A little Arsenic never hurt anyone.

uscitizen

uscitizen

Villified User
Jan 2, 1:03 PM EST

Elevated arsenic levels found near Tenn. ash spill

KINGSTON, Tenn. (AP) -- Federal data shows arsenic levels more than 100 times the safe amount in a river near a massive coal ash spill in East Tennessee.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said sediment and water samples from near the spill were above federal maximums for contaminants. Data released Friday showed total arsenic levels in one sample were 149 times the maximum level.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLOODED_NEIGHBORHOOD?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
 
Which standard are you using to determine unsafe levels of arsenic? The TCLP standard (5 ppm) or the SDWA standard (10 ppb) or the universal treatment standard for waste waters (1.4 ppm).

If the arsenic in the ash is 100 times the SDWA standard then this is one big whoop de do as the Arsenic level is well below the waste treatment standard for Arsenic (5 ppm TCLP).
 
OK, I checked the article. It's the SDWA standard. The reporting is a bit alarmist. In the relative sense the contamination is 149 times greater then the SDWA standard of 10 ppb. However that's still more than 3 times lower than the waste treatment standard for Arsenic and the samples were for pre-treated river water. It would be no trouble for a POTW (Publically Owned Treatment Works) to treat this water to meet the SDWA standards for Arsenic.
 
In fact. If a manufacturer was discharging a waste water into that river at 149 times the SDWA standard it would be perfectly legal as they would still be below the universal waste water treatment standards for Arsenic (but just barely).
 
Last edited:
Socrtease said:
Is this the clean coal technology they are talking about?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. and sort of like the nuke industry. They don't know what to do with their waste products.
This fly ash spill was 100 times larger by voloume than the exxon valdez spill.
 
It is just the cremated flys that get in the coal.
Why should that be a problem.
 
Mottleydude said:
Which standard are you using to determine unsafe levels of arsenic? The TCLP standard (5 ppm) or the SDWA standard (10 ppb) or the universal treatment standard for waste waters (1.4 ppm).

If the arsenic in the ash is 100 times the SDWA standard then this is one big whoop de do as the Arsenic level is well below the waste treatment standard for Arsenic (5 ppm TCLP).
Click to expand...

Thank you Mottley, uscitizen was just posting this to make fun and counter a TRUE point I made that minute levels of arsenic are not harmful and as you point out, depending on the parts per million that is so.
 
Socrtease said:
Is this the clean coal technology they are talking about?
Click to expand...

No....it's a big problem with older coal burning plants. They produce tons and tons of fly ash. Modern coal burning plants use a fluidized bed technology which produce just a fraction of the fly ash of older coal plants.

That was what the big deal was when Bushco tried to undermine the Clean Air Act with his "Clean Skies Initiative" which would have gutted the new source review which requires older coal burning plants to upgrade their air pollution control equipment forcing them to utilize more efficient (and cleaner) technologies, such as, fluidized bed technology, electrostatic precipitators, particulate colliders, NOx catalyst columns, mercury vapor traps, etc.
 
Demwit said:
Pretty much. and sort of like the nuke industry. They don't know what to do with their waste products.
This fly ash spill was 100 times larger by voloume than the exxon valdez spill.
Click to expand...

You don't know what you're talking about. They know how to manage the waste properly. They just don't want to pay the cost. Nor do their customers.
 
Last edited:
KingCondanomation said:
Thank you Mottley, uscitizen was just posting this to make fun and counter a TRUE point I made that minute levels of arsenic are not harmful and as you point out, depending on the parts per million that is so.
Click to expand...

Yea and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standard is in the parts per billion range.

I ussually cringe when I read reporting on science/technological issues because the journalist writing the articles are usually poorly educated in science and technology and don't really understand the issues.

Fly ash is certainly loaded with heavy metals and you sure don't want it in your drinking water.

The real ecological disaster here with the fly ash spill is that fly ash is mostly Calcium hydroxide a strong alkali. Most aquaitic life can only live in water a specific pH range. The area of the river impacted by the spill with have high pH that will probabily kill off most aquatic life for many, many miles near this spill. That's the real story here but that don't sell news papers. Arsenic does!

Why? Because arsenic is what we call, in the environmental trade, a PIC (paranoia inducing compound) along with lead, radionucleides, PCB's, asbestos, mercury and dioxins. People just hear these terms and they get irrational.

A good example of that was when I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper on April fools day, as a prank, complaining about the local water being contaminated with dihydrogen oxide (get it?;-). The editor thought it was funny and printed it. They were later inundated with calls by scared people who wanted to know if they had to boil or filter their water to get rid of the dihydrogen oxide. Obviously they didn't get the joke nor did they think it was funny when it was explained to them.

It's the same deal with these PIC's. People here "Arsenic" and automatically think they are being poisoned.

The point being is, should they be concerned about elevated levels of arsenic in their water? Hell yes but the reporters have a responsibility to understand and accurately communicate an issue and not just repeat what they are told to an uninformed public.
 
Last edited:
Mottleydude said:
Yea and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standard is in the parts per billion range.

I ussually cringe when I read reporting on science/technological issues because the journalist writing the articles are usually poorly educated in science and technology and don't really understand the issues.

Fly ash is certainly loaded with heavy metals and you sure don't want it in your drinking water.

The real ecological disaster here with the fly ash spill is that fly ash is mostly Calcium hydroxide a strong alkali. Most aquaitic life can only live in water a specific pH range. The area of the river impacted by the spill with have high pH that will probabily kill off most aquatic life for many, many miles near this spill. That's the real story here but that don't sell news papers. Arsenic does!

Why? Because arsenic is what we call, in the environmental trade, a PIC (paranoia inducing compound) along with lead, radionucleides, PCB's, asbestos, mercury and dioxins. People just hear these terms and they get irrational.

A good example of that was when I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper on April fools day, as a prank, complaining about the local water being contaminated with dihydrogen oxide (get it?;-). The editor thought it was funny and printed it. They were later inundated with calls by scared people who wanted to know if they had to boil or filter their water to get rid of the dihydrogen oxide. Obviously they didn't get the joke nor did they think it was funny when it was explained to them.

It's the same deal with these PIC's. People here "Arsenic" and automatically think they are being poisoned.

The point being is, should they be concerned about elevated levels of arsenic in their water? Hell yes but the reporters have a responsibility to understand and accurately communicate an issue and not just repeat what they are told to an uninformed public.
Click to expand...

do we really know what the safe levels of arsenic (or the heavy metals in general, not to mention the radioactive metals)

yeah, Ca(OH)2 is so good for the ecosystem

i think that most people are not aware that we need to stay within a certain ph range

ps a number of wells in the western u s of a are unusable due to arsenic contamination and do you trust bushco's epa to properly set the arsenic standards...
 
DonQuixote said:
do we really know what the safe levels of arsenic (or the heavy metals in general, not to mention the radioactive metals)
Click to expand...

Yes we do. Based on LD50 (lethal dose of 50% of test population) toxicology analysis heavy metal (and organic toxins), the regulatory limits are set well below level in which either a physiological response would occur in humans or represent an ecological threat via bioaccumulation.

yeah, Ca(OH)2 is so good for the ecosystem
Click to expand...

Ehhh that depends. It's not a great big pile of ethyl methyl death but in this large a volume the ecological impact is severe.

I often put lime (calcium hydroxide) in my garden about every other year as a nutrient/fertilizer.

i think that most people are not aware that we need to stay within a certain ph range
Click to expand...
I agree there. Most people have no clue at all what pH means or what the abbreviation even stands for.

ps a number of wells in the western u s of a are unusable due to arsenic contamination and do you trust bushco's epa to properly set the arsenic standards...
Click to expand...

I've heard about wells out west being contaminated above SDWA standards due to contamination from mining operations.

Well that's a good question about Bushco. Actually they did set the SDWA standards for arsenic. They lowered it from 50 ppb to 10 ppb. Though they resisted that change and it took a great amount of public pressure for them to implement the new standard. It was a rediculous situation really. The 50 ppb standard is well below measured physiological responses for As. However, European waste water treatment standards for As have been 10 ppb since the development of graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry which allows for ppb levels of detection of metals. If it weren't for ISO standards, this probably would have never been an issue.

Where the general public is concerend, since arsenic is a known poison and the new standard is 5 times lower than the old standard it must be safer.

That's really not true. The old standard had an over kill level of safety built into it. As doesn't really have a health and safety or ecological impact until it's concentration is in the parts per million range.

Bushco's argument was that the 10 ppb standard would place an uneccassary cost on industries that produce As contaminated waste waters. That didn't turn out to be the case either cause it cost about the same to treat waste water to either standard. With that being the case Buscho bowed to public pressure and adopted the ISO standard.
 
uscitizen said:
Jan 2, 1:03 PM EST

Elevated arsenic levels found near Tenn. ash spill

KINGSTON, Tenn. (AP) -- Federal data shows arsenic levels more than 100 times the safe amount in a river near a massive coal ash spill in East Tennessee.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said sediment and water samples from near the spill were above federal maximums for contaminants. Data released Friday showed total arsenic levels in one sample were 149 times the maximum level.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLOODED_NEIGHBORHOOD?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Click to expand...

I couldn't watch the news reports on this issue, it just sickened me.

The letters to the editor are stressing that this could happen in Alaska and poison our fish!
 
froggie said:
I couldn't watch the news reports on this issue, it just sickened me.

The letters to the editor are stressing that this could happen in Alaska and poison our fish!
Click to expand...

This spill will flow all the way down to the gulf of mexico and pass at a minimum hundreds of cities drinking watwer system intakes. Perhaps thousands.
 
Damocles said:
Dihydrogen Oxide Kills!
Click to expand...

A kid near where I live died this summer when his lungs filled with dihydrogen oxide. It was tragic.

And people spray it all over their lawns. And use it to clean their cars.

It needs to stop!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top