Yellow Water

Donald Trump signed a Congressional resolution, passed February 2, a Thursday, on February 16, another Thursday. This resolution overturns a rule signed by President Obama on December  20, 2016, effective on January 19, 2017. It is known as the Stream Protection Rule†. What did that rule require? The rule required that so-called “excess spoil” (earth material) accumulated to make coal seams accessible, not be deposited near streams and bodies of water.

Mining waste goes by many names. Among these are tailings, (leftovers), spoil (earth materials that do not contain but traces of coal or ore), waste, debris, and residues. But the motivation behind Obama’s Stream Protection Rule was not so much dislike of piles of stuff; rather, it was what happens when such piles come into contact with water and are leached, the leachate then running into creeks and ponds. Since mining residues are often rich in sulfur, contact with water forms sulfuric acid; that acid (known as acid mine runoff) can pick up heavy metals that are injurious to living creatures, humans among them, that drink water polluted by mine drainage.

Initially that runoff, being rich in sulfur, forms yellow water. I show a picture of such a stream from an EPA website (link). Now the mere deposit, on the ground, of spoil, tailings, waste, debris, or residues does not directly cause pollution. But where the waste is placed can do so eventually—especially when placed where rain or snow-melt regularly flows. In those locations, the sulfur and heavy metals will be freed, and the water will eventually reach either streams or aquifers. That’s a rather informative photograph, on the right. At this stage few people will be tempted to drink it. But that stream enters a succession of other waters; the color will disappear; the heavy metals will be distributed all over the total water that flows. And such metals don’t have to be present in thick profusion to cause people to fall ill or eventually to die.

Yellow water today. Should I be writing about yellow hair next? The relationship between the two may not be difficult to document.

Acid rain, by the way, is formed from sulfur-containing coal. When it is burned, the off-gases, unless scrubbed clean, will contain the sulfur. The sulfur will combine with water in the atmosphere and, eventually, return to earth as acid rain.

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†This is a rule published in the Federal Register, untitled, officially 81 FR 93066; you can examine its 380 pages by following this link. The title assigned to it was taken by journalists and others from the text of the first paragraph of the Executive Summary.

Coal Illuminates Collectives

A news story in the New York Times this morning brings the latest about black gold. China has become a major importer. The price of coal has doubled in the last five years. And producers all over the world, not least in countries where coal consumption is under major environmental pressure, are vying to take part in this latest coal rush. Meanwhile our domestic airwaves are filled with pious talk about carbon footprints and the like. A telling statistic is this: U.S. exports of coal to China stood at 2,714 tons in 2009; in the first six months of 2010 we’ve already shipped 2.9 million tons. Now, of course, it doesn’t matter where that coal is actually burned—not in the context of global warming or ocean-acidification. Let him who wants to chastise China first look to his own exports, etc.

The behavior of all the parties, wherever they are, is easily understood, indeed quite logical. The point that I’ve been making, talking to myself, is that collectives are quite incapable of acting with the kind of consciousness and will we associate with individuals at their best. Many years ago, a colleague of mine at Midwest Research Institute, as part of some study of energy, made the fascinating discovery that China had once been as thickly, you might say impenetrably, forested once as Russia still is in part. Over the millennia, China became deforested. And not just China, you might say. As a collective, humanity devours natural resources in an entirely unthinking way. Never mind our extremely sophisticated predictive computer models.

But note. I’m not pointing fingers or advocating any program. I’m simply observing. It saves time. No point in listening to global warming seminars on television. We’ll consume the last molecule of sugar on that slice of glass and multiply like mad as we do it, just like bacteria in an experiment. And when it’s all consumed, the vast majority of us will go to the Big Petri Dish in the Sky. I note this because it teaches me something about the meaning of Reality, yes, that one, the one with the capital R.

I have the image from edublogs.org here. The source provides no source for, or the name of the creator of, this cartoon.