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LFG

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Everything posted by LFG

  1. Just getting ready for the winter garden
  2. Dang, in my mind I was thinking eggs were going to start showing up in the next month, but I went back to see what day we hatched on. May 18th. These BCM seem to start a little later than some of my other breeds, right at 6 months, so now I'm thinking early November... Oh well, I'm still checking the nest boxes I'm extremely pleased with how these girls are turning out. The boys are a little over colored, but the girls are the best I have ever had
  3. Yeah, I wonder where they're gonna bury those things. They ain't coming here
  4. Took about 6 q-tips to clean my ears and nose at the end of the day. I've also worked at a couple of gold mines. If you want to hear about some scary chemicals in industry, do a little reading about how gold ore is extracted from dirt. Where is the public outcry for those companies to clean up their slurry piles? I think the power plants are just an easy target
  5. My first job as a superintendent was building cooling ponds for the discharge of the new scrubbers at a coal plant in NC. 5 ponds, 8 acres each, built entirely from fly ash. After the ponds were constructed, we laid pipe 8-15 feet deep in that ash. There were days I went home looking like an extra from Amos and Andy. This was in 2002. I wonder what has been discovered in fly ash since then that makes it such an ecological nightmare. My body may be riddled with cancer one day, but I've seen things come in here that were much more concerning than fly ash. This is just my opinion, but I think that whole movement was a "feel good" move that will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars
  6. We looked at that, dedicating a cell to nothing but fly ash. The profit would have been less than half of the MSW rate for a more desirable material, but even at that cost the power plants came out cheaper building their own cells. You can't really mix it with sludge during the lower stages of a cell because, like fedup said, it makes an impermeable barrier. It turns to concrete and won't let leachate go to the bottom of the landfill, it pushes it out the sides. I know of one landfill in particular that had to go back with a rock hammer on a trackhoe just to bust through it to relieve the pressure. It would be good on a cap, but caps are a short term project once every few years, and fly ash is constant
  7. Well, I think that was you discussing the prions , I don't know much about that. The only thing I have ever seen set off the Geiger counter is waste from a chemo patient, and we once had a driver who set off the alarm every time he came in one day. When that happens, they have to drop their can and DHEC comes and scans it by hand. That's how we've pinpointed one diaper in a 20 ton load. Anyway, they never got a hit on that particular driver's can. Out of curiosity, they waved the wand over the driver, and he set it off. Turns out his uniforms had been washed with some of the clothing from a nursing home and was tripping the alarm, that's how sensitive they are
  8. That gets a little out of my realm, but there are definitely some questions there
  9. Ok, I misunderstood. We have Geiger counters on our scales. Fly ash won't set them off, but one diaper from a chemo patient in a 20 ton load of trash will
  10. I won't argue that there are contaminants, but I would argue that the new way of disposing of it is no more effective than what was done before. There are way more radioactive contaminants in your cell phone
  11. For ash, absolutely. That was a knee-jerk reaction to something that really wasn't a problem. It will cost the power plants billions of dollars to relocate that ash, and that cost will be passed right along to the consumer
  12. Yep, those power plants are spread out, and so are landfills that are large enough to handle that volume. I'd love to have it, but I've been in several certification classes with guys from the power plants, so it looks like they are building their own landfills
  13. If I had the ash it would be easy to mix, but like you said there are other uses for it. The power plants are still disposing of millions of tons of it, but they have learned they can build their own landfills on site cheaper than we can handle it. Our airspace costs us X amount of dollars per cubic yard, so we have a minimum we have to charge. They can build and staff their own landfills for less than that, so a lot of plants are choosing to go that route. I would love to have all of the ash the Clean Air Act is making those plants dispose of, but it's not economically feasible for us to take it, or for them to ship it to us
  14. We have also learned that it is impermeable if mixed deeper in the landfill, and that creates problems. Ash works best as a monofill, or as a cap like you said. It basically turns to concrete
  15. Actually, from an operations standpoint I love those two. The issues there are ecological, but if they are contained properly they are very easy to work, and stable. It's like grading sand; wet it, pack it, and cover it as quickly as possible so that you aren't making dust and rain doesn't erode dirt down to the ash
  16. First, my job is to notice it before my employees do. Second, if my lead operator said he was afraid to be on the hill, I would damn sure be concerned that something was wrong. If you want to play the scenario out, I would move the entire tipping operation to a safe area of the landfill, then I would call my GM, area Ops Manager, and area Environmental Engineer to come and evaluate why the hill was moving. That's called "differential settlement", and is a sure sign that one area is settling much faster than the rest of the landfill. I'm not going to comment what the other guys should have done, hindsight and all, but you asked me what I would do, not the company I work for. That's how those questions should be asked on the other side as well...
  17. A fixed sludge cap is what I hoped to see come out of this, but I'm afraid this is going to fade away. My last hope is something more serious coming out of the DEP investigation, but I'm not holding my breath
  18. I agree, but if that is the case then the story will fade away. If they feel like things will change and it won't happen again, then I understand not saying anything. I know they want the media to stay after it, but the media can only report what they can prove. I know it sounds like it's easy for me to say that I would leave because I don't know the local situation, but I would find it very hard to stay
  19. What really messes people up here is the ice. Powdery snow isn't so bad, but we are usually right on the sleet/snow line, so we get a lot of road icing. If we do get powder, it will partially thaw during the day, then refreeze overnight. Add ice to a bunch of people that like to stab the accelerator or brakes, and it turns into a circus. I will just throw a chain in the bucket of the tractor and drive a mile or two around the house pulling people out
  20. I can tell you that the media that has been covering this has gone as far as they can with the information they have been given so far... They could be pointed in the right direction, but they couldn't report on anything until it was specifically mentioned in the OSHA report. What it will take to keep the media's eyes on it now is someone that was there, someone that knows what happened, and someone that can say what they saw with their own eyes. Second hand information from 1000 miles away only goes so far...
  21. That's exactly why I don't want this story to just disappear. It could well be that a union is what those guys need moving forward, but it doesn't help Mr. Pierce, and it doesn't help expose the cause of the collapse in the first place
  22. The best part is in my little country town everyone has a 4 wheeler, Gator, or Razr. It's like the redneck Iditarod
  23. I agree, this particular instance should have been addressed months before that ever happened. I was just pointing out that a strike wouldn't shut things down
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