Alyrahh
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2000
- Posts
- 638
I live approximately 4 miles from two power plants. Both of these plants are coal burning facilities and produce electricity. The EPA is coming down very hard on these facilities and has given them a deadline to "clean up their acts".
As a result, these plants are in the process of building containment facilities for anydrous ammonia. Anyone who knows anything about this gas, knows it's nasty business. Anhydrous means "without water" so this gas seeks a source of moisture. Seeing as how the human body is 90% water, you might guess it'd have no problem latching on and sucking us dry.
I'm as environmentally aware as the next gal, but just exactly how far is too far? There are 4 schools within a 5 mile radius of these plants (which are located side by side). Our community has been told if a leak were to happen we would have 360 seconds or 6 minutes to evacuate the area. One of the plants will be storing 360,000 gallons of this stuff, the other around 200,000.
Now, I do have an extremely personal link to this (other than the obvious of living so close)my husband works at one of these plants. Unfortunatley he's an Operator which means he's one of the people who will be trained to contain this stuff if it were to leak. The Operators and a skeleton crew of maintenance are the only people on site 24 hrs 7 days, which is why they are forced to be the ones to deal with this (not to mention the ones who have to contain fires, be trained as an EMT etc.)
My bitch though is this, there ARE other ways, other, safer, substances they could use to meet EPA standards. But, guess what? Anhydrous ammonia is the cheapest way. So, they're willing to spend over 50 million dollars to build and test the containment facilities and run the risk of harming and/or killing an entire community. I'm outraged, scared, and frankly feeling a little dispensable at this point.
If you've made it this far into this post, I apologize for "typing blindly" so to speak. But, you know how it is...sometimes writing down your feelings help. Thanks for listening errr reading
As a result, these plants are in the process of building containment facilities for anydrous ammonia. Anyone who knows anything about this gas, knows it's nasty business. Anhydrous means "without water" so this gas seeks a source of moisture. Seeing as how the human body is 90% water, you might guess it'd have no problem latching on and sucking us dry.
I'm as environmentally aware as the next gal, but just exactly how far is too far? There are 4 schools within a 5 mile radius of these plants (which are located side by side). Our community has been told if a leak were to happen we would have 360 seconds or 6 minutes to evacuate the area. One of the plants will be storing 360,000 gallons of this stuff, the other around 200,000.
Now, I do have an extremely personal link to this (other than the obvious of living so close)my husband works at one of these plants. Unfortunatley he's an Operator which means he's one of the people who will be trained to contain this stuff if it were to leak. The Operators and a skeleton crew of maintenance are the only people on site 24 hrs 7 days, which is why they are forced to be the ones to deal with this (not to mention the ones who have to contain fires, be trained as an EMT etc.)
My bitch though is this, there ARE other ways, other, safer, substances they could use to meet EPA standards. But, guess what? Anhydrous ammonia is the cheapest way. So, they're willing to spend over 50 million dollars to build and test the containment facilities and run the risk of harming and/or killing an entire community. I'm outraged, scared, and frankly feeling a little dispensable at this point.
If you've made it this far into this post, I apologize for "typing blindly" so to speak. But, you know how it is...sometimes writing down your feelings help. Thanks for listening errr reading
