Dioxane Plume in Ann Arbor

February 21, 2006 Davi Ottenheimer Leave a comment

Ann Arbor from the 1970s to the 1980s suffered from a large amount of toxic chemicals filtering from a corporation into the water supply.

The groundwater contamination began in 1976, when dioxane was used as a solvent by Pall Life Sciencesâ€™ predecessor, Gelman Sciences, Inc., as part of its process of manufacturing medical filters. The waste stream from this process included wastewater contaminated with dioxane. This wastewater was stored in open lagoons and began to enter the soil below and around the lagoons.

The 1980s and 1990s saw a flurry of lawsuits regarding who would have to deal with the problem, with very little or no cleanup at the time. Now, the city has a very real problem with its water supply and very few comforting answers for residents about where the toxic “plume” is headed and what can be done to protect their water supply:

PLS [Pall Life Sciences, a medical filter manufacturer and source of pollution] projections show the plume continuing on an eastward pathway toward the Huron River, which is approximately 8,000 feet from the current leading edge of the plume. If projections are correct, the point of entry into the Huron River would be downstream of the cityâ€™s water supply intake at Barton Dam. PLS has projected that the 85 ppb contour of the leading edge will reach the Huron River in 12 years, and domestic wells in 24 years. (PLS Limited Feasibility Study 1/04)

The problem seems to be that, if projections are only slightly incorrect, the point of entry could be upstream of the intake supplying 80% of the city’s water supply, and cover many of the city’s wells. What is the cost of containment/cleanup versus the cost of treating cancer, or cleanup ten years from now?

Where is Godzilla (or the Lone Ranger) when you need him to battle the evil plume? But seriously, this is a crisis worth reviewing as clean water becomes an increasingly scarce resource and there are no easy answers. One thing stands out, however: corporations get an easy break when the government follows a neo-con policy to privatize all the profits while socializing the risks.

Security

Dog House: RFID for Dogs

February 18, 2006 Davi Ottenheimer Leave a comment

The Guardian has a nice write-up of the issues surrounding pet RFID tags. They point out the compatibility issues with varying standards and readers, and claim that a bigger market wouldn’t have the same interoperability challenges:

Finbar Heslin, a vet in the Irish Republic who has worked to try to streamline Irish microchipping standards, says part of the problem is that RFID chips have been developed for a different market. “The idea behind microchipping is excellent. The downside is that you’re taking the technologies from the logistics industry and trying to apply them to animals.”

Logistics is a huge market for RFID and so there is a greater incentive to adhere to standards. “But with animals, the RFID market is small, and there are no standards, even across Europe,” says Heslin.

In both Britain and Ireland, the situation has been what he calls “a free for all”, because distributors weren’t licensed and cheap, non-ISO chips were sometimes brought in from abroad.

I’m not so sure about that. Even huge lucrative markets see the same interoperability hurdles and a lack of consistency across vendors. I brought up something similar back in early October 2005 on Schneier’s blog, specifically with regard to the debate in Congress about how and when to upgrade America’s animals.

History, Poetry

Poetry in Somalia

February 17, 2006 Davi Ottenheimer Leave a comment

I found an interesting page with some insight into the historic and modern role of poetry in Somalia:

The Somalis have been described as a nation of bards and indeed oral poetry plays a central role in all aspects of Somali life such as watering camels and political debate. The wide range of activities in which poetry is involved is reflected in the diversity of genres of poetry differing in their subject matter and stylistic characteristics. In recent decades musical accompaniment has played an increasingly important role in certain types of poetry, and theatre has become an important art form incorporating poetry.

[…]

The poetry of Salaan Arrabay, on the other hand, became an anti-war weapon. His best-known work, “O Kinsman, Stop the War,” was an appeal to end a long-standing feud between two rival sections of the Isaaq clan in northern Somalia. “Tradition has it,” says Samatar, “that the poet on his horse stood between the massed opposing forces and, with a voice charged with drama and emotion, chanted the better part of the day until the men, smitten with the force of his delivery, dropped their arms and embraced one another.”

[…]

Somalis have long debated the merits of a nomadic, pastoral existence versus those of a settled agricultural community. In this excerpt from a Somali poem, a nomad explains his decision to return to his herds after a brief try at farming:

It is said that one cannot pierce the sky to get rain for one’s garden, Nor can one drive the farm, as one drives animals, to the place Where the rain is falling. Worst of all, one cannot abandon one’s farm, even though barren, Because all one’s efforts are invested in it. The farmer, in counter argument, replies: A man with no fixed place in this world cannot claim one in heaven.

It seems to me that areas where it is very risky or costly to create items of any permanence that poetry and verse are the perfect form for tradition as well as laws. The breakdown of portable forms of expression and systematic erosion of the songs and spoken art seems to signal the last flicker from a society under pressure of dissolution or destruction. What a tragedy if we fail in helping preserve the knowledge and wisdom contained in the poems of Somalia.

Poetry