quote:

Update, 8/3: Wixom police investigate Tribar release

WIXOM, MI — The state of Michigan is urging people to avoid contact with the Huron River downstream of Wixom after a chrome plating factory released a large quantity of hexavalent chromium into a sewer system that discharges to the river.

The state environmental and health departments issued a joint release about the chemical mishap on Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 2, indicating that the contaminants may have begun flowing into the city of Wixom wastewater system on Saturday.

The chemicals came from Tribar Technologies, an auto supplier chiefly responsible for the existing “Do Not Eat” fish advisory in the river due to PFAS chemicals.

Hexavalent chromium, or hexchrome, is a carcinogenic chemical used in plastic finishing. It can cause numerous health problems through ingestion, skin contact or inhalation. It is so hazardous that companies like Tribar use PFAS to coat plating baths and protect workers from chromium inhalation.

The Huron River flows through multiple southeast Michigan communities before reaching Lake Erie, including Oakland, Livingston, Washtenaw, Wayne and Monroe counties.

The largest city on the river is Ann Arbor, which sources drinking water from the river. Computer modeling indicates the contaminates should not reach the city’s water intake for several weeks, according to state agencies.

Until further notice, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) says all people and pets should avoid contact with river water between North Wixom Road in Oakland County and Kensington Road in Livingston County.

The advisory includes Norton Creek downstream of the Wixom wastewater treatment plant, Hubbell Pond in Oakland County (also known as Mill Pond) and Kent Lake.

People should not swim in, wade in, play in, drink from, water plants with river water or eat fish from the river.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services urged people with questions about potential hexchrome exposure to call the MI Toxic Hotline at 800-648-6942, which is staffed normal business hours and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. this weekend.

“As we gather additional information through sampling, this recommendation may change or be expanded,” said Elizabeth Hertel, DHHS director, in a statement.

“This is a significant release into a large, much-loved waterway,” said Liesl Clark, director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE). “Our teams are in the field now assessing the situation. We will stay on the job as long as it takes to ensure residents are safe and impacts to the ecosystem are minimized.”

Exactly how the chemicals were released is unclear. According to a news statement, EGLE was notified at 3:21 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 1 by Tribar that it had released “several thousand gallons” of a liquid containing 5 percent hexavalent chromium into the Wixom sewer system.

“The company says it discovered the release Monday but indicated it may have started as early as Saturday morning, according to Wixom city officials. It is believed that much of the contaminant already made its way through the treatment plant by the time the release was discovered,” EGLE stated.

The state is taking samples from multiple areas downstream from the treatment plant. Testing is also taking place within the Tribar facility and the Wixom wastewater treatment plant. Monitoring will continue in coming days and weeks.

“We’re the middle of the response and investigation right now and looking at everything,” said EGLE spokesperson Jill Greenberg. “We’re gathering facts and trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

The Tribar release is the second chemical spill in the river this year. In February, river access was shut down in the Wayne County town of Flat Rock after an oil sheen was discovered. That pollution was eventually traced back to a local steel processing factory.

Elsewhere in Michigan, the Flint River and St. Marys River have suffered spills this year. In June, a discharge of oily black chemicals prompted a river no-contact order in Flint. The spill was traced back to Lockhart Chemical Co.

Also in June, the Algoma Steel mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario spilled oil into the St. Marys River, which flows between Lake Superior and Lake Huron.

Environment and conservation groups reacted with outrage on Tuesday, noting that the Huron River, a valuable, publicly shared natural resource with a seven-county watershed, was again suffering at the hands of the private sector.

In a statement, Lisa Wozniak, director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters denounced Tribar’s two-day delay in disclosing the release and called out the inattention being paid to pollution concerns this election cycle.

“Toxic contamination in our drinking water continues to afflict Michiganders and we’re alarmed by the lack of attention on the campaign trail being dedicated to this tremendous threat – Democrats and Republicans alike,” Wozniak said.

On Twitter, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, whose Congressional district includes parts of the river, said the hexchrome release demonstrates the need to “do more to protect our waterways, groundwater & drinking water.”

“We’ve been working on getting more testing for folks exposed to these substances, but we need to phase these chemicals out of our manufacturing (as many other countries have done) and do more at the local, state, and federal levels hold polluters accountable,” Slotkin wrote.

Rebecca Esselman, director the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC), said the river used to be known as the cleanest urban river in Michigan. “PFAS, dioxane and now hexchrome — these have taken that from us. It’s really defeating.”

“All three of these contaminants hitting the river originate from manufacturing. That sector has to do better. Our regulators have to be able to do better,” Esselman said.

Tribar, she said, “needs to be shut down.”

“I don’t think this is anything where a fine, probation or additional oversight is going to be sufficient,” Esselman said. “Two strikes and you’re out.”

Messages sent to Tribar executives Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.

Crayfish posted:

Satire

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

nah, covid thread is full of psycho freaks who do stuff like threaten service workers who dare make fun of their hazmat suits. it's not a normal place, and any endorsement coming from it is incredibly sus

Skaffen-Amtiskaw posted:

I picked my mood up this evening by watching Soylent Green which was most refreshing to see than the dystopia we're currently living through.

FlapYoJacks posted:

I got on anti anxiety medication for the first time in my adult life yesterday and hollllllly poo poo bring on the collapse babyyyyyyy!

Rectal Death Adept posted:

This poo poo again?

Salt is natural

Why are you idiot liberal doomers trying to make me eat bugs? Everyone has salt in their homes. Salt is in everything. Are you really claiming everyone's dinner table now has poison on it? That all of our houses will explode because of a simple shaker of salt?!?! What is your real plan here?!?!?!?!?!

PostNouveau posted:

They released a timeline for when it arrives at various places if we don't get a lot of rain upriver.



St. Bernard is when you really start talking about a lot of affected people. NO Carrolton is the New Orleans drinking water, East & West Jeff and Gretna is the populated suburbs where all the white people are in Jefferson Parish.

SniperWoreConverse posted:

There is apparently some confusion as to wither it was introduced before or after 1500ad but it's for sure nonnative.

Also apparently iceland used to have like forests and poo poo and wasn't 99% vetch or w/e is growing there now.

HermitSupplier posted:

Why don’t we just combine the ideas and have a super AI go back in time?

Rectal Death Adept posted:

There is a mix of things relating to "another planet"

(NASA article explaining that simulations on movement in the kuiper belt would suggest a neptune sized planet on a 20,000 year orbit around the sun)
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planet-x/

Space.com article explaining the mass extinction planet
https://www.space.com/15551-nibiru.html

So once it was theorized in 2015 some people suggest the distant orbit planet is actually Nibiru, that Nibiru passing earth corresponds with repeated disasters that can be seen in the geological record or that Nibiru is also the burning angel or star "wormwood" from christian revelations.

Both of these are separate from the second earth on the opposite side of the sun theory you mentioned but I think some conspiracy theorists use the possibility of that planet existing to explain where Nibiru is hiding.

Usually after that is where the aliens come in. If there is another whole planet it must be populated so therefore all the aliens come from it. You'd have to believe Nibiru swings by every 3000 years and the aliens only possess the technology or will to mess with us on the close driveby. So the Nibiruians messed with Sumerians at some point and decided to gently caress off for thousands of years to later swing by the bible.

So what I'm saying is obviously Jesus was an alien and his second coming will be during the next orbit.

FlapYoJacks posted:

What if the Thwaites glacier falls into the ocean? That would be worth one hell of a hearty LOL.

Paradoxish posted:

Clathrate gun is real, and strong, and he's going to kill us all

Confusedslight posted:

https://twitter.com/ryankatzrosene/status/1710661016093122585?s=20

Ah yes this is the good stuff.

Unless posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/louisiana-drinking-water-saltwater-wedge-plaquemines-parish

Jizzny Princess posted:

https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1720828710532886815

quote:

Microplastic-eating plankton may be worsening crisis in oceans, say scientists
Rotifers could be accelerating risk by splitting particles into thousands of potentially more dangerous nanoplastics
Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by
theguardian.org
About this content
Karen McVeigh
@karenmcveigh1
Thu 9 Nov 2023 11.00 EST
A type of zooplankton found in marine and fresh water can ingest and break down microplastics, scientists have discovered. But rather than providing a solution to the threat plastics pose to aquatic life, the tiny creatures known as rotifers could be accelerating the risk by splitting the particles into thousands of smaller and potentially more dangerous nanoplastics.

Each rotifer, named from the Latin for “wheel-bearer” owing to the whirling wheel of cilia around their mouths, can create between 348,000 and 366,000 nanoplastics – particles smaller than one micrometre – each day.

The animals are microscopic, ubiquitous and abundant, with up to 23,000 individuals found living in one litre of water, in one location. The researchers, from a team led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, calculated that in Poyang Lake, the largest lake in China, rotifers were creating 13.3 quadrillion of these plastic particles every day.

Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose. As it ages, tiny pieces break off. Physical and chemical processes are known to break them down, including when exposed to sunlight or when waves grind bits of plastic against rocks, beaches or other obstacles floating in the ocean.

The scientists sought to examine what role aquatic life might play in microplastic creation, especially after the discovery in 2018 that Antarctic krill are able to break down polyethylene balls into fragments of less than one micrometre. Baoshan Xing, a professor of environmental and soil chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture, said they decided to look at rotifers because they had specialised chewing apparatus similar to krill. They wanted to test the hypothesis that rotifers, of which there are 2,000 species worldwide, could also break down plastic.

“Whereas Antarctic krill live in a place that is essentially unpopulated, we chose rotifers in part because they occur throughout the world’s temperate and tropical zones, where people live,” said Xing, the paper’s senior author.

The animals mistake microplastics – fragments of less than 5mm in diameter – for algae, he said.

After exposing marine and freshwater species of rotifers to a variety of different plastics of different sizes, they found all could ingest microplastics of up to 10 micrometres (0.01mm), break them down and then excrete thousands of nanoplastics back into the environment. Polyethylene microplastics from food containers as well as nanoplastics were detected in the rotifers’ bodies.

Xing said their work was “just the first step”. “We need the scientific community to determine how harmful these nanoplastics are,” he said. “We need to look at other organisms on land and in water for biological fragmentation of microplastics and collaborate with toxicologists and public health researchers to determine what this plague of nanoplastics is doing to us.”

Studies have shown that nanoplastics are probably more dangerous for living organisms than microplastics because they are more abundant and reactive.

If rotifers can produce 13.3 quadrillion nanoparticles a day in Poyang Lake, then the amount created worldwide is immeasurably greater. Each microplastic could theoretically be broken down into 1,000,000,000,000,000 nanoplastic particles, which are then more easily spread.

Microplastics have contaminated every corner of the planet, from the top of Mount Everest to the depths of the Mariana Trench, and research has shown they are in many humans’ blood and heart tissue and the placentas of unborn babies. They cause harm in human cells in the laboratory at levels known to be eaten by people via food.

Jian Zhao, a professor of environmental science and engineering at the Ocean University of China and the paper’s lead author, said nanoplastics were not only potentially toxic to various organisms but served as carriers for other contaminants. The release of chemical additives in the plastic could be enhanced during and after fragmentation, he added.

Hubbert posted:

Mola Yam posted:

https://twitter.com/WxNB_/status/1724076210311791005

starkebn posted:

The terraforming project is finally becoming noticeable,. Good work everyone, keep it up.

Salt Fish posted:

"Hopefully it will prove transitory"

lol

ikanreed posted:

Yeah, retroviruses and crispr are two different vectors for achieving the same results.

That's the only flaw in the plan.