r/environment • u/Lilyo • 19d ago
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3146714/japan-protests-against-us-marines-dumping-water-containing63
u/pants_mcgee 19d ago
Maybe the US Marines should stop doing that then.
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u/llllPsychoCircus 19d ago
since when is crayon dust dangerous🤔
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u/pants_mcgee 19d ago
From stories I’ve heard from the HAZMAT, OSHA Safety, and Firefighter guys I’ve known and worked with, military bases have a huge problem with stuff way more dangerous than delicious crayon dust.
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u/Bitter_Effort_4958 19d ago edited 19d ago
And in countries that don't have those safety and environmental regulations (or can't enforce them against us) the US military just throws all of their toxic trash into a pit, douses the waste with fuel, and sets it on fire. Many veterans (not to mention local civilian populations) have gotten cancer and other diseases from the toxic smoke.
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u/protreefaller 18d ago
I can confirm this. What stuck out too me in the article was the mention of meeting Japan's drinking water standards. I wonder how those standards compare to the drinking standards of the US. Flint was a bit low. On a side note in Spain we (US Navy) were allowed to dump gray water in port. Just around the corner visable from the ship was the Beach full of tourists in Rota. We did not dump or Gray water, but we know other ships (non-US) were dumping. I made the assumption with that decision that the US Navy would hold their environmental standards as high as the US or higher if the local government requested. That was all before the trash fires. It just seemed so horrible and toxic. Does anyone have an example of legally burning trash to the same level in the US without the EPA fining you.
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u/ywBBxNqW 18d ago
It depends on the color. I heard the orange one kinda sucks.
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u/WikiSummarizerBot 18d ago
The Rainbow Herbicides are a group of "tactical use" chemicals used by the United States military in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Success with Project AGILE field tests with herbicides in South Vietnam in 1961 and inspiration by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s led to the formal herbicidal program Trail Dust (see Operation Ranch Hand). Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an agricultural food production and/or to destroy foliage which provides the enemy cover.
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u/gomech 19d ago
Did anyone even read the article? The water had been treated and met (or exceeded) all environmental standards. Not releasing the water would have caused leaks that might have actually done some damage.
Save your outrage for a real issue and not this propaganda hit job.
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u/ifeellazy 18d ago edited 18d ago
SCMP is more independent than other Chinese news networks, but it’s still Chinese (owned by Alibaba/Jack Ma who is a member of Chinese Communist Party that China briefly disappeared recently and is on the record as being pro-One China) and the Chinese benefit from a divide between the US and Japan.
I don’t know why we allow literal and obvious propaganda on our message boards.
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u/ywBBxNqW 18d ago
Did anyone even read the article? The water had been treated and met (or exceeded) all environmental standards. Not releasing the water would have caused leaks that might have actually done some damage.
When I saw the URL I was dubious. Some people might be wary of this link because it's literally the news for the US military but it's far more detailed about what transpired. It sort of glosses over the fact that there's obviously a serious communication issue happening but you sort of expect that from Stars & Stripes.
Overall I think it's fucked up that the USMC apparently just YOLO'd that shit into the sewage system but they actually treated the water so those toxic chemicals were far below the limits set by the Japanese government.
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u/Ono-Cat 19d ago
The Navy has ships and submarines that dumps radioactive cooling water from their nuclear engines into Pearl Harbor Hawaii every time they are in port. Google it.
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u/DasKnocker 19d ago
I would like to clarify on your post as a former (surface) nuclear operator and current water and wastewater operator: Release of primary coolant is strictly controlled and regulated, any discharge within 12nm of land is prohibited unless the vessel is under circumstances that would damage the vessel or crew. No discharge would ever occur within 3nm of land without notification of sea and shore based environmental and regulatory bodies. Each ship has its own NPDES which controls any discharge to sea, and violates of it carry double legal weight to any operator and chain of command. No USN vessel to my knowledge in my lifetime has discharged in Pearl Harbor - that would be not only a PR fiasco but a large training incident for active duty staff.
Additionally, when discharging radiation levels are measured and tabulated to not affect background levels - this is not done just out of purely environmental concern but to limit the ability of our advertise to track us, radiological (and heat!) plumes are a clear telltale of nearby spookies.
Nuclear technology and waste is not of any large scale concern, technically speaking outside of the PR/fear mongering side. There are far more legitimate environmental impact from our Navy - namely heavy metal contamination, PFAS/AFFF contamination, and the impact of SONAR on marine life.
If you would like a moderately technical read I recommend 2019's EMD report on rad wastes. I'd be happy to answer any relevant questions also!
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u/KidKenobi 18d ago
Thank you for clearing that up. Reading headlines and posts like the one you responded to, can unhinge and make a lot of angry or anxious, but it’s good to read an actual operators perspective, to see that we have procedures behind this stuff.
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u/real_bk3k 18d ago
When talking about radiation, you should really ask "how radioactive?". Every place on Earth is naturally radioactive. The oceans are no exception. They naturally contain uranium, but by far the largest source of radiation in the ocean is potassium. It isn't actually harmful til you get past a threshold.
And if you look at what the world's cargo ships do in terms of pollution and greenhouse gases, we should all be very thankful that the US Navy's ships are nuclear powered instead. Really we should be replacing the existing fossil fuel cargo ships with nuclear powered cargo ships. That would make an absolutely massive difference that's critical to the fight against Climate Change. As an added benefit, they are also much faster and we could make do with considerably fewer ships than we need today.
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u/hoffmad08 19d ago
Bring all the troops home!
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u/Excellent-Doubt-9552 19d ago
It would be scary if we didn’t spy on the world and make them mad we are in their business then create our own problems. Then we will just end up in a war for 20years with some guys we didn’t know wanted to harm us…
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u/vbcbandr 19d ago
Marines: "Y'all should be glad we aren't lighting this on fire in a burn pit 15 yards from your house!"
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u/N64crusader4 19d ago
I was reading a legal advice from this guy up in the north of England who was asking if there was anything they could do to stop US planes flying to a nearby base from dumping fuel allover their garden and killing their plants because when they'd written and complained to the airbase they just sent back a letter ' Saying how ungrateful they were because they were fighting for their freedom'
Fucking yanks
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u/blacktie233 19d ago
My island was "liberated" from the Japanese back in WW2, essentially the US came in and coloonized us, dropped bombs on my island while knowing full well there were still locals where they were attacking. Although what the Japanese did to my people were atrocious, I seriously wish they ended up keeping us and making us Japanese citizens. They're soo much better than the US in every way that matters.
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u/[deleted] 19d ago
[deleted]
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u/real_bk3k 18d ago
Ignorance...
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u/[deleted] 18d ago
[deleted]
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u/real_bk3k 18d ago
No I mean you are ignorant about the subject and don't even realize that much. It is very common to fear what you don't understand, and you don't understand this at all.
That isn't going to "poison our ocean". The oceans are already naturally radioactive (for that matter everywhere on earth is too) and that water is barely radioactive. It is cleaner and safer to drink than many rivers and lakes. For example the average European who drinks one liter of that water every day for a year will have increased their radiation exposure for that year by about 1/8th over normal. They won't suffer any heath consequences from this BTW. I would gladly drink it myself - way better than my own municipal water and I'd rather drink it than drinking whatever water Nestle stole from somewhere.
If anything the real outage is wasting fresh water by dumping it into the ocean. It won't harm a single ocean creature. And as mentioned, the ocean naturally has uranium (so too does the sea salt you buy in stores) for example. But by far the largest source of oceanic radiation is potassium. Which BTW also make your banana's radioactive.
Dumping this water makes no difference at all. Terrible things do get dumped into the ocean every day, but this isn't it. Complaining about non-issues like this decredits us when we raise serious issues.
And speak of the health of the ocean, acidification is the biggest current issue by far - driven by our carbon emissions. Nuclear power is hands down the strongest tool we have to curb carbon emissions. If not for the ignorant fear of it, we could have knocked out fossil fuel power and Climate Change wouldn't be as much the issue in our face as it is today. Fear of nuclear power may well have doomed humanity and many other species. If we are to avoid the worst, we NEED a ton more nuclear power. As a success story, France decarbonized via nuclear power in about a decade and they have way cheaper (also far cleaner) power than next door Germany (who decommissioned most their nuclear power following Fukushima). Such decisions have also caused tens of thousands of lives since simply do to increased air pollution (probably the most underestimated killer around).
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u/EpicTrapCard 18d ago
Humans: Need water to survive.
Also Humans: Pollute water with dangerous radioactive chemicals 😬 .
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u/Mocrab 19d ago
To be fair Japan, you've been dumping toxic chemicals into our ocean for about a decade now..
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u/KrustyBoomer 18d ago
To be fair, NO ONE should be drinking any tap water without some serious filtering first. Plenty of stuff your average potable water plant can't or doesn't treat. Pharmaceuticals, PFAS, etc.
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u/DasKnocker 18d ago edited 18d ago
Water and Wastewater operator here (with a background in PFAS plant operation including a brand spanking new AWTO license and pilot plant operation): Most US tap water is totally safe from PFAS and pharmaceuticals. However, there are some really populated areas with levels of concern (like Los Angeles or literally anything near the Ohio River). My own personal rule of thumb is that if you're within the same county as a international airport, large military base or chemical/plastic industrial plant then you should be concerned. This is still a really new field of research so sadly there's not a good one-stop place I can refer to help you find your specific risk level (I discourage use of EWG which doesn't reflect local limits and whose articles are the Fox News of the water world).
Also, of you're going to be treating water at home RO is a great first step but be sure you pick a unit with low waste return. Also, PFAS and pharmaceuticals bind with activated carbon really well and is super cheap! So for most peeps I just recommend a simple carbon filter (you can buy a Brita and then just refill with bulk AC) and then RO of you have a higher level of concern.
Edit: also! Be sure to reach out to your local and state representatives and stress the importance of PFxS regulation especially source mitigation. Why should you spend billions treating it from our water vs holding those accountable who put it there in the first place? Please note that if your municipality starts a PFxS project it is neither cheap nor quick to build - but energy costs are a major factor, so use ownership of renewable energy such as solar or wind is highly recommended with the infrastructure expansion.
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u/RayJez 19d ago
That’s America for you , you get their toxic shit ! Wherever you are- you get it!