Terribly Beautiful: Industrial Pollution Seen from Above by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Terribly Beautiful: Industrial Pollution Seen from Above

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 16:12
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VIEWED: 2442
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 8:24 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

J Henry Fair’s aerial photographs of industrial pollution defy categorization by contrasting striking, often abstract, beauty with frightening realizations about the true costs of our heavily industrialized society.

Darrow, La.
Bauxite waste from aluminum smelting, including contaminants such as lead, sits in a storage impoundment. As the surface dries, it turns to dust and spreads beyond the impoundment.

Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
A containment pond holds tar sands tailings, consisting of a mixture of sand, water, and toxic chemicals that remain after the unrefined oil products have been extracted.

Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
One by-product of the tar sands upgrading process is sulphur, which has a number of industrial uses. In this picture, sulphur is being stored until its market price improves and can be sold.

Geismar, La.
Phosphate fertilizer production waste is pumped into impoundments. The solution contains sulfuric acid and a concentration of heavy metals including uranium and radium. Due to weakened legislation, fertilizer companies are not required to report these substances.

http://lightbox.time.com/2011/04/20/terribly-beautiful-industrial-poll
ution-seen-from-above/#5
Gulf of Mexico
Wind and currents spread oil from BP's Macondo well blowout across the Gulf.

Dimock, Pa.
Hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") to extract natural gas from shale rock deep underground yields large amounts of drilling slurry: a toxic mixture of drilling lubricants, radioactive minerals, and other toxic chemicals used or extracted in the process.

Zug Island, Mich.
A waste pit near a number of Detroit auto factories fills with a rainbow of unidentified substances.

Geismar, La.
An excavator scoops solids from a wastewater pool at a plant which produces hydrofluoric acid, a key ingredient in refrigerants and propellants. The solids are used to build up the height of the dike and therefore increase the capacity of the impoundment.

Near Kayford Mountain, West Va.
In mountaintop removal coal mining, the only "remediation" required of mining companies following the complete destruction of a mountain and the surrounding landscape is to plant grass on the surface of whatever remains. This is typically done via a process called "hydro-seeding," where a monoculture of grass seed and industrial fertilizer are sprayed over the area.

Is anyone mad enough to say we're NOT screwing up our planet??

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 12:47 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thanks for posting, Nik. Awesome and awful.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012 7:09 AM

FREMDFIRMA

We're actually workin on that, Niki...

Cleanup of polluted MichCon site on Huron River in Ann Arbor will start in August
http://annarbor.com/news/deq-michcon-ann-arbor-huron-river-pollution/

Quote:
A massive environmental cleanup of the polluted MichCon property in Ann Arbor is set to take place between August and October pending state approval.

Nearly 50 people packed into Cobblestone Farm Tuesday night to hear Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official discuss the plans submitted by DTE Energy.

MichCon has been a subsidiary of DTE since 2001. It ran a manufactured gas plant along the south bank of the Huron River decades ago and left the site polluted — a problem DTE inherited and is now working cooperatively with the DEQ to address.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
"We're focused right now in 2012 on remediating any impacts related to the near-shore sediments and the near-shore soils, and then we're also looking at eliminating any of the hot spots that are still at the upland portion of the site," said Shayne Wiesemann, senior environmental engineer for DTE.

The site where the cleanup is expected to happen this year is nestled between the Argo Dam and the Broadway bridges near the Amtrak train station.

There appears to be strong public support for cleaning up the property, which city officials hope to turn into a riverfront park eventually.

"The remediation along the riverfront encompasses about 1,000 linear feet of shoreline," Wiesemann said. "We're looking at excavating around 22,500 cubic yards of impacted soil and sediment."

One of my own suggestions was to give hazmat suits and shovels to folks convicted of minor offenses in exchange for their sentence being dismissed and/or record expunged, since I am much in favor of remedial/restorative, rather than retaliatory, justice - ain't just that though, I also think the psychological benefit of having done something like that, participation in something so obviously beneficial, might not only solve a lot of internal guilt issues but have a positive effect and further prevent recidivism.

That comes from my own experiences as a youth, having opted for community service many of the times I got in trouble cause of a desire the square the beef via something USEFUL, which taught me a lot of sympathy for other people I would never have otherwise had due to failure to connect emotionally - workin in a soup kitchen will do that...

But anyways, we're gettin to it, although Zug Island is kind of a no-go zone for the time being till we figure out HOW to clean it up without that crap getting away from us and polluting the area worse.

-Frem

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012 4:12 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I think that's a great idea Frem!

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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