[HN Gopher] What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one wil...
___________________________________________________________________
What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we
had it tested
Author : littlexsparkee
Score : 159 points
Date : 2025-04-04 04:32 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (laist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (laist.com)
| DuckConference wrote:
| All the heavy metals were below 1ppm, are any of the levels
| concerning?
| orbital-decay wrote:
| In case there's some natural accumulation process, the
| concentration can reach any levels, so absolute quantity might
| (or might not) matter as well.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| Many of the levels are well above the levels required for
| drinking water.
|
| That isn't much to go on, however.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Also, real ppm for this kind of thing is supposed to be by
| weight, so that would ideally be pounds per million-pounds.
|
| IOW if they dumped a million pounds all over the place, and
| there was 1 ppm of trace lead content, then there was one
| full pound of unwanted lead scattered across the same acreage
| as the 900,000+ pounds of active ingredient.
|
| However, ppm for environmental laboratories conventionally
| means milligrams per liter since that's a close equivalent to
| weight ppm, but realistically only for _water samples_. So
| for test material having a density different than water, some
| correction is needed which can often be neglected, but the
| real number is usually within the same order of magnitude.
| Jabbles wrote:
| If there were 280 drops of the DC-10 mentioned in the
| article, that is a maximum of 280 * 45000 = 12.6M litres of
| this, spread of 20 square miles.
|
| That is 7.5 kg (16 lbs) of lead.
|
| But what does that tell you? Is that a lot? The EPA warns
| against soil that is > 400ppm lead, which is a limit almost
| 1000 times higher than found in this.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/l
| e...
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Looks like you've added some realistic data.
|
| The more the better.
|
| >But what does that tell you?
|
| It's a lot of raw data, but mainly reveals it's all
| estimation "all the way down".
|
| Definitely pounds to kilos of heavy metals were dispensed
| widely which were not there before.
|
| Probably a lot more kilos than people think when you
| consider all the kinds of heavy metal that's popular
| today, not only Led ;)
|
| And that's just the initial application.
|
| Contamination migration will be a much less accurately
| determined phenomenon, while being potentially much more
| toxic in those areas of concentration, and less so in
| areas benefitting from dilution.
| jeffybefffy519 wrote:
| I found it a bit concerning that this doesnt talk about safe
| dosages of any of the heavy metals.
| memkit wrote:
| Fire retardant itself is much more harmful than heavy metals in
| this context.
|
| It essentially causes neurodegenerative diseases, especially if
| you inhale it.
|
| This applies to unintuitive routes of exposure, like taking a hot
| shower on an Air Force base that used flame retardant in fire
| drills decades prior and breathing in the water suspended in air.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Fire retardant itself is much more harmful than heavy metals
| in this context.
|
| I haven't found any studies about that, can you link them? It
| doesn't look like ammonium phosphate is dangerous.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| https://nyulangone.org/news/flame-retardants-pesticides-
| over...
|
| I don't think it is shown that the flame retardants used by
| cal fire are the same as those in the article from nyu.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| It's a doomscroller-brained comment, confusing the PFAS fire
| retardant foams used on military bases with this ammonium
| phosphate made from mined Phosphorite rock.
| Tildey wrote:
| AFFF is used in far more than just military bases. Outside
| of the USA, AFFF extinguishers, small vehicle/building
| hazard suppression systems, etc. are much more common.
|
| But yes Phos-check isn't that
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| They are talking about PFAS, which was (is?) in aqueous foam
| firefighting chemicals that were (are?) in widespread use.
|
| At air force bases, airports (both the trucks and hangar
| suppression systems), firefighter training facilities.
| Municipal fire departments have metering devices on their
| trucks and can mix in the foam additive if it's warranted.
| Foam is incredibly effective on a lot of fires.
|
| It gets into the groundwater from stuff like accidental
| hangar fire suppression system triggering, training exercises
| (at an airport near me, they have a dedicated steel structure
| that vaguely resembles a jetliner which they use for
| training, and yes, they use foam every time.) There are a lot
| of videos on youtube of the systems going off, intentionally
| (certification after installation - the system has to fill
| the hangar to X feet of foam within Y time), or accidentally
| being triggered because someone didn't respond to the
| prealarm fast enough to get to the control panel and stop it
| before the system started discharging.
|
| At AF bases, FF training facilities, and airports it gets
| into the groundwater and it's game over - everyone who gets
| water from that water table has to install an expensive
| filtration system. And that's assuming it doesn't get into a
| nearby river or stream. The stuff gets used on a lot of
| vehicle fires on highways, those are often near riviers,
| streams, lakes, reservoirs....
|
| I hadn't heard that PFAS or related chemicals were in the
| colored flame retardant used in forest fire fighting, though.
| Tildey wrote:
| AFFF is being/has been phased out pretty much everywhere in
| the first world. There is still plenty of it around though
| - disposing of, and then filling with fluorine free foam
| can be an expensive process.
|
| Personally, it's about $10/litre to dispose of. Regardless
| of concentration. So properly rinsing out old equipment is
| expensive. But I know the situation differs by country, and
| what's deemed "acceptable" varies too.
|
| Powder doesn't contain fluorinated compounds, at least to
| my knowledge. The role of fluorosurfactants is in increased
| wetting and emulsifying with hydrocarbons. Not really
| applicable to a dry agent.
|
| Phos-check doesn't contain fluorinated compounds.
| mike_d wrote:
| > It essentially causes neurodegenerative diseases, especially
| if you inhale it.
|
| Good thing they do mandatory evacuations before using it and
| don't let people back in until clean up has happened.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| How are you supposed to clean up fire retardant dropped from
| a plane over a large area?
| consp wrote:
| With water? Like, hose it down? It's mostly ammonium
| phosphate anyway and afaik it's water soluble.
|
| Edit: yes it moves it around, and just like the cleaning
| person at the office does you move it into the water table
| or drainage system. Or do you separate your dirt when you
| mop a floor or wash your clothes?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| That isn't actually removing anything, it's just
| spreading it around.
|
| Removing dirt from the carpet and washing it down the
| drain is fine because ordinary "dirt" (i.e. soil) is made
| of non-toxic or biodegradable stuff. By contrast, washing
| toxic materials or heavy metals into the water table is
| the place you _don 't_ want them. There's a reason it's
| illegal to pour used motor oil down the drain.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| And there are plenty of things it's legal to pour down
| the drain, but illegal to put in rivers, because it (grey
| water) needs treatment before release into the
| environment.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| So the alternative is to let uninformed civilians clean it
| with their hose and bare hands?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Presumably some of the alternatives include informing
| them of what to do and devising less toxic means of fire
| suppression.
| phantomathkg wrote:
| Source Please?
| Rotundo wrote:
| It's ammonia phosphates with trace amounts of heavy metals.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| I wonder who can figure out what the red coloring is ;)
|
| Or if it will be accomplished one way or another?
| scq wrote:
| The red colour is iron oxide (i.e. rust).
|
| Source: https://www.perimeter-solutions.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/...
| revx wrote:
| Great investigative reporting!
| throwaway519 wrote:
| It would have been a first for an *ist.
| cyberax wrote:
| So the article contains the data for the detected concentration.
| And it's basically a nothingburger.
|
| For example, the samples contained 37 to 80 micrograms per liter
| of cadmium. The safety limit for _drinking_ _water_ is 5
| micrograms. So diluting the retardant with 10 times the water
| makes it safe enough to drink.
|
| Lead content in the samples was wildly different, from 7
| micrograms to 800, indicating that the sampling procedure itself
| was unreliable.
|
| Similar story for chromium, 100 micrograms is the safe level, and
| 200-300 micrograms were in the tested samples.
|
| In fact, only arsenic is concerning, with roughly 10-60 times the
| allowed concentration for the drinking water.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| First off, water standards were weak in the first place
| (because of lobbying from the chemical industry) and have been
| weakened several times since, so they've become a joke. If
| you're over the federal limits, you're in pretty bad territory.
|
| It's also not a "nothingburger." How much area do you think one
| liter covers in ground area? Now go look at the giant cargo
| planes dropping the stuff thousands of pounds at a time?
|
| All that crap washes down into waterways or leeches into the
| soil, then into the water table.
|
| > Lead content in the samples was wildly different, from 7
| micrograms to 800, indicating that the sampling procedure
| itself was unreliable.
|
| ...that's not what that indicates, no. It could also be that
| lead is very inconsistently spread through the chemical.
|
| Chromium doesn't have a safe level, just like there's no such
| thing as a safe level of radiation.
|
| Before you start hammering away that the chances to you or me
| are extremely low: so are house fires, murder, etc. They still
| happen, and they happen to somebody. A low concentration of
| chromium consumed by a large population will definitely cause
| health impacts.
| cyberax wrote:
| > It's also not a "nothingburger." How much area do you think
| one liter covers in ground area?
|
| Quite a lot? This makes it even safer. The next rainfall, and
| all the retardant is diluted to safe levels.
|
| > All that crap washes down into waterways or leeches into
| the soil, then into the water table.
|
| It's already there. Where do you think arsenic, chromium,
| lead, and other minerals come from?
|
| > Chromium doesn't have a safe level
|
| You do realize that chromium is a component of stainless
| steel? Your cookware leeches plenty of it.
|
| And it's not particularly dangerous, either, unless it's in
| its hexavalent form.
|
| > just like there's no such thing as a safe level of
| radiation.
|
| There is. The normal background are about 20 micro-Roentgens
| per hour.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I could totally believe that it would be good for our
| health if we could somehow eliminate the radiation
| background (but it's clearly not feasible).
| cyberax wrote:
| There are areas on Earth where the natural background
| radiation is literally dozens of times higher than
| normal. People there don't have elevated cancer risk or
| shorter life spans.
|
| Radon does cause elevated lung cancer risk, though.
| db48x wrote:
| > just like there's no such thing as a safe level of
| radiation.
|
| This is absolutely untrue. Living organisms _must_ deal with
| damaged DNA all the time or they wouldn't be able to live for
| very long. There are many ways our environment can cause DNA
| damage, and radiation is definitely one of them. At low
| levels of radiation our own self-repair mechanisms easily fix
| the damage and no harm is actually done. This is especially
| good since we live in a constant bath of radiation all the
| time. We cannot escape it so it's a good thing we don't need
| to.
|
| What isn't good is that because of politics and fear most
| government regulations do not recognize this. Flawed safety
| regulations like this cost us a huge amount of money every
| year, both directly in the form of higher costs and
| indirectly in the form of lost opportunities.
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| > just like there's no such thing as a safe level of
| radiation
|
| You're being pounded with 1-4 mSv per year of ionising
| radiation right now. Everyone has been, all the time, for
| millenia.
|
| The safe limit for people working in the nuclear industry is
| 12 times higher than this.
| nkurz wrote:
| Do you think they really mean "per liter" of the actual sample
| or is this possibly the amount in an already diluted solution
| that they made from the sample? It seems like an odd unit of
| measurement otherwise.
|
| What would have been helpful in the article was a comparison to
| the levels produced by the fire itself. Fires in residential
| areas produce all sorts of nasty stuff. While we should make
| the retardant as safe as we can, if it prevents something even
| worse from being released it still could be a win.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Not to mention, if the chemical producer doesn't want to be
| unfairly charged with toxic pollution that came from other
| sources, they could supply the damned info and proof of it's
| veracity, and/or samples.
|
| This ball is entirely in their court and they deserve no
| benefit of the doubt on something like this.
|
| There is clearly _something_ there. It is 100% rational, from
| this starting point with the info that is available, to
| proceed on an assumption that the exact numbers are
| incorrect, and that we still would not like the correct
| numbers, even after weighing against not using any fire
| retardant, or using some other less effective or more
| expensive alternative.
| cyberax wrote:
| > There is clearly something there.
|
| What is there? The retardant is made from phosphate rocks.
| The same ones that are used for fertilizer. Lettuce that
| you eat has cadmium and arsenic from the phosphate (or
| potassium) fertilizer. It's simply unavoidable.
|
| And of course the manufacturer is cagey. They all know
| about no-science-allowed wasteland of San Francisco and Los
| Angeles, with no-brain juries gladly awarding damages based
| on junk data on "chemicals".
| cyberax wrote:
| > Do you think they really mean "per liter" of the actual
| sample or is this possibly the amount in an already diluted
| solution that they made from the sample? It seems like an odd
| unit of measurement otherwise.
|
| The article doesn't specify. But it doesn't particularly
| matter either way.
|
| Basically, don't drink the fire retardant, and you'll be
| fine. Even habitual exposure is not a big deal at these
| levels.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > In fact, only arsenic is concerning, with roughly 10-60 times
| the allowed concentration for the drinking water.
|
| Even this is unconcerning. The water standard for arsenic is
| unscientifically low for unrelated political reasons. There is
| no evidence that it is unsafe at much higher levels, as is
| common in many locales.
|
| Arsenic is an essential micronutrient in animal biology,
| similar to selenium. We require some amount of arsenic in our
| diet and water is a common source. (More surprisingly, there is
| evidence that lead is an essential micronutrient in trace
| quantities but its biological function is not currently known.)
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Lead content in the samples was wildly different, from 7
| micrograms to 800, indicating that the sampling procedure
| itself was unreliable.
|
| That isn't the only possible explanation for the variance. That
| much variance could have been in the product itself, e.g. if
| the suppressant was supplied by different companies or by the
| same company that has sourced raw materials from different
| mines for different batches.
| Teever wrote:
| > Late last year, LAist requested samples of MVP-Fx from Cal
| Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions, which
| manufactures the product, for the purpose of running an
| independent analysis for heavy metals. All declined.
|
| > "It's not in our interest to share product with public or
| private agencies," Jurasek said at the time. "You are not the
| first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It
| happens. It's not something we do."
|
| How is this legal? Like how can the government spray random
| chemicals all over the land and there's no way for the public to
| compel them or the people supplying them to declare what's in
| them?
| cube00 wrote:
| > "You are not the first person to ask for us to give them fire
| retardant. It happens. It's not something we do."
|
| Scary to think what other discoveries were missed if those
| other investigations had been given the samples they asked for.
|
| I also enjoy how they all pile on to say the results can't be
| trusted.
|
| > Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions all
| dismissed the results of the testing -- saying that the samples
| couldn't be relied on because they were gathered in the field.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| It isn't the responsibility of the manufacturer to provide
| samples for analysis (unless the law compels them). Take it up
| with your government.
|
| > Like how can the government spray random chemicals all over
| the land and there's no way for the public to compel them
|
| There is, by voting.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| no regulations are written by specialists and staff that
| implement the intent of the law passed by legislature or by
| executive order. Voting only pressures certain parts of that.
| The US and States have had large scandals regarding heavy
| industrial wastes over time.
| agency wrote:
| > It isn't the responsibility of the manufacturer to provide
| samples for analysis
|
| In a sane world it would be
| littlestymaar wrote:
| "Adding a regulation mandating manufacturer to provide
| samples for analysis would put too much of a regulatory
| burden on them and destroy the economy"
|
| A conservative representative somewhere, maybe.
| p3rls wrote:
| Rumor is they couldn't figure out where to put the "warning
| this product is known to cause cancer in the state of
| california" sticker on the planes
| thatcat wrote:
| Prop 65 is written on the propeller
| someothherguyy wrote:
| The federal government is at least somewhat aware of these
| issues
|
| https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-t...
|
| https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/documents/fl...
|
| Historically, its not unusual for California's government and
| industry to dump chemicals all over the state.
| jostmey wrote:
| I wonder if some of the high levels of lead found in the samples
| are from the airplane fuel, Which is sadly still leaded in the us
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| It wouldn't be. Only avgas is leaded. Avgas is only used in
| piston engines. Turboprops and jet engines use jet A. Jet A is
| kerosene.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| Why would there be any interaction or correlation between
| aviation fuel and fire retardant?
| glitchc wrote:
| Fire retardant is typically delivered via air. If the
| aircraft is running on avgas, the retardant may mix with the
| exhaust on release.
| cpgxiii wrote:
| Lead is only in avgas used by piston engines. Approximately
| zero firefighting aircraft use piston engines at this point -
| turbine power and reliability are so good that most
| firefighting aircraft that started with piston engines have
| been retrofitted (e.g. Calfire's Turbo Trackers).
| sparker72678 wrote:
| We should know what's in the retardant, yes.
|
| The alternative to retardant at the moment is uncontrolled
| wildfires.
| urig wrote:
| That's an "all or nothing" fallacy, easily countered.
|
| One alternative is water. Plus alternative products might be
| less efficient but less contaminating. Finally, even with Phos-
| Check, success is far from guaranteed.
|
| Bottom line: the lack of transparency must be remedied and
| officials need to be aware and factor in heavy metal
| contamination into their decisions.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Fires burining neibhorhoods already produce massive ammounts
| of toxic and heavy metals. It literally is just adding a
| little more to the already extremly present pollution
| GenshoTikamura wrote:
| The present pollution is the result of incremental addition
| of little more to what was little less at that moment,
| while seeking excuse in alreadism
| spwa4 wrote:
| The fire retardant ... actually does retard the fire,
| right. A tiny bit of extra toxicity in trade for much
| less stuff getting burned may be worth it.
|
| If you're looking for _some_ negative on anything, you
| will find it. Always. The question should be if it 's a
| net positive or not.
|
| In reality people are just looking for something bad, so
| they can find something that was wrong/against the law,
| so they can blame them, so they can get money from them.
| palata wrote:
| > The fire retardant ... actually does retard the fire,
| right. A tiny bit of extra toxicity in trade for much
| less stuff getting burned may be worth it.
|
| And water does, too.
|
| The real question is: is this extra toxicity worth it?
|
| I understand your reaction, it's common. But irrational.
| It's akin to saying "If Trump can improve the country at
| the cost of some disagreement, then maybe it's worth it,
| so I voted Trump". What if he doesn't improve the
| country, and you just get the cost?
|
| It's a good question to ask. You should just not base
| your opinion on the uninformed assumption you make ("I
| assume that because it may be worth it, then it _actually
| is_ worth is ").
| spwa4 wrote:
| > It's akin to saying "If Trump can improve the country
| at the cost of some disagreement, then maybe it's worth
| it, so I voted Trump"
|
| Frankly in my opinion Trump got elected due to this
| attitude. Obviously, Trump or no Trump (and when he gets
| out of office, even if that's only when he dies) we will
| still have to live with MAGA people, right? They're not
| going to disappear. And, frankly, the ONLY break on
| republican power at the moment is that while they have
| power, they have to live with democrats. No choice. (yes,
| there's state and judicial power, but at this point there
| at best reminding Trump he has to live with at least some
| democrat viewpoints and laws. Not zero, but not much)
|
| Imho Trump, and definitely Trump's actions, are the
| result of MAGA people shouting very, very loudly "NO
| COMPROMISE". And, why? Well, the democrat-supported
| demonstrations (Gaza, BLM, climate, and ...) were to some
| extent shouting the same. "NO COMPROMISE". No talking.
| The Gaza demonstrations were totally unwilling to discuss
| what conditions to force on Hamas, any at all, just as
| BLM demonstrations were totally unwilling to discuss
| solutions, just as ... The Gaza demonstrations were about
| winning, not about Israeli-Palestinian peace. The BLM
| demonstrations were about winning, not about compromise.
| And so on. They were just accusing everyone else of being
| horrible, depraved human beings that should essentially
| be murdered to the last man because of some (admittedly
| very fucking serious) mistake they made.
|
| Then some evil election planner went to Trump, and
| pointed out that the 2016-2020 presidency would come with
| the ability to get the supreme court in the camp of
| whoever got elected president AND the 2024-2028 election
| provided 2+ years majorities in congress, in addition to
| the presidency ... and Trump (+ cronies) jumped on it.
| Yes, the goal was probably to get Trump in for 3 terms,
| so thank God for Biden. But there you are.
|
| But then, at the tail end of Biden's presidency ... the
| economy showed clear signs of going down significantly
| (Trump is to blame for the MOMENT of the stock market
| crash, but imho ... at best 50% for it happening at some
| point), and the incumbent party was voted out, first in
| congressional elections, then in the presidency. As
| always happens in those circumstances. I believe over 200
| years only twice has it been different (and one of those
| 2 times was WW2, so presumably it was a time the average
| house cat would have agreed there were more pressing
| matters than the economy)
|
| And now we're here, sitting pretty, after years of
| shouting "NO COMPROMISE! NEVER" ... with the people we
| were never going to compromise with in power ... in
| congress ... in the senate ... and the orange tomato
| president.
|
| Let's face facts here: we will be making a LOT of
| concessions before the 2026 elections, because why would
| republicans give us anything at all? (yes, because we
| still have to live together). After that less, but still
| making concessions until, hopefully 2028. People actually
| thinking about pros and cons, even when there's an easy
| target to blame, I hope THOSE will bring us forward.
|
| Making a coalition of people who realize that for 2 to 4
| years, we'll have to live with republicans in power, and
| then for at least 4 years hopefully they'll have to live
| with democrats in power again. People who compromise and
| live together, THAT is the way forward. And frankly, that
| answers all the republican shouting points too. A large
| people who compromise ... can take on China, because over
| there, there is no compromise, and with that complete
| morons in power, and zero loyalty. They cannot win
| against an army of soldiers that believe they'll be
| welcome in the country they fight for.
| palata wrote:
| I'm honestly not sure what you are saying.
|
| My point was really just to say that it's good to say "If
| this brings X at the cost of Y, then it may be worth it"
| (that raises great questions), but it is wrong to
| conclude just from that that _it actually is worth it_.
|
| I see many people jump to this conclusion, and the logic
| is flawed. I mentioned Trump because I've heard many
| people justify their voting for Trump like this.
|
| The correct way of doing it is:
|
| 1. "If this brings X at the cost of Y, then it may be
| worth it"
|
| 2. Investigate whether it would actually bring X.
|
| 3. Investigate whether it would actually cost Y.
|
| 4. Decide whether it's worth it or not.
| spwa4 wrote:
| In your previous post you were making the argument that
| the cost was not even worth looking at, much less
| comparing, because that by itself, any compromise, would
| be bad (and lead to trump)
| palata wrote:
| I wasn't, sorry if I was confusing.
|
| My point was that the logic "I can imagine that it may be
| worth doing X even if there is a cost Y, so it must be
| worth it" is wrong. If it _may_ be worth it, it means
| that you need to investigate.
| n2d4 wrote:
| Water is not a fire retardant. Water can extinguish fire, but
| you can't apply water on a forest to prevent a fire from
| spreading there in the first place.
|
| Your last paragraph seems to agree with parent? We should
| know what's inside, but it might still be the best solution.
| amarant wrote:
| Yeah you can! Wet forest does not burn as well as dry
| forest!
|
| Water is absolutely a fire retardant, however it may not be
| quite as effective as the red stuff from the article.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| More precisely, not nearly as effective. The fire
| retardant is effective hours or days after being applied.
| Water would have long since evaporated and had almost no
| effect. Even on very short timescales, the retardant is
| still much more effective than water alone.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Given the temperatures some wildfires are burning at, I
| suspect water isn't available in suitable quantities to act
| as a retardant for fires that require these kinds of
| measures.
| csours wrote:
| This feels like one of those things where context changes over
| time and takes a product outside of it's original use case.
|
| Fire retardant is an emergency measure, one that would rightly be
| expected to see exceptionally low usage overall. But over time,
| more people and property have gotten closer to the forest; forest
| fires affect more people for many reasons.
|
| So fire retardant use is not so rare.
|
| The Therac-20 was a fine piece of electro-mechanical-nuclear
| technology, but the Therac-25 moved the control scheme out of its
| original context, and took away some of the physical interlocks.
| The Therac-25 is not remembered fondly.
|
| Context changes over time, and assumptions need to be re-
| examined.
| thih9 wrote:
| It reminds me of handling null values or other kinds of
| exceptional situations in coding.
|
| We can assume they happen for some reason but unless we
| actually ensure that, the branch for handling the intended
| exception can silently start handling other use cases too.
| IndrekR wrote:
| That is why Therac-25 was mentioned, I guess. Software kills:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
| jongjong wrote:
| I feel like the economy has become one giant scheme to enable
| chemical companies to peddle their toxic products onto the
| oblivious public.
|
| They put preservatives in everything... Even some brands of ice
| cream has preservatives...they taste awful. I don't know how
| anyone can eat that... Am I the only one who can taste that
| horrible bitter aftertaste? These products are inedible.
|
| The irony is that they load up processed foods with preservatives
| and ship them half way across the world... While people in your
| local community can't find work... They could have been making
| better food in a food truck and selling it locally, no need for
| preservatives. Why is this not possible in most places?
|
| I've lived in a country which had a strong foodtruck culture and
| the food there was both excellent and cheap. The model is proven
| yet it doesn't work in a lot of places for some reason. Too much
| regulation? Regulating the wrong things? They should be
| regulating chemicals!
| mike_d wrote:
| The most common preservatives in food are salt, sorbic acid
| (occurs naturally in fruit), and sodium nitrate (mined directly
| out of the ground).
|
| If you constantly experience a bitter taste when eating foods
| you should speak to your doctor. It can be a sign of an
| infection or liver issues.
| jongjong wrote:
| Sodium nitrate has a bitter aftertaste to me. A bit like
| baking soda. I can usually taste it then I check the labels
| and sure enough I see 'preservative (252)'.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I wonder if it's a genetic thing. I have a family member
| who complains about preservative taste, but I can't taste
| it.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I was always told it was boron (or borate?). People always called
| them boron bombers.
|
| Yes, that was a thing. https://www.borax.com/news-
| events/november-2022/boron-flame-...
| GenshoTikamura wrote:
| Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained
| by malice
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| > "It's not in our interest to share product with public or
| private agencies," Jurasek said at the time. "You are not the
| first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It
| happens. It's not something we do."
|
| I don't get why they are acting like they have something to hide.
| Phosphate is mined from rock, rock contains all sorts of other
| elements including heavy metals. That's simply how minerals work.
| It's not by itself an indication that anyone has done anything
| wrong.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| This is one of the downsides of an excessively litigious
| society.
|
| Being afraid of potential risks, even if there are none,
| reduces transparency.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| This industry learned a lesson from the AFFF debacle. And
| that lesson wasn't "share everything".
| harimau777 wrote:
| Unfortunately, excessive litigation is one of the downsides
| of an under regulated society. If our only protection from
| corporations is lawsuits then we shouldn't be surprised that
| people bring a lot of lawsuits.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Or they don't want to make it obvious that they're taking
| something cheap and marking it up a million percent and nobody
| is asking questions. This happens a lot in "our only customers
| are government or compelled to buy by government" industries of
| which fire is one.
| 827a wrote:
| What they're hiding from is literally just this "journalist",
| who decided they would publish this story before even knowing
| whether there _is_ a story or not. That 's the modern social
| media landscape; even if you aren't doing anything wrong, even
| if you're in the business of supplying reasonably safe,
| definitely life-saving fire chemicals to fire departments,
| you'll get an article written about you like this. The best
| course of action is to keep your head down.
| windexh8er wrote:
| They're also "hiding" this information from OSHA, as stated
| in the article.
| l1tany11 wrote:
| Not if it's below regulatory threshold. Which they seemed
| to say it was in the article (they said it's below EPA
| threshold, so I assume that means the OSHA threshold too).
|
| The article never says how much they detected. I can only
| assume it's because it's a nothing amount. If it was
| significant they would have been saying how much. It's hard
| to take the article seriously as a result. We have crazy
| sensitive tests now, they do nothing in the article to show
| it's not just another story about how sensitive testing is
| these days.
| foolswisdom wrote:
| > The article never says how much they detected. I can
| only assume it's because it's a nothing amount. If it was
| significant they would have been saying how much. It's
| hard to take the article seriously as a result.
|
| Did we read the same article? There's a table with the
| amounts of different metals, with the amounts found in
| each of the different samples.
| Hizonner wrote:
| The usual reflexive secrecy. Nobody gives out any information
| about what's in any product if they can avoid it. This has
| really bad economic _and_ environmental effects.
|
| I don't know that this particular retardant is a big deal, but
| the rule really ought to be that the maker of _every_ product
| _must_ disclose to the _public_ (not just actual buyers) (a)
| what they put into it, (b) where they got it, (c) how they
| assured that it was what they thought it was, (e) how they
| processed it, (e) exactly what analyses or characterizations
| they 've ever done on the product or anything that went into
| it, and (f) the complete results of those.
|
| Trade secrets not only shouldn't get any legal protection, but
| in many cases they should be illegal.
| alephnil wrote:
| Some of the heavy metals are likely from the fire retardant, and
| some are likely from the fire. Look at zinc vs lead for example.
| There is little lead in the unused sample vs the environmental
| samples, thus most of the lead is likely not from the fire
| retardant. I would guess the most likely source is lead from
| roofs of burning houses.
|
| Zinc on the other hand is present in all samples in about the
| same amount, including the unused one. That means that the zinc
| is likely from the fire retardant rather than the environment.
| Other metals are present in slightly higher amounts in the
| environmental samples, and often only in some of the samples. In
| that case both the fire retardant and the fires/environment are
| likely to contribute.
|
| To me it seems like copper, lead and manganese are mostly from
| the fires, while zinc and chromium seems to be from the fire
| retardant. Then there is the sample from the Franklin fire, that
| seems to be higher in everything.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| > Some of the heavy metals are likely from the fire retardant
|
| I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote, but they did also
| analyze unused, "fresh out of the package" retardant.
| rvba wrote:
| Where is it manufactured? In USA or somewhere else?
|
| If it is manufactued in other country then they might not care
| about heavy metals in the product.
| hnbad wrote:
| The US doesn't have a great track record of caring about the
| health of its citizens, no need to bring in xenophobia.
|
| Last I checked, parts of the US still have flammable drinking
| water.
|
| Many neighborhoods still have lead pipes because the companies
| required to replace them were allowed to offer paying off the
| affected tenants instead.
|
| The FDA is understaffed and barely tests a fraction of the
| things you'd expect it to, let alone more than once.
|
| The US has detonated multiple nukes on US soil.
|
| The CIA literally drugged random people with LSD.
|
| Volunteer emergency helpers during 9/11 received literally no
| meaningful long-term medical support - not to mention US
| soldiers exposed to the US burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
|
| The US even relies on chlorination for poultry - a practice
| banned in the EU and UK among other places because it is only
| necessary if you want to compensate for poor hygiene standards.
|
| And do I need to remind you of the handling of the train
| derailment in Ohio that ended up poisoning the air in 16
| states?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Lane feels firefighters were left in the dark_
|
| That kind of thing happens a lot (see "9/11 Syndrome").
|
| Kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
|
| One of the things about fire, is that it alters chemistry.
| Perfectly safe materials, can turn into highly toxic gas, when
| heated. In many cases, this cannot be anticipated, or
| realistically prevented. There are also firefighting foams and
| whatnot. I think some of the foams contain fairly significant
| quantities of questionable chemicals. They are pretty much
| required, for Li-ion battery fires.
|
| Firemen kinda take the brunt of that. I know a number of retired
| firefighters, and they all have health issues.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Phos-Chek MVP-Fx is primarily made of ammonium phosphates,
| which are derived from phosphate. That rock, when mined, can
| contain trace amounts of heavy metals."_
|
| The thing they're catastrophizing about is rock phosphate--
| ordinary fertilizer that's mixed into the soil of every food farm
| in the world.
|
| I'm not sure if the journalists who wrote this article are aware
| of this. "It's COVERING my garden plants!" reads quite definitely
| when you recognize it's f'ing Miracle-Gro.
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-c...
|
| - _" Phosphorus is an essential element for plant and animal
| nutrition. Most phosphorus is consumed as a principal component
| of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizers used on food crops
| throughout the world. Phosphate rock minerals are the only
| significant global resources of phosphorus."_
|
| https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/risk/... (
| _" Heavy Metals in Fertilizers"_)
|
| - _" Risk assessments conducted by the US Environmental
| Protection Agency and others have concluded that the hazardous
| constituents in inorganic fertilizers generally do not pose risks
| to public health or the environment."_
| libertine wrote:
| > "Risk assessments conducted by the US Environmental
| Protection Agency and others have concluded that the hazardous
| constituents in inorganic fertilizers generally do not pose
| risks to public health or the environment."
|
| What I believe you're missing is where this might be coming
| from. We live in an Institutional crisis, where for years
| propaganda was spread and amplified by internal and external
| actors (like Russia) to undermine institutions, with lies and
| conspiracy theories.
|
| Bold claims were made that organizations and the government
| were captured by private interests, completely disregarding
| that actual qualified people are working to make sure things
| are safe, like products we consume.
|
| Just for context, RFK Junior is the US Secretary of Health and
| Human Services.
|
| So, to circle back to your quote, the Risk assessment made by
| the US Environmental Protection Agency could be easily
| dismissed by the following unfounded and unsupported claim,
| "yeah the US Environmental Protection Agency is serving the big
| companies; they should be dismantled."
|
| Like it would be the easiest thing for Russia to start a trend
| to sway people to demand a ban on phosphate. They did similar
| things with regard to Ukraine, to the point where the US
| Administration is amplifying russian talking points.
|
| To be clear, I'm not saying this article is a propaganda piece;
| what I'm saying is that this sort of opinion from someone who
| doesn't seem to fully understand the subject is a prime example
| of something that could be amplified for propaganda and
| contribute to institutional demise.
| graemep wrote:
| You seem to be implying that all claims of regulatory
| capture, or even simple incompetence or bias, are all the
| result of Russian propaganda seems like a pretty bold claim
| to me.
|
| I am sure there are people who want to sow distrust for their
| own ends, but there are also good reasons for distrust.
|
| > what I'm saying is that this sort of opinion from someone
| who doesn't seem to fully understand the subject is a prime
| example of something that could be amplified for propaganda
| and contribute to institutional demise.
|
| Part of the solution is transparency and full information.
|
| > "It's not in our interest to share product with public or
| private agencies,"
|
| Is not an attitude that inspires confidence.
| libertine wrote:
| > You seem to be implying that all claims of regulatory
| capture, or even simple incompetence or bias, are all the
| result of Russian propaganda
|
| Can you quote me on that? Because it's like you didn't even
| read what I wrote. How can I be more clear than:
|
| > _To be clear, I 'm not saying this article is a
| propaganda piece; what I'm saying is that this sort of
| opinion from someone who doesn't seem to fully understand
| the subject is a prime example of something that could be
| amplified for propaganda and contribute to institutional
| demise._
|
| How is this implying that ALL claims, incompetence, or bias
| ARE the result of propaganda? And where am I wrong to say
| that this sort of thing is being amplified by, for example,
| popular US Podcasts that were, and some for sure still are,
| being funded by the Russian regime?[0]
|
| This isn't a conspiracy theory by the way: it's well known
| that there are people being paid to promote propaganda, and
| there are people - like you said and well - that want to
| sow distrust for their ends, and also get paid by Russia to
| do it. There's still an ongoing investigation about the
| example I gave, but it's probably a mix of both.
|
| But these aren't just the two types of people in the
| information space, that's just silly. Still, you should pay
| attention to who has, or gets, a big reach.
|
| > Part of the solution is transparency and full
| information.
|
| Is it? Because the solution seems to be about having a
| certain aesthetic, being loud, and disregarding everything
| else - you just need to make pauses to say "and that's a
| fact/the truth is/everyone knows this/it's common sense".
| Just look at the Trump administration, it's working pretty
| well for them.
|
| [0]https://www.cdmrn.ca/publications/tenet-media-final-
| incident...
| hello_computer wrote:
| The devil is in the details. Even though all minerals contain
| impurities, NPK fertilizer is processed to reduce them to
| acceptable levels for agriculture. If they did not do this,
| places dosed with large quantities of it ( _year after year
| after..._ ) would become superfund sites. It is the same reason
| coal is so nasty: the CO2 is nothing compared to the ash--which
| is loaded with heavy metals. If the ash retaining ponds around
| a coal plant ever broke, the land would be uninhabitable for
| centuries, so the the ppms and ppbs are crucial information
| here.
| somat wrote:
| I was trying to figure out what is in class A firefighting foam
| last week.
|
| Nobody really wants to say, it is all trade secrets, evading a
| direct response, using vague sweeping terms, like it contains
| surfactant and foaming agents.
|
| However based on the published MSDS. my guess, soap, it is mainly
| soap.
|
| https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/fire/wfcs/products/msds/foam/silv...
|
| Note that I do think it is soap finely engineered for it's fire
| suppression characteristics. I also think you would get 80% there
| with a bottle of dish soap.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Ya some of us rural volunteer firefighters will use dish soap
| instead of foam concentrate. I personally haven't but some of
| the others in the department have.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Some phosphate rock deposits have very high levels of cadmium.
| Phosphate fertilizers derived from high Cd rocks can have up to
| 100 ppm cadmium.
| compass_copium wrote:
| This is much cleaner--35 /ppb/.
|
| Really irresponsible and bad journalism.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" up to 100 ppm cadmium"_
|
| This is remarkable, and leads to me question what numbers this
| article is reporting. Their cadmium figures are parts-per-
| _billion_ --ranging 30-45 mg/L. That seems impossibly low for
| something that's mostly phosphate; i.e., the EU's inorganic
| fertilizer standard[0] is 60 mg/kg, and they call 20 mg/kg
| "low-cadmium".
|
| This would appear to be several order of magnitudes lower
| cadmium than "low-cadmium" fertilizer. That doesn't sound very
| plausible, does it? Given their common component.
|
| OP's using mg/L. What is a "liter" in the denominator? That'd
| be an odd unit for measuring a dry powder. Is it liters of the
| solvent they dissolved the sample in, before running the mass
| spec? Was it _intended_ to be reported as a a quantitative
| measurement, at all? (Was there maybe a communication error
| between the lab technician and the journalist?)
|
| [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-
| room/20181119IP... ( _Fertilisers /cadmium: Parliament and
| Council negotiators reach provisional deal"_)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-06 23:02 UTC)