{"id":9441,"date":"2014-07-23T13:05:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T17:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=9441"},"modified":"2014-07-23T13:22:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T17:22:25","slug":"theyre-still-trying-to-scare-you-folks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/23\/theyre-still-trying-to-scare-you-folks\/","title":{"rendered":"They’re still trying to scare you, folks."},"content":{"rendered":"

The threat to the Dan River from the coal ash spill is gone. Actually, it never was there in the first place. That’s not stopping an environmentalist group from still trying to scare the hell out of you.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Law group says 94 percent of deposit still in river<\/a><\/h4>\n

Let’s take a look at some numbers that can answer the Southern Environmental Law Center’s questions.<\/p>\n

The lowest water flow on the Dan River is around 800 cubic feet per second<\/a>. That’s 211,300 gallons of water per second or 12,678,000 gallons per minute. Each day, we have over 18 billion gallons of water flowing past Danville (18,256,320,000 to be specific). It’s been well over 150 days since the coal ash spill, but we’ll use 150 days here. That means that over 2.7 trillion gallons of water have went past the coal ash spill site in 150 days (2,738,448,000,000 for the actual number). I’m basing these calculations on the absolute minimum water flow of the Dan River for those 150 days and it’s been more than 150 days, so it’s clearly more than the 2.7 trillion gallons that the numbers show.<\/p>\n

The natural dilution process has spread this coal ash out into relative oblivion through the Dan River and into Kerr Lake. The only reason that there was a jumbo-sized deposit in front of the Schoolfield dam was because the physical properties and hydrology made that area the perfect place to catch a lot of it. Even then, only 6% was caught by the “perfect trap” with the rest being diluted into microscopic quantities. There was another “large quantity” right near the origin of the coal ash spill and Duke Energy had that cleaned up in about 3 days. That’s it. The river has been surveyed and nobody could find any coal ash deposit of any reasonable size. If one is suspected, all you have to do is notify the EPA or the state and they’ll come check it out… but I seriously doubt if they’ll find any. The physical characteristics of the river, the hydrology, and over 2.7 trillion gallons of water make that a close-to-impossible scenario. If they do find a deposit of coal ash, Duke Energy is going to have to pay to clean it up anyway. Simple logic and common sense should tell you that the “missing” 94% of the coal ash has been diluted out so much that you’ll never be able to find it.<\/p>\n

The Southern Environmental Law Center and other environmentalist groups don’t want you to use simple logic and common sense. They want to scare the hell out of you. They get their headlines from stories like this. Remember that all of the dire short-term environmental predictions that they made turned out to be totally wrong. Remember the people that latched on to these horrible predictions and spouted them as if they were guaranteed to happen. Environmental groups and people like that use scare tactics to panic the public. I’d have instant respect for any of these groups or people who would stand up and admit that they were wrong, but that hasn’t happened and I don’t think it will ever happen. They know that most people will completely forget about their ridiculous statements and never hold them responsible for the horsecrap that they sprouted.<\/p>\n

The Dan River is back to the condition that it was before. The drinking water is safe. The drinking water was always safe. Drinking water is tested every hour just like it always was. River water testing will continue to be done. There was no need for the school systems to use bottled water. There was no major turtle kill. The dead mollusks found in the river were Asian clams that always over-breed and then die every year. There was no such thing as “arsenic blisters” from people getting into the Dan River.<\/p>\n

Yes, the coal ash spill was an environmental disaster and we need to keep monitoring for medium and long term effects (at Duke Energy’s expense). Lessons need to be learned from what happened and I believe that they are being learned now. We also need to learn a lesson by calling out these environmental groups for their scare tactics. Some people need to learn to think for themselves and not to instantly believe that these groups’ predictions are going to become true.<\/p>\n

\"sclogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The threat to the Dan River from the coal ash spill is gone. Actually, it never was there in the first place. That’s not stopping an environmentalist group from still trying to scare the hell out of you.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-2sh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14144,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/10\/01\/youcentral-gary-miller-talks-about-pollution-spills\/","url_meta":{"origin":9441,"position":0},"title":"YouCentral: Gary Miller talks about pollution spills.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here at SouthsideCentral, we invite all people and organizations to send us opinion pieces and statements. We will publish them unedited on a space-available basis. YouCentral articles are solely the opinion of the writer or organization. They do not necessarily represent the views of SouthsideCentral nor of our advertisers. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "YouCentral"","block_context":{"text":"YouCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/youcentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/PrGtf1W.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8244,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/02\/16\/selective-environmental-outrage\/","url_meta":{"origin":9441,"position":1},"title":"Selective environmental outrage?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In the Southside region, it's socially acceptable to bash the hell out of Duke Energy right now for the coal ash spill. Where's the environmentalist outrage to a company that's leaked out 15,000 gallons of concentrated sulfuric acid into a river? RAAP fined again by DEQ Well, now. Isn't that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8696,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/05\/26\/happy-trails-coal-ash-spill\/","url_meta":{"origin":9441,"position":2},"title":"Happy Trails, Coal Ash Spill!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"You heard it here. The coal ash spill is dead. None of the horror predictions came true. I'm not an idiot, by the way. I know that we've got to keep a careful monitoring on the medium and long-term effects on the fish in the river. That being said, it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12295,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/04\/02\/crazy-coalash-crusader-cardiologist-conspiracy-crap\/","url_meta":{"origin":9441,"position":3},"title":"Crazy Coalash Crusader Cardiologist Conspiracy Crap","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a reason that Danville Vice-Mayor Gary Miller didn't invite SouthsideCentral along on his Wednesday river expedition. I'd have told him that he was a conspiracy-spouting nutball who should know better than to spread unsubstantiated theories that stupid people will actually believe. Let's get to the newspaper article that has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10394,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/09\/24\/duke-energy-making-it-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":9441,"position":4},"title":"Duke Energy: Making It Right***","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"September 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"***\u00a0 = Right for Duke Energy, that is. Duke Energy pumps money into Dan River projects (Register & Bee article. Paywall may apply unless you break through it.) Then take a look at Lee Vogler's Facebook post about Duke Energy's \"gift\" to Danville. (No Facebook account required) I tried to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8510,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/15\/some-things-i-learned-about-the-coal-ash-spill\/","url_meta":{"origin":9441,"position":5},"title":"Some things I learned about the Coal Ash spill…","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The EPA hosted an open house at Danville's Community Market on Monday afternoon with a lot of state and federal agencies talking about the coal ash spill and the cleanup efforts. SouthsideCentral was there talking and asking questions. Let's take a look at some of the interesting things that I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9443,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441\/revisions\/9443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}