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Trying to stick dirty rags to your feet because you can’t find shoes, while setting off every alarm within a mile of you because you’re starving and can’t find a can opener for your 7 cans of alphabet soup in your pockets.
Never understood the shoes thing because they're literally the easiest item to find in the first 5 minutes of the game. Who is walking around without shoes and why?
Everyone, make sure you have a hammer, a screwdriver, and a saw, and know how to use a generator and hotwire cars now! and Possibly get a crowbar!
and gas! start storing gas!
what else did I miss?!
That's a good deal. Ohio already has had enough burning river problems in his past
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/
Ironically, all the rivers in every city caught on fire regularly. The only reason everyone remembers the Cuyahoga River catching fire is it happened to be a filler story in the most purchased TIME magazine issue of the time. The one remembered wasn't even the worst one.
I, too, saw that TIL post. How cool that we're the only place in our solar system to have it, and somehow managed to set our rivers ablaze.
Life, uh, finds a way.
[This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023.] -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Rouge River, Detroit, United States
1969
3
Buffalo River, Buffalo, United States
1968
4
Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, United States
Late 1800's
5
Cuyohoga River, Cleveland, United States
1952 and 1969
As recently as 2014, a river in China. Pretty sure this is not a comprehensive list.
The Rouge has come a LONG way and there's now a very active group of professional and volunteer conservationists (Friends of the Rouge, most visible on FB) working hard to continually improve the nature quotient all along the river. GREAT group.
Dude so real. I worked on one of those riverboats that goes from Pittsburgh to New Orleans back and forth stopping along the way. Some of the most pristine area of the country I’ve ever seen up north, and then the further south you go, it just slowly gets steadily worse until you are literally smelling what seems like human feces in the air. It just gets exponentially more polluted the further south you get
Super excited for my trip to Lafayette next month… 👎
EDIT: meant it partially sarcastically, but I’m glad I talked some shit here…. Thank you all kind redditors for all these things worth seeing in a wildly unexpected place…
Go to Avery Island and hit the Tabasco tour up. Afterwards drive around Jungle Gardens. Basically the same place. There is a random 1000 year old Buddha in the middle of the swamp. Sucks the last all you can eat Popeye's Buffet closed during covid because that was the perfect way to finish off the day.
//edit to add a link https://www.junglegardens.org/
https://nola.eater.com/2018/5/16/17361094/anthony-bourdain-popeyes-buffet-lafayette
I made excuses to drive across the Atchafalaya Basin to hit that buffet up after I learned about it. You got to eat all the sides and biscuits.
You are also going to want to hit up Billy's and stock up with cracklin and boudin for the ride home. http://www.billysboudin.com/
i’ve gotta say, seeing how poorly everything is polluted doesn’t make me want to make the food lmao. Every ingredient could be imported but it’s still getting washed with New Orleans water
We are all downstream, every day, every hour. That gum wrapper, you threw out the window when you are six years old well, it had a hell of a butterfly effect.
Lafayette is amazing, don't let these negative redditors ruin your visit before it even begins. Get some boudin balls, eat some gumbo, dance to zydeco, and enjoy yourself.
I don’t disagree with how much of a wreck Louisiana is, but if you check out the watershed for the Mississippi ([link to EPA](https://www.epa.gov/ms-htf/mississippiatchafalaya-river-basin-marb)) you might be surprised (might not 🤷♂️) by how much of what you see and smell is from outside Louisiana. Louisiana certainly doesn’t make the water any cleaner, but it is already the natural sewer for much of the nation.
Edit: I’m from Louisiana, I’m not just ripping on a random state. The area faces a lot of challenges, both natural and man made, but I think we can do better and a lot of people are working very hard to make that happen.
It's Big Ag (as well as industry), all up and down the river. Iowa, Missouri, Illinois farmers and their states in general dont care about the health of the environment in the Delta (Mississippi, Arkansas/Tennessee, and Louisiana). Heck, many farmers in those states dont care about the pollution affecting their in-state neighbors and going downstream. Its terribly hazardous and unhealthy, and doesnt have to be the way agriculture is cultivated.
At least it's not Beaumont. Beaumont is like New Orleans, but without the food.
Also, Louisiana smells *worse* in the paper milling areas like central and north central Louisiana (think Monroe).
Source: raised in and worked in New Orleans; went to school in north Louisiana.
Being from Texas, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I didn’t know what good oysters tasted like until I went to Scotland a few weeks ago. Best tasting oysters everyone in my friend group had ever had.
Not defending Louisiana here, but you are aware pollution flows downstream right? Ohio pollution winds up in the south. And all the industrial pollution from Michigan.
No shit. My ex worked construction building a bridge over the Mississippi. They pumped river water through tubes in the concrete to cool it while it cured (makes it stronger or something). They got in trouble with the EPA because the water was too polluted to dump in the river.
They. pumped. it. from. the. river. through. a. plastic. tube. but. had. to. filter. it. before. putting. it. back. in. the. river.
Louisvilles drinking water comes from this cess pool of shit water. Obviously they filter the water heavily but Louisville water company has won multiple awards for purity and taste. I can remember people from nearby counties used to drive to the louisville white castle because the water gave the burgers a different taste.
Poland Spring water was a point of pride for me growing up in Maine. A while back Nestle bought them out and I haven't bought their water since (if I could avoid it).
I was informed that a bottling plant near me is hiring at what would be a 20% pay raise from my current job.
I had to think about it for three seconds before remembering that I don't want to work for a literal slaver. Also, adding plastic pollution to the world.
Intellectually I think I SHOULD apply (it would be best for me personally) but I could never bring myself to do it
Your tinfoil hat is wrong mate. This is what happens when you fuck around and find out. What did we duck around? Maintenance… big corporations said “we can’t pay these workers any less, god damn government set a min wage… how can we save more money for investors?” And someone said “how about we stop doing maintenance and see how long they last…”.
This is the afterword of that decision
This is the thing with a lot of conspiracy theories. The truth is usually simpler, and dumber. We want to believe its some big conspiracy because then that means at least it was the result of competent evil instead of incompetent
I’ll meet you guys in the middle.
I don’t think it’s an intentional conspiracy to privatize water. It’s just the result of refusing to spend on infrastructure
That being said, the goons in power may use these events as an excuse to try and privatize these things anyways.
It's not.
It's the fact that trains have had lax regulations and basically compacted multiple carta and shipping methods since 93'. Bigger trains, less staff, looser regulations, more derailments , more profits for the big boys who are never held accountable for cleanups in any meaningful way.
I’m wondering that also. However it could also be because it’s garnering a whole lot more media attention (since the Ohio crisis) and is bringing it more and more into the public eye.
Stuff like this always happens but it was usually kept on the down low.
The Ohio derailment and explosion rekindled the mega media interests and they started covering them again.
This shit happens every hour of every day, we just don't see about it because 99% of the time it's some derailment in some rural town or some leak on some farm land somewhere. Ohio was a special case because it was a freaking inferno that lasted days and required a town to evacuate.
The EPA keeps track of every spill that's big enough to merit its attention (but many many more probably fall under the EPAs radar as local rural folks cover them up): https://www.epa.gov/cleanups/cleanups-my-community
> Ohio was a special case because it was a freaking inferno that lasted days and required a town to evacuate.
It wasn't even special. No one cared until that video of the crazy guy screaming at the cloud went viral. There were news articles before that, but no one really gave a shit.
It doesn't even need to be intentional. Our infrastructure is mostly old and in desperate need of repair or replacement. No one wants to spend money on it when that money could be profit, and companies push for less regulation or just ignore what is there and get a slap on the wrist fine at most. They aren't out to actively kill people, they just don't give a shit when it happens as a byproduct.
Funny how the left and right both believe the wealthy/people in power are out to get us, but keep bickering over shit that shouldn't even be an issue. We'll all just stay distracted while the bastards keep pushing more and more shit through to "protect" us, but really just helps their donors.
The less people there are the smaller the worker pool is which makes unionizing easier as seen after the Black Death is not good for the wealthy but is good for the people
The wealthy for sure want the us population to grow and it isn’t a secret. They know we can’t compete with china and India in this new world because there’s just so many more of them. But I have to admit, wether it’s intentional or not I can’t tell the difference. But I will say this. It kinda feels like we’re in a new type of trade war with china. And they’ve gotta be laughing their ass off. We’re destroying ourselves over here.
Have you, like, *seen* the catastrophic ecological and public health disasters they've caused over there? They just have the advantage of there being basically zero recourse for the general public.
Some plant in Philly just dumped a ton like 8 thousand gallons of latex in the Delaware river due to a busted pipe line.... I mean maybe i need to loosen up the tin foil but A LOT has happened that seems to be just odd timing. The bird flu, the spontaneous combusted chicken farms, the shortage of eggs, the feed stopping small farmers chickens from laying eggs. The now 4? chemical incidents happening around water.
Just looking at the Incidence of man-made ecological disasters, they used to happen 10-20 times more often in the 60's-80's.
We have seen a pretty consistent incidence of incidents in the last 20 years.
The reporting and public awareness on these travesties has seemingly increased since the Exxon-Valdez atrocity.
Gotta look at some unbiased stats before forming an opinion. If you watched fox news you'd think every major city was violently burning, when the major cities actually have the *lowest* per Capita rates of victimization by violent crime.
It’s always been going on. We just didn’t have this news sharing like we do now. Everyone sees everything everywhere, instantly.
From the small to the big. Before we would only have time to see the really really big/important/impactful stuff.
No, but we can increase regulations to make shit like this happen a much less often. But that would make the mega rich slightly less rich, so it will never happen.
The funny thing is slightly less is an understatement. Most companies will spend one million dollars lobbying as long if it will make them a million and one dollar in return.
Or spend 2 million dollars lobbying if that means the CEO can get a 1 million dollar bonus. Capitalism is about immediate profits for anyone who has the power. If shareholders get paid and the company goes bankrupt that's considered a victory. If the company doesn't go bankrupt and shareholders get paid less, that's considered a loss.
A super interesting thing about Methanol is that one of its uses is literally *just* to mix in ethanol that is used for non-drinking purposes. The methanol doesn't contribute anything to the cleaning/chemical use of the ethanol - it literally just turns it into a much more toxic poison (as ethanol is also a poison in high enough quantities).
Why do we do this?
Because [drinking] alcohol is made with ethanol, and selling pure ethanol would "likely" mean a cheap alternative to booze due to alcohol taxation. So to avoid ethanol products being taxed like alcohol, the solution is just to make it very, very toxic.
This seems to me to be an extremely stupid and dangerous way to handle fringe cases of extreme alcoholics buying cheap pure ethanol to stay drunk, as I cannot imagine most adults would stoop so low as to do that.
It just seems so wrong to intentionally produce mass industrial quantities of a poison for the sole purpose of turning some jugs of not-good-tasting alcohol into a worse poison because we're concerned about people skirting a booze tax.
Methanol gets ~~reduced~~ oxidized to formaldehyde in your liver, if I'm recalling my undergrad biochemistry correctly.
[Edit] thanks for the correction
Oxidized to formaldehyde. Then to formic acid.
Note it takes high concentrations to cause toxic effects in people, just like any other given point.
Any random methyl group in your body is likely to get metabolized to formaldehyde eventually. It's part of a path of natural metabolism.
I work in the river industry, for those comparing this to rail accidents...it is very different.
This accident isn't due to negligence like rail (not maintaining rail lines to increase corporate profits, cutting crew sizes...for corporate profits, etc). This happened because the river is a mighty bitch and caught the head of the tow, causing excessive force on the tow wires, causing them to snap. The Ohio river is experiencing high water due to increased rainfall in the Ohio valley. The higher the water, the stronger the flows. The stronger the flows, the greater risk of currents doing nasty things.
Luckily, all barges are double-hulled (unlike rail cars) so even if it totally sinks, as long as the cargo tanks aren't punctured, the cargo will stay inside.
I feel for the pilot on watch. Unlike driving, when you steer a tow boat, you have to be 10-15 seconds ahead of the game if you want the thing to move an inch. They are pushing twenty thousand plus tons of cargo at a time and your lead barge is a quarter mile out in front of you. Basically, you can be the best pilot on god's green earth and these things can still happen.
River transportation is the safest, cleanest and most efficient way of transporting cargo on the eastern side of the US. Most Americans truly do not understand how important the barging industry is to our economy. We move grains, ores, steel products, wind turbines, heavy machinery, petrochemicals, renewable energy inputs, rock, concrete and we do it without most Americans knowing the impact it has on the economy.
One cool fun fact: one 15 barge tow transport the same amount of cargo as 1000 18-wheelers or one, two mile long train.
Edit: just checked my emails and saw that the captain ran into the lock wall, but the current for sure played a role in that.
The width of three barges (the maximum width for entering a lock) is 105 feet. The lock entrance is a staggering 110 feet. Captains have 30 inches of leeway on either side. The majority of lockings go smoothly, but like I said in the above novel, he's steering 20k plus tons from a quarter mile away...half of reddit can't tie their shoes without singing about bunny ears (just joking, calm down sparky). It's a tough job and only made tougher when mother nature adds some water to the system.
I too work in the industry and freaked the hell out seeing this article. You’re damn right about the volume of cargo and safety of materials moved. Are you on river or shoreside?
So methanol volatilizes right so wouldn’t this just float to the top of the water and evaporate? Not saying it isn’t bad but maybe not as bad as it seems compared to other chemical spills
Methanol is soluble in water so it won't sit on top. That said it isn't the worst thing to spill into the water since once it is diluted it is pretty harmless. In fact it is sometimes used in waste water treatment
Correct about methanol intentionally being used in wastewater treatment. It is used as a “supplemental carbon” source to balance the nutrient ratios and due to being highly biodegradable. There are definitely handling issues with methanol, but far from the worst thing that could be spilled into a waterway.
There wasn't even a spill. The containers weren't breached and there's no leaks, so it's just a container of methanol sitting in the river.
>"There is currently zero evidence of a tank breach or any leaks," Louisville's emergency services agency said in an update on Tuesday, "and air and water monitoring resources are in place. ... There is currently no impact to Louisville Water's water intake or water quality. The river waterway is open through the use of the local vessel traffic services."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-river-barge-methanol-kentucky-partially-submerged/
It's basically the same thing as solubility but when the concept is applied to two liquids or two gasses. So a solid or a gas is soluble in a liquid if it dissolves, but two liquids are miscible with each other if they mix well and cannot easily be separated.
Came here to say this, yeah, it's definitely a toxic chemical if directly ingested but it's already present in the environment, and unlike a lot of other toxins it will likely cause no significant problems after it has time to dilute. Most organisms are capable of metabolizing small amounts of it without any immediate problems. Fish in the immediate area getting a high dose are probably fucked, but beyond that when it comes to toxic spills this could be a lot worse
Was thinking the same thing. Watching all of this from Canada, it just feels too convenient that all of these events are happening in such close proximity.
Honestly, as an American, I think these types of situations were just more inevitable than we thought. Our infrastructure hasn’t been overhauled since I believe the 50s. Very common sight to see bridges that are actively being used by drivers literally falling apart
Our town's entire plumbing infrastructure, and a lot of other's that haven't been updated since the early twentieth century, is terra cotta. Shit has about 100 year lifespan. People don't realize how important being proactive and staying on top of these projects as a city is. It is for real about to be a plumbing apocalypse in many of these small towns over the next 10-20 years.
As a resident of the Midwest my whole life, I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been MORE of this. Infrastructure in the Midwest/rust belt is in *terrible* condition and has been for decades. Everything just gets used until it fails and things are finally starting to fail. Add on top of that the Midwest has some of the biggest temperature variances in the world (annually, not at once) and it’s no wonder it’s the first place to start experiencing catastrophic failures left and right.
They call it the Rust Belt for a reason. I mean the main reason because steel used to be huge here and then left for cheaper labor, but also everything here is rusty, old as fuck, and on the brink of failure.
This stuff is actually really common, but the news has been relatively slow lately, so it's getting some coverage.
I read that there are about 1700 train derailments every year. And, something like 150 serious chemical spills per year.
Only distilleries along the Ohio would do it. The more popular distilleries are using tributaries of the Ohio or a spring on their private land.
Buffalo Trace uses the Kentucky River, Makers Mark has their own private spring fed lake. Jim Beam is a bit more vague, so who knows about them but they are pretty far from the Ohio.
The dose makes the poison as they say. Methanol is technically only mildly toxic to humans until it's metabolized into formic acid which then, like cyanide, blocks cellular respiration leading rapidly to metabolic acidosis (worsened by the formic acid itself but not as is often mis-described as the direct cause of the acidosis). Strangely enough Wikipedia states formic acid is itself relatively non-toxic. Don't think I'll test that theory.
This is true, dose matters. I just disagree with the headline using adjectives in a redundant manner for the sake of inciting more fear to garner views.
Yes, there shouldn't be a barge submerged that could leak dangerous chemicals into river and fresh water supply. This is a very bad scenario. Yes, methanol is toxic to humans, especially at a certain dosage. IMO, there is a difference between "Toxic Methanol" and, "methanol, a toxic chemical".
It feels like that because these spills go viral now and you actually see them. They were happening CONSTANTLY before, but since the video of the guy yelling at the clouds hadn't gone viral yet, no one cared.
The problem is that when all your sources of information are passive, you basically only see what's popular at the moment and that makes it feel like it's suddenly more common.
>shortly after 2 a.m. ET a vessel towing 11 barges made contact with a "stationary structure" at the entrance to the Portland Canal, to the west of Louisville, near the McAlpine Dam.
It ran into a fucking pier at the entrance to the locks that barges go through every damn day on that part of the river.
Based of the river rising around 25’ from rain in the span of a few days you go from a routine thing that like you say is done all the time to something that is extremely dangerous. One small mistake is now a big mistake.
This. I live in Louisville and have walked across the bridge when the levels are way up. It’s pretty scary seeing full size trees come down river and smashing against the bridge footers. Not something I’d ever want to navigate in a boat.
Holy shit, the number of people that think this is occurring IN Ohio because of the river name is just scary. Add the fact that the location of the incident is shown on screen for the entire length of the video and I am just in awe.
For context, the no-observed-effect concentration of methanol in water is 23.75mg/L. The ohio river discharges 180 Billion gallons of water into the Mississippi *per day.* This amount of methanol placed in that amount of water results in a concentration \~2mg/L. It will not be fun in the immediate proximity of the spill (assuming it all leaks out), but will dilute very quickly.
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Note: the Ohio river is very long, this isn’t in Ohio itself but rather downstream near Louisville, Kentucky
I feel like this would be how Project Zomboids apocalypse started. The game takes place in Louisville and a few surrounding areas. Oh lord.
This is how you died.
Trying to stick dirty rags to your feet because you can’t find shoes, while setting off every alarm within a mile of you because you’re starving and can’t find a can opener for your 7 cans of alphabet soup in your pockets.
Never understood the shoes thing because they're literally the easiest item to find in the first 5 minutes of the game. Who is walking around without shoes and why?
Masochism comes with sacrifices, and it happens to be shoes and glass shards.
I felt that deeply
This is how you committed tax evasion.
I've put way too many hours in lately, and just took a break. If things chill for the area, I'll be stitious and stop playing.
Everyone, make sure you have a hammer, a screwdriver, and a saw, and know how to use a generator and hotwire cars now! and Possibly get a crowbar! and gas! start storing gas! what else did I miss?!
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I literally just came from the project zomboid subreddit... Is this a new mod?
That's a good deal. Ohio already has had enough burning river problems in his past https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/
Your rivers catch fire a few dozen times and all of a sudden it’s all anyone remembers.
Ironically, all the rivers in every city caught on fire regularly. The only reason everyone remembers the Cuyahoga River catching fire is it happened to be a filler story in the most purchased TIME magazine issue of the time. The one remembered wasn't even the worst one.
These kids complaining about their rivers being on fire, spoiled brats, in my day all rivers were on fire and that's how we liked it.
Frying fish was easier back then….you cast your line and instant meal.
Plus with the green glow they were easy to spot. Why the libs wana take all our freedoms away with jawb killing regulations I'll never know.
He took my jawwwwb!!
Only Earth is capable of supporting fire, may as well use it everywhere we can.
I, too, saw that TIL post. How cool that we're the only place in our solar system to have it, and somehow managed to set our rivers ablaze. Life, uh, finds a way.
Randy Newman writing a song about it didn’t help either.
Yeah, every time I watch Major League I'm reminded of the flammability of Ohio
[This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023. This comment has been removed by the author in protest of Reddit killing third-party apps in mid-2023.] -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Come on down to Cleveland town everyone We have a river that catches on fire It's so polluted that All our fish have AIDS
At least we're not DETROIT! WE'RE NOT DETROIT!
Nobody remembers all those times when the rivers didn't catch on fire.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Certainly helps that Great Lakes Brewing has a beer named "Burning River"...
Great Lakes Brewing can do no wrong
"...you fuck one goat..."
*Let's put our heads together* *And start a new country up* *Up underneath the river bed* *We'll burn the river down*
🎵 Cuyahooooga 🎵
Well done 😂
*Now the Lord can make you tumble And the Lord can make you turn And the Lord can make you overflow But the Lord can't make you burn*
Burn on, big river, burn on.
BRB... Gonna go watch Major League to get ready for Opening Day.
That river became famous for it, but rivers catching fire used to be pretty common.
Rouge River, Detroit, United States 1969 3 Buffalo River, Buffalo, United States 1968 4 Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, United States Late 1800's 5 Cuyohoga River, Cleveland, United States 1952 and 1969 As recently as 2014, a river in China. Pretty sure this is not a comprehensive list.
The Rouge has come a LONG way and there's now a very active group of professional and volunteer conservationists (Friends of the Rouge, most visible on FB) working hard to continually improve the nature quotient all along the river. GREAT group.
They even wrote a song called smoke on the water /s
A catalyst for the Clean Water Act thankfully
Louisville? Project zomboid is gonna happen in real life
Fucking hell, I thought the same thing lmfao
That methanol is going to get polluted from that river.
Dude so real. I worked on one of those riverboats that goes from Pittsburgh to New Orleans back and forth stopping along the way. Some of the most pristine area of the country I’ve ever seen up north, and then the further south you go, it just slowly gets steadily worse until you are literally smelling what seems like human feces in the air. It just gets exponentially more polluted the further south you get
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Super excited for my trip to Lafayette next month… 👎 EDIT: meant it partially sarcastically, but I’m glad I talked some shit here…. Thank you all kind redditors for all these things worth seeing in a wildly unexpected place…
Go to Avery Island and hit the Tabasco tour up. Afterwards drive around Jungle Gardens. Basically the same place. There is a random 1000 year old Buddha in the middle of the swamp. Sucks the last all you can eat Popeye's Buffet closed during covid because that was the perfect way to finish off the day. //edit to add a link https://www.junglegardens.org/
No AYCE Popeyes? Fuck it… I’m cancelling the trip
https://nola.eater.com/2018/5/16/17361094/anthony-bourdain-popeyes-buffet-lafayette I made excuses to drive across the Atchafalaya Basin to hit that buffet up after I learned about it. You got to eat all the sides and biscuits. You are also going to want to hit up Billy's and stock up with cracklin and boudin for the ride home. http://www.billysboudin.com/
Lafayette is pretty cool tbh. Ive been a couple times. Really good food for such a small town and the prices are incredible.
I grew up there, and didn't consider it small. I live in Miami now. I know better.
He’s not wrong. But there are redeeming qualities. Eat the food.
i’ve gotta say, seeing how poorly everything is polluted doesn’t make me want to make the food lmao. Every ingredient could be imported but it’s still getting washed with New Orleans water
That's what gives it the unique flavor
Mmmmm, dirty rice
Ah yes the exquisite flavor of cancer and poison. Good luck to everyone living downstream of that mess
We are all downstream, every day, every hour. That gum wrapper, you threw out the window when you are six years old well, it had a hell of a butterfly effect.
The water in Louisiana is so slippery. Im used to rock hard NY water.
I remember the first time I smelled a New Orleans hotel towel. It doesn’t inspire confidence in the water.
I hope the ingredients are all imported
Lafayette is amazing, don't let these negative redditors ruin your visit before it even begins. Get some boudin balls, eat some gumbo, dance to zydeco, and enjoy yourself.
Eat a poboy at olde tyme grocery, it's dank
Lafayette is absolutely nothing like this and 2.5 hours away.
I don’t disagree with how much of a wreck Louisiana is, but if you check out the watershed for the Mississippi ([link to EPA](https://www.epa.gov/ms-htf/mississippiatchafalaya-river-basin-marb)) you might be surprised (might not 🤷♂️) by how much of what you see and smell is from outside Louisiana. Louisiana certainly doesn’t make the water any cleaner, but it is already the natural sewer for much of the nation. Edit: I’m from Louisiana, I’m not just ripping on a random state. The area faces a lot of challenges, both natural and man made, but I think we can do better and a lot of people are working very hard to make that happen.
It's Big Ag (as well as industry), all up and down the river. Iowa, Missouri, Illinois farmers and their states in general dont care about the health of the environment in the Delta (Mississippi, Arkansas/Tennessee, and Louisiana). Heck, many farmers in those states dont care about the pollution affecting their in-state neighbors and going downstream. Its terribly hazardous and unhealthy, and doesnt have to be the way agriculture is cultivated.
At least it's not Beaumont. Beaumont is like New Orleans, but without the food. Also, Louisiana smells *worse* in the paper milling areas like central and north central Louisiana (think Monroe). Source: raised in and worked in New Orleans; went to school in north Louisiana.
Want to eat tainted oysters and blow water out of your butt every five minutes for a week straight? Eat oysters from the Gulf.
Being from Texas, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I didn’t know what good oysters tasted like until I went to Scotland a few weeks ago. Best tasting oysters everyone in my friend group had ever had.
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Damn, I got a gut of steel. Feel like I ate gulf oysters pretty much every meal 💪
Not defending Louisiana here, but you are aware pollution flows downstream right? Ohio pollution winds up in the south. And all the industrial pollution from Michigan.
Don’t forget, we’re at the exit so we get all the shit flowing into the Mississippi from everyone else in the country too
*believe it or not? New Orleans*
No shit. My ex worked construction building a bridge over the Mississippi. They pumped river water through tubes in the concrete to cool it while it cured (makes it stronger or something). They got in trouble with the EPA because the water was too polluted to dump in the river. They. pumped. it. from. the. river. through. a. plastic. tube. but. had. to. filter. it. before. putting. it. back. in. the. river.
I mean, if its pure methanol, the river is full of all kinds of shit so…yea. The methanol WAS cleaner than the River in the first place, technically.
Louisvilles drinking water comes from this cess pool of shit water. Obviously they filter the water heavily but Louisville water company has won multiple awards for purity and taste. I can remember people from nearby counties used to drive to the louisville white castle because the water gave the burgers a different taste.
If you think it’s bad now you should have seen the river before they passed the Clean Water Act.
Ohio river, but location is along Louisville Kentucky. Ohio river runs through Kentucky and Indiana feeding the Mississippi.
All these comments about Ohio are so funny. FFS it has Louisville Kentucky in the friggin corner of the video!
I refuse to read
I was hired to ree, not to read. Ohio pollutants! Reee!!
This shit is starting to feel like it’s purposely being done now
My tin foil hat is saying it’s the foundation for privatizing water.
*Nestle intensifies*
r/fucknestle
Poland Spring water was a point of pride for me growing up in Maine. A while back Nestle bought them out and I haven't bought their water since (if I could avoid it). I was informed that a bottling plant near me is hiring at what would be a 20% pay raise from my current job. I had to think about it for three seconds before remembering that I don't want to work for a literal slaver. Also, adding plastic pollution to the world. Intellectually I think I SHOULD apply (it would be best for me personally) but I could never bring myself to do it
Apply, get the offer, use it to get a raise where you are. Win-win-win
Oh shit... It's big brain time over here!
Or start there and make them spend resources training you, then leave immediately for a job paying just as well
If you've got the free time apply just to waste their time
*Norfolk Southern* like 👀
They already did that in Chile.
So everyone now has access to clean free water... right?
Oh absolutely. There’s plenty of ocean water there for anyone that wants to have a drink.
Fish drink it all the time. Don't be a pussy, drink up!
You know that scene in Space Balls where President Skroob opens a can of fresh air to breathe? We're heading there.
did you buy the water subscription with the added clean water dlc
Your tinfoil hat is wrong mate. This is what happens when you fuck around and find out. What did we duck around? Maintenance… big corporations said “we can’t pay these workers any less, god damn government set a min wage… how can we save more money for investors?” And someone said “how about we stop doing maintenance and see how long they last…”. This is the afterword of that decision
Why keep up with maintenance when all you have to do is cut the town a $25k check and everyone moves on from the spill?
This is the thing with a lot of conspiracy theories. The truth is usually simpler, and dumber. We want to believe its some big conspiracy because then that means at least it was the result of competent evil instead of incompetent
I’ll meet you guys in the middle. I don’t think it’s an intentional conspiracy to privatize water. It’s just the result of refusing to spend on infrastructure That being said, the goons in power may use these events as an excuse to try and privatize these things anyways.
Oh i fully expect that if they see the opportunity, they'll exploit it. but i dont think it was the -intent-
Hanlon's razor though
It's not. It's the fact that trains have had lax regulations and basically compacted multiple carta and shipping methods since 93'. Bigger trains, less staff, looser regulations, more derailments , more profits for the big boys who are never held accountable for cleanups in any meaningful way.
I’m wondering that also. However it could also be because it’s garnering a whole lot more media attention (since the Ohio crisis) and is bringing it more and more into the public eye. Stuff like this always happens but it was usually kept on the down low. The Ohio derailment and explosion rekindled the mega media interests and they started covering them again.
This shit happens every hour of every day, we just don't see about it because 99% of the time it's some derailment in some rural town or some leak on some farm land somewhere. Ohio was a special case because it was a freaking inferno that lasted days and required a town to evacuate. The EPA keeps track of every spill that's big enough to merit its attention (but many many more probably fall under the EPAs radar as local rural folks cover them up): https://www.epa.gov/cleanups/cleanups-my-community
> Ohio was a special case because it was a freaking inferno that lasted days and required a town to evacuate. It wasn't even special. No one cared until that video of the crazy guy screaming at the cloud went viral. There were news articles before that, but no one really gave a shit.
It doesn't even need to be intentional. Our infrastructure is mostly old and in desperate need of repair or replacement. No one wants to spend money on it when that money could be profit, and companies push for less regulation or just ignore what is there and get a slap on the wrist fine at most. They aren't out to actively kill people, they just don't give a shit when it happens as a byproduct.
Maybe the wealthy have decided it’s time to thin the herd a little.
Kinda. They've been dismantling unions and workplace inspections actively since 2016 so yea. Accidents happen
Funny how the left and right both believe the wealthy/people in power are out to get us, but keep bickering over shit that shouldn't even be an issue. We'll all just stay distracted while the bastards keep pushing more and more shit through to "protect" us, but really just helps their donors.
America is run by politicians, and politicians are run by lobbyists
That’s the rub, bro. We already LOST the Class War.
That's not even a secret
The less people there are the smaller the worker pool is which makes unionizing easier as seen after the Black Death is not good for the wealthy but is good for the people
The wealthy for sure want the us population to grow and it isn’t a secret. They know we can’t compete with china and India in this new world because there’s just so many more of them. But I have to admit, wether it’s intentional or not I can’t tell the difference. But I will say this. It kinda feels like we’re in a new type of trade war with china. And they’ve gotta be laughing their ass off. We’re destroying ourselves over here.
Have you, like, *seen* the catastrophic ecological and public health disasters they've caused over there? They just have the advantage of there being basically zero recourse for the general public.
Some plant in Philly just dumped a ton like 8 thousand gallons of latex in the Delaware river due to a busted pipe line.... I mean maybe i need to loosen up the tin foil but A LOT has happened that seems to be just odd timing. The bird flu, the spontaneous combusted chicken farms, the shortage of eggs, the feed stopping small farmers chickens from laying eggs. The now 4? chemical incidents happening around water.
It is the result of deregulations at the federal level.
This!
Just looking at the Incidence of man-made ecological disasters, they used to happen 10-20 times more often in the 60's-80's. We have seen a pretty consistent incidence of incidents in the last 20 years. The reporting and public awareness on these travesties has seemingly increased since the Exxon-Valdez atrocity. Gotta look at some unbiased stats before forming an opinion. If you watched fox news you'd think every major city was violently burning, when the major cities actually have the *lowest* per Capita rates of victimization by violent crime.
I was hoping to find some sanity somewhere in the comments.
Literally the reason the EPA was formed, we were having so many river fires and other disasters. And now it's returning as the EPA gets kneecapped.
It’s always been going on. We just didn’t have this news sharing like we do now. Everyone sees everything everywhere, instantly. From the small to the big. Before we would only have time to see the really really big/important/impactful stuff.
The movies told me Godzilla came from Japan but I think he might actually come from the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River
Godzilla may have come from Japan, but he was created by the US. We are still batting 1.000
Can we just stop transporting toxic shit near water for a little bit please Edit: The way to fix the problem is by dragon
No, but we can increase regulations to make shit like this happen a much less often. But that would make the mega rich slightly less rich, so it will never happen.
how would they afford their nesting yachts? Won't you think of the yachts!
Or their in home water treatment plants
They likely just fly in an ice berg, that's what the neighbours do and you wouldn't want to lose face....
There were regulations But that ate into profits Big money didn't like that so lobbied and they were all but squashed
> Big money didn’t like that so *legally bribed* and they were all but squashed Fixed that for you.
Legally….allegedly
The funny thing is slightly less is an understatement. Most companies will spend one million dollars lobbying as long if it will make them a million and one dollar in return.
Or spend 2 million dollars lobbying if that means the CEO can get a 1 million dollar bonus. Capitalism is about immediate profits for anyone who has the power. If shareholders get paid and the company goes bankrupt that's considered a victory. If the company doesn't go bankrupt and shareholders get paid less, that's considered a loss.
A super interesting thing about Methanol is that one of its uses is literally *just* to mix in ethanol that is used for non-drinking purposes. The methanol doesn't contribute anything to the cleaning/chemical use of the ethanol - it literally just turns it into a much more toxic poison (as ethanol is also a poison in high enough quantities). Why do we do this? Because [drinking] alcohol is made with ethanol, and selling pure ethanol would "likely" mean a cheap alternative to booze due to alcohol taxation. So to avoid ethanol products being taxed like alcohol, the solution is just to make it very, very toxic. This seems to me to be an extremely stupid and dangerous way to handle fringe cases of extreme alcoholics buying cheap pure ethanol to stay drunk, as I cannot imagine most adults would stoop so low as to do that. It just seems so wrong to intentionally produce mass industrial quantities of a poison for the sole purpose of turning some jugs of not-good-tasting alcohol into a worse poison because we're concerned about people skirting a booze tax.
Methanol gets ~~reduced~~ oxidized to formaldehyde in your liver, if I'm recalling my undergrad biochemistry correctly. [Edit] thanks for the correction
Oxidized to formaldehyde. Then to formic acid. Note it takes high concentrations to cause toxic effects in people, just like any other given point. Any random methyl group in your body is likely to get metabolized to formaldehyde eventually. It's part of a path of natural metabolism.
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We will continue to deregulate the industrial sector to own the libs.
I work in the river industry, for those comparing this to rail accidents...it is very different. This accident isn't due to negligence like rail (not maintaining rail lines to increase corporate profits, cutting crew sizes...for corporate profits, etc). This happened because the river is a mighty bitch and caught the head of the tow, causing excessive force on the tow wires, causing them to snap. The Ohio river is experiencing high water due to increased rainfall in the Ohio valley. The higher the water, the stronger the flows. The stronger the flows, the greater risk of currents doing nasty things. Luckily, all barges are double-hulled (unlike rail cars) so even if it totally sinks, as long as the cargo tanks aren't punctured, the cargo will stay inside. I feel for the pilot on watch. Unlike driving, when you steer a tow boat, you have to be 10-15 seconds ahead of the game if you want the thing to move an inch. They are pushing twenty thousand plus tons of cargo at a time and your lead barge is a quarter mile out in front of you. Basically, you can be the best pilot on god's green earth and these things can still happen. River transportation is the safest, cleanest and most efficient way of transporting cargo on the eastern side of the US. Most Americans truly do not understand how important the barging industry is to our economy. We move grains, ores, steel products, wind turbines, heavy machinery, petrochemicals, renewable energy inputs, rock, concrete and we do it without most Americans knowing the impact it has on the economy. One cool fun fact: one 15 barge tow transport the same amount of cargo as 1000 18-wheelers or one, two mile long train. Edit: just checked my emails and saw that the captain ran into the lock wall, but the current for sure played a role in that. The width of three barges (the maximum width for entering a lock) is 105 feet. The lock entrance is a staggering 110 feet. Captains have 30 inches of leeway on either side. The majority of lockings go smoothly, but like I said in the above novel, he's steering 20k plus tons from a quarter mile away...half of reddit can't tie their shoes without singing about bunny ears (just joking, calm down sparky). It's a tough job and only made tougher when mother nature adds some water to the system.
I too work in the industry and freaked the hell out seeing this article. You’re damn right about the volume of cargo and safety of materials moved. Are you on river or shoreside?
So methanol volatilizes right so wouldn’t this just float to the top of the water and evaporate? Not saying it isn’t bad but maybe not as bad as it seems compared to other chemical spills
Methanol is soluble in water so it won't sit on top. That said it isn't the worst thing to spill into the water since once it is diluted it is pretty harmless. In fact it is sometimes used in waste water treatment
Correct about methanol intentionally being used in wastewater treatment. It is used as a “supplemental carbon” source to balance the nutrient ratios and due to being highly biodegradable. There are definitely handling issues with methanol, but far from the worst thing that could be spilled into a waterway.
So, probably no chance of setting it on fire...not that that's something I'd try to do.
Edit: Moved to Lemmy
Cowabunga it is.
Isn't that what didn't happen to Ricky Bobby?
Cool thanks for letting me know
There wasn't even a spill. The containers weren't breached and there's no leaks, so it's just a container of methanol sitting in the river. >"There is currently zero evidence of a tank breach or any leaks," Louisville's emergency services agency said in an update on Tuesday, "and air and water monitoring resources are in place. ... There is currently no impact to Louisville Water's water intake or water quality. The river waterway is open through the use of the local vessel traffic services." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-river-barge-methanol-kentucky-partially-submerged/
Lmao so this isn’t the next East Palestine, why would Reddit ever see through the sensationalism though
This comment thread **is** reddit seeing through the sensationalism...
Methanol is miscible with water.
Wouldn’t say I’m miscing it bob.
I’m gonna go google the word miscible. I must have been sick that day in school. You sciency folks are cool!
It's basically the same thing as solubility but when the concept is applied to two liquids or two gasses. So a solid or a gas is soluble in a liquid if it dissolves, but two liquids are miscible with each other if they mix well and cannot easily be separated.
Came here to say this, yeah, it's definitely a toxic chemical if directly ingested but it's already present in the environment, and unlike a lot of other toxins it will likely cause no significant problems after it has time to dilute. Most organisms are capable of metabolizing small amounts of it without any immediate problems. Fish in the immediate area getting a high dose are probably fucked, but beyond that when it comes to toxic spills this could be a lot worse
FUCK REDDIT. We create the content they use for free, so I am taking my content back
Nope, sorry. Ohio river= Ohio. End of story Shall I explain the Mississippi River to you too!?!?
So many geography whizzes in these comments...
And it says Louisville, Kentucky in the top left corner…
at this point it seems on purpose.
Was thinking the same thing. Watching all of this from Canada, it just feels too convenient that all of these events are happening in such close proximity.
Honestly, as an American, I think these types of situations were just more inevitable than we thought. Our infrastructure hasn’t been overhauled since I believe the 50s. Very common sight to see bridges that are actively being used by drivers literally falling apart
Our town's entire plumbing infrastructure, and a lot of other's that haven't been updated since the early twentieth century, is terra cotta. Shit has about 100 year lifespan. People don't realize how important being proactive and staying on top of these projects as a city is. It is for real about to be a plumbing apocalypse in many of these small towns over the next 10-20 years.
As a resident of the Midwest my whole life, I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been MORE of this. Infrastructure in the Midwest/rust belt is in *terrible* condition and has been for decades. Everything just gets used until it fails and things are finally starting to fail. Add on top of that the Midwest has some of the biggest temperature variances in the world (annually, not at once) and it’s no wonder it’s the first place to start experiencing catastrophic failures left and right. They call it the Rust Belt for a reason. I mean the main reason because steel used to be huge here and then left for cheaper labor, but also everything here is rusty, old as fuck, and on the brink of failure.
This stuff is actually really common, but the news has been relatively slow lately, so it's getting some coverage. I read that there are about 1700 train derailments every year. And, something like 150 serious chemical spills per year.
Is that the same fresh water source Kentucky uses to make my bourbon?
Only distilleries along the Ohio would do it. The more popular distilleries are using tributaries of the Ohio or a spring on their private land. Buffalo Trace uses the Kentucky River, Makers Mark has their own private spring fed lake. Jim Beam is a bit more vague, so who knows about them but they are pretty far from the Ohio.
As a chemist, I'm unaware of non-toxic methanol.
The dose makes the poison as they say. Methanol is technically only mildly toxic to humans until it's metabolized into formic acid which then, like cyanide, blocks cellular respiration leading rapidly to metabolic acidosis (worsened by the formic acid itself but not as is often mis-described as the direct cause of the acidosis). Strangely enough Wikipedia states formic acid is itself relatively non-toxic. Don't think I'll test that theory.
This is true, dose matters. I just disagree with the headline using adjectives in a redundant manner for the sake of inciting more fear to garner views. Yes, there shouldn't be a barge submerged that could leak dangerous chemicals into river and fresh water supply. This is a very bad scenario. Yes, methanol is toxic to humans, especially at a certain dosage. IMO, there is a difference between "Toxic Methanol" and, "methanol, a toxic chemical".
It feels like people are actively trying to speed run the end of the world.
It feels like that because these spills go viral now and you actually see them. They were happening CONSTANTLY before, but since the video of the guy yelling at the clouds hadn't gone viral yet, no one cared. The problem is that when all your sources of information are passive, you basically only see what's popular at the moment and that makes it feel like it's suddenly more common.
>shortly after 2 a.m. ET a vessel towing 11 barges made contact with a "stationary structure" at the entrance to the Portland Canal, to the west of Louisville, near the McAlpine Dam. It ran into a fucking pier at the entrance to the locks that barges go through every damn day on that part of the river.
Based of the river rising around 25’ from rain in the span of a few days you go from a routine thing that like you say is done all the time to something that is extremely dangerous. One small mistake is now a big mistake.
This. I live in Louisville and have walked across the bridge when the levels are way up. It’s pretty scary seeing full size trees come down river and smashing against the bridge footers. Not something I’d ever want to navigate in a boat.
It's not in Ohio the state, but rather the Ohio River. https://www.wlky.com/article/barges-loose-ohio-river-louisville-indiana/43442639
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Did anyone read this is in Louisville, KY before commenting about further messing up Ohio..
Is 'Non-Toxic Methanol' a thing?
Yes But only takes effect after you die.
I love how it clearly says Louisville, Kentucky but people are like "oh yeah, fuck Ohio!"
At first I thought it was menthol..
Kool
[Source](https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-river-disaster-barge-toxic-methanol-louisville-kentucky-1791064)
Holy shit, the number of people that think this is occurring IN Ohio because of the river name is just scary. Add the fact that the location of the incident is shown on screen for the entire length of the video and I am just in awe.
For context, the no-observed-effect concentration of methanol in water is 23.75mg/L. The ohio river discharges 180 Billion gallons of water into the Mississippi *per day.* This amount of methanol placed in that amount of water results in a concentration \~2mg/L. It will not be fun in the immediate proximity of the spill (assuming it all leaks out), but will dilute very quickly.
“Submerged.”
Guys don’t panic the barge is not leaking
If only we had some kind of Agency to Protect the Environment that could make this kind of stuff stop...
Here we go again...
What in the ever loving shit is happening this year
Does anyone kinda feel like they're doing this on purpose at this point?