Rush Limbaugh cited one of my discoveries on his show

sealover wrote:
Government environmental regulators mandated "pH adjustment" of a very large volume of dredged sediments that had been exposed to oxidation in a storage area. This environmental chemotherapy was required because a scientifically illiterate individual believed they were "toxic".

sealover wrote:

After all, the sediments were strongly acidic. The pH was often as low as 4. They must be toxic, right?

They needed to be detoxified.

Beet lime, a highly soluble form of calcium carbon was applied liberally. The liming requirements were enormous. The target pH had to be at least 6.5.

sealover wrote:

The solubility of soil organic matter is highly pH dependent - more soluble at higher pH. Liming released a whole lot of soil organic matter into soluble form.

sealover wrote:

When the organic-carbon rich soil solution leached down into the low oxygen zone, the giant dose of organic carbon started a feeding frenzy.

sealover wrote:

Reductive dissolution of ferric-iron-bound arsenic by bacteria that consumed that organic carbon caused groundwater arsenic to increase 500%.

sealover wrote:

And the paranoid regulator thought the landowner illegally dumped arsenic herbicide and would have to be taken to the cleaners to clean it up.

Through an agonizing process, regulators were finally persuaded that there was no liability. Perhaps the fact that they were the ones who mandated the environmental chemotherapy had something to do with it.

sealover wrote:

But nobody wanted to talk about groundwater arsenic after that.

As part of an unbelievably expensive required investigation, more than 300 monitoring wells were installed and sampled for regular testing throughout a sub sea level (leveed off) delta island.

An enormous data set had already been collected, reports had been filed, and the regulators were satisfied that all was well.

That was all before I got there.

The people who prepared the reports excluded virtually all the data from the wells with highest arsenic.

Statisticians saw way too much variability within those wells and followed the official method for excluding the data based on its high variability.

That's seasonal variability for you.

So, buried deep in the appendix of the report was the complete original data set showing the exceptionally high arsenic. But none of that got into the main body of the report.

Years later, the botched "pH adjustment" brought arsenic to attention.

sealover wrote:

We had an incredible data set I could have published, just from the report for bureaucratic paperwork. The correlation between dissolved organic carbon and arsenic was highly significant. Nobody ever published that before. It was a chance to make an important contribution to science, with implications for environmental management and public health.

I didn't even have to go to the field or lab. All the data, methodology, etc. was already handed complete on a silver platter.

But it would have revealed too many controversial issues.

Nobody wanted that data or those findings to see the light of day in a scientific journal.

sealover wrote:

When my report was finally filed as a Technical Memorandum, it was years after the dust had settled. Even then a NEW paranoid regulator was sure that this was a major scandal. Just getting official approval for the Technical Memorandum was going to be over his dead body. He looked everywhere for evidence of the conspiracy and cover up and finally had to be overruled.

By then, biogeochemical discovery had gone stale. Others beat me to the punch publishing the correlation between dissolved organic carbon and arsenic release.

Im a BM wrote:

IBdaMann wrote:

sealover wrote:Others beat me to the punch publishing the correlation between dissolved organic carbon and arsenic release.

I haven't heard of them either.

IBdaMann, of course you haven't heard about the kind of science that can only be found in obscure, "shitrags" such as the journal Nature.

Im a BM wrote:
Right now, this thread shows 10,891 "views".

Im a BM wrote:
Things have changed since you slithered away from climate-debate.com

Im a BM wrote:
I predict that under the new viewership regime, this thread will pick up hundreds of more views, perhaps by tomorrow.

Im a BM wrote:
My "library" has been discovered!

Im a BM wrote:
And they can check out your more than 15,000 posts while they visit.

Im a BM wrote:
You'll be glad you made the extra effort when you wrote them, now that people not indigenous to the rabbit hole/echo chamber are finally seeing them.