Sulphuric Acid in the Land of Ten-Thousand Lakes

 

Actually, it's more like 15,000 lakes, but ten-thousand is a nice even number with a long history, which rings. People remember it. I grew up on the shore of Lake Carlos, one of a chain of lakes in west-central Minnesota, where three major ecosystems come together: the Eastern deciduous, the prairie and the northern spruce and pine. I am old enough to remember a comparatively sleepy lake, more fish houses on the ice in winter, than boats in the summer. Boats the last two decades inundating the lake, followed closely by zebra mussels. The usual residential “home” building orgy. They say silver carp are coming, to extinct native fish.

 

If that isn't insult enough, the polluting of the sacred waters of this state, a Canadian company named Poly-Met wants to open a copper-nickel sulfide mine, in northern Minnesota, not far from the beloved Boundary Waters Wilderness. There is a boom-worthy amount of copper-nickel, they say, and there are a dozen corporations or more, many of them international, lining up behind Poly-Met, to pick at the carcass of the iron-ore Boom, that went mostly bust.

The trouble is, these copper-nickel deposits are tucked in sulfide, which turns into sulphuric acid in contact with air and water, leeching thereafter, wherever water will go. The waters have heretofore been more pristine, in the northern part of the state, less population, less top soil, less farming.

What we know is, and everyone involved acknowledges, including Polymet, it is something like a 20-year potential boom. Water flowing from these sites, containing sulphuric acid and heavy metals, has to be filtered by reverse osmosis. If you have ever bought a gallon of such water, you know it is something like $2/gallon (and they don't start with sulphuric acid in the base.) The trouble again is, this would have to go on for something like 200-500 years.

Five-hundred years is 25 generations. More than twice as long as America has been a Nation. Anyone care to ask what they have to say about filtering sulphuric acid from a few hundred million gallons of water from a dozen or more sites, every year, for 450 years? I can say that I speak for them, when I say they would rather not. They tell me, most of that time, they won't be able to. Even if they could, why should they have to? Who are you....

Polymet readily acknowledges, that mining will take place for 20 years, and filtering of waters will have to take place for 200 years, in their recently released environmental assessment. You can be sure if they are saying 200, it will be longer. What poverty of care for the earth or even our children or their children, we show, what delusion, to take seriously such a corporation when they assert they will be around even 40 years from now, to manage their mess, 20 years after income from the mine has ceased to flow? What madness is this, to think that after 40 years when all the principle players in this are dead or dying, the people in the midst of life then will be happy to clean up, for the whole of their lives, OUR mess?

Not that I am surprised, this being up for debate, those with the most to gain of course making no mention of such generational responsibility. “Why would we pollute this place? We live here?” False premises – you ARE going to pollute the place, as soon as you start drilling, and it will not stop until the whole thing is naturally played out, 500 years after you open that wound. You won't and really can't stop that, any more than anyone is going to remove the zebra mussel from Lake Carlos. If you are going to move boats from one infested lake to a clean one in a different watershed, you can't stop the spread. If you don't mine you won't pollute.

But what does anyone expect, in a state where we are holding nuclear material by the hundred ton, on a flood-plain island in the Mississippi River (Prairie Island), if we are talking generational injustice? Anyone care to ask what posterity would have to say about that?

Everybody of course knows this is WRONG. But when money is involved, nothing is sacred, and nothing else matters. The only thing in the country that is truly holy, is the Dollar (but even that now, we have defiled.)

All of this against the bank-drop of the Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Partnership trade pacts, negotiated in secret, attempted to be fast-tracked into law without consulting Congress, by the Obama Administration. If the rumors about these trade pacts are true, mom who's toddler jumps in the creek and is burned by sulphuric acid, can go talk to that corporate tribunal in Brussels, if she has a problem (or presumably, similar corporate minions stateside.) Brussels tribunal is not going to support local concerns, over Intl corporate “persons.” Leeching sulphuric acid into the waters will be effectively legal (just as it is currently legal that the Feds can disappear the protesters, if they deem them threats to “national security”. Seriously, is there a greater threat to national security now, than corporations, central and TBTF banks, gov run amok?)

But then, if the rumors are true and America loses reserve-currency status of the Dollar, people will be begging for economic progress even if that means sulphuric acid in the waters, and all of this will be fast-tracked, to hell with anything but making it like it was when credit flowed in the streets.

But you can't go back. You can't get the zebra mussel out of Lake Carlos once it's there, you can't get back the reserve-currency status of the Dollar once you've lost it, you can't really fix Prairie Island nuclear facility once it has gone critical, and you can't really prevent sulphuric acid from leeching into the waters once you've opened up a sulfide mine.

Which is why these nickel-copper sulfide mines cannot open. And there is a chance yet, to prevent them. The State of MN is taking comments, holding meetings. Please, let everyone know about it. Use every channel. Be like water with the message. This sulphuric acid could leech into the Great Lakes, so this is an issue for the entire watershed, on both sides of the Intl border. This can be stopped. It is only one thing, in a long list of grievances, increasing pressure on the ecosystems of the earth, but it's an important one. If we defile the waters of the Land of Ten-Thousand Lakes, this way, what hope is there, after the indifference that surrounds the Fukushima debacle, that this will not cascade, this defiling, everywhere on earth, everywhere in America? There is already a very lengthy list of lands that remain defiled, that remain poisonous, that next to nothing is being done about.

Human beings are 70% water. What we taint the waters with, we become. Treating the waters as sacred, we heal Life.

There are 25 generations, waiting. Speak up.

Four, to close

Trice, Tonight

(Continued) (blogging)

No Comment

-30 Windchill (After puff & home brew)

The Current, 10:52 12/06/13

-30 Windchill

Riffing off The Current @ 6:26 12/06/13, after work

 

Winter Garage Greenhouse

Three scrap sliding glass doors, recycled lumber and some acrylic glass I found in a dumpster. The rack is covered with 3 and 4mil poly sheeting, a greenhouse within a greenhouse.

 This old radiator I inherited from the blogger @ Eighth Acre Farm. The idea is, one more thing to collect solar energy. The effect is probably not negligible, but probably not that effective. It should be facing the other way, the long side facing the sun, but there isn't room.

The view from inside the garage. I had been pulling the rack inside every evening, as it has wheels. But the garage tends to be like an icebox, and it occurred to me, perhaps the concrete of the driveway is radiating heat somewhat during the night. I've been leaving the rack outside now in the greenhouse, just opening it up to add water, every third day.

The temperature at floor level inside the rack seems to stay around 40 degrees, no matter what, cooling somewhat in the evening when it is exceptionally cold outside: 3F the lowest outside this year. The bottom of the rack is covered with a sheet of 1 1/2in, rigid pink insulation.

The lowest of the four racks. Below are four bulk cooking oil, plastic containers, filled with water. They should be painted black (but I keep forgetting to buy black paint.) Otherwise, solar energy seems to pass through without heating the water much. Though, it seemed to me that of the four racks, this lowest one sprouted second, though now there does not seem to be much difference between the lower three racks, in terms of growth. In fact the plants in this lowest rack appear more yellow now than those of the upper three racks.

Early sprouts. I have seen the soil temp on days when there is sun all day, @ 60F. Lately though we have seen much sun in the morning, overcast most of the afternoon when the sun is strongest. Even on cloudy days when the temp outside is in the 20's, I have seen the soil temp @ 50F. Here it is actually lower than the air temp at the bottom of the plant rack, about 38F, @ 11am on a sunny morning after three or four days of sun in the morning, cloudy the rest of the day.

The racks are about 10in wide, 70in long and 3.5in deep. I filled each with 3in of potting mix, scattered spinach, lettuce and lambs quarter seed, about 30 different varieties, and then applied 1/2 inch of homegrown compost. Here are several different kinds of plants sprouting, on the second level. Spinach, lettuce and lambs quarter appreciate cool temps.

The real magic seems to be on the top rack, about twice the growth, about twice as fast, the plants appearing much healthier. Heat rising, of course. I imagine the soil temp here is more moderate, and warmer generally. 

I planted, the second weekend in November. Three weeks of growth, slower than it would be, planting outside in the spring, but not by much, at least not here @ the top level. We are still three weeks away from Solstice, when the sun is lowest in the sky, so growth is not going to speed up. After Solstice, there might be a gradual increase in sunlight, but temperatures outside on average will be less than they are now, for the following two months, January and December.  In March the greenhouse will be for starting the spring and summer vegetables.

While I have heated this greenhouse using nothing but solar power, my intention is to insulate the garage, and build a rocket stove, pulling the racks inside over-night. Burning small amounts of wood, I hope to moderate overnight temperatures around the rack, to moderate temps inside it. At present, because the racks are shallow, soil temperature fluctuates too radically 60-38F, considerably more than it would in the garden in the spring. Heating the garage even slightly, overnight, would help maintain soil temp generated by the sun, putting less stress on the plants, making consistent growth more likely.

Otherwise, I am happy with the progress. It would have been better to start a month earlier, at the beginning of October, so the plants would not be at such a tender stage when the temperature dropped outside consistently below freezing. Still, I'm hopeful that I will have some edibles by the Solstice, with slow growth throughout the winter.  

Less Ranting, More Doing

I bought 120, 170mg potassium iodate (KIO3) pills online, yesterday. For those not in the know, potassium iodate or potassium iodine, is to protect the thyroid from cancer, in the event of radiation poisoning.

Why did I buy potassium iodate tablets? Because I woke up yesterday to a 20 minute report on NPR about a rogue nuclear program. What rogue nuclear program? Iran's, of course.

Three days ago TEPCO, the company responsible for the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear facility (Japan), started removing fuel rods from reactor 4. There are more than 1500 fuel rods in reactor 4, many of which may be damaged, nobody seems to know for sure. Some, they do not even know where they are. It is being called by others the most difficult engineering task ever undertaken, and reactor 4 is apparently going to be the easy part. Worst-case-scenario but entirely plausible, is total meltdown, the evacuation of Tokyo, nuclear fallout raining down on America. And here in America, there is almost total information blackout about it. I couldn't even find mention of Fukushima in Huffpost, on the main page, Green, Science or Tech pages. 

Am I in danger of radiation poisoning, from Fukushima? I have no idea. I do know, the company that is responsible for fixing this problem, TEPCO, is the same company that was storing new and used nuclear fuel rods, on an ancient river bed above streaming ground water, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, on the Ring of Fire, ON THE TOP FLOORS OF THE REACTORS. This is the same company that lied about 200-300 tons of nuclear water pouring into the ocean every damn day for 2.5 years. The same company that had record profits last quarter, despite their lies and incompetence. I have ZERO faith that TEPCO is going to fix this. I have exactly that much faith that my government is going to protect me from TEPCO. The American MSM is mostly silent on Fukushima, with a decided lack of urgency when they do report it, NEVER questioning TEPCO's ability to follow through effectively, it being heresy in this country to seriously question corporations; while the MSM cannot report enough on Iran, is suggestive to me of this government's (and assorted ruling elite) treatment of the people as stupid children who must be manipulated.

It's not just Fukushima that I worry about, but every one of the 400+ nuclear facilities on earth, esp the two 35 miles on either side of me, on the Mississippi River. Do I think Xcel Energy, which owns both facilities, which is storing massive amounts of spent fuel at both (at Prairie Island, on a flood plain on an island in the Mississippi - do you remember those unprecedented biblical floods recently in Colorado?), which has extended the life of these facilities to 2030 and beyond despite mounting problems, despite being more than 40 years old already (with the complicity of this state government and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)) - is Xcel a more honest company than TEPCO? I think Excel is like most corporations, convinced of it's righteous infallibility, masters of the universe status. I'm certain Xcel believes nothing seriously bad could ever happen to any nuclear facility they own. I believe Xcel as a corporate "person" does not care about ANYTHING but quarterly profits no matter what. No amount of biblical flooding anywhere apparently, is going to convince Xcel or the state gov of Minnesota or the NRC, that storing nuclear material on a flood plain island in the Mississippi is a bad idea.

Anyway, when I heard NPR on Iran, and surmised their lies of omission, I was like, that's it, I'm buying some potassium iodate. It's a small thing, something tangible I can do to protect myself and my family, giving me at least a little peace of mind, knowing my government and this nation's corporations care more about short-sighted self-preservation, about maintaining political hegemony in the Middle East and globally, than they do about doing what is right.

Fukushima is a cancerous tumor releasing toxins into the body of the earth. One might imagine humanity stopping everything, to heal. But all goes on as if there is no problem, as if the profits of TEPCO are more important than the health of the body of the earth, of the health of people.

Well, at least if TEPCO fucks this up worse than they already have, and there are Fukushima nucleotides raining down on America, we'll have a first-rate Health Care Industry to take care of us. Eh? LOL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What budding fascism did I wake up to today? Apparently the FDA has decided spreading manure on farm fields is bad. The current "organic" rule, which "organic" designation is already next-to-meaningless by government/corporate fiat, is that if you put manure on a field, you can't sell market greens for 4 months. They are saying 9 months now, but of course only for those businesses that have more that $500,000 in sales, per year. In other words, the FDA is in the process of KILLING any remaining non-corporate, food production competition for uber corporate Agri-business. Never mind that near 100% of pathogen related, fresh green problems arise out of uber Ag, pretending to be organic or not, sending those greens all around the country.

Evidently, the FDA is chock-full of lackies who shill for corporations, just as the USDA is. See, 4 tons of topsoil loss per acre/year is acceptable. Atrazine in the water, no problem. Gigatons of fossil fuel derived ammonia spread on the fields, is what God intended. Pesticides that devastate honey bees, other pollinators? According to the FDA and USDA, it isn't agriculture if it isn't laying waste to natural systems, genuflect before corporate efficiencies.

This of course is related to the TPP and the TAP, which if you aren't familiar with, is Fascism in America 2.0. The Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic trade pacts being negotiated in secret which Obama want's to fast-track into law, will effectively negate all consumer protection law, all Internet protections, all environmental law, anything protecting anything, EXCEPT that which protects the right of corporations to make a profit. In real terms, that means, if international corporation comes into your neighborhood promising jobs, and they pollute the water supply sickening your children, you can go to Brussels and talk to the tribunal of corporate lawyers masquerading as judges. If you think I overstate it, well, I've stated much the same in the past and I have seen nothing to suggest that I am wrong, if these trade pacts become the law of the land. There is a reason why they are negotiated in secret, that not even Congress can look at it, that they want to make it law before anyone who didn't write it gets to see it. A full corporate attempt to destroy the sovereignty of governments, exactly what anyone should expect, if you treat corporations like demi-gods. How long have we been hearing, "you should run government more like a business!" Well, a corporation is a fascist, totalitarian anti-democracy. What did you think would happen to government?

If the TPP and the TAP are passed, it will be effectively illegal in America or anywhere in the world, to criticize a corporation. No more ranting. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 What good is the ranting for anyway, but crazy making? I drive through the suburbs every day, and I know well the denizens of that habitat pretty much all think corporations are GREAT! The NPR crowd? Not one whit less enamored of corporate everything; NPR is like a boomer lullaby, yes everything about your existence is well and good, justified, sleep tight. The Tea Party Patriot? LOL. Whenever I hear a libertarian/free market-er going on about freedom and liberty and personal responsibility, I hear "I want to be free from government interference to participate as I please in the ongoing rape of the planet."

I keep heading in a different direction. I keep thinking plants, greenhouses, rocket stoves, scaling down. Brew my own brew and grow my own food. Because I expect at any time the whole facade of this current arrangement, i.e. the currency and the fossil fuels that drive it, are at the precipice of breaking, so what is there to do but practice living with less? I'm better at ranting. LOL.

Anyway, I keep working on my apple obliterator. I have seeds planted in my garage greenhouse. I have a plan to insulate the garage and build a rocket stove to heat it, and if that works, retrofit this house. That might be worth reporting on, eh? How about a humanure pile to feed my veggies, piss-off FDA, city inspectors? LOL. If the garage greenhouse works, attach one to the house?

Less ranting, more doing.






  

Doing

Where was I?

Oh right, blogging.

I forget sometimes. Or rather, I try to sort out the ten thousand and one things I would like to say, and then say nothing (there being so little good to say about anything right now, on the global stage; there being the urge like Lao Tzu to walk out the city gate to go live with the wise ones in the mountains.) Perhaps if you are a long time reader of alternative media, you are burned out on contemplating doom/collapse? Situation normal for just about everybody, progress ongoing, growth for all eternity, resources are infinite, the economy is doing so much better. It's evident at this stage, the vast majority of humans will never question the stories that sustain the culture they inhabit, no matter the evidence, least of all in the West, particularly here in America. Onward progress, growth until death. If we turn the earth into a radiated desert planet, at least we didn't give up! LOL.

What have I been doing lately, other than trying to avoid thinking about what a toxic predicament we are in? I have a new job; I am no longer employed by uber retail center. I am now maintenance man, maintaining the structural integrity and appearance of 12 houses for a small company managing care for the profoundly autistic. It is a perfect job for me, in some ways, insofar as they simply let me fix what needs fixing, build what needs building, with little oversight, not many questions, occasional and sufficient direction. I make my own schedule mostly. It is a company almost entirely run by women, beautiful, strong women, staffed by extraordinarily beautiful people, who seem content to let me be, trusting that I will get the job(s) done, and seem grateful when I do. It's the only job I ever had where I've felt like I'm doing something truly good.

Several of the houses have up to an acre and more of land surrounding each, much land to plant fruit and nut trees, big gardens. I'll write a business plan; I already have an investor willing to pay for the trees, for a cut of future harvests. The only drawback to the job thus far has been the driving, 75-125 miles a day generally - all the houses are in the suburbs, two at least 35 miles out. Not having owned a vehicle in five years, I think sometimes - as I am driving through cornfields and suburban sod wasteland, the vast sheets of tar surrounding every corporate building, the fields of new McMansions, the 4,000+ sq ft houses that are being built as if we are not ratcheting up the polluting of the waters to heat them (fracking), the expanding of the highways to 4+ lanes at every outlet of the metro, as if oil remained @ $20/barrel, as if we are not piling on the debt building these doomed things, as if there will be economic growth for the full term of the 30-50 year bonding that "pays" for it - that I might have been happier scaling down, working part time living close to work and writing novels. Anyway, this is what I am doing now, fixing holes in walls, broken appliances, doors off hinges, etc. Autistic guys are hard on houses.

One other thing I've noticed, on my travels through the suburbs, are the apple trees no one picks. If I had been more organized about it I could have brewed 50-100 gallons of hard cider, more than the four gallons I've brewed thus far. Not that I'm set up to brew that much, what with my mashing of the apples with a sledge hammer. I don't like the idea of using a food processor or old garbage disposal like some people do, there being cyanide in the seeds, not wanting to obliterate the skins, but I didn't have a proper apple obliterator to go with my prototype press, nor the $700-1500 to buy one. The sledge hammer is a bit exhausting though, most of an afternoon and evening involved in these less-than four gallons, not including the picking. I have 11 more 5 gallon buckets equivalent of apples to obliterate and press.

This is the obliterator attachment I am making for my press. It is missing a few pieces, as I am modifying it after a test run. Long term plan is to make one to hook up to a bike, because the hand crank isn't all that much more efficient than the sledge hammer. (That is the four gallons brewing in the carboy.)

I built this green house with scrap I had around, three sliding glass doors I scavenged, acrylic glass I pulled out of a dumpster. I might have $50 in this thing, but who's counting when the 2x3's I've used on half a dozen different projects. The plant rack, I'll roll into the greenhouse during the day, back into the garage at night and cover, a shell within a shell, with plastic commercial veggie oil containers painted black filled with water, underneath, radiating stored sunlight all night.

 I have this old stove in the garage (traded for it, for an 18 pack of Michelob Golden Draft), but it doesn't burn efficiently, needs to be modified, and I might just incorporate it into a rocket heater design, maybe.

My house is for sale, technically, though as you can see I am still living in it. That seems to offend many of the people who come through here. I receive an email feedback form, after most showings. Most people don't know what to think about the 'lawn' except to tell me to clean it up, and the house doesn't feel like a condo in those teevee shows/media commercials - "it doesn't show well, the house should be staged; messy, dirty" - i.e. remove any evidence that someone actually lives here, plant sod. They all seem to agree the house is over-priced @ $25,000/15% less than I bought it for 7 years ago, despite all the custom tile work, custom paint, revealed hardwoods...funny how people will believe TPTB when we are told the economy is better/stronger/healthy, contrary to the facts in our immediate presence. Most people don't think, they just respond to authority.

In fact, I ran into some old friends at the bar the other day, who were keen to tell me what a piece of shit, dumbass, idiot, pathetic loser, milker, waste of a life, failure at everything I've ever done, how could I be so fucking stupid to think anyone would buy my house with all those weeds everywhere, etc, resources are abundant, bankers make the world go 'round, God is on their side. Another guy I am more fond of hanging around with, at that same bar told me, when he was driving by my house recently with his landscaping boss, he pointed out my house and said, "hey, I met that guy," and his boss exploded, raging that he had "called the city 3 times on that fucking mess of a house.

So now I'm like, why am I not ratcheting this up a few notches, now that I might have the income to do it? Why shouldn't I build that recycled glass attached greenhouse? Rocket stoves to reduce the natural gas burn, so on and so forth? What was that I was saying, about taking this house off the grid, all those years ago when I started this blog?

Then again, there is an offer on the house. A third of what we bought it for in 2006. $30,000 less than we owe on it. We made a counter offer. No word yet. I am ambivalent about it. As ideal as this new job is, as beautiful as so much of the staff I work with is, as much as I like many of the clients, as much land as there is for me to permaculture, driving 75-125 miles a day through the suburbs doesn't feel like a step in the right direction, and it hasn't been very good for my mental or physical health either. In fact, it feels like a regression in some ways, like I felt in 2006 when I was contract remodelling during the housing bubble. All those names those old friends called me the other night, were names I called myself back then, which I've been doing again, frustrated with traffic, with petty mistakes I make, contemplating a society I can't fix. It is exhausting, and mean. It would be easier if I could just puff as I please, bop around in my van all day singing and grooving. You know, attitude adjustment, like the other day when I went to do some plumbing in one of the houses, but realized, what should take ten minutes will take 3 hrs because the "official" plumber thought he was clever, but only fucked it up and made more work for me; and then I was at the plumbing supply store and I saw that huge mountain of garbage on the bank of the Minnesota river, and then I got to thinking about the nuclear facilities on either side of the Metro, and then I got to thinking about all the florescent lights which there is no real protocol to dispose of and they all have mercury in them and 97%+ of them end up in places like that mt of garbage, and the goddamn companies who manufacture them have no responsibility whatever for the...spiralling...deeper...deeper...blinding...see, if I could just have puffed and turned on the music, but we all know what a hideous, awful, evil thing that is, (ever repeateth the fascist.) Never mind, half of the people driving in those suburbs and on those freeways, are on some kind of fukitol pharmaceutical peddled by rapacious, predatory capitalists, to obliterate their moods, which is fine apparently. Good for the economy. They won't ever have to think about... See, there I go again. Can't do anything about that, so I take it out on me. 

Sorry to be such a downer. Just being honest about where I'm @. It's the late fall going into winter. My pond was partially frozen over the other day. I cope as I can by doing.

***************

Some time ago I mentioned writing a Prospectus for Sustaining Universal Needs (SUN) non-profit. The SUN website is up and running, not yet grand opened, as we are building content, but in progress. The Prospectus should be available to read sometime next week.



WHD