one ounce in fifty-six million pounds. poo poo's scary.

I fairly regularly work with dioxin

Funny enough I didn't know it was part of the job until after I was hired and did some research into the subject. Well played immunology lab, well played.

# ? Nov 27, 2014 23:49

Waterslide Industry Lobbyist: Jun 18, 2003; ANYONE WANT SOME BARBECUE?; Lipstick Apathy

Venusian Weasel posted:

The allure of danger I suppose.

Back when I was doing mineralogy, I was in a lab learning mineral identification. There was a bag tucked into the corner of a rock tray, so we got curious and opened it. Out plopped a very fine specimen of blue chrysotile, already splintering into fabric. The TA's eyes got huge, scooped it back in the bag and took it to the office. I never saw it again, which is a shame, it would have been an excellent display piece if it had gotten encased in acryllic.

Which reminds me, I have a chunk of rock from a serpintine mine from just outside Death Valley I should probably get rid of. We were looking at an ophiolites (chunk of the ocean crust that gets pinched up into mountains when they form, they turn into serpintine when exposed to the elements) and I found a chunk with a calcite crystal the size of my fist. Didn't really think about the asbestos being in the same rock.

You should check out Jade Cove in Big Sur some time. Most of the jade has been scooped up by amateur prospectors so you probably won't find any without a boat and wetsuit, but on nice days there are a handful of people combing through the serpentine rock beach looking for jade.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 00:12

Zemyla: Aug 6, 2008; I'll take her off your hands. Pleasure doing business with you!

Keiya posted:

That stuff is actually kind of pretty. Why are the most dangerous things always pretty?

Same reason why mercury is so drat alluring and yet will kill me horribly if I play with it. The laws of nature are cruel sons of bitches who enjoy our suffering.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 07:45

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Keiya posted:

That stuff is actually kind of pretty. Why are the most dangerous things always pretty?

Let me tell you about borderline personality disorder.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 16:49

Hexyflexy: Sep 2, 2011; asymptotically approaching one

Venusian Weasel posted:

If you think just plain oil is carcinogenic, oh boy do I have a story. Back in the early 1970s there was a low-income community southwest of St. Louis named Times Beach. Being poor and relatively rural, it had a lot of dirt roads. Maintenance was paying a local handyman to come out and spray oil on the roads at a cost of six cents a gallon.

Meanwhile a pharmaceutical company nearby was trying to clean up a disused portion of its facilities; those facilities had been used to manufacture Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. They start paying another company to haul off clay and wastewater from their facilities, and that company in turn began paid people to dispose of it.

So the guy in this community offers to take some of the clay and water to start mixing in with the oil he's spraying on the roads. Tests it at his own house, works great! Does an extra good job of keeping the weeds down. He takes it to a horse farm and sprays it there - the farm ends up losing 62 horses.

The owners blame the handyman, but he insists he only used straight motor oil. That's a lie, but he assumes it's an innocent one - he doesn't know that the waste he's receiving has 2000 times the levels of dioxin present in Agent Orange. He continues using the spray on the roads and on other farms, but the farmers who lost horses keep an eye on his activities. They find out that horses are getting sick and dying soon after they get weed control treatment. They get the EPA involved, and they discover the true extent of what happened.

Turns out the pharmaceutical company was aware of the dioxins, but didn't tell anyone about them. In 1980 the EPA sues them. Soil investigations in 1982 turn up dioxin, in places up to 100 ppb (1ppb is considered hazardous). By 1985, the town is evacuated. By 1987 nearly the entire town and the upper few feet of soil reside in a mound. An incinerator is built in 1996 to destroy the 286,000 tons of debris. Once finished in 1997, the site is handed back over to Missouri and turned into a state park.

Of course, Missouri has a habit of doing stuff like that - another state park is a lead mine dating back to the 1700s. Bunch of lead leached from tailings has leached into soil.

I've got a book somewhere that's basically 'chemical disasters of the 20th century', the article on the '76 Italian disaster where they did what you described above by accident is stomach turning. Small hint, never look up pictures of Chloracne.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 17:02

Zopotantor: Feb 24, 2013; ...und ist er drin dann lassen wir ihn niemals wieder raus...

Hexyflexy posted:

I've got a book somewhere that's basically 'chemical disasters of the 20th century', the article on the '76 Italian disaster where they did what you described above by accident is stomach turning. Small hint, never look up pictures of Chloracne.

How about doing it deliberately?

# ? Nov 28, 2014 17:40

Rabbit Hill: Mar 11, 2009; God knows what lives in me in place of me.; Grimey Drawer

We are truly a cancer on the living earth.

# ? Nov 28, 2014 23:01

FreshFeesh: Jun 3, 2007; Drum Solo

SciShow did a great YouTube video on 5 of the World's Most Dangerous Chemicals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckSoDW2-wrc

Includes thread favorites such as Azidoazide Azide (C2N14) and is really entertaining to laymen such as myself.

# ? Dec 14, 2014 09:43

Rorac: Aug 19, 2011

I saw that last night, and holy poo poo fluoroantimonic acid is insane. :stonk:

Ph of -25, and until today I didn't even know that the scale went below 0.

# ? Dec 14, 2014 22:49

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Rorac posted:

I saw that last night, and holy poo poo fluoroantimonic acid is insane.

Ph of -25, and until today I didn't even know that the scale went below 0.

It has a pKa, a disassociation constant, of -25. pKa is basically how eager the acid is to surrender a proton, is not the same thing as pH.

# ? Dec 14, 2014 23:36

Dr Jankenstein: Aug 6, 2009; Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.

Phanatic posted:

It has a pKa, a disassociation constant, of -25. pKa is basically how eager the acid is to surrender a proton, is not the same thing as pH.

That's still a little :stonk:

. Acids below -2 are strong acids. Acetic Acid (vinegar) is about a 4 in water. So -25 is....nuts. Especially when you realize its a logarimthic scale. The strongest acid your local high school chem lab carries is probably hydrobromic, which has pKa of -8.

How do those strong acids work, anyway? I know below one it completely dissociates, so how do you wind up with a pKa of -25? I never got past acid-base reactions before the calc requirements for my chem degree led to me switching majors, and pchem wasn't my strong suit.

Dr Jankenstein has a new favorite as of 10:34 on Dec 15, 2014

# ? Dec 15, 2014 10:28

Jabor: Jul 16, 2010; #1 Loser at SpaceChem

AA is for Quitters posted:

How do those strong acids work, anyway? I know below one it completely dissociates, so how do you wind up with a pKa of -25? I never got past acid-base reactions before the calc requirements for my chem degree led to me switching majors, and pchem wasn't my strong suit.

The pKa is effectively about how an acid interacts with other acids (with water really just being an example of an especially weak acid) - if you have a mixed solution of two acids, the relative concentration of each acid and conjugate base will depend on the pKa values. You can use this to work out the relative strength of different acids even if they both dissociate completely in water alone.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 11:41

Rorac: Aug 19, 2011

Phanatic posted:

It has a pKa, a disassociation constant, of -25. pKa is basically how eager the acid is to surrender a proton, is not the same thing as pH.

What would the pH be then, for that stuff? I came up with -25 with some searching, so I guess the source was incorrect.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 21:54

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 9, 2024 10:11

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Rorac posted:

What would the pH be then, for that stuff?

That's now how pH works. Like, take HCl for example, there's no number you can point to and say that's "the" pH. If you take a particular quantity of HCl and dissolve it in a particular quantity of water, *then* you can calculate/measure "the pH." pH is a metric of how acidic a solution is, you can't talk meaningfully about the pH of just the pure solute. What are you dissolving the H2FSbF6 in, and at what concentration?

For comparison, the pKa of hydrogen chloride is about -9.3. So fluoroantimonic acid is way way more willing to surrender a proton than HCl. But that doesn't mean that a gram of fluoroantimonic acid dissolved in a liter of water will be a jillion times more acidic than a gram of HCl dissolved in a liter of water. The latter case, you're going to have around 1.7E22 protons floating around in your solution (well, sort of, in the form of hydronium ions). The former case, you're going to have 3.3E21 protons floating around in your solution (well, sort of, in the form of fluoronium ions). So the pH of a gram of fluoroantimonic acid dissolved in a liter of water will be higher, not as acid, as a the pH of a gram of HCl dissolved in a liter of water.

Phanatic has a new favorite as of 22:58 on Dec 15, 2014

# ? Dec 15, 2014 22:46

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF Dangerous Chemistry: Fluorine protecting Its Modesty...

«‹›524 »