In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:
[snip]


If you want, I'll post a link to the study. It's long and dull, but,
hey,
that's my life. d8-)

Sure. Life has been too interesting. As in the ancient Chinese curse
"may you live in interesting times". Which would be false advertising
in this case, the part about interesting, but never mind.

Ok, you asked for it. Here's a quick summary of what has happened in the
Delaware Basin:

http://www.wra.udel.edu/node/43

There also are some others that are specific to the municipal outflow
problems, which used to be horrific, but this one will keep you busy.
It's
an interesting type of study:

http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/CMS/tchurch/TMCWebPage/pdfweb131-160/151.pdf

I lost the discussion and timeline about phosphates from Rutgers Univ.
again, but I found the original data from which it was written. Take a
look
at the graph in Figure 3-6, page 16 of the PDF:

http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/regs/MONa.pdf

The total phosophus levels drepped from roughly 32 mu-M in 1969 to about
12
in 1975, and then to 4 by 1982. The dramatic fall in the early '70s
corresponds with the elmination of detergent phosphates here at that
time,
when New York State outlawed it, NJ and PA threatened it, and the
detergent
makers pulled it out on their own because the market wouldn't support two
versions (and we were being bombarded with PSAs to use non-phosphate
detergents). If you want to see the discussion, I'll try to find it
again.

If you really get into the whole Delaware situation, here is an extremely
detailed report. But I can't recommend it . It's 200 pages long: g

http://www.wr.udel.edu/publications/...Report_0704200
8.pdf



And as for dead rivers in Delaware and NJ, the claim is being made
that
these rivers were restored by the phosphate ban. Forgotten is all
the
cleanups of the chemical industry that happened at the same time.
(I
lived in NJ in the late 1950s, and do remember the smell of the
chemical
plants.) So which cleanup caused which good effect? Or, was it the
aggregate of all the cleanups?

What chemical industry are you talking about? The only chemical
industry
on
the Delaware is around Philadelphia, just before it dumps into the
bay.

Huh? The big smell was close to NYC. I lived in the Philadelphia
suburbs, and the smell wasn't so large. Or I was inured to it.
Whatever.

You're talking about the refineries and petrochemical plants around
Elizabeth. They dump into the Newark Bay and Hudson estuary. That's the
opposite side of the state from the Delaware, and there is no connection.


The whole middle Delaware and much of the upper Delaware were dead
when I
was a kid. Completely dead. It was not the chemical industry. There
wasn't
any up there.

Umm. I think deeper research is indicated here. Polluters need not be
chemical industry, and NJ is and was heavily industrial.

Mostly on the eastern side of the state, Joe. Again, that has nothing to
do
with the Delaware.

And the issue with the Delaware has always been oxygen deplation from
excessive nutrient loads, not from chemical toxicity. The chemical
problems
are on my side of the state, in the Passaic River, the Raritan River,
Newark
Bay and the Hudson estuary.

National Lead damned near paved the bottom of the Raritan before it was
shut
down.

Look at the bright side - you now can mine the riverbottom.


You may be thinking of the Raritan or the Passaic Rivers. They both
have
serious chemical problems. In the case of the Raritan, a lot of it
comes
from the closed John's Manville and National Lead plants, plus two
others
that dumped heavy metals and paint chemicals. The Hudson's problem is
PCBs.
I don't know specifically what the Passaic's problem is.

Doesn't this prove my point?

Huh? You aren't following the issue, or you need to look more closely at
the
geography. The chemcial pollution problems we have on the Atlantic side
of
NJ are unrelated to the oxygen-depletion and eutrification issues in the
Deleware.

NJ is a small state, and Delaware is even smaller.


Again, that report gave a pretty good analysis of before-and-after
phosphate
loads on the Delaware before and after the original ban, at numerous
points
along the river, so the evidence is not trivial. I'm not going to try
to
judge its veracity; I don't do chemistry. But the evidence does seem
pretty
clear.

Well, I'd like to read the report.

Have fun with the above. g I'd recommend a quick look at Figure 3-6 in
this report first, which I also listed above. It dramatically shows what
the
phosphate history is. Because it's based on actual water samples, rather
than sediment samples, the dates reflect the actual status of the water
at
those times:

http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/regs/MONa.pdf


Thanks for all the pointers. I'll rummage around a while.

And the pinch of TSP in the dishwasher is working wonders.

I've tried it twice now since you recommended it. Since then, no smell. I'm
going to hold up on the TSP unless and until I detect the odor again, and,
if so, I'll try the TSP again. That should nail it down.

You got me going on this again. Darn you. g It was too hot to take my
usual walk after lunch so I made some calls. First I called the company that
makes Finish dishwasher detergent. They said they pulled the phosphate out
on July 1, 2010, along with all of the other major producers. And the reason
was, indeed, the 16 states who suddenly outlawed it, combined with the fact
that they didn't want to make and market two different products. That's
similar to what happened years ago with laundry detergent.

The other call was to the NJ office of USGS, who monitors navigable waters
here. The key researcher in this area is supposed to call me back; the one I
talked to didn't know the issues with dishwasher detergent, or what the
basis was for those states (which does not include NJ) to ban TSP. We'll see
if I can get an answer.

This could prove interesting.

Joe Gwinn