My dad works for a large company that produces several products.  They have 3 large ponds that contain some of the harmless chemicals they produce, like a place to dump the stuff when they are done using it.  These ponds are completely man made.  You could swim in these ponds if you damn well please.  Recently we have had alot of rain here and one of the ponds flooded.  Well, the water made its way to the Pearl River, which is a fairly good sized river.  My dad is the one who has been trying to solve this flooding problem as he is the Maintenance Superintendant.

The local newspaper and all the radio stations released a report yesterday stating "Local industrial site leaking Sulfuric Acid into the Pearl River" and then told about the area of the river that people should "aviod all contact with".

My dad was slightly pissed at how they blew it completely out of proportion.  Oh well, damn lying media at their best.

It sure sounds like your Dad's company polluted that river.
It's their own fault for not properly storing their waste.
Not the media's.

I work for a semiconductor manufacturing company and we use dozens of different extremely hazardous chemicals in the process. Everything is then neutralized on site and pumped to the waste water treatment plant where it is eventually dumped into a creek.

If the public only knew what was getting dumped out of that place, albeit neutralized, most of them would shite on themselves.

If news doesn't incite panic or outrage then it isn't worth reporting in todays media. So sometimes they have to "spice" stories up a little just to make them news worthy....

Michael

Would you expect anything less from people who call "shot with a 40mm handgun," or "380 magnum revolver?"

Sounds more to me like the river illegally swelled, and stole some of their assets from their storage pond.
[BD]

[}:D]

Headlines, according to garandman:

[b]Rogue High Capacity River Attacks Defenseless Pond[/b]

Maybe to river was being flooded for an Al Gore canoe, photo-op.

Oh yeah, he's gone.

Read my post a little more carefully, the chemicals are harmless.  Hell, there are fish in the ponds where they dump the stuff.  There never was any Sulfuric Acid or anything of that sort in the water, the media made it up.  What they are doing with those ponds is "properly storing their waste".  There is nothing in those ponds that is harmful to wildlife or people.  

If the company is not allowed to dump those "harmless" chemicals directly into the river, in the first place, and they got from the pond to the river, SOMEHOW...

...then those chemicals were not properly stored.

And who cares? I don't. Whatever.

Sulfuric Acid is properly disposed of by dilution in water and then putting it down the drain.  If this pond was a buffer pond for disposing mineral acids, bases and their salts, then the environmental impact is nearly zero.  Industry and academia are under a close watch by the EPA these days.  If the local, state and federal regulating agencies approved of such a buffer pond, then the over flow flooding of such a pond is of very minor consequence.

I used to ski on the Pearl River.

Ever hear about the gun range that rents 22mm rifles?

Local News people are relentless when it comes to industry in their backyards.  Hog poop stories make big news around Central Illinois.  What a bunch of whiners with too much time on their hands!

There is an easy way to fix this, have a bunch of reporters come to the company to watch your father swim in the ponds. Any of the papers/stations that don't retract or reprint the story then get their asses sued off by the company's legal dept. Also if any of the local media didn't release this story have them come to the pond too. I'm sure they would love the oppurtunity to publically blast their competition without fear of a slander charge.

Kyle