Post #250,506
4/1/06 5:07:32 AM
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Statistically speaking -
That UI site means to get about as close as one can come.. to putting some sort of number on the [Whole Category of] the very-Large concept of [Risk]. The arithmetic seems so neatly explicated. And Yet
Commutative-rule or no, + logic massage: some of the comparisons make apples/oranges practically a pome poem; like say, "9 cigarettes/chest X-Ray" .. Roentgen's Roach?
One overview of the grey cells pops up ~~ The unRisked life is hardly worth "living."
Overall, reminds of a story told by Jos. Campbell, at dinner in a restaurant:
At a nearby table, the kid was saying/whining "I don't want the spinach".
The Father says, "Eat Your Spinach!!" .. eventually the Mother chimes in.
"Oh, dear - if he really doesn't Want to - don't make him..."
The Father: (~)
WANT-to ... ... why ... in. my. whole. life! ... I've Never done A Single Thing, because 'I Wanted' to!!
.
.
[time for stunned silence / flashback of well-liked Willy Loman / write-off species?]
.
.
.
And so it goes.
No doubt the \ufffdP in most any PDA could.. calculate the %cigarettes.. should you elect to take Snotty Corner at 9.9 Tenths? instead of your estimate of 9.8 Tenths? (of deemed ability) on the Sunday Morning Ride to Pt. Reyes Station.
(Ah... throw-in that you realize you didn't actually Check the front tire-Px this AM == -0.13 Tenths)
No doubt. But putting even one whole 'significant digit' on any of this stuff isn't an iota different IMO from, I Believe! ...that GW Bush is
A) "the smartest man I've ever met" [wannabe USSC 'Justice']
B) "receiving foreign policy guidance direct from JC" [pick your Red State interviewee.]
And, careful as are the authors of the UI page re trying to explain "ranges"; Read: "unCertainties" -
(on a variety of Scales, nuance, connotation, nomenclature, Consciousness!)
- as if that explanation shall settle one's view -right chere- of the human fetish of absurdly-precise human 'mensuration' ?? Well -
Now we're deep-into a/any One's philosophy of Liff
"I Believe" that, like Muricans' manic obsession with number-IQs, GPAs, ROI [What's a Planet Worth, in adjusted '06 USD??] and the like, and given today's 'Fact' of: millions' abject willingness to trust a demonstrated Village Idiot with the future well-being of a generation or two, if not .. the Whole Nuclear Winter? which they dasn't Contemplate At All -
the only consistently-Sane view of that entire well-formed-HTML page is ~~
Pshaw
It's .. it's Linus P reaching for his 5" pocket K&E and dashing off on the blackboard - That's about 3.714 mols of Cl-
Y'know ?
:-\ufffd
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Post #250,508
4/1/06 8:07:46 AM
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Without statistics, the squeaky wheel gets the grease = $$$.
There's not enough money, time, or expertise in the world to solve every problem simultaneously. We have to make choices about what we do. Using statistics is a tool - one of many - to help determine in an objective way the answer to questions about what should be done. But, yes, GIGO. I'm not advocating taking statistics or C/B Analysis as the Bible to require or veto TCE cleanup. But I think it should be an important part of the cleanup decision-making process (just as statistics are used to estimate the risk).
The alternative is even more celebrity-driven demands for funding of some congressman's pet cause.
Also, my reply to Rand. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #250,513
4/1/06 9:56:29 AM
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The big question I have is
why the hell didn't they do the cheap thing and take care of it properly in the first place?
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #250,516
4/1/06 10:10:34 AM
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Hindsight is cheaper than foresight
I would guess that once the "put it in barrels and bury it" is accepted as a cheap solution, it would be hard to change for an expensive one. By the time the barrels leak, it's another can of worms, so the problem is put off for as long as possible to allow someone else to deal with it. It's not a justification. It is just the way things seem to work in large organizations. I have no idea how to change that.
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Post #250,517
4/1/06 10:21:00 AM
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Some of the ground contamination is due to intentional use.
It was also used as a herbicide. [link|http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:WnvJuPi-5WAJ:hq.environmental.usace.army.mil/Corps_Environment/story12.html&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a|Google Cache]: During the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. Department of Defense was responsible for the protection of the East Coast from communist missile invasion and the execution of an offensive missile attack. The highly specialized radar systems were susceptible to oxidation, corrosion and electrical shorts due to oils used on the equipment. Chlorinated solvents performed an excellent job in cleaning the electronics. In particular, trichloroethylene (TCE) performed a superior job in this cleaning effort and it didn\ufffdt take very much to clean the equipment. Unfortunately, today it doesn\ufffdt take much TCE to contaminate groundwater to a level that is unsafe to drink.
\t
In addition, the toxicity value of TCE was found to be so effective that it was occasionally used as a defoliant to eradicate unwanted weeds or woody vegetation at the DoD facilities. The government did nothing wrong, for it followed standard waste disposal practices when using TCE, but society didn\ufffdt understand health implications of contaminants in our drinking water at that time.
Now 40-50 years later, we are trying to recover the TCE discharged at these facilities via sub-surface septic systems, waste disposal sites, floor drains and/or stormwater collection systems. Complicating this effort is the fact that these facilities were constructed on the highest topographic features to gain the most direct and unobstructed radio and radar signals. The geology of these locations in New England is typically fractured metamorphic and igneous rock. This rock is typically referred to as "hard rock" and it is generally a solid media with small fractures or fissures making up the porosity. This geology makes our job of determining groundwater and contaminant flow very difficult. Two Defense Environmental Restoratin Program Formerly Used Defense Sites, Glenburn and Bucks Harbor, Maine, demonstrate geophysical techniques to determine groundwater and contaminant flow. Both projects have TCE contaminatino in the bedrock aquifer.
[...] Cheers, Scott.
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Post #250,599
4/2/06 12:41:02 AM
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Re: Without statistics, the squeaky wheel gets the grease
Thou sayest and I agree - it's called 'practical'. Of course we need to make quantitative judgments, for all the good reasons. There is also the quite non-linear effect as x-->0 (seen clearly in the prices of ultra-pure materials, as for spectroscopy.) "Ten-nines" captures the spirit.
But the means cited of demonstrating 'risk' I deem to be philosophically trite, especially in the "things sorta like Other things must be sorta equivalent" postulate.
Always there shall be those who really do prefer to live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse / others shall emulate the Jains (wearing bandages on feet, lest a tiny critter be snuffed.)
"Hey those steroids got me Babe Ruth's record! and ten Rolexes; so what if I look like death warmed-over, at 52? - if I make that."
Homo-sap may be capable of nice distinctions - but we are irrational in all the matters which bear upon 'longevity', and especially on every quality VS quantity 'choice', IMO. Individuation - we may kill over the concept,at the drop of an anthem - while flocking like lemmings to the mall, warz or no warz. Love. It.
Anyway, your sources make a pretty sane case for the expectation that the cost of reducing 5 ppb to 1 ppb - may make no descernible difference; clearly that extrapolation is well within the noise window; we probably Can't afford to see if there's a surprise at that low end.
(Just another reminder of the typ black/white reportage in these cases.)
It's easy to pile-on the US Military, though: 'odds' usually are, that you err on the soft side; that you will be missing the most scurrilous of actual allowed practices. Lots of simply Stupid decisions are made under the rubric "it's wartime, so.." We don't pay these epaulet-wearers to be ecologists. So far, but maybe next..
We could have really used that 1 or 2 $Trillion which this blind stumble into Revelations-geopolitics will certainly cost the descendants. There really is a point in crying over spilt Trillions, I wot. Where are the Wailers?
Shopping?
Ashton
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