rp wrote:Whatever Vitamin Q is these days it can't be what GE killed the Hudson River with. Here you go fishies - it's Vitamin Q. (Not that I have any idea if PCBs was put in old caps.)
Hudson area residents have been warned for decades to severely limit eating fish, crabs etc. from the river. Zero for expecting mothers.
For years preceding the cleanup effort GE spent tens of millions $$$$$$$ putting ads on TV & radio trying to convince the public that cleaning up the river would result in decades of unsightly dredging etc. They also poured a lot of money into supporting public radio, NPR plus local stations, trying to wear their "good guy hat." And they bought off lots of local politicians who recited the GE line, cleaning up the river will be bad for business, blah blah blah. Now that the end of cleanup is in sight, turns out those sleazy pols have changed their minds. Hey, they got their cash, and GE cleaned up the river besides.
No doubt there's PCB & related items in old caps & transformers. They weren't old when they were made. It was the latest technology. "Better living thru chemistry."
Let's see what happens with the brownfield areas and polluted waterways in other areas. Keep an eye on North Adams Massachusetts for instance. Some of the old Sprague property has been turned to art facilities, that's nice but does it clean up the pollution? Sprague was the maker of Vitamin Q caps.
Also keep an ear on NPR. Whenever a big company puts their money into public radio it's often a pre-emptive move to get people to think better of them when they know they're about to be put through the wringer. Besides GE, Bank of America was a major NPR sponsor in the early 2000's. Stock investors can take NPR sponsorship as a tipoff from companies whose stock they should short-sell. wink wink wink
rp, you should find a book "The Super Poison". It's about the Seveso incident near Milan on 10 July 1976. The town and highway got sprayed down with dioxin from a plant that was making hexachlorophene. All the company execs & politicians, trying to touch their ears with their shoulders & blame it on the other guy. Scary as any Stephen King novel, more so because it's real. Turns out there's no place that made hexachlorophene that didn't have an industrial accident. Including Clifton NJ, just a couple miles from where I grew up. I guess that's why we don't see the stuff anymore. In the 60's & early 70's it was being put in everything from surgical washup soap (Phisohex) to shampoo, toothpaste, & feminine hygiene products. Kills germs all right. Kills people too, when they make it.
down technical blind alleys . . .