Fifty Years Ago Today....

Truth Detector said:
At least a dozen other fires, sparked by pollution in the water, broke out on the river in the late 1800s and 1900s.

Who is against clean water? Anyone? Why can't States deal with this? It's not a Federal matter.
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It's a federal matter because streams cross state boundaries, and states often share lakes. What good does it do for Illinois and Arkansas, for instance, to have regulations regarding what can be dumped in the Mississippi, if Missouri doesn't give a shit? Isn't that kind of unfair to everyone else downstream from Missouri?
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
It's a federal matter because streams cross state boundaries, and states often share lakes. What good does it do for Illinois and Arkansas, for instance, to have regulations regarding what can be dumped in the Mississippi, if Missouri doesn't give a shit? Isn't that kind of unfair to everyone else downstream from Missouri?
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Why do you think the citizens of ANY state want dirty water?
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
The parental units took us on a three-week trip out West in 1969. I remember the Truckee River, how clear and cold and beautiful it was. And Lake Tahoe, too. Nothing like the filthy brown sludge that we called the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers back home. Sometimes we would see someone pulled off on the side of the road, fly-fishing in the Truckee. Do they still do that?
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Yes, quite pristine...

Mississippi~when I lived in NOLA the joke was the water was drank 10 times before it got there (mid 70's), not so funny if you lived there & had nothing else to drink.. :)

The water, no exaggeration, if you held up to a light, had a yellow tinge to it... No matter how long you ran the faucet..

Now w/ Reno growing so much there isn't as much water in the Truckee, (Last few an exception) so not as much but most now go over to the walker & Carson rivers were reliable flows can be counted on.....
 
A century ago, Centralia, Pennsylvania was a busy small town filled with shops, residents and a brisk mining business. Coal from local mines fueled its homes and its economy, and its 1,200 residents worked, played and lived as tight-knit neighbors.

Today couldn’t be more different. Centralia’s streets are abandoned. Most of its buildings are gone, and smoke wafts down graffiti-strewn highways where a prosperous town once stood. The formerly busy burg has turned into a ghost town. The cause was something that’s still happening beneath Centralia’s empty streets: a mine fire that’s been burning for over 50 years, resulting in the devastation of a community and the eviction and impoverishment of many of its residents.

Coal seam fires are nothing new, but Centralia’s is the United States’ worst and one of history’s most devastating. Before the 1962 fire, Centralia had been a mining center for over a century. Home to a rich deposit of anthracite coal, the town was incorporated after mining began in the 1850s.

[The History Channel]
 
Adolf_Twitler said:
A century ago, Centralia, Pennsylvania was a busy small town filled with shops, residents and a brisk mining business. Coal from local mines fueled its homes and its economy, and its 1,200 residents worked, played and lived as tight-knit neighbors.

Today couldn’t be more different. Centralia’s streets are abandoned. Most of its buildings are gone, and smoke wafts down graffiti-strewn highways where a prosperous town once stood. The formerly busy burg has turned into a ghost town. The cause was something that’s still happening beneath Centralia’s empty streets: a mine fire that’s been burning for over 50 years, resulting in the devastation of a community and the eviction and impoverishment of many of its residents.

Coal seam fires are nothing new, but Centralia’s is the United States’ worst and one of history’s most devastating. Before the 1962 fire, Centralia had been a mining center for over a century. Home to a rich deposit of anthracite coal, the town was incorporated after mining began in the 1850s.

[The History Channel]
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I have heard of these, but 50 years, WTF?? no way to put them out??
 
Truth Detector said:
Why do you think the citizens of ANY state want dirty water?
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I'm not sure why you're so confused. Did I say that? No, I did not. If you want an adult discussion, try responding to what is written rather than making up shit.

OTOH, the Toadstool is doing everything possible to roll back environmental protections, with a wink and a nod from industry who whines that it's too expensive to not pollute. Would you like a serving of coal ash in your tap water?

https://content.sierraclub.org/coal...ew-ash-regulation-rollback-threatens-families
 
Adolf_Twitler said:
Here is an interesting read about the challenge and the damage done to our planet because of these fires.

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/hot-hell-firefighting-foam-heats-coal-fire-debate-centralia-pa
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Holy jeebus. This is terrifying.

"In addition to carbon dioxide, “coal fires produce as many as 60 different toxic compounds, many of which are carcinogenic,” says Glenn Stracher, an expert on coal fires at East Georgia College in Swainsboro. Such toxins include arsenic, selenium, fluorine, sulfur, lead, copper, bismuth, tin, germanium and mercury, he says. Robert Finkelman, a medical geologist at the University of Texas at Dallas, estimates that 40 tons of mercury are released every year by uncontrolled coal fires, which is on a par with the amount produced by coal-fired power plants in the United States. “If we could extinguish those fires,” he says, “it would make a worthwhile contribution to reducing mercury pollution as well as carbon dioxide and other toxic elements.”"

and

"China alone loses between 100 million and 200 million tons of coal each year to mine fires, as much as 20 percent of their annual production, according to the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, based in Enschede, Netherlands. The Institute estimates that carbon dioxide emissions from these fires are as high as 1.1 billion metric tons, more than the total carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles in the United States. Second to China is India, where 10 million tons of coal burns annually in mine fires, contributing a further 51 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere."

Poor Gaia.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Second comment on this. The article was written over 9 years ago. I haven't been able to find anything about the use of the nitrogen foam to try to put it out.
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The fire rages on, but my point of referring to that article is exposing the problem with Coal and Coal mining, and the harm it is doing to our planet.

The article, that is 8 years old, but it also tells about the scope of the problem around the world.
 
Adolf_Twitler said:
The fire rages on, but my point of referring to that article is exposing the problem with Coal and Coal mining, and the harm it is doing to our planet.

The article, that is 8 years old, but it also tells about the scope of the problem around the world.
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It sure does. Thanks for posting that. Very sobering.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
I'm not sure why you're so confused. Did I say that? No, I did not. If you want an adult discussion, try responding to what is written rather than making up shit.

OTOH, the Toadstool is doing everything possible to roll back environmental protections, with a wink and a nod from industry who whines that it's too expensive to not pollute. Would you like a serving of coal ash in your tap water?

https://content.sierraclub.org/coal...ew-ash-regulation-rollback-threatens-families
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Apparently you believe that only the Federal bureaucracy can ensure we have clean water. I am asking you why you think the States are incapable of handling that. But if you want to pretend you're having an adult conversation when all you are doing is exhibiting your predictable pomposity and arrogance, find an echo chamber.

The argument that Trump wants polluted rivers and water is LAME and a LIE. Yet you whine like a little baby about making shit up?
 
Aimée said:
I think that she may get re-elected, but her margin will not be as wide as it once was. I think more than a few voters will remember the scolding she gave everyone over Kavanaugh.
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That wasn't a scolding; that's absurd. She gave a very reasoned and sensible argument while the lunatics on the Party of the Jackass side of the aisle acted like spoiled angry children and attempted to destroy a d good man and his family for partisan political purposes.

If leftists had a brain, they would be embarrassed.
 
Aimée said:
I remember when I was very young (late 70's) when no one was allowed near the Androscoggin River because it was filled with the chemicals from the paper mills upstream. It was miserable! I remember the strange, brown foam that was always floating on it along with the dead fish. Things have always reached Maine later than in other states. Today, it's far cleaner and the birds and the fish are now back. I am so glad that the EPA exists, and that we wanted our lands and waters to be clean again.

Good news? The state of Maine has just banned single-use plastic bags. I have been using cloth bags for so long now, that I won't even notice any changes from it.
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Nice story.

I personally believe we owe a debt of gratitude to the environmental activists of the early 1970s, and well as the Democrats and progressive Republicans in congress who set aside partisan differences to pass truly landmark legislation. Legislation that did not have an economic motive, a tax motive, a business and commerce motive, a political motive – but was the purest from of legislation for the public interest that is probably even possible in our representative democracy.

I have this prominently displayed in my office, and in my opinion, it is the most elegant and lucid expression of legislative intent I have ever seen.

Clean Water Act, Section 101. (a)
"The objective of this Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters."
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Pure elegance.


I also believe that the prelude to the Endangered Species Act is arguably the purest expression of uncorrupted and noble legislative intent possible.

Endangered Species Act
Section 2. Findings, Purposes, and Policy
Congress finds and declares that—
(1) various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation;
(2) other species of fish, wildlife, and plants have been so depleted in numbers that they are in danger of or threatened with extinction;
(3) these species of fish, wildlife, and plants are of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.

The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.
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A real tear-jerker, considering this came from the U.S. Congress!
 
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