Laboratory Technology / Patriot Services

This piqued my interest lately: "Lab Owner Sentenced in Connection with Pollution Reports"

* Adelson Writeup

* Schleif Writeup

  

The lab company was faking brine shrimp lethality tests for a period of at least 4 years. Those tests (technically "bioassays") are important for determining that produced water discharges are within accepted limits. 

What is a brine shrimp lethality test?  It's a simple, widely-used bioassay.  At it's most basic: add water, add shrimp, add substance, see if substance kills shrimp.  Wikipedia.  It's so easy to perform, you could teach a rhesus monkey or a grad student to do it.  Here's a nice description from an NIH paper:

"The brine shrimp lethality bioassay is rapid (24 h), simple (e.g., no aseptic techniques are required), easily mastered, inexpensive, and requires small amounts of test material (2-20 mg or less).[12] The bioassay has a good correlation with cytotoxic activity in some human solid tumors and with pesticidal activity.[12,13] This test was proposed by Michael et al.[14] [NOTE: 1952 paper; these tests have been used for >60 years] and modified by others.[15,16] Since its introduction, this in vivo lethality test has been successively employed for providing a frontline screen that can be backed up by more specific and more sophisticated bioassays once the active compounds have been isolated."

A good quality lab-grade scale costs about $300.  One of the writeups up top mentions a 'broken scale' that wasn't fixed...  Not fixing a scale to save costs doesn't wash.  There's more to it than that.  

For a quick digression, I noticed the company next door to Laboratory Technology is Patriot Services. Patriot vends fluids for drilling, including solvents and loss circulation fluids. Remember how on Macondo, they had leftover fluids they shoved down the well as a spacer so they didn't have to pay for hazardous disposal? Also, Google Street view shows a number of chemical tote tanks at Patriot Services.  I looked at the MSDS sheets and most of what they vend is (according to the MSDS sheets) fairly benign.  

Looking on the Secretary of State website, Laboratory Technology and Patriot Services happen to be the the same company.  The agent for all of the filings over the years was Jim Donelon, the Insurance Commissioner for Louisiana.  E. Gerald Hebert, the owner, happens to be an active political donor (at least $57,000 between '98 and '12, exclusively to Republicans), including to Bobby Jindal.  Yet, Patriot Services also won $130k worth of Stimulus Act funds.  

A company named "Patriot Services" based in Kenner that sells proprietary drill fluids and is owned by a Jindal donor?  That's not the slightest bit suspicious.  

I'd also like to highlight the recent, infamous "coffee filter" conspiracy.  Hmm... 

The charge that she plead guilty to is a felony, yet she only received probation and a fine... Is this a deal where the Feds will work their way up the ladder?  Who were the customers of this lab (I've found at least one: Virgin Offshore USA, who had "the worst measured safety record in the Gulf")?  What did they think when every single sample sent in for years came back clean?  Where was LA DEQ?  There are many interesting questions that can be asked about this incident if someone wanted to start poking.  

Vermillion Parish seen from Space

Article from Wired.

"They're all dead"

H/T AZ.

Pollution is resource in the wrong place

Going into the future, I think we'll have to be very inventive about our usage of natural resources. Fewer rich sources of energy and resources will be out there, so we'll have to find inventive ways of using what we have and extracting what we need from lesser grades of material.

Also, it will get harder and harder to clean up big environmental messes.

Recently, I heard this axiom:
"Pollution is resource in the wrong place"

I have no idea who said that, but it's very wise. So wise in fact, that I have a feeling this might be the next big thing.

Here's a few way I see it put into practice.

Butte, MT Open Pit Mine. An abandoned copper mine builds up water contaminated with all sorts of nasty chemicals and metals. It became one of the largest (by size) Superfund sites in the US. Right now, though, the mine has reopened using new methods to leach metals out of the water and clean it up (also making a profit off the extracted metals). Extremophile bacteria also helped clean up "The Pit." Researchers studying these bacteria have invented new cancer drugs from them.

Another example of beneficial use of "waste" resources is beneficial use of dredge material for coastal restoration in Southeast Louisiana. Rebuild the wetlands while maintaining the port.

Fly Ash has been in the news because of the spill. Fly ash is what's leftover when you burn coal for oil. The TVA spill happened because it was being stored in big ponds that just got bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, fly ash does have an actual use. It's been used as a cement substitute in concrete mixes. It was first used as such in the Hoover Dam. The manufacture of cement is extraordinarily energy intensive and has a HUGE carbon footprint.

Also related to fly ash is the huge amounts of entrained thorium that could be used in thorium-fuel nuclear reactors. A very interesting and very promising emerging technology. The science behind thorium power is very interesting, there have been multiple successful test reactors, and I plan on doing a post about it soon.

Here's to "waste not, want not" for future energy and resource sources.

China's been busy

While everyone on this side of the Pacific is concerned with Bush/the Economy/Briney Spears/Iraq, China has been busy, and not just in preparation for the Olympics.

On the military front:

China has built itself the 2nd largest submarine fleet in the world. Larger than Russia. Including quiet, nuclear powered and even a few boomers [ballistic missile submarines].

Gone out and outfitted a Russian aircraft carrier and named it the Shi Lang (the last Chinese emperor to invade Taiwan). The story of the Varyag is absolutely fascinating. It was bought by a front company while it was being scrapped by Ukrainians. The cover story was it was going to turned into a floating casino in Macao (despite the fact the harbor is too shallow for a deep draft vessel like a carrier). It then had a long, interesting journey across the globe (bypassing Macao) and ending up in China's largest naval shipyard, where it's been refitted and painted PLAN [Chinese navy] gray. Varyag-World has been covering this story in great detail for some time. If you liked reading Blind Man's Bluff, you'll love reading Varyag World. It's still being updated.

China, nervous about US military activity all around them, denies US navy ships shelter during storm.

Chinese interests are seeking to buy 3Com, one of the primary suppliers of US military secured-communications equipment. 3Com is just one of many companies the Chinese are taking an interest in.

On the environmental front:

China has passed the US as the most polluting country in the world.

The Yangtze River dolphin has gone extinct.

Beijing's smog has gotten so bad you can't see across the street. That'll look great on the Olympic broadcasts.

Speaking of the Olympics, athletes are bringing their own food because the Chinese food has so much steroids, the athletes will test positive from eating the chicken.

On the energy front:

China doubling oil tanker fleet. There are now so many oil tankers pulling up to China's coast, there aren't enough places for them to dock.

1 year ago, China became a net importer of coal. In December 2007 it imported 4.3 million tons of coal. The US is the "Saudi Arabia of coal" and 4.3 million tons would be 1/3 of monthly net exports.

China freezes energy prices in an attempt to deal with a severe diesel shortage. China has been subsidizing energy costs to the tune of $15.7 billion for their steel industry alone. Just imagine if Blanco told Krupp, 'we're going to pick up half the bill for your energy.' Krupp would have been here in a heartbeat. Just imagine the sort of unfair competitive advantage that gives Chinese companies...

On the economic front:

Speaking of competitive advantage, how's tortured slave labor for y'a? Up from your bootstraps you fat, lazy, unionized worker!

Major banks rescued by China's sovereign wealth fund. "The idea of China rushing to the rescue of the capitalist world seems so unlikely as to be unbelievable."

China's only going to do so much, though. They are quietly revaluing the yuan. Part of it is an effort to decouple from the US economy. Part of it is to fight inflation in the major cities that's fermenting unrest. Remember, runaway inflation was a factor in the Tienanmen Square protests.

Unlike the author of this what if scenario [Bush refuses to give up power in Jan '09 and Chinese invade], I don't think China's a threat to the US, but we're stupid not to pay attention to them. I think China's economy is going to overheat, pollution will get so bad not even Fox News could content the people, and the 4-2-1 problem will lead to a social security crisis that will put ours to shame will combine to lead China to focus more on internal problems than stepping up to take a leading role in a multi-polar world.

Humanity's Greatest Flaw

Failure to understand exponential growth. All failings derive from there. Whoever posted this to You Tube entitled it, "The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Watch." In deference to him/her, here's the whole video (all 8 parts):

Survivorman takes his family off the grid

Part 1:


Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Part 10:


Les Stroud (Survivorman) takes his family off the grid, a special from OLN. He wants his a Walden Pond for his family. Fascinating from both a technical perspective and social perspective. It's interesting to see how his children react to the whole mess. Also, the video shows everything that unfolded, warts and all.