Consumption

[WMAMOS]

You are well aware of what is happening in the environment and you make statements like "the solution to pollution is dilution"?????????? I think it is time you update your knowledge of environmental science Moose.

[Moose1am]

What's the alternative? Capture the air pollution and then bury it in the landfill or take the cake and use it to put heavy metals in the drywall? Then you get the building trades people all contaminated with that stuff when the sand the dry wall later on.

Tell me your defination of Pollution.

I think my thinking is right on the mark!

For over 100 years we have been diluting the pollution that is put into the rivers and the air. Our entire Clean Air Act of 1990 depends on limiting grains of pollution per DSCF of air lbs per hour. Our water regs limit the amount of pollutants put into the river to so many lbs/unit of water discharged or per unit of time. All these reg are designed to dispurse the pollutants over time.

If you have a better way I am sure that many engineers and scientists and other would love to hear what your ideas are.

Hopefully they can be done economically or they won't be done at all.



Regards,

Moose1am

[WMAMOS]

Moose,

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you regaridng your theory on dilution. Bottom line, it is an archaic concept to think that dilution is the solution to pollution as a whole, especially when you talk about mercury. Pollutants like mercury do not break down in the environment so even if you release small concentrations over time, it all ends up in the same place...river and lake substrates and eventually into the tissues of humans and animals. It is just not an ecologically sustainable concept.

I'm not an air person but I work in the environmental field as a stormwater quality manager. Take your dilution is the solution theory to a group of environmental professionals and they'll laugh you right out of the room. Perhaps when you took your hard core science classes that was the philosophy, but things have changed. The push is for removing pollutants from the waste stream through education (change in habits) and new technologies (physical and biological). For example, check out the studies going on using mercury resistant bacteria to treat waste mercury.

The solution/remedy to mercury pollution is an alternative energy source. You are right, it isn't economically feasible today, but it is the solution versus a band-aid approach to the problem. As long as we continue to burn more and more coal, the problem will exist. In fact, the problem will exist forever unless we can develop technologies to remove the mercury from the water column. Until then, we are just adding to the problem.

[idbefishing]

there was an article somewhere a while back regarding the toxicity level in fish nationwide and Indiana is the second highest. It also, said that the majority of the mercury in our environment come from other country. They burn much more coal then we do and have less restriction on their practices. The mercury particles travel in atmospheric wind and settle in distant land like the U.S. Real truth or not, I believes it's very possible this is happening.

[Moose1am]

I don't know of many other countries that consume as much energy as we do here in the good old USA. We have abundant coal resources and we use them to great advantage here in the midwest. However the coal has some side effects.

I seriously doubt that we are getting much mercury from Europe or any other country. I very much suspect that most of the mercury found in our fish comes from the power plant right next door or much closer to your lake than those power plants overseas.

That is most likely a wide rumor being spread around by those that don't wish to have further controls put on the local power plants that are burning coal here in the midwest and avoiding the costs of complying with new air pollutions rules and emission limits.

Some power plants such as I&M in Rockport, IN don't have to control their emissions and just build taller smoke stack to try to dispurse the air pollutants higher up into the air. That works with the wind blows the pollution away from IN but when there is no wind the old adage that "What goes up must come down" still applies. And 99.99% of the time it comes down on your heads.



Regards,

Moose1am