[HN Gopher] Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons ...
___________________________________________________________________
Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of "radioactive
wastewater"
Author : StreamBright
Score : 167 points
Date : 2021-04-04 09:17 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com)
| reustle wrote:
| Here's an article from 2017 with a bit more information on the
| local industry and surrounding issues.
|
| https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/f...
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Good article on the background, thanks!
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| Manatee County, Florida
|
| not Florida
| londons_explore wrote:
| Sounds like a case of "it's too expensive to deal with this
| wastewater, so let's just put it in a big pond and hope the dam
| bursts and we can claim it was all a big accident"
|
| Mining industries are especially famous for this - there are
| ponds of waste that are 70 years old, just waiting for their
| moment to escape...
| horstmeyer wrote:
| Do you have some more information about where those old ponds
| are located? Thanks!
| leetrout wrote:
| Coal operations have slurry ponds where they store the sludge
| from washing the coal. And coal power plants have fly ash
| ponds which are bad for the environment. We're shutting down
| the coal plants but these ponds will be around forever.
|
| Here is a map of ash ponds from power plants
|
| https://earthjustice.org/features/map-coal-ash-
| contaminated-...
|
| Here's a link to the slurry spill I lived through with no
| water for days
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_sp.
| ..
|
| And here's some pictures of the "impoundments"
| https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/8693/coal-sludge-
| im...
|
| Edit to add this quote:
|
| " Although coal impoundments have a relatively low rate of
| failure, their extreme size--some hold more than a billion
| gallons of sludge--makes any breach potentially devastating."
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I am curious what you could do with all this. I was under
| the impression that ash could be composted pretty well. It
| is organic material after all. Or is the issue the other
| added chemicals?
| vgeek wrote:
| Ash from wood may be compost-able, but I think the
| leftovers from burning coal can contain arsenic, mercury
| and lead among other things. There are also instances of
| the fly ash being radioactive. u/leetrout hints that they
| are from WV/EKY area, where hilly terrain can make
| stashing fly ash in slurry ponds less visible (but more
| susceptible to contaminating small streams undetected).
| Specifically in the eastern KY/OH regions, there
| _massive_ impoundments <500 yards from navigable rivers
| (since barges transport to plants and water used in
| generation), so if they break, the sludge won't have far
| to travel to contaminate major waterways.
|
| https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html -
| information regarding some of the byproducts.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Power plant and incinerator fly ash contains heavy metals
| and other poisonous substances so needs to be separated
| to prevent environment contamination.
|
| But I guess you could turn it into bricks and isolate
| those instead or even use them as building materials in
| some form of infrastructure.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Ash is not organic material.
| horstmeyer wrote:
| Thank you! Very interesting and frightening.
| vgeek wrote:
| Another large spill that hardly anyone has heard of:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_
| f...
| smackay wrote:
| There is a gruesome death trap in Montana,
| https://www.hcn.org/issues/48.22/latest-thousands-of-snow-
| ge...
| londons_explore wrote:
| The trick is to make sure there are a few leaks in each
| containment pond so the waste slowly leaks into the water
| table.
|
| Then when it rains the volume of waste doesn't increase.
| brudgers wrote:
| There's not much that can be done with it because essentially
| (not basically) it is acid. Phosphate mining uses sulfuric acid
| to extract the phosphates. These are large scale operations and
| produce a lot of water with a pH of 1.5-2. There's no
| comparable industrial process that can consume it as input. So
| it sits.
|
| The gypsum stacks are the other waste byproduct. But it's less
| problematic because it doesn't flow, it just sits. The low
| level radiation prevents it's incorporation into commodity
| products such as gypsum wall board.
|
| The byproducts get conflated because for convenience the
| radioactive gypsum waste from phosphate mining is used to
| contain the acidic sludge from phosphate mining. But it's the
| acidic sludge that is the fast acting ecological disaster. The
| gypsum will give you cancer of course, but as Joe Jackson sings
| everything gives you cancer. [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsQyru5ACmA
| victorhooi wrote:
| > because essentially (not basically) it is acid'
|
| Haha, I see what you did there...lol. Touche, good sir.
| lisper wrote:
| > There's not much that can be done with it because
| essentially (not basically) it is acid
|
| Couldn't you neutralize it by (say) dumping in a bunch of
| baking soda? Or lye? (Hm, what actually happens if you mix
| sulfuric acid with lye? Do they neutralize each other, or
| turn into something even nastier than the sum of its parts?
| That'll teach me to blow off high school chemistry.)
| brudgers wrote:
| There's far to much phosphate sludge for me to tackle. I
| don't have access to that much lye.
|
| Anyway, far brighter minds than mine have been looking at
| for at least fifty years...Florida got serious about
| phosphate ecology and water quality in the 1970's. The
| gypsum stacks and sludge ponds exist because of water
| quality regulations not the good will of industry.
|
| https://floridadep.gov/water/mining-
| mitigation/content/phosp...
| jliptzin wrote:
| Wouldn't you get the same reaction as the baking soda and
| vinegar volcano experiment but on a huge scale?
| jwmerrill wrote:
| > what actually happens if you mix sulfuric acid with lye
|
| This reaction produces sodium sulfate (a salt) plus water
| and heat [1]. No idea if this is practical, though. Maybe
| it's difficult to source sufficient quantities of some base
| to neutralize the acid.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate#Chemical
| _indu...
| Animats wrote:
| There are alkaline wastes. Steelwork slag, power plant
| fly ash, residues from concrete production, and, the big
| one, what's left of bauxite after making aluminum. It's
| probably possible to build a plant to combine them and
| get some neutral-pH solid out. Still have a heavy metal
| problem, though.
| brudgers wrote:
| Florida does not have steel production because it is
| distant from both coal and iron ore. Same for Aluminum.
|
| It does have portland cement production due to the
| abundance of limestone near the surface. However,
| portland cement production is more or less local
| globally...or it's usually made relatively close to where
| used. Conversely Florida's phosphate industry is a major
| source globally. The scales are incomensurate.
| [deleted]
| rvense wrote:
| Is this the kind of mines that produce phosphate for
| fertilizer?
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| Yes. That's exactly what it is used for. I don't recall the
| exact amounts, but the Tampa Bay area produces a sizable
| share of all phosphate in the world.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Just imagine the similar situations and much worse elsewhere in
| the world. Mining rare elements and poisoning native lands.
| Industrial titans have done an amazing job at shifting
| environmental focus from pollution to an invisible, harmless gas.
|
| Genetically engineering crops so we can spray them with
| pesticides, I wonder where the wastewater from manufacturing
| those pesticides goes. Probably into the Mississippi river.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| So, how radioactiove exactly it is ?
|
| I suppose it's the very bad kind of radioactive too, since water
| can easily be ingested ?
| [deleted]
| pfdietz wrote:
| Phosphate ores contain uranium. The gypsum picks up the decay
| product radium, which is an alkaline earth element like
| calcium. Radium emits gamma rays and alpha particles, and also
| produces radon.
| curryst wrote:
| I don't think there are any kinds of radiation that are safe to
| ingest. But yeah, I would guess it's gamma radiation.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Have you ever eaten a banana?
| shagie wrote:
| Following up on this... https://xkcd.com/radiation/
|
| Eating a banana is slightly more radiation than living
| within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant (and 1/3 the
| amount from living within 50 miles of a coal plant).
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| My point is that some types of radiation carriers are easier
| to ingest (or breathe in) than others.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I'm guessing "not very radioactive"
|
| https://weather.com/news/news/2021-04-03-leak-at-florida-pho...
|
| > Hopes said Saturday afternoon that snook live in the pond
| that is in danger of collapsing and he has seen ducks swimming
| on top of it.
| ridethebike wrote:
| Not great but not terrible
| Bjartr wrote:
| Something radioactive enough to significantly increase your
| chances to have cancer in your lifetime can have no
| indication at all at the time of exposure. It's one reason
| it's important to be so careful about radioactive waste and
| it's disposal.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| So did animals in Chernobyl.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I work there sometimes. They have a lady that rides around in a
| golf cart, taking water samples and testing, fulltime. I suppose
| thats their "aggressive monitoring".
| csense wrote:
| Is this waste a radiation hazard, or not?
|
| The waste is a byproduct of fertilizer manufacturing and has
| nothing to do with nuclear power or weapons. For that reason, I
| doubt it's radioactive.
|
| However, the article is contradictory on this point:
|
| According to the article, Gov. DeSantis said the water "is not
| radioactive."
|
| Also according to the article, the Center for Biological
| Diversity says "phosphogypsum is radioactive waste."
| petertodd wrote:
| It's very mildly radioactive due to trace amounts of naturally
| occurring uranium and thorium (and the daughter isotopes they
| decay into). Those elements are present because they're in
| seawater, and the deposits it came from ultimately came from
| seawater drying. The "phosphogypsum is radioactive waste" claim
| is hype.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum
| lolthishuman wrote:
| Didn't someone just hack Florida's water or sewer system?
| markhahn wrote:
| Yes, but is the company still delivering profits to investors?
|
| After all, our civilization depends on continuity of klepto-
| capitalism...
| foxhop wrote:
| Industrial Agricultural is a biohazard. We need to embrace the
| methods we used to feed ourselves for millions of years, with
| nature instead of in opposition of nature.
|
| Reference:
| https://archive.org/details/permaculture1adesignersmanualbyb...
| zokier wrote:
| > we used to feed ourselves for millions of years
|
| Use of fire at all emerged about 1.5 million years ago. Homo
| Sapiens emerged about 300 thousand years ago. First signd of
| any sort of agriculture are from about 15 thousand years ago.
| Stone age ended and we got first bronze tools less than 10
| thousand years ago.
|
| The only method we have had "for millions of years" is hunter-
| gathering with stone tools.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Not only this but ancient agriculture supported fewer humans
| with a lot more work. This romanticized idea of growing food
| the old fashioned way and forget today's busy way of life
| omits the part of doing nothing but growing food from not
| figuratively dawn to dusk. I spent some time in my youth
| farming the old fashioned way: hand tools only, carrying
| water from somewhere else, removing pests and weeds by hand.
| It is a terribly labor intensive process that managed to
| supplement my family's food needs but not eliminate the need
| for purchased food by any means. We managed to do literally
| nothing else. We certainly couldn't have fed anyone else
| since we didn't have any kind of excess.
|
| I don't like industrial food. It is killing the planet abs
| pretty quickly. But it's not doing it because farmers are
| evil. It's because it the cheapest way to produce food. If we
| as a society want to go to a place where food costs 10-100x
| as much while availability goes down by about the same
| amount, let's figure out how we will prevent mass starvation
| and population decline. But if the GP expects that farmers
| will switch to compost abs hand tools, they should probably
| expect to pay a lot more for a lot less food.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'd argue that the average western person's food budget
| comes from:
|
| 1) desire to eat << fresh >> foods out-of-season
| (greenhouses, air transport, lengthy controlled-atmosphere
| storage)
|
| 2) feeding food to food and getting 1/10th back (feeding
| corn to a cow)
|
| 3) desire for labour-intensive foods. Potatoes can be
| straightforward harvested from a field by a machine.
| Alfalfa (or anything in a greenhouse) cannot.
|
| I think the biggest barrier to going back to << the old way
| >> is not having manufactured fertilizer. Nobody cares if
| the water came by pump instead of by hand. But I supposed
| over-watered at the end = more water in the product instead
| of useful matter.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Why stop there? Nutritional algae genetically engineered
| to balance macro and micro nutrients with any artificial
| flavor and texture surely is cheaper. Grow it in a jar at
| home.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| At the end of the day, an algae farm is solar powered and
| much lower yield than anything else you could grow with
| the same energy input.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Alfalfa is baled by machines, no?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's asparagus I was thinking about.
|
| Was an issue in Germany:
|
| https://m.dw.com/en/seasonal-workers-flock-to-germany-
| for-as...
|
| As with many labour-intensive crops, people want to eat
| it, but not do the work involved themselves.
| zokier wrote:
| I wonder how much improved robotics will change the
| picture. Labor intensive practices and crops might become
| more feasible if we can get robots to do that labor.
| Afaik agriculture is already moving in that direction
| with very fancy advanced tractors etc (I don't actually
| know anything about ag).
|
| One issue that I foresee is that if something needs a
| very specialized robot, then the market might not be big
| enough to warrant the development cost. Undoubtedly it
| makes lot of sense to automate something like wheat or
| whatnot bulk crop because there is just tons of that
| around. But asparagus or something might be too niche?
| nitrogen wrote:
| _As with many labour-intensive crops, people want to eat
| it, but not do the work involved themselves._
|
| Ah, yes. The best asparagus is hand-picked the day of
| consumption, and it would be ideal if picked by the
| people eating it. I grew up in an area that used to have
| asparagus fields, so asparagus grew "wild" along the
| fences and ditchbanks. I would occasionally help my
| parents cut the day's wild asparagus for dinner. I hated
| it as a kid, but really grew to appreciate how good fresh
| asparagus is when compared to what has to be mass
| produced and shipped, because, as you say, nobody wants
| to do the labor.
| dghughes wrote:
| I live in a rural area with farming and fishing as main
| industries. Many of the farms are family owned due to the
| limited land area here (island). Farmers want to grow food for
| people many have done it for generations. The rural area and
| nature is what they love. They want to grow food in a way
| that's as healthy as possible they don't want to deal with
| agricultural herbicides and pesticides.
|
| But many people are in denial about how much work is needed to
| grow the food that feeds everyone. Crop yields need to be high
| and costs low at the grocery store end but farmers often only
| get around 200 dollars per ton for their hard effort.
|
| Here's an old article from my region:
| https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/it-costs-a-pile-to-gro...
|
| * Land $3 to $5 million
|
| * Equipment $1 million
|
| * Storage $1 million (shared/co-op or separate organization)
|
| * Farmer profit ~$20,000 (16 hour days all spring/summer/fall)
| - other costs and taxes
| belorn wrote:
| A first good step would be to add the external cost of
| fertilizers to the price. We are all paying for the destruction
| of oceans, the result of using fossil fuels in the production
| chain, and the by-product which get stored in large pools like
| this, and yet they can easily out compete more ecological
| minded production since the cost get applied to society at
| large rather than the industrial farm that bought the
| fertilizer.
| a_crc wrote:
| Millions of years? Agriculture is less than 120,000 years old
| by most accounts. Are you suggesting the bulk of humanity
| returns to hunting and gathering? Even then accounts of early
| human history have us emerging less than a million years ago. I
| think permaculture practices have their benefits but that kind
| of hyperbole doesn't help the cause.
| zokier wrote:
| You mean cut the world population by order of magnitude and
| have majority of the populace slave on fields for a pittance.
| Sounds delightful.
| dundarious wrote:
| Have you read their link? That doesn't seem like the
| charitable interpretation of their views, though I share your
| desire to avoid that fate.
| foobiter wrote:
| americans literally killed millions of bison for no reason,
| that was one example of a food source that would have been
| near infinite if managed correctly
| foxhop wrote:
| That's not at all what I said or mean.
|
| Working with nature means using natural systems to produce
| food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and chemicals,
| and cutting down forests.
|
| A quick quote from the referenced work:
|
| """ The pragmatic and practical approach to the main body of
| this work largely omits reference to those visions or beliefs
| classifiable as spiritual or mystical; not because these are
| not a normal part of human experience, but because they are
| arrived at as a result of long contemplation or intense
| involvement with the mysteries that eternally surround us.
|
| We may "dream" understanding, but it is something we cannot
| demand, define, or teach to others; it is for each of us to
| develop. There are things that nobody else can help us with,
| but in a book written to help people make real-life
| decisions, to build new landscapes, to regenerate damaged
| forests, and to lighten our load on earth, the present need
| is for clear and practical approaches. In the preceding
| chapters, well-tried and common- sense techniques and
| strategies of earth restoration have been described and
| figured.
|
| All of this comes to naught if we, as a people, continue to
| invest in arms and destruction, to permit land abuse, and to
| fail to tackle the social and political impediments to
| reclaiming desertified and abused lands, or even to prevent
| the poisoning of land. Thus, the following sections give
| strategies for change in the social and economic areas of
| society.
|
| These strategies may, in fact, be of more assistance to real
| change than the skills of land management, for society has
| far more competent farmers and engineers than it has ethical
| ... """
| luckylion wrote:
| > produce food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and
| chemicals, and cutting down forests
|
| It requires less input, less labor, less land --- why isn't
| it already trashing the market by simply being much
| cheaper?
| jayjader wrote:
| Not that this is a sure-fire explanation, but off the top
| of my head I can think of at least 2 industries that
| would have vested interests in suppressing permaculture:
| pesticides & fertilizers. Annecdotally, many farmers here
| in France are straight up taught their trade by
| instructional material made by fertilizer, pesticide, and
| seed/grain manufacturers. So they might not even be aware
| of potential "better" options.
|
| An imperfect analogy is that legalizing cannabis requires
| less labor & more funds than keeping it illegal, yet
| we're still hesitating to do that in many countries.
|
| Humans (and thus most markets) have other incentives than
| simply having things for cheaper.
| antattack wrote:
| Results of a leak that happened in 1997:
|
| "amid heavy rains, a dam broke atop one of two gypsum stacks at
| the Mulberry Phosphates plant on State Road 60, unleashing a
| 56-million gallon spill of the acidic wastewater into the Alafia
| River. The pollution killed everything in its path for 42 miles,
| eventually rolling into Hillsborough Bay. The death toll included
| more than 1 million baitfish and shellfish and 72,900 gamefish
| near the river's mouth, 377 acres of damaged trees and other
| vegetation along the riverbank, and an unknown number of
| alligators. When state officials hit the company with a
| multimillion-dollar fine for the damage done, it declared
| bankruptcy and shut down."
|
| https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/f...
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Recently, during a rainstorm, a pesticide leaked from
| containers in a parking lot into the creek, killing all the
| amphibians in the creek for miles. And life goes on, just a
| little less nice than it used to be. i.e. its not just the big
| disasters that matter, but the countless little ones too.
| [deleted]
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Don't forget what happened in the early 2000s, hauling it and
| dumping in the Gulf of Mexico:
|
| https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2003/07/17/barge-sets-out-t...
| voisin wrote:
| > When state officials hit the company with a multimillion-
| dollar fine for the damage done, it declared bankruptcy and
| shut down.
|
| This makes me furious. The employees and directors all go about
| their lives elsewhere with nary a scratch despite causing such
| a disaster. This is the problem with capitalism. Privatize
| profits, socialize losses. The only solution is to force
| companies to put up bonds or insurance sufficient to ensure
| this kind of devastation is properly paid for by private
| parties.
| roenxi wrote:
| I feel compelled, from the tone of the comment, to point this
| out:
|
| Limited liability isn't some surprise side effect of a
| corporation's legal structure, it is often right there in the
| name (Ltd, LLC, Pty Ltd, etc).
|
| Yes that structure lets people get away with harmful
| shenanigans. The system is biased towards optimism. Feature,
| not bug. The benefits and strengths of this have so far
| completely outweighed the costs to the point where the
| argument against limited liability no longer has a leg to
| stand on.
|
| The bonds and insurance idea is a much better way to play the
| situation.
| mycall wrote:
| I think it is too early to measure the long term effects,
| saying the benefits completely outweigh the costs. For the
| investors, you are absolutely right. For the land and
| ecology 100 years from now, not so much. Stealing the
| health of tomorrow for gains today.
| voisin wrote:
| Limited Liability refers to the suppliers of capital, which
| often differ from the employees and directors that are
| responsible for the issues like in the article. I am fine
| with this since there is no moral hazard, but the parties
| involved / responsible should not be able to take their
| bonuses, click bankrupt and restart elsewhere under a new
| name. Society needs more protection, clearly.
| owl_troupe wrote:
| This is an accurate description of limited liability. It
| does not blanketly shield corporations from liability,
| only shareholders (and there are exceptions to this as
| well).
|
| In fact, in Florida--as well as many other jurisdictions
| in the US--there is a special category of torts that
| cover liability for ultrahazarous activities and apply
| strict liability. There are cases that have specifically
| dealt with the impoundment of large quantities of water.
|
| Bunyak v. Clyde J. Yancey & Sons Dairy, Inc., 438 So.2d
| 891 (Fla. App. 2 Dist. 1983). Cities Service Co. v.
| State, 312 So.2d 799 (Fla. App. 2 Dist. 1975).[1]
|
| Note the facts the latter case, Cities, dealt with:
|
| >The appellant, Cities Service Company (Cities Service),
| operates a phosphate rock mine in Polk County. On
| December 3, 1971, a dam break occurred in one of Cities
| Service's settling ponds. As a result, approximately one
| billion gallons of phosphate slimes contained therein
| escaped into Whidden Creek and thence into the Peace
| River, thereby killing countless numbers of fish and
| inflicting other damage.
|
| >Appellee, The State of Florida (State), filed suit
| against Cities Service seeking injunctive relief as well
| as compensatory and punitive damages arising out of the
| dam break.
|
| It is absolutely true that the way that corporations have
| escaped liability for these activities is to "socialize
| losses" as an OP has aptly stated. In this situation, the
| prior owner went bankrupt and handed this major liablity
| to the state to maintain for years and when it breaks,
| the state (possibly federal) taxpayers and the
| environment will bear the loss.
|
| [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1849457/cities-
| service...
| zdragnar wrote:
| The insurance company paid out the fines; they went
| bankrupt because they couldn't possibly continue to
| operate without massive hikes to their insurance (if they
| even could get more).
|
| If they move on and start something again that is
| potentially dangerous, it is on the new insurance company
| to do some diligence in rating the risk of bad behavior.
| wtfiswiththis wrote:
| What the fuk are you even talking about.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Limited liability doesn't shield you from criminal
| negligence, which is what such things should be classified
| as.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| >The benefits and strengths of this have so far completely
| outweighed the costs to the point where the argument
| against limited liability no longer has a leg to stand on.
|
| What data points did you include in your calculation which
| led you to that conclusion?
| js2 wrote:
| > The only solution is to force companies to put up bonds or
| insurance sufficient to ensure this kind of devastation is
| properly paid for by private parties.
|
| Agreed, but in this case, it apparently was paid for by
| insurance. The next sentence in the paragraph antattack
| quoted is: "(Its insurance company wound up footing the
| bill.)"
|
| It's still horrible from an environmental perspective, but at
| least Florida taxpayers didn't pay the cleanup bill.
| sanguy wrote:
| Hunt them down. Make them drink it.
| darkerside wrote:
| This seems like mostly schadenfreude. What does it matter to
| you if they pay or we all do, _assuming_ that we have more
| than enough as a society to pay for it, i.e. the benefits of
| capitalism outweigh the losses.
|
| The only impact is potential moral hazard, but that could be
| prevented with loss of licenses, etc.
| capableweb wrote:
| > What does it matter to you if they pay or we all do
|
| Because when you know you'll be held personally
| responsible, you'll act accordingly. If you feel like you
| can act any way you want without repercussion, then you'll
| automatically take more risks. Usually this is the way we
| justify the salaries of CEOs as well, "they are the
| ultimate responsible for everything in the company, so high
| salary is needed for that big risk".
| darkerside wrote:
| > The only impact is potential moral hazard, but that
| could be prevented with loss of licenses, etc.
| capableweb wrote:
| Repeating what you've already written (or outright
| copying it verbatim / quoting yourself) is hardly a
| effective strategy of making yourself better understood
| via the internet. You'll do better by expanding or
| simplifying your point of view instead.
| darkerside wrote:
| It seemed like you missed the part where I pointed out
| that there are other ways than monetary to prevent
| undesirable behavior. These people can be jailed or lose
| the ability to work in this industry. The situation is
| not an indictment of capitalism, it's an example of a
| poorly handled situation.
| capableweb wrote:
| Thanks for further clarifying!
|
| Being jailed or loosing the ability to work in a industry
| isn't necessarily better for everyone involved, if the
| person is actually normally good at what they do.
|
| A monetary fee for causing a disaster feels extra well in
| place for positions that people generally take for their
| monetary compensation as well (board, director,
| presidents, C* and so on).
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Individual accountability for corporate misdeeds might act
| as a deterrent to future misdeeds. Sarbaines-Oxley has some
| of this in it, if memory serves.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It matters because of the incentives and penalties that
| lead to capitalist companies making bad decisions.
|
| If someone runs a mine where a leak could cost society $1B,
| but they personally make $1M off the outputs, that's a huge
| net negative for society and a huge net positive for the
| mine owner. The government has lots of money but their
| capacity to absorb consequences is not infinite. If the
| actors in question were personally liable, had accurate
| estimates of risk and loss, _and knew they would be
| personally liable_ , they would probablt make better
| decisions. As it is today, they know they can make lots of
| money and the risk assessment doesn't matter because they
| can just walk away.
|
| It matters to me because I want people to want to do things
| that are good for society and also good for them, rather
| than bad for society and good for them.
|
| We either need to do something like that or find a way to
| reintroduce morality to amoral, purely fiscally motivated
| corporations... fixing incentive structures so their fiscal
| motivations cause them to make better choices seems far
| easier to me.
| voisin wrote:
| I think the word "potential" is optimistic. It 100% leads
| to moral hazard. We've seen this time and again in a
| variety of industries. If the parties involved - the actual
| people and not the corporations that are easily bankrupted
| and replaced with new corporations with the same people -
| are not held fully responsible then it will just keep
| happening.
| mc32 wrote:
| If it's enabled by capitalism, how do we explain Chernobyl,
| or the fouling of soil by China's rate earth mining, etc?
|
| Have the management and employees of Soviet era enviro
| disasters gone to jail?
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Yeah, I think people conflate 'capitalism' and
| 'insufficient regulation'. Capitalism is a framework that
| requires regulation, even more so than communism or
| socialism, since the regulations are what defines how the
| markets work.
| voisin wrote:
| I think "insufficient regulation" is an almost necessary
| byproduct of capitalism. The search for profits leads to
| regulatory capture in every capitalist society I am aware
| of. I think this is because it is easier and cheaper to
| do things like lobby and have a revolving door with
| regulators and private industry than it is to actually
| compete with others. Competition is hard.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| They didn't say that capitalism caused the problems, they
| said that capitalism allowed the shirking of
| responsibility.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| X is enabled by Y does not preclude X being enabled by Z.
| That's only when its an if and only if, but that isn't the
| case here. Capitalism and Soviet Communism are neither the
| only alternative social structures, nor some kind of
| logical negations of each other.
|
| tl;dr would be: logical fallacy!
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| >If it's enabled by capitalism, how do we explain
| Chernobyl
|
| I don't know why I'm being treated like this for posting
| an obvious truth. Both capitalism and communism have both
| been root causes for environmental disasters. The
| question posed is not some clever rebuttal to blaming
| capitalism, but a simple mistake of reasoning. I guess
| I'm sorry to have been the one to point it out.
| cortic wrote:
| The owners of Chernobyl (the government) didn't declare
| bankruptcy and piss off, they spent massive moneys
| containing the problem. So, socialize profits, socialize
| losses.
|
| Trying to stop catastrophes from happening needs regulation
| and incentives, both of these things are broken in
| capitalism by its nature. But its not impossible to have
| regulation and incentives in either capitalist or socialist
| projects.
| indymike wrote:
| Counting on government to hold itself liable for
| environmental damage is a proven bad default.
| natmaka wrote:
| The USSR government collapsed a few years after the
| Chernobyl disaster and didn't foot the bill of most of
| its costs.
|
| It now costs huge amounts of money to Belarus, which gov
| has nothing to do with USSR nuclear projects.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53727243
|
| The European Union gave (and, until now, gives) huge
| amounts of money in order to contain the problem, for
| example the sarcophagus.
| https://time.com/5255663/chernobyl-disaster-book-
| anniversary...
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| Both examples of socialized losses.
| lsllc wrote:
| There's the old Indigenous American saying which seems apropos:
|
| "When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the
| last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot
| eat money."
| alacombe wrote:
| Yet, natives in Canada are slaughtering wildlife like no
| others...
| novaleaf wrote:
| Old as in circa 1970's.
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/
|
| Still a great saying though.
| Nodraak wrote:
| _TL;DR: eating 1 kg of phosphogypsum each day yields 36 mSv
| /year. Conclusion: very very far from life-threatening ; nobody
| is going to die or get cancer because of this._
|
| Oh God. This is Fukushima radioactive waters all again. I'm
| pissed: global warming is serious, and nuclear is our best bet.
| We dont need this fear-mongering non sense.
|
| Anyway, let's get to the facts and see how radioactive and
| dangerous this thing actually is. Methodologie from
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose, section
| "Source of radioactivity".
|
| Here is the data: 1. Central Florida
| phosphogypsum averages 26 pCi/g radium 2. Radium: 10**-7
| Sv/Bq
|
| This gives: 26 pCi/g radium * 3.7 * 10**10 Bq/Ci * 10**-7 Sv/Bq
| (radium) = 0.100 mSv per Kg of phosphogypsum So, if someone eats
| 1 kg of phosphogypsum per day, that would be 0.100 * 365 = 36
| mSv/year.
|
| Background dose is 5-10 mSv/year, a plane pilot or X-Ray machine
| operator gets around 25-50 mSv/year, an astronaut something like
| 500 mSv/year.
|
| So, eating 365 kg per year will yield a higher than background
| dose, but nothing dangerous. I mean, it's probably dangerous to
| eat so much of this chemical stuff, but not because of
| radioactivity.
|
| Sources: 1. https://web.archive.org/web/2015021
| 9224641/http://www1.fipr.state.fl.us/PhosphatePrimer/0/684AE64864
| D115FE85256F88007AC781 2. https://web.archive.org/web/201
| 21026093251/https://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/federal/520-1-88-02
| 0.pdf - Page 156 and following ; p175 for Radium 3.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum
| ratsmack wrote:
| >At a press conference Sunday morning, DeSantis said officials
| are pumping out 33 million gallons of water a day from the pond,
| and that the water "is not radioactive," although another
| official added that the water is "not water we want to see
| leaving the site."
|
| Maybe the title needs to be changed.
|
| Edit:
|
| >Phosphogypsum is the "radioactive waste" left over from
| processing phosphate ore into a state that can be used for
| fertilizer, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
|
| I guess the article has conflicting information.
| CrazyCatDog wrote:
| This coming at the heels of Matt Gaetz suggesting that Miami with
| in abundant clean resources can become a crypto mining Mecca.
| What endless flow of energy you ask? Nuclear... (can't find the
| link all that comes up is the sex trafficking charge)
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| This has nothing to do with nuclear power. The radiation is
| naturally occurring. Its just a huge accumulation of it in one
| place.
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| Quotes for the ages:
|
| _" The water meets water quality standards for marine waters
| with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and
| total ammonia nitrogen,"_
|
| "Marine water" itself will kill with three or four easy gulps,
| but I guess this wastewater is going into the ocean? It still
| sounds a bit too much like "yellow, except for the color, which
| is blue". Plus I'd expect any industrial wastewater to have lots
| of fun contaminants they haven't tested for and/or just don't
| have explicit limits set.
|
| _" A very aggressive monitoring operation"_
|
| There's a term I've been missing my whole life. It's my go-to
| action item priority one from now on when faced with...
|
| "... everything possible to prevent a true catastrophe."
|
| And untrue catastrophe?
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I like the color quote. What's it a reference to? I got no hits
| on google.
| jb0x168 wrote:
| Probably not what they were referencing, but it made me think
| of "The Expert" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| The stack in danger of breaching was filled 8 years ago with
| sea water from dredging the port, and it is supporting wild
| life now, for what that's worth. In my experience, flora and
| fauna will grow under nearly any conditions, though.
| brudgers wrote:
| Phosphate industry waste water has a pH of 1.5-2. The ponds
| are sterile and a lovely azure despite what Google Maps
| shows. Nothing grows on their banks naturally, though with
| substantial remediation over a couple of decades, it's
| possible to surround the pond with a ring of pines and
| grass...this is the Florida phosphate industry's "land and
| lakes" program.
|
| From time to time Florida developers have built housing
| developments on "land and lakes" tracts. It usually ends
| badly because the ground is unstable (still settling after
| all being mined), though post-tensioned prestressed concrete
| slab foundations can be used to reduce cracking (but not
| eventually uneven floors).
|
| In my experience with phosphate industry sludge ponds,
| nothing much grows. I just looked at aerials from a tract
| southeast of Bartow that was under consideration for
| development in 1997. It had been out of service for almost
| twenty years back then. The ponds are no longer obviously
| toxic, but there is still does not appear to be normal
| Florida native vegetation along any of the shorelines.
|
| Not surprising given how acidic phosphate sludge water is.
|
| The fact that sea water can be stored in the leaking stacks
| over in Manatee county speaks to how sterile they are. The
| salinity of seawater is deadly to typical terrestrial plants.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| After 57 years, I'm all too familiar with phosphate mining,
| but these ponds are _not_ sterile. A lot of stuff is
| growing there.
| brudgers wrote:
| This, https://www.google.com/maps/place/Manatee+County,+F
| L/@27.640...
|
| Traditionally, Floridians call them "sludge ponds" as
| here, https://www.gainesville.com/news/20160929/mosaic-
| says-tests-...
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| And even flourish - lack of humans more than compensates high
| radioactivity levels, as the Tchernobyl example has shown.
| brudgers wrote:
| It's not the radioactivity, it's the pH of 1.5-2. It kills
| most organisms quickly. There's no long term for long term
| radiation effects to manifest.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Nevada is currently considering a "Bad Actors in Mining" bill to
| ban individuals from future business opportunities if they walk
| away without proper cleanup.
|
| https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/81st2021/Bill/7477...
| freeopinion wrote:
| I'll just put this out there:
|
| Let's say a company spends 50 years building up acid ponds or
| radioactive tailings or what have you. Then new management
| comes on board and is appalled and tries to start cleaning
| things up, but realizes they are falling farther behind, so
| they divert more and more resources to cleaning up. And it
| drives the company into the ground because the cleanup now
| costs more money than the company's revenues.
|
| We punish the current management if they close down to prevent
| making things worse? We let the millionaires from the last 50
| years ride off into the sunset and pin it on the last one out
| the door?
|
| Edit: typos
| dunce2021 wrote:
| Yes, capitalism is very gay that way
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > "For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer
| industry creates 5 tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste..."
|
| Is that correct? That sounds unsustainable, as well as
| unprofitable.
|
| Also, is it safe to presume that if the cost of proper disposal
| was reflected in the price of food, food would be significantly
| more expensive?
|
| Finally, are there particular foods this is used for?
| ta988 wrote:
| Almost every crop. The problem is also that those phosphorous
| fertilizer are horribly inefficient , plants dont absorb much
| and most of it gets leached. So out of this 1 ton not a lot
| gets absorbed by the plants.
|
| To this, we need to add the fact that phosphorous reserves are
| limited, some estimate that we will reach the peak P in 2030.
|
| Maybe then we will be forced to think about more sustainable
| approaches?
| samus wrote:
| In the past, people used their own manure and that of animals
| to fertilize fields. Manure contains lots of phosphorus as
| animals actually absorb only a small percentage from nutrition.
|
| Urbanization broke this cycle. Sewer systems got established
| and the phosphorus doesn't end up on the fields anymore. It
| eventually reaches the rivers and seas and passes into the
| sediment. What a waste (pun intended). Instead, people started
| to mine graveyards (for bones) and guano on remote pacific
| islands...
|
| Edit: Urine might work even better because reprocessing it is
| way simpler than dealing with manure. The nitrate and sodium
| levels have to be adjusted. Also, excreted pharmaceuticals have
| to be neutralized. Meanwhile, with manure one has to deal with
| pathogens, eggs of parasitic worms and a host of other
| ingredients, which might be difficult to predict in urban
| settings.
| nitrogen wrote:
| The processed sludge from sewer plants is still sometimes
| used as a fertilizer.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Phosphate is the most limiting long term global mineral
| resource. Eventually we're going to have to mine it from
| average rocks (at 0.1% concentration). There is no substitute
| if you want agriculture.
| [deleted]
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