N&R front-pager with a different perspective on the Dan River coal ash spill:
“It’s important to remember that 99 percent of this material is just like soil,” said Daniels, an associate professor of civil engineering at UNC-Charlotte. “It’s that 1 percent that gives it the bad name, but really you can have regular dirt that is just as bad.”
….“You could have drank a liter of Dan River water on the day after the spill and close to the spill, and you would have consumed less arsenic than you usually ingest from other natural sources” daily, he said.
OK, I can hear environmentalists’ argument as I write we have a right to drink water with zero arsenic, other natural source notwithstanding. And I can also hear the argument that the N&R is just buying into a PR push from Duke Energy, given the fact according to the article — that John Daniels “has done consultant work for Duke Energy during his career.”
But note the byline —-veteran reporter Taft Wireback, no right-winger by any means but nevertheless the lone holdover from the days when the N&R was still a real newspaper. HIs stories are thorough and leave very few questions unanswered.
Daniels main point —“dillution is not the solution to pollution, but it sure helps” —in other words the Dan River “will escape the Feb. 2 spill with few lasting scars” due to rain and flow rates from tributaries —tells us that nature has a way of healing itself. Which in turn should ,make us question the apocalyptic climate change forecasts being pushed by the radical (President Obama) left.
