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Old 11-24-2009, 06:22 PM
 
Location: Sarasota FL
6,864 posts, read 12,002,123 times
Reputation: 6743

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I was born in Brooklyn NY, lived in the same house for 40 years that was built in 1905.
When I was a kid, we had a coal furnace. There was coal dust on everything. All the exposed pipes in the basement were covered with asbestos sleeves for insulation. Somewhere around my 30th year, the water supply pipe from the street to the house had to be replaced because of a leak. Turned out it was a lead pipe. Tens of thousands of gallons of water went though it since 1905. When the pipe was replaced with a copper pipe, the joints were soldered with lead solder. All the ceilings and walls were painted with lead based paints, many times. Everybody in the household was a smoker. The house was about a mile from a city garbage incinerator. Most mornings the vehicles would be covered with ashes. When I drove the vehicle with no pollution controls, I filled the tank with lead based gasoline. Then I'd drive to the hardware store so I could buy a bottle chlordane to kill the ants around the exterior of the house, a bottle of diazinon to kill the bugs on the rose bushes and a bottle of malathion to kill the mosquitos.
AND when a thermostat became defective, I'd remove the glass tube so I could get the mercury to play with it.
Fast forward 2.5 decades. Reported today 11/24 Americanthinker.com with photo. Twin Falls ID Three men wearing space suits with air filtration masks and a haz mat truck remove less than an ounce of mercury from a roadway. Traffic cones placed to keep people away. Cost of removal billed to Twin Falls taxpayers-------- $50,000
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Old 11-24-2009, 07:07 PM
 
Location: San Antonio, Texas
3,503 posts, read 19,815,346 times
Reputation: 2771
And now you know why we are all crazy after all those crazy silly things we did back then. Wasn't life better when we were so stupid..er...I mean innocent?
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Old 11-24-2009, 08:00 PM
 
24,834 posts, read 37,198,296 times
Reputation: 11538
I rode a bike without a helmet.
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Old 11-26-2009, 07:08 PM
 
Location: San Antonio, Texas
3,503 posts, read 19,815,346 times
Reputation: 2771
I drank from the water hose outside becasue I wasn't going into the house until the street lights came on.
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Old 11-27-2009, 10:32 AM
 
Location: Houston, Texas
10,447 posts, read 49,513,057 times
Reputation: 10614
Where I grew up, the old saying went: "If you live within a 10 mile radius of US Metals Refinery you had a 50/50 chance of getting cancer. Well wasn't I the lucky one who was diagnosed with cancer back in 1998.

I can remember waking up with a different color powder covering our cars some mornings. After the place finially closed down it was discovered that they were dumping chemicals so toxic that it desolved concrete. And they were dumpng this chemical down storm drains which melted the concrete pipes and leached deep into our ground water.

They used to save up the waste by-product in gigantic hot air balloons all day and release it at night when the govt enviro depts were sound a sleep. From my upstairs bedroom window I used to watch that afterburner flame high in the sky burn all night. It was a thrill but I had no idea it was burning off toxic chemicals and probably releasing something even more toxic.
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Old 11-28-2009, 01:55 AM
 
Location: Slaughter Creek, Travis County
1,194 posts, read 3,960,384 times
Reputation: 977
So what's the question? All I see is a rant.
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Old 11-28-2009, 11:41 AM
 
Location: Mid-Atlantic
32,758 posts, read 35,962,679 times
Reputation: 43470
Rant? Didn't sound like a rant to me.

How about, "Hey all of you old and older folks on CD, remember the good old days when we used to be able to chase little balls of mercury across the floor when Mom broke a thermometer"?

When we were cleaning out my FILs house, we found an ancient half full box of DDT powder.

desertsun, that sounds rather like the Love Canal
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Old 11-28-2009, 12:21 PM
 
Location: Houston, Texas
10,447 posts, read 49,513,057 times
Reputation: 10614
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerania View Post
Rant? Didn't sound like a rant to me.

How about, "Hey all of you old and older folks on CD, remember the good old days when we used to be able to chase little balls of mercury across the floor when Mom broke a thermometer"?

When we were cleaning out my FILs house, we found an ancient half full box of DDT powder.

desertsun, that sounds rather like the Love Canal
Right on Gerania !!!

And no it was not Love Canal. It was the most polluted state in the USA though and maybe a 3 hour drive from Love Canal.
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Old 11-28-2009, 12:46 PM
 
Location: Mid-Atlantic
32,758 posts, read 35,962,679 times
Reputation: 43470
Quote:
Originally Posted by desertsun41 View Post
Right on Gerania !!!

And no it was not Love Canal. It was the most polluted state in the USA though and maybe a 3 hour drive from Love Canal.
Yep, we're working towards a cleaner state, one Superfund cleanup after another.
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Old 11-28-2009, 02:44 PM
 
Location: Houston, Texas
10,447 posts, read 49,513,057 times
Reputation: 10614
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerania View Post
Yep, we're working towards a cleaner state, one Superfund cleanup after another.
Oh sorry I didn't realize you were from the toxic waste state. Then may I mention Carteret. You must remember US Metals. Well hey, it has gotten better. Before the Meadowlands sports complex was built we used to go play back there. My Dad always said that Saudi Arabia did not have the most oil but that the area around the Meadowlands has the worlds largest petroleum reserves and it was all laying on the surface. Now the NJ Giants play on it. We used to throw rocks in the water and it did not splash, it just went plop.
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