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My Mare Island, Vallejo, CA, 94592: Is It a Toxic Waste Hazard?

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Message GLloyd Rowsey
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Currently there is no acceptable substitute for Chromic Acid and other forms of hexavalent chromium. It is just too necessary industrially and also most particularly militarily. Military equipment of all kinds must be hard chrome plated in order for it to stand up in warfare service. Military victory can depend entirely on hard chrome plating. When the M-16 rifle was first introduced in Vietnam it had a huge jamming and accelerated wear problem. Soldiers were getting killed because their M-16 rifles jammed often. The Russian made AR-15 had no such problem. It could be subject to every kind of abuse and it would still fire. The difference between the two rifles was chrome plating. The M-16 had not had its crucial parts hard chrome plated as an economy measure. The AR-15 was full of hard chrome plated parts. When the decision was made to hard chrome plate the internal parts of the M-16 it became the reliable winner it is known to be today. Critical parts in the landing gear of fighter aircraft also fail prematurely if they are not hard chrome plated. The military effectiveness of hard chrome plating is as simple as this. This usefulness means there is never going to be a shortage of well paid highly educated mouthpiece apologists who will write and say anything to defend Chromic Acid just as there were the same for asbestos. The real danger posed by Chromic Acid is not going to be disclosed properly until a suitable replacement is found, has been tested in military service and found to be just as good.

 

There are a number of recent studies that conclusively demonstrate just how widespread the lack of regulatory compliance is with regard to the control of the release of hexavalent chromium and Chromic Acid to the environment. These studies measured the amount of hexavalent chrome present in municipal drinking water throughout the United States. These studies found that the level of hexavalent chromium present in average tap water is disturbingly high and of concern to local and federal authorities. Here is a link to one of these reports:

 

High Levels of Hexavalent Chromium in Tap Water

 

Regulators and other authorities are at a loss to understand"exactly how all this hexavalent chromium has gotten into the water supplies all over the United States. I think this question can be answered by the Mare Island experience. Mare Island has a large building which once served as its power plant. This building has a huge smoke stack that was later converted to be an air suction for cooling air. The power plant had been converted into the air compressor station for the shipyard and it contains two house sized air compressors. The air sucked through the huge stack was used to cool water used to cool the compressed air from the gigantic air compressors. There was always a big problem with the cooling water discharged from the power plant building. This water had very high levels of hexavalent chromium. The Public Works and Occupational Safety and Health Departments could not understand how this could be happening and so it remained a mystery for many years. Finally when the Building 225 Plating Shop was closed the abnormal levels of chrome in the cooling water suddenly disappeared, while everyone understood that the power plant stack had been sucking in large amounts of the Chromic Acid that was being belched into the air from the metal plating shop. I believe that the main reason there is so much tap water contaminated with high levels of hexavalent chromium is purely that state and federal regulations intended to control its discharge into the air and into the land and water are being ignored by users who have absolutely no fear of punishment for ignoring the regulations. I believe this fact of tap water poison is a clear demonstration that all of the federal and state regulations are effectively meaningless and are mostly unenforced.

 

When a tremendous amount of anything is produced, transported, used and dispersed in an economy a good fraction of it is going to be spilled and will be released into the environment that is populated by people"exposed to it. In 1985 the total US production of the basic hexavalent chromium chemical used as a basis stock for the manufacture of all other forms of hexavalent chromium was 300,000,000 pounds. There can be no doubt that much of this wound up in the air, on the land, and in the water.

 

Here are some links to Chromic Acid Material Safety Data Sheets and other Studies showing how recently the "suspected" Trans-Generational Genetic Toxicity of Chromic Acid has been developing:

 

1. This MSDS published in 1998 has no mention of genetic damage: Chromic Acid MSDS 1998 .

2. This National Institute of Health Report on Cancer identifies Chromic Acid Genetic Damage in 2004: Report on Cancer Chromic Acid 2004

3. This International Program on Chemical Safety states Chromic Acid MAY cause Heritable Genetic Damage to HUMAN GERM CELLS:

Human Germ Cell Damage Identified 2004

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GLloyd Rowsey Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

I have a law degree (Stanford, 66') but have never practiced. Instead, from 1967 through 1977, I tried to contribute to the revolution in America. As unsuccessful as everyone else over that decade, in 1978 I went to work for the U.S. Forest (more...)
 
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