Uranium: Vegas official raises worry about Colorado River water

[DogPoundPup]

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Southern Nevada's top water official is raising concerns about ‘‘measurable quantities'' of uranium showing up in the Colorado River, the region's primary source for drinking water.

Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy blames uranium mining, particularly near Moab, Utah.

In a letter Monday to federal Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Mulroy urges the department to ‘‘carefully evaluate'' the effect on water quality before authorizing new mining claims near the river.

She says federal law includes strict limits on uranium in drinking water, and says it's expensive and difficult for cities to get it out.

A report this week found southern Nevada tap water continues to meet or exceed all standards set by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2008/06/22/news/state/state6.txt

[medeak]

1. more $$$ for bottling companies n/t

[cosmik debris]

2. That's just a scare piece--bad journalism

There are "measurable quantities" of uranium in ever piece of Granite in New Hampshire, The Granite State.

There are "measurable quantities" of uranium in ever piece of granite used to build buildings or make kitchen counter tops.

Without more information, this article is meaningless.

[XemaSab]

3. Good call

With a sensitive enough instrument, I'd imagine one part per brazilian would be measurable. :P

[Zachstar]

7. Hell, you look small enough you could detect a few atoms of gold

[losthills]

15. Gold is not RADIOACTIVE........ ........

[cosmik debris]

22. But Granite IS RADIOACTIVE

And it is found all over the United States.

If it is your intention to avoid radiation, you need to leave this solar system, because the sun is bombarding you with gamma rays every day.

You need to keep that in perspective.

[Zachstar]

32. Hell you leave the solar system and you will still be bombarded with cosmic radiation.

[cosmik debris]

36. Yeah, but...

I was just trying to get him out of our solar system...

[losthills]

8. How is this "bad journalism???"

Southern Nevada's water officials reported that their water has more uranium in it than federal guidelines deem as safe. They appeal to Bush administration stooge Kempthorne, who does nothing. They release the information to the public, who have a right to know. Their water has unsafe levels of uranium and Bush appointed officials are doing nothing-- that is an important story.

"Scare tactics?" This is not about minute particals in granite counter tops. This is about uranium levels in people's drinking water that exceed recognized safe levels and a republican administration that refuses to do anything about it.

[cosmik debris]

9. I didn't see that in the OP???

What I did see was: "A report this week found southern Nevada tap water continues to meet or exceed all standards set by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act." It seems we have conflicting data.

The reason this is bad journalism is that it fails to give the necessary data to make a reasonable decision. Specifically, the author should have said how much uranium was actually in the water and how much is is considered normal background radiation. Without that perspective, it is impossible to determine the extent of the risk.

[Zachstar]

10. Losthills got Own3d!!

[losthills]

11. Maybe you didn't actually read it,

or you just have an axe to grind.

Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy says there is too much uranium in the water, it's coming from uranium mines near Moab , Utah and she wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Interior asking him to not allow any more mines near the river.

It's a short article, it doesn't take long to read and it's not dificult to understand.

Apparently, you just don't like to see any objective reporting that conflicts with your political agenda. Get over it....

[Zachstar]

12. Talk about axe to grind. The water is safe

It it was not you bet your ass there would be lawsuits out the rear end. And successful ones.

But there is not. You want to turn this story into something it is not. Thus fear mongering.

Do you deny this comment?

Southern Nevada's water officials reported that their water has more uranium in it than federal guidelines deem as safe.

The anti-nuke movement has failed and now y'all resort to outright libel. Whats next a bribe fund?

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zachstar]

14. Again I ask.. Do you deny the comment?

[cosmik debris]

17. That's just not there, you're making that up!

I searched the article for the phrase "too much" and got nothing. You said: "...Pat Mulroy says there is too much uranium in the water..."

Can you show me where it says "too much"?

The only thing I see is the phrase "measurable quantities". And as I have stated, measurable quantities are found all over the USA.

It's a short article, it doesn't take long to read and it's not difficult to understand.

Apparently, you just don't like to see any objective reporting that conflicts with your political agenda. Get over it....

The water is safe. Hysteria will not change that.

[losthills]

19. I won't waste any more time with you or your agenda.

[cosmik debris]

21. That's because you've got nothing

As another poster commented, You've been Own3d.

Amen.

[losthills]

24. You are really and truly clueless.

No comprehension whatsoever of what we are talking about...

[cosmik debris]

25. I'm discussing the article in the OP. You are making stuff up

Can you quote the statement that says there is "too much" uranium in the drinking water? NO.

Can you quote the statement that says that the water is unsafe? NO.

Hysteria is not a substitute for facts.

[Zachstar]

30. Amen!!

[losthills]

42. No, my beligerant friend, I do not make things up.

Nor do I put up with verbal abuse from ignorant right wingers. Your desperation to defend the Bush Administration and their energy policies is your own problem, and I'm not going to worry about it. I have studied this issue. It is very serious and affects us all. The article is very clear. State water officials are concerned about their ability to do their job of providing safe drinking water to their citizens if the Bush Administration allows more uranium mining on our public lands. All your word games, personal attacks and insults cannot obscure the real concerns in Patricia Mulroy's letter to Dirk Kempthorne. All of us should be worried. Now go back to your sand box and play your little games....

[cosmik debris]

45. Still no response just insults. Oh well.

Can you quote the statement that says there is "too much" uranium in the drinking water? NO.

Can you quote the statement that says that the water is unsafe? NO.

Hysteria is not a substitute for facts.

[losthills]

47. Every Drama Queen has their day. Apparently this is yours....

[Zachstar]

49. Then why are you the one posting side crap like this?

Youve been exposed. Admit it

[cosmik debris]

51. So let's recap

You made up a bunch of stuff about "too much uranium" and "unsafe water".

You tried to pass off your fantasy as fact and you got called on it.

You can't justify your blatant misinformation so you blame others.

You can't substantiate your lies so you pretend that you never said it.

All you have left is insults because you have no evidence to support your position.

But, like I said, insults are not evidence.

Insults are the last resort of a losing argument.

So keep insulting me. It just proves that you have run out of real arguments.

(oh, and yes, we are laughing at you)

[Zachstar]

52. That sums it up quite correctly.

[losthills]

54. Re-cap? You called an article "bad journalism"

because it reported facts that reflect poorly on the Bush Administration and their concerns for public health and welfare, and proceeded to ridicule anyone who expressed concerns over levels of radiation and other contaminants in our drinking water. There isn't anything to laugh at here, hoss, but I guess you've succeeded in making this thread all about you, instead of the important subject it should be about.

You're "Queen For A day!" Go polish your tiarra and call your mom.....

[cosmik debris]

55. I'm not the one who made up the lies.

That would be YOU.

And I called it bad journalism because it FAILED to report facts needed to make an informed decision.

That's where you came along and filled in for the journalist by adding "fake" facts to fan the flames of your own hysteria.

And the more hysteric you get, the more hysterical I find it!

:rofl:

[losthills]

58. Well, your chosen name suits you, but you need a new avi....

How about Phillis Diller?

[cosmik debris]

60. Indeed, insults betray your lack of reasoned argument. n/t

[losthills]

61. This is for you, my friend,,,

You earned it!

[cosmik debris]

63. See post #59. n/t

[Zachstar]

31. Looks like they can't scare people with nuc plant talk anymore so they have moved to google.

Watchin that google news for ANYTHING with the words Uranium in it.

Funds must be low in Anti-Nuc groups. To them I guess this means turn up the fear mongering.

[losthills]

70. It's not an Opinion Piece. It's a news report.

Did you read any of it before jumping to your own unfounded and uneducated conclusions?

"In a letter Monday to federal Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Mulroy urges the department to ‘‘carefully evaluate'' the effect on water quality before authorizing new mining claims near the river.

"She says federal law includes strict limits on uranium in drinking water, and says it's expensive and difficult for cities to get it out."

Don't try to deceive people who can read.

[cosmik debris]

71. The article DID NOT SAY

that the drinking water was unsafe. You made up that part.

The article did not say that there was "too much" uranium in the water. You made up that part too.

The article was not scary enough so you made up some stuff to make it sound scary.

My "unfounded and uneducated conclusions" was that this is bad journalism because it does not give the necessary facts to make an informed decision. And since you had to make up "facts" to augment the story, I guess you proved that I was right. After all, if the facts had been in the story, you wouldn't have had to create "facts" that you could not verify.

I have no dispute with the facts reported in the article. I do have a problem with the "facts" you made up to augment the article.

[Zachstar]

73. Bingo!

You are only digging the hole deeper losthills. Admit your bullshit and move on.

[losthills]

4. That's one of the hazards of uranium mining--

contamination of drinking water sources. You can buy bottled water for drinking, sure, but can you take a shower without breathing in the steam, or wash dishes in it and serve food on them? What about farmers who water their crops with it and send those crops to market? Water alfalfa with it and feed it to cattle? It gets all through our food supply nationwide, and for the people living in the area-- if it's in the water, it's also in the air you breathe. This is one of the reasons we have the highest cancer rates that have ever been known ijn the history of mankind.

Leave the uranium in the ground where it belongs....

[NNadir]

5. Numbers? Know any? No?

Why am I not surprised.

This reminds me of a true story about stupid anti-science types in the town of Sparta, New Jersey, people so dumb that they qualify for the E&E anti-nuke faith.

Here in New Jersey, we live on the Reading Pronge, a vast uranium formation. Was it put here by the mean old nuke companies?

No.

It was put here because of the formation of the earth.

It seems that the citizens of Sparta, New Jersey found out that natural uranium was in the water.

They started driving downtown to get bottled water, releasing many tons of carcinogenic dangerous fossil fuel waste in the period.

It turns out that if one drank 5 liters per day of Sparta water for 70 year, one would face an increased risk of 1 in 10,000 risk of an extra cancer.

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/Sparta-NJ-Uranium-Water24mar04.htm

The probability of being killed in an automobile accident while driving to get bottled water?

Couldn't care less?

I thought so.

The number of Spartans families driving to get drinking water is about 600. If each family has four people and they each drink 5 liters of Sparta water per day there are likely to be 0.24 "extra" deaths The risk of being killed in an automobile accident is 1.3 per million passenger miles - and this has nothing to do with the odds of being killed by dangerous fossil fuel waste - which are considerably higher. It's just accidents. 600 cars driving 10 miles a day to get water will drive 153,000,000 miles over 70 years, suggesting a risk 2 people dying from driving.


http://hazmat.dot.gov/riskmgmt/riskcompare.htm

Thus the risk of driving to get water is a factor of 10 higher than the risk of uranium.



Ignorance KILLS.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[losthills]

16. Try these on for size:

(514.5049) POGO - The Atlas' uranium tailings pile in Moab - currently the fifth largest in the United States - contains approximately 10.5 million tons of uranium mill wastes, including 426 million gallons (1 US gallon = 3.7853 liters) of highly-contaminated liquid. This groundwater, contaminated with radioactive uranium and other toxins from this 130-acre site, seeps from the unlined site directly into the second longest river in the US, the Colorado River. Uranium content in groundwater near the Moab site is consequently 530 times higher than US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for groundwater at uranium tailings piles. The tailings contain 85% of the radioactivity present in the unprocessed uranium ore. Ammonia concentrations, a clear marker of mill contamination, rose by a factor of 166 at sampling sites in the Colorado River, and water level data from the tailings pile suggests concentrated ammonia will continue to seep into the ground water. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) stated, "almost all of the constituents have been found in higher concentrations in fish tissue downstream of the Atlas tailing pile...."

"Ignorance kills...."

[madokie]

18. What a fucking mess we have allowed to be

for the lie that it will be so cheap as to not require metering bullshit. :grr:

[cosmik debris]

20. Moab is 450 miles from Las Vegas.

The article was about Las Vegas drinking water, not Moab drinking water.

I know you would like to change the subject, but we are discussing the article in the OP.

Do you have any numbers relating to the drinking water in Las Vegas?

And by the way, Abilene, Texas is 450 miles from the coast. Should they worry about sea water contaminating their drinking water?

[losthills]

23. You don't understand that we're talking about the Colorado River

which supplies most of the drinking water for Las Vegas.

You need to educate yourserlf before you pop off to people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River

[cosmik debris]

26. Are you saying that 450 miles doesn't change a river?

Seriously, do you believe that the river in Moab is the same as the river in Las Vegas?

I guess you never even noticed Lake Powell where much of the solid matter settles out.

I guess you never noticed all the tributaries that dilute the concentration of trace elements.

I guess you only see that evidence that supports your claim and not the evidence that mocks you.

[losthills]

27. You make a bigger fool of yourself with every post.

[cosmik debris]

28. Insults are not evidence. n/t

[Zachstar]

33. Losthills I think it is quite the opposite.

You have been exposed so it is time to just accept and move on. Watching you keeping up with this junk is like watching a GW denier (Which is like a Web 2.0 right wing version of the moon hoax Conspiracy theory).

[losthills]

40. Apparently, you (think) you know more about this subject

than the chief of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, who is charged with providing drinkable water for several million people that meets federal guidelines for safety. She is concerned enough about this issue to write a letter to Bush appointee, Secretary Of The Interior Dirk Kempthorne. If you think that she is stupid, that uranium in the water is no big thing and that uranium mining in Utah cannot have any effect on Las Vegas drinking water, then I would suggest that you apply for her job. It's a damn good job, and an important job, and I'm sure it pays a whole lot more than the Quickstop gig you're working at now. And, you know what? I don't think Quickstop is even going to miss you-- so go for it!

[cosmik debris]

46. Again

Can you quote the statement that says there is "too much" uranium in the drinking water? NO.

Can you quote the statement that says that the water is unsafe? NO.

Hysteria is not a substitute for facts.

[losthills]

48. Oh no! An emotional meltdown!!

[Zachstar]

50. More like youve been exposed Losthills.

[cosmik debris]

53. Still no answers? C'mon just answer a couple of questions

Can you quote the statement that says there is "too much" uranium in the drinking water?

Can you quote the statement that says that the water is unsafe?

Hysteria is not a substitute for facts.

We have a saying down here in Texas for people like you.

We say "He shit and fell back in it." (Thanks to Molly Ivins for that quote)

So if we treat you like your butt stinks, well, it does.

:rofl:

[losthills]

56. Here's a couple questions:

Do you know who Patricia Mulroy is?

Do you know what the Southern Nevada Water Authority is?

Do you know who Dirk Kempthorne is?

Do you know what the Colorado River is, where it flows, and how many people depend on it for drinking water?

Do you know what acceptable levels of uranium in drinking water are?

Do you know how to read?

[cosmik debris]

59. I'll answer your questions if

You will tell me why you made up the lies about unsafe drinking water and too much uranium.

I mean, really, why did you need to lie?

[NNadir]

35. Are you claiming to know something about the Colorado River?

Or are you just lazily producing a Wikipedia link that you cannot interpret properly?

This may come as a surprise to you, but the greatest damage to the Colorado River has come from renewable energy.

How many drops of Colorado river water have made it to the Gulf of Baja in the last 5 decades? Any idea?

Are you hear claiming through lazy use of internet links that the Colorado river delta was destroyed by 4 ppb of uranium, or is it possible that the delta was destroyed through deliberate selective attention and ignorance.

In fact, while you and your "renewables will save us" pals were dithering imagining all sorts of nuclear accidents - mostly out of your abysmal misapprehension of nuclear technology - you have failed to recognize how close the United States came to repeating and exceeding the world's largest single energy accident of all time - one, predictably about which you couldn't care less - the renewable energy disaster at Banqiao that killed several hundred thousand people over a few days time.

The fact that the anti-nuke community cannot think, cannot reason, cannot compare risks, arbitrarily - and at great danger to humanity - focuses on nuclear technology in isolation from its only alternative - coal - does not make the events at Lake Powell any less frightening.

A Tale of Two Centimeters: The Near Collapse of the Colorado River Dam System in 1983.

One may ask why one should take the time to confront jackass, primitive, lazy ignorance of a particularly lazy "cut and paste" type. The reason is that jackass ignorance has a way of entering urban mythology in a very toxic way.

The world's fundamentalist anti-nuke community has destroyed exajoule scale infrastructure and prevented the world's largest, by far, form of climate change gas free energy from doing what it might have done to slow this disaster. As a result, the future has been strip mined of hope and millions have already died. The illiterate mutterings of the anti-nuke cults has been produced in a particularly callous and indifferent way. Thus NOT ONE word out of this abysmal morally lame group should be allowed to pass unremarked for what it is.

[NNadir]

29. First of all, if you knew any chemistry, your discussion of ammonia and your biofuel

renewable enthusiasm would be immediately evidence of your selective attention.

Ignorance kills.

A section of the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey has been killed off and made into an aqueous desert because of ammonia and agricultural runoff. You couldn't care less.

If on the other hand, trace amounts of ammonia - the chemistry of which you know zero, being devoid of any scientific education whatsoever - shows up in a place associated with uranium - you launch into laughable scare talk, egged on by your equally illiterate pals.

Now let's turn to your characteristic selective attention to risk and ask if you have, in fact, produced any meaningful numbers.

First you use "highly contaminated" which is not a number but an opinion. Specifically, because you are engaged in fear mongering and selective attention, you have produced a link that does not refer to the water level in units of mass, moles, or curies per liter of water.

I note that the Pacific Ocean contains 3 ppb of uranium. If I'm you, I can define that as "highly contaminated.

Although you and your illiterate pals couldn't care less whether 500,000 people drop dead this year from air pollution, you have neglected to produce EVEN ONE case of an injury by this water that you arbitrarily define in scare language as "highly contaminated."

NOT ONE.

ZERO.

Because you live, breath and practice selective attention you insist that the "highly contaminated" water in Moab - which you allege is in the water supply of "25 million people - is critical to human survival - and by extension that climate change is not, you make no effort to compare the number of deaths from particulates released from the coal fired plants about which you couldn't care less.

One million people could die on this planet from coal particulates and you and your pals - wallowing in uniformed misconstruing of scientific data and arbitrary hysteria that kills everyone who dies from dangerous fossil fuel while taking your tripe seriously - would still be here blabbing about MOAB.

Now let's look at the water defined by the scare mongering illiterate anti-nuke community as "highly contaminated" and compare it with statements by people who are scientists involved in the issue.

If you do more than lazy googling to prove your biases you can, for instance, find this report:

http://www.gjem.energy.gov/moab/documents/eis/final_eis/Volume_II/AppendixA_A3.pdf

I quote:

Radiological Impacts to Aquatic Species. The primary source of radiological contamination to enter the aquatic environment at the Moab site is ground water. The routes of exposure for the radiological contaminants are the same as those for chemical contaminants. The contributors to radiological dose to the aquatic organisms at the Moab site that have been monitored include lead-210, polonium-210, radium-226, radium-228, radon-222, thorium-230, uranium-234, and uranium-238, and the general indicator of radionuclides, gross alpha and gross beta. The RESRAD Biota Code (Version 1.0 Beta 3, June 3, 2003) was used to screen the dose rate to aquatic organisms based on the maximum observed concentrations of uranium-238, uranium-234, and radium-226 (DOE 2002b). These isotopes represent the highest values analyzed for radionuclides from 2000 to 2002. The protocol for screening assessment includes multiple tiers. The first-tier screening assessment using the maximum observed concentrations had a sum of fractions that equaled 3.16, which exceeded the DOE guidance level of 1.0 for aquatic biota. A second-tier analysis based on mean concentrations of these three radionuclides of those values above detection resulted in a sum of fractions value of 0.29. The results of the second-tier analysis indicate that dose rates are below the guidance level associated with the 1.0-rad-per-day criterion adopted by DOE for screening dose rates to aquatic organisms. The results of the RESRAD assessment indicate that the actual dose rates to aquatic organisms are below a population-effect level. There are no guidelines for radiological effects to individuals, which is important in evaluating impacts to threatened and endangered species. The studies that were completed for the 1.0-rad-per-day criterion were based on exposures to organisms for 1 year, and then normalized to a dose rate based on a day. One can interpret these results to mean that a dose rate of 1.0 rad per day, if sustained for a year, would have an effect on some individuals but not on the population as a whole. Based on monitoring results from 2000 to 2002 and on the life styles of the endangered fish around the Moab site, radionuclides in ground water discharging to the river currently are not expected to adversely affect the aquatic environment. In its site-specific assessment, the USGS concluded that there would be “no significant biological impacts to fish populations caused by radionuclide concentrations sampled in the Colorado River and sediments.” It found that “radiochemical concentrations are elevated in ground water below the Moab pile; however, these waters do not result in a high radiation exposure to fish” (USGS 2002). Ground water extraction near the Colorado River and

Bold mine.

Apparently your "highly contaminated" water doesn't even kill fish, certainly not on the scale of your "renewables will save us" biofuels scheme which has wiped out the coastal waters of Louisiana.

Now, let's be clear what the "Moab Clean Up" scheme is all about.

It is about getting no bid trucking contracts to haul dirt around to satisfy the irrational paranoia of people who cannot identify any health impact.

In fact, in the IGNORANCE KILLS category many people will die from truck exhaust on this dubious enterprise, and from truck accidents, and poverty resulting from the indiscriminate use of dangerous fossil fuels.

From the report that the anti-nuke community is too illiterate to read:

Traffic Mortality. Truck transportation of tailings materials from the Moab site to one of the alternative disposal sites would significantly increase the amount of truck traffic on US-191 either north or south of Moab. Normal traffic on US-191 north of Moab consists of approximately 2,800 to 3,000 vehicles per day, of which approximately 30 percent (840 to 1,000) are trucks. Transporting tailings would add another 200 to 400 truck round trips per day, an increase of from about 7 to 15 percent over the normal number of vehicles. This increase in traffic would likely lead to a marginal increase in traffic-related wildlife mortalities in the vicinity of US-191.

Heckuva job, anti-nukes, heckuva job.

I would like to suggest that the dumb anti-nuke fundie community is unable to find a single death associated with Moab, NOT ONE, and yet, it will lift hysteria so far as to send 200 to 400 round trip trucks a day. NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke will bother to compare the ratio of damage related to the trucks, because, being dangerous fossil fuel apologists - car cult yuppies - they couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuel powered trucks.


There is NOT ONE anti-nuke who is anything but a dangerous fossil fuel apologist, and there is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke who can compare two numbers.

The entire invented "concern" from this set constitutes wholly and totally an irrefutable demonstration of how lazy thinking and ignorance kill.

The losses associated with this trucking scheme to "mediate" a trivial matter - that has nothing to do with "highly contaminated" materials WILL KILL, and every death involved, should this stupid arbitrary attention be allowed to do its worst, will be on the heads of the anti-nuke ignorance squad.

[jpak]

34. Umm...what Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf is nitrate - not ammonia

Your ignorance of biogeochemistry is....

:rofl:

[cosmik debris]

37. Ammonium nitrate is not ammonia? Hmmmmm?

I learn something new every day.

[NNadir]

39. I don't recall that we've met.

Welcome to the E&E forum.

If you think that's bad - the ammonium nitrate post - you ain't seen nuttin' yet.

There are many fine and knowledgable posters here but there is also a subset that is remarkable for demonstrating exactly how ignorance, misinformation, disinformation, delusion, wishful thinking and denial have brought humanity to the edge of the abyss.

If it weren't so frightening, it would be amusing.

We have a hell of a lot of fun here. Stick around.

[losthills]

43. Ah, true love........

[cosmik debris]

44. Pleezed ta meetcha.

I just followed the uranium post from the front page, but it looks like I've found an interesting forum.

One of my pet peeves is the abject ignorance in the general populace regarding radiation. But I try to turn my anger into comedy whenever I can. Just like your New Jersey story, there are lots of amusing ways to stop these ignoramuses in their tracks. My favorite is to mention that bananas are radioactive (K40) and warn them to stay away from the produce section of their local market. Or mention the Americium in their smoke detector. That's a scary one--if you don't know the difference between alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.

I've noticed you folks occasionally get a "perpetual motion" scam here. Those are fun too.

But I spend most of my time in the Health(s)care forum, the skeptics group, and the religion forum. But it is nice to get out of my comfort zone. I'll visit again.

And don't hesitate to visit the Health(s)care forum. If you like wakky ideas, that's a good place to find them

[NNadir]

57. Well the anti-nukes over here are jokes and generally useless. Pure comedy, in general but...

I've learned an awful lot of fairly high level stuff in comments section over at DailyKos, and met some fairly high level people with real brains. (There are clowns there too, but they're more dilute.)

I don't write there as much as I used to, but I'd love to see you in diaries over there if you catch a minute and want to try something different.

Here's my home page: http://www.dailykos.com/user/NNadir

Over there, the rules call for diaries (one per day allowed) that are substantial and fairly original. Only rarely do I post something there without some background research.

You get a lot less cut and paste "world's largest solar powered lawn sprinkler" kind of posts than you see here from the anti-nuke "renewables will save us" cults.

The nice thing here is that there is a dedicated E&E forum, but you have to sift a lot of religious chaff to get to the good stuff.

The great posters here who educate include, but are not limited to the imcomparable Hatrack, Phantom, DeadParrot, Xema and some others.

The anti-nuke fundies are obvious on a few minutes inspection.

[jpak]

72. The Charlatan NJ Molten Salt Breeder Reactor - Pure Comedy

Attending Made-Up scientific meetings in Caliifornia - Pure Comedy

:rofl:

[NNadir]

38. Um, the world's largest fertilizer product on earth is urea. Know how it is made?

No fucking clue?

Why am I not surprised?

http://www.icis.com/v2/chemicals/9075154/ammonia/uses.html

I guess that subject doesn't get discussed behind the gates at yuppie dinners.

In general, when you giggle, you are trying to divert attention from vast ignorance, which is on a monumental scale. The good point about this giggling of course, is that it obviates your level.

The topic of the origin of fixed nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico - about which you and cutesy "biofuels will save us" yuppie brat friends couldn't care less - is the subject of a large amount of discussion in the global scientific and ecological community.

While you were illiterately giggling, I was producing a referenced series of fertilizer chemistry that is clearly over your head since you are ignorant not only of chemistry, but of history as well.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/16/202129/481">The Nitrogen Fix: A Fun and Interesting Report From the USDA.
>

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/8/194846/997">Troll Rating Fritz Haber, Jimmy Kunstler, and The Oracle at Snowmass, Part 3.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/23/24327/8767">Troll Rating Fritz Haber, Jimmy Kunstler and the Oracle at Snowmass, Part 2

Troll Rating Fritz Haber, Jimmy Kunstler and the Oracle at Snowmass, Part 1.

Now giggly boy, why don't you produce another smiley face to reflect your lack of thought, your lack of attention, your lack of insight, your lack of work, and your lack of even a modicum of basic understanding.

The dead zone in the gulf is about to set a new record and clearly, you couldn't care less, although you find it occassion for giggles. Heckuva job, fundie. Heckuva job.



http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2008/2008-06-18-092.asp

You must be very proud of your sense of humor.

Excuse me if I find it appalling.

[jpak]

69. Your grasp of biogeochemistry is negligible

Anhydrous ammonia and ammonium are relatively immobile is soils compared to nitrate.

Nitrification oxidizes ammonium to nitrate - which is highly mobile in soil solutions.

Peak concentrations of nitrate in the lower Mississippi River can approach 200 µM whereas NH4+ concentrations are generally < 1 µM.

The so-called Mississippi River Dead Zone existed before the advent of corn-ethanol biofuels.

The ignorance is appalling...

:rofl:

[NNadir]

75. Really? That IS interesting. This suggests a "wolrd's largest" renewbable scheme involving

charge separation, involving a Arkansas sized super capacitor.

Maybe you missed the point of discussing ammonia in this thread in the first place.

A dumb fundie anti-nuke came here to announce that ammonia mobility was a big problem and every dumb fundie anti-nuke chimed in to say how terrible ammonia is, but apparently only when its found with uranium tailings.

Now we have a fundie here to announce that ammonia is uninvolved in the problems in the Gulf, because it's not mobile.

Say what?

Pretty good Gerald Ford imitation, fundie.



I note with due contempt, that the anti-nuke cults - which subsist wholly and totally on arbitrary selective attention - and who know zero chemistry geo- or otherwise - are deliberately selective in discussing soil mobility of ionic species.

More typically you produce a claim with zero references to give a lecture on a subject about which you clearly know nothing at all.

There are many thousands of scientific references to the source of fixed nitrogen in oceanic and freshwater supplies, if in fact, one looks.

On the other hand, if you wish to deliberately mislead to reinforce one's ignorant biases through the use of deliberately stupid dodges, one can skip reading papers like this one

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/2007/41/i21/abs/es0704131.html

This is just one place in the scientific literature among thousands of places that contains statements like the one I quote from the aforementioned paper:

A specified concentration of nitrogen corresponding to a dissolved amount of synthetic nitrogen-based fertilizer is applied at the surface of the soil on April 15 as an initial condition. This is an average date for the onset of fertilizer application; however, it actually can fluctuate depending on individual farmer practices. It was assumed that nitrification occurs instantaneously, so that all nitrogen applied is immediately available for leaching. As most urea or ammonium nitrate fertilizers,common to the area, tend to nitrify within a few weeks, this assumption is reasonable.

Bold is mine.

As usual, we have here a case of misleading, distorted selective attention.

Tough shit fundie. Biofuels won't save your Mom's E320 Mercedes. Biofuels are not sustainable.

[losthills]

41. I already did this for you, but I'll help you out again...

Because, clearly, "you need help."

"Ammonia concentrations, a clear marker of mill contamination, rose by a factor of 166 at sampling sites in the Colorado River, and water level data from the tailings pile suggests concentrated ammonia will continue to seep into the ground water. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) stated, "almost all of the constituents have been found in higher concentrations in fish tissue downstream of the Atlas tailing pile...."

Now, I know you don't want to make an even bigger fool of yourself by claiming to know more about this issue than the US Fish And Wildlife Service, so you can take this information, learn from it, grow as an individual, and gain stature by making more informed posts in the future.

Ignorance "kills" and also makes one look like a fool.

[NNadir]

62. Um, kiddie, I know in your cults you do "percent talk" and construe meaning

in percent talk rhetoric, but "factor of 166" is meaningless.

If, for instance, the normal background of an isotope is one picocurie, there is no evidence that 160 picocuries is "highly contaminated."

And while were on the subject of picuries genius, any idea how many picocuries your blood contains?

No idea?

Couldn't care less?

Why am I not surprised?

Now only in your own weak imagination have you demonstrated anything to me. You can't even understand the question, which again, involves units of concentration and a report of risk associated with said concentration.

You want to haul tons of material accross the earth, burning many metric tons of dangerous fossil fuel about which you couldn't care less. Every truck trip involves risk, the risk of collecting the dangerous fossil fuels for running the trucks, the risk of transporting that fuel, the risk of accidents in operation or support of the trucks, the risk - about which you care not a whit - of the carcinogens and other dangerous fossil fuel waste that the diesel engines will dump indiscriminately in the atmosphere and of course the risks associated with impoverishing people by wasting money on unnecessary paranoid bullshit while people have no medical care, no food, no shelter and no hope.

Now, I hold your indifference to these issues and the sheer laziness of your response to these challenges in extreme moral contempt.

Now I have to repeat myself because you cannot understand the question, and instead lapse into stupid rhetoric.

To wit:

I explained - and unsurprisingly lacking even the barest conception of science, risk analysis - that it is not sufficient to kill people and animals because you can't figure it out - that the units of concentration for radionuclides is pioocurie/per liter.

Now. I have claimed that your use of the word "highly contaminated" is isgnorant hyperbole. If you know what you're talking about - and I already know that you don't have a fucking clue at all - you will produce this number.

Ppb and micrograms per liter are also acceptable units of measurement, not that you have a clue about these either. On the other hand dumb doggerl like "highly contaminated" or "160 times background" is not.

But mark my words, fundie, you are asking people to do things that cause injury with your little "haul shit around in huge trucks because my friends and are are illiterate paranoids" rhetoric. You had better to be able to demonstrate, therefore, the existence of injury or death associated with your pathetic little whining - or else you will, once again, be committing murder in service to ignorance.

Clearly you are too lazy to read the report I referenced in my previous post and clearly it is over your uneducated head, but I note that the USGS scientists have done a very thorough job of deliniating the entire issue. In any case USGS scientists have your clear contempt, since your entire residence in this forum consists of anti-science rhetoric.

Frankly, any one who reads this detailed report will consider your case assinine, but that's no surprise. Well let's qualify that: Anyone who reads that report and is not too stupid to figure out what is and is not assine will know.

And let's note too, that while you're hear whining about the supposed "highly contaminated water" - even though you are indifferent to demonstrating a single injury, you have totally ignored the people whose deaths are identified in this article.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deaths22-2008may22,0,278159.story

You couldn't care less.

Ignorance KILLS. In my opinion 100% of the people described in this article were killed by ignorance that is precisely of the type you produce on this website.

[cosmik debris]

64. I can't wait

for a certain doofus to run into the concept of stochastic vs deterministic. That's gonna spin his head for a few days.

Then we can hit him with the concept of "Hormesis" for the knock out punch!:crazy:

[NNadir]

65. The doofus in question will not consider stochastic vs deterministic.

He has no clue whatsoever what those words mean.

These guys google around for information and they skip the big words. Let's face it, if they knew any science at all, it is very unlikely they'd be selling this stuff.

[cosmik debris]

66. Well, we can still encourage him

to boycott bananas and smoke alarms. :)

[Zachstar]

67. You owe me a new keyboard!

LOL! Nice!!

For those who do not know what the smoke alarm part is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_detector

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium

[cosmik debris]

68. And 0.012% of the potassium in a banana is radioactive K40

And Americium is an alpha emitter which means that the particles travel only a few mm and can be shielded with a paper bag.

But don't tell the fear mongers that. We want to have some fun with them first.

[kristopher]

74. What a bunch of pointless bickering

http://www.snwa.com/assets/pdf/wq_summary_08_snws_rivermtns.pdf

It appears to me that SNWA has a very clean water supply and is interested in keeping it that way. The reading is 4.7 ppb with a mcl of 30 ppb. The letter to Kempthorne is an expression of legitimate concern, for while the 4.7 reading may be within EPA limits, it is well above the stated EPA goal of 0.

The call for careful evaluation of water quality impacts of uranium mining make perfect sense in light of the present level of uranium contamination, its probable origin, and the move by the Forestry Service to allow uranium mining along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to proceed WITHOUT NEPA REVIEW.

The derision of the proponents of nuclear power is totally unfounded and exhibits their cavalier disregard for the impacts of the policies they actively promote.