Benzene levels in Parachute Creek rose above a safe-to-drink 5 parts per billion following the spill, which was caused by a faulty pressure gauge on a four-inch pipeline.
The safety limit for benzene in Coloradoan drinking water sources is 5 parts per billion. But the state doesn’t define the creek as a source of drinking water, and the limit for such water bodies is 5,300 parts per billion.
Not drinking water not polluted above the levels safe for not drinking water.
These people are really desperate about fracking aren\’t they?
I\’m rather wondering when they\’re going to start complaining that only metres, mere yards, off the coasts of America the water has more Na and Cl in it than is allowed in drinking water.
Also, most of the men involved in developing fracking back in the 1940’s have since died.
The long term mortality rate of people exposed to fracking is 100%.
Naturally Big Oil tries to downplay this chilling fact, because they want to kill us all and make Gaia cry, just so they can make money.
It’s worse than that. Most of them became ill before they died, with a huge range of symptoms and conditions that we had better start calling “Fracking Syndrome”.
It’s Fracking Madness, that’s what it is..!
It’s not just yards from the coast but right on it. Indeed every time a breaker hits some of that toxic Na and Cl, not to mention the super-hazardous DHMO content of seawater comes on land.
Everyone should move away from the coast immediately, all the, what, 90% of the world’s population that lives within a few miles of the coastline. For the same reason that inland Germany has to shut its nukes down because of the danger posed by tsunamis.
Even better; the safe level for Benzene is 5ppb, the measured level in this creek is varying between 4.7 and 5.3 ppb from day to day.
Evacuate the area!
Check out the EPA’s own page. Got to love this sentence.
What are benzene’s health effects?
Some people who drink water containing benzene well in excess of the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for many years could experience anemia or a decrease in blood platelets, and may have an increased risk of getting cancer.
Well in excess. Could. May.
Terrifying.
I
I’ve just been for a swim in Na and Cl contaminated water. Should I seek medical advice?
@Ralph Musgrave
It’s probably too late. I should leave all your money to FoE.
People who live in the Rockies want to be able to drink safely from the creek.
People who live on the coast want to be able to drink safely from the sea.
To me, only the second of those would be absurd.
A pipeline leaks due to a faulty pressure gauge?
I very much doubt it.
Duh!
Cos nasty fracking is bad for mother earth!
But.
“Polysilicon deposition, or the process of depositing a layer of polycrystalline silicon on a semiconductor wafer, is achieved by pyrolyzing silane (SiH4) at 580 to 650 °C.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycrystalline_silicon
To make nice ‘green’ photo-voltaic cells for ‘green energy’ is all good and OK innit?
Green logic – you can’t beat it, nor ever understand it, it’s a female thing.
“Ahem – now where’s my benzene water?”
“Sorry dude, there isn’t any left – but we got gallons of phosphoric acid….yup – that’s cola”
Out of interest PaulB, you being an expert at the great outdoors. When did you last drink from a creek? You know, creek in the USian sense. Not Barking Creek (although last time I looked at the fish swimming in it you probably could) but a small river that’s already traversed a fair bit of country, rather than mountain run-off. Because I spend much of my time next to a river that’s fed by runoff about 10km upstream & I’d be damned if I’d drink from it. Living in a place like this makes you all too aware of goats shitting in it, rats pissing in it, not to mention houses upstream who aren’t too bothered about where their sewerage goes to & the sort of stuff gets washed off roads by rain. Benzene’d be the last of my worries. Drinking water comes out of bottles (or our nice, clean, snow-fed stream I know every inch of, until June, when the snow-cap’s melted.)
PaulB // May 25, 2013 at 4:40 pm
“People who live in the Rockies want to be able to drink safely from the creek.”
1. They can safely drink from the creek – the creek pollution hovers from right below to right above the safe level. Keep in mind that the “safe level” is set a very conservative point – at worst 5 ppb is where it *starts* to get dangerous and, as the non-drinking water limit show, even 5,000 ppb isn’t too bad.
2. No, the people of CO really don’t expect to be able to drink from the creek – because animals poop in it and its probably loaded with diarrhea causing micro-organisms, as is damn near every fresh water source.
You’re going to have to boil the water anyway and that will probably boil off the benzene contaminant.
Even pre-industrial peoples in a pre-industrial (ie miserable) world knew that there are better and worse sources of water and part of bushcraft was /is about finding the best available water.
…..People who live in the Rockies want to be able to drink safely from the creek……
Apparently they can even after an accident. This is not some standard emission problem but a leak. This is akin to the air being safe to breath despite your neighbours home burning down.
I hear what you’re all saying. But Tim’s analogy still doesn’t work.
Tim analogy does work. Why? Because in both cases (seawater and the creek) neither is actually drinking water. Yes, you can drink it if you really had to, but no one actually does.
So to say that the safe level drinking level is exceed in water that is not used for normal drinking is a facetious argument.
Yeah, well – for more hoopla on Fracking scaremongering see FrackNation
The original report is written up by a paid up eco-loon by the look of it – fucking arsehole.
is anyone keeping count of the times tht PaulB loses the argument?
If you mean how often am I in the minority here, I would think pretty well always. Obviously, I don’t come here to find people who agree with me.
If you mean that it’s been established that benzene-free creek water is the same sort of thing as salt-free sea water, then, shrug, I suppose what is and isn’t a good analogy is a matter of taste.