The Great Spring

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

I know a forgotten place where some of New Jersey’s purest cool water springs from deep underground. And now it may be threatened. 

This spring water generously flows from a small but verdant wetland along a streambed of glacial sand with barely a ripple. You won’t find this place on modern maps unless you know where to look. Its existence, however, was well known to Leni Lenape families who lived in the adjacent forests for perhaps thousands of years. They called this now forgotten place “great spring.” They called the stream “gentle flowing.”

The Black River as it flows from the Great Spring. This photo is of the Raritan Headwaters Association stream monitoring site approximately 700 feet downstream from the Hercules property. The volume of water from the spring is 11.52* cubic feet per second or over two-billion gallons per year.

The Great Spring and its waters were also well known to the first European settlers in the Succasunna Valley. According to written accounts from the 1700s, folks marveled at the constant flow even during dry spells. The water was described as always cool and delicious. In what may have been a translation error back then, the early settlers called this stream the Black River. The actual Lenape name for this gentle flowing stream was “Alamatong” from which we get its modern name, the Lamington. While most everyone knows of the Black River or the Lamington River, the spring itself has faded from memory and disappeared from our maps. So, what the Native Americans knew, and most of us don’t, is that the Great Spring is literally the fountainhead of the North Branch of the Raritan River. 

So where is this environmentally important spring? It is at the Southernmost edge of the former Hercules Powder property along U.S. Route 46 in Kenvil, New Jersey. You drove past it without notice if you ever traveled on Route 46 in Roxbury between Mine Hill and Ledgewood. Its outlet is literally across the highway from an IHOP Restaurant.

And why is the Great Spring a forgotten place? For over 150 years the spring has been an inconvenient appendage on 1,000 acres of privately owned industrial land where TNT and other explosives were manufactured. The spring’s wetlands have remained off-limits to the public and its ecology and geology have never been properly studied. A review of the New Jersey Highlands Environmental Inventory from 2013 suggests that the spring was not explicitly considered. And while everyone knows the former Hercules Powder property is a major pollution site, there is little public information on the extent of the contamination or the threats it may pose to the spring or the important aquifer below from which this water rises.

We do know that the now-abandoned Hercules property is laden with toxic chemical waste products from its bygone manufacturing days. We know there are acres of soil laced with PCBs, the by-product of burning chemical waste and other debris on-site. We know that the toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of explosives still remain in some pipelines which run under buildings that haven’t been demolished yet. We know that some of these chemicals have contaminated the surrounding soil to an unknown extent and that these contaminants have migrated over the land and polluted surface waters in other places around the country where TNT was manufactured. Most of these sites, including several former Hercules plants in New York, New Jersey, California, and elsewhere, are designated superfund sites.

This Hercules property would qualify as a superfund site, but that was not the option the New Jersey DEP chose. In 2009, the Site Remediation Reform Act gave the DEP the power to allow private corporations to conduct all remedial activity on contaminated sites in New Jersey under the Department's scrutiny. The State also created Licensed Site Remediation Professionals (LSRP) to assure the work is completed under DEP guidelines. Under this arrangement, Ashland Global Properties, who bought the Hercules tract after the company went out of business, hired the WSP Corporation to conduct the cleanup back in the 1970s. The work was begun but never completed. The LSRP responsible for the cleanup recently changed hands and a new company is now in charge of the work. Activity on the site is back underway.

In the decades since Hercules shut down, public awareness of the pollution on the site and progress in cleaning it up has faded. Few know that the underground aquifer and spring that surfaces on the Hercules site is the source of the Black River, an important link in the Raritan River system that provides drinking water for 1.8 million people. Numerous commercial well fields also tap this same aquifer to supply municipal drinking water to many towns in the region. 

A depiction of the aquifer that runs under the Succasunna Plains from the
1996 U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Investigation Report

This juxtaposition of the Great Spring wetlands, a precious natural resource, and the massively contaminated Hercules site, a commercially valuable property, is bound to create competing interests. Roxbury Township officials would like this site safety cleaned up. They are understandably eager to restore the site for future development. This is the largest undeveloped land left in Morris County and it is close to major rail and highway transportation hubs. Environmentalists would love to see the wetlands and surrounding rainwater recharge areas on the property protected and preserved.

Since November of 2021, the remediation process accelerated under a new corporation and the new LSRP. The Roxbury Planning Board approved two work permits, and earth moving equipment is on-site taking down trees, removing PCB contaminated soil, and bringing in clean fill to replace it. A bioremediation staging area is being built where other chemically contaminated soil will be brought and be microbially composted. The soil will be held in six large “pods” and seeded with a bacterium that breaks down the chemical components of TNT. The process is expected to take about six years.  

A map showing the location of the soil remediation pods was presented at a public meeting in Roxbury last November. Of the more than 800 acres of land on which these bioremediation pods could be located, the map appears to show the staging area directly beside the Great Spring wetlands. The rationale for this decision or any mention of the spring was apparently not discussed at the meeting. 

 Google Earth image of the southern end of the Hercules property showing the approximate location of the proposed bioremediation site relative to the Great Spring wetlands

Local environmentalists and freshwater advocacy groups familiar with the Hercules tract are anxious to learn more. If chemical toxins on this site leach into the surface water at the spring or seep into the aquifer below, the water supply for 1.8 million people could be in jeopardy. Recent activity on the site has come to the attention of the Raritan Headwaters Association (RHA), which monitors water quality within the upper Raritan River watershed. RHA has begun collecting information to independently assess environmental concerns. The lack of public information about cleanup operations and the low level of public awareness about the threat to water supplies is a worrisome combination. 

(4/17/22 Addendum)

The Question: The Great Spring contributes 2.2 billion gallons* of water a year to the Raritan River, which in turn serves the water needs of 1.8 million people downstream. The presence of toxic soil on the same land from which flows the Black River begs the question: Is it wise to bring the most contaminated soil on the property to a bioremediation site at the edge of this spring?   

______________________________________________________

*NOTE: Water volume as measured by the RHA stream monitors on June 13, 2021, was 11.52 cubic feet per second or 310,232 gallons per hour. The monitoring site is 700 feet from the Hercules property. There are no other tributaries between the monitoring site and the Hercules property. Note that the prior addendum was incorrect. The volume amounts posted prior to 4/17/22 were not accurate. 

One cold day in History... Russia

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

One cold day in January 1958, a copy of LIFE magazine was delivered to Shapiro's Modern Economic store at 28 W. Blackwell Street, in Dover, New Jersey.

The shopkeepers, Israel and Ida (Fogelson) Shapiro were perhaps moved by the cover photo. It depicted a mounted Cossack soldier about to slash a poor peasant woman with his saber. 

The issue was devoted to "a new and authoritative account" of the Russian revolution that ended the reign of Czar Nicholas II and the Romanov family dynasty. Irving and Ida, both Russian immigrants (from a region violently taken ripped from Poland), gave the magazine issue to their son Henry and his wife, Doris, who saved it. The Life magazine cover now hangs on a wall in our home as a reminder of my wife's grandparents' struggles and incredible resilience.

This cover photo captures the bitter personal history of the Shapiro’s, the Fogelson’s, the Raicer's, and so many other Jewish families who made their way to Dover at the turn of the 20th Century. They fled the harsh Russian “pograms” that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews and the displacement of whole Jewish communities. Waves of Jewish families arrived here with nothing in their pockets and only the clothing they could carry. Israel restarted his life as a peddler carrying his wares in a sack on his back and walking from town to town. Yet, by the 1950s he and his fellow immigrants had become prominent business owners, shopkeepers, and community leaders. The unwanted “refuse” rejected by Russia blossomed here under our democratic and open society. 

This brings us to us today, as Russian troops once again murder innocent civilians and lay siege to Ukraine. We have to ask why. Why are the good people of Russia so cursed with abysmal "strongman" governments? When will their voices ever be heard? When will the Russian people be free to navigate their own future?

Might a Living Wage be an Answer to Global Poverty?

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

A LIVING WAGE may be the answer to global poverty everywhere, perhaps. 

A living wage is a socially acceptable level of income in any given region. It provides adequate coverage for basic necessities such as food, shelter, child services, and healthcare. So, in a place such as South Africa, it would be modest compared to a living wage in the Boston metropolis. A living wage in Mississippi would be less than a living wage in New Jersey, yet it would provide workers in every community with a comparable, self-sufficient income. It restores universal dignity to a day's labor. 

As a bonus, a living wage is responsive to the dynamics of regional market conditions, not some one-size-fits-all government program. Market conditions determine the living wage standards for families to meet their basic human needs. It rebalances the responsibility for the welfare of different communities back on the owners of capital and away from government-subsidized labor. It shrinks the "welfare state" and allows governments to focus more attention on those who can't work, like children, the disabled, and the elderly. It ends exploitation and economic slavery. It is the right thing to do.

Many argue that a living wage law is an unfair burden on business owners, that it restricts the free market. But is a fair wage for a day's work really incompatible with private business ownership? Must corporations and businesses be free to exploit employees under capitalism? 

This is crazy thinking. It suggests that capitalists should not be held responsible for the general welfare of their workers or the society in which they operate, or that governments should not set minimum worker living standards for business owners to abide. Yet, when governments do step in to assume that responsibility of keeping workers and their families alive and well, you call that a social welfare state. You can’t have it both ways. Either owners pay workers at least a living wage as part of the cost of doing business (a fair distribution of productive wealth) or they must allow governments to subsidize the labor force for them and pay for that service through business taxes (a fair redistribution of wealth). Either way it is all still a capitalistic system.

In February of 2020, I wrote this piece "A Solution to "Sh*t-Life Syndrome" in America. It remains relevant today and is worth reading.

Ten years ago I published a more definitive piece on the topic of a living wage to serve as a primer for anyone not familiar with it. Since then, I have come to see a living wage concept as the answer to global poverty, if it were to become a universal standard among nations. 

Here is the link to "Making the Case for a LIVING WAGE"

Attacks on Facts Designed to Kill Democracy

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW




Is it a fact that dictionaries define words like “violence”, “assault”, or “vandalism” as “Legitimate Political Discourse?”


Of course not!


Yet that's exactly what the Republican National Committee declared in a voice vote taken on February 4, 2022, to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their participation in the investigation of the deadly January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Political violence is violence perpetrated to achieve political goals. Whether or not such violence is legitimate is a separate judgment call on which two sides may not agree. The larger question is how did we come to the point where one of our major political parties thinks violence is a legitimate means to settle political differences? How did we become so divided? One explanation is that we are seeing the cumulative impact of a sustained, covert, global cyber-war against democracy. (For the record, I'm still in favor of having an equal say in government, and may the majority rule!)

We are under constant attack by the enemies of the world’s democratic societies. It is being waged through military-grade propaganda and disinformation campaigns using every means of mass communication. Make no mistake… it is organized, purposeful, and well-funded. The goal is to replace governments of the people with authoritarian rule and crony, unfettered capitalism.

Disinformation attacks take direct aim at our perceptions and feelings. They bypass normal filters and influence our subconscious. We feel these attacks when we read or hear something scandalous or shocking in the news that may not sound entirely true but still makes us feel extremes of anger towards the government, democratic institutions, opposing politicians, or neighbors. Our initial skepticism fades as these fictions stories are endlessly echoed over multiple media sources and from our online community of friends, some of whom may be fake accounts. We feel the effects of these attacks when we become uncharacteristically unsure about what to believe or who to trust. We become casualties in the cyber-war, or unwitting participants when we engage in verbal or physical attacks against friends, family, or strangers. We are casualties of war when our long-held belief systems are overturned in a relatively short time span. When friends or loved ones get upset and tell us we changed, we need to listen instead of justifying our feelings. They are in a better position to judge what is happening to us. There are very few internal warning signs when our perceptions and worldview are altered when under attack. It feels like we are still making our own choices when in fact we are being manipulated by targeted disinformation. 

We must all learn more about cyber-warfare, how it works and how to recognize it. We must inoculate ourselves against it. There is a good article below on how Russia conducts its cyber-warfare, but they aren't the only enemy of democracy. It is also helpful to reinforce our understanding of some basic terms about knowing when facts are true. 

Many impasses in our fraught discussions boil down to completely different sets of facts between us and others. It's like living in different universes. We need to state our facts, but we need to know how we sort fact from fiction. Under fire in an argument, folks who don't share the same facts cause us to conflate terms like information, misinformation, and disinformation. They begin to would like roughly equivalent terms. When people under the influence of disinformation are confronted with verifiable facts, they may argue that all facts are really just someone’s opinion. That is a slippery slope towards chaos and disorder. When under pressure to produce data sources to verify their facts, people who are under the influence of propaganda strongly resist or refer you to their favorite websites instead of original source materials. Their denialism becomes apparent. 

Here then are some defining terms and their relationship to what we believe to be true in the real world. 

In an article published January 2020 in the British Journal of Sociology, Martin Innes defined disinformation this way:

 

“Disinformation can be defined as “deviant information.” For where information is imparted to enhance awareness, insight, and understanding, disinforming communications blend intent and action to distort, deceive, and dissemble.”

Disinformation – At its source, disinformation is a subset of propaganda. It is deliberately false information that is spread to deceive and cause harm. Also known as black propaganda, it is sometimes confused with misinformation. Disinformation may be comprised of knowingly false or fabricated data, intentionally biased, misleading, or fictitious rendering of the underlying data, or information devoid of any factual basis. Disinformation is never a real description of objects, people, or events in the world. It is, however, often embedded in truthful information to trick us into accepting it as true. Even misinformation can become disinformation when it is willfully represented as true even after it is known to be false. This is often the case on social media when individuals repost statements that they know to be misinformation. Disinformation is always intentionally harmful and corrosive to human understanding.

How is knowledge and understanding of the real world supposed to take place? It starts with data.

Data - Data are fundamental units of information about the real world. They are like the pixels that create a picture in a flat-screen TV. They are even more like sensory input from our eyes, or ears that our brain must then sort out and interpret. In a technical sense, data are a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables about one or more persons or objects. They are building blocks of “facts” that can be transformed into information when viewed within a larger context. The expression, “check your facts” is a request to reexamine the underlying data for errors, omissions, faulty analysis, bias, etc. There are many ways that data can be in error, which includes intentional falsification.

Fact – A fact is a verbal statement of something that exists or happens in the natural world. It can be a single datum, or it can emerge from a coherent set of data pertaining to the real world. Either way, a fact must contain a high degree of certainty. If a statement of fact is later proven false it is no longer a fact. Facts can be thought of as subunits of information. They are assertions of confidence that its underlying data is accurate. Facts can be verified, replicated, observed by others, or logically derived. Facts cannot be metaphysical, hypothetical, To be a fact, it must accurately or fairly represent the current state of its underlying data. It must be testable in this regard. But that doesn’t mean must be durable over time. Facts must be true to the underlying data, but they may not represent absolute truth. Data evolves. It may progress, improve, or grow in unexpected directions over time. This drift of the underlying data requires altering the overlying facts. This can be a frustrating exercise for many people seeking certainty, including some scientists for whom this is a familiar feature.

Information – Information, in the everyday use of the word, is a verbal representation of an aspect or event in the world based on processed, organized, and structured sets of data-verified facts. Information conveys cognitive meaning within the context of our highest, most durable perception of natural reality. It provides a coherent contextual framework to understand the facts that emerge from very large sets of data. The information enables the type of higher-level decision-making of which we humans are capable. Information is usually more durable than facts or data because the overall picture can be correct even when some of the facts are less than certain.

Misinformation – Misinformation contains unintended errors of fact. It can result from faulty, misleading, or unintentionally omitted data, wrong assumptions, clerical errors, translational errors, measurements errors, etc. Misinformation is different from rumors which are purely speculative. Even if later retracted or corrected, misinformation can continue to influence the actions and memories of others. The outcomes of misinformation can be very harmful, so care must be taken to avoid misinformation. The diligence required to avoid misinformation should be at least proportional to the potential harm it could cause. Misinformation is an inevitable but correctable part of our understanding of the world.

Just keeping these concepts in mind as we consume content on social media or other media sources may help us our skepticism about what we see or read. Rather than surrender to those who push disinformation into our public discourse, we need to be proactive in checking our facts and stating them clearly, out loud, or in writing. This isn't likely to change the mind of the person to whom you are responding, but many more impressionable online views need to see both sides of every argument. Do it for them. Not responding at all to propaganda and disinformation is tantamount to surrendering the battlefield to the enemies of truth and democracy.

Democracy Held, But is Our Past a Prelude to Violence?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

When an agency pisses off politicians, they complain or blame the "bureaucracy". When an agency lives up to its righteous, legislated mission (especially when it is under pressure) it is called an "institution". We are told that "our democratic institutions held."

Keep that in mind as you read the news or listen to media broadcasts. I have a lifetime of experience working in a massive state bureaucracy at nearly every management level. I can tell you this for sure. When an agency of government has a clearly articulated and righteous mission, it is the front line and lower-level employees who best uphold the mission. The further up the chain of command you go, the more political pressure there is to avoid scandals or succumb to the chief executive's ideology and political calculus.

The whole reason for a bureaucracy is to faithfully execute a legislative mission under the operations of the executive branch of government. Bureaucracies were created to resist mission drift or the whimsy of powerful people at the top. We often disparage bureaucracies, but if they didn't exist (or hadn’t worked properly) Donald Trump would have gotten those 11,000 unearned votes in Georgia. Without the bureaucracy, Arizona might have sent a partisan slate of electors to Washington instead of those chosen by the people of that state.

From the Whitehouse to the most remote election polling places in America, democracy held last November because the front-line and lower-level agents of government faithfully did their jobs. They carried out their mission on the people’s behalf. If this past election had been a military operation abroad, these same people would have been lauded as heroes. Indeed they are. I thank them all. If this includes you, know that I appreciate your dedication and sacrifice.

And now, because they did their jobs, they and the institutions behind them are literally under attack. America’s workforce of “civilian soldiers” are living under threats of bodily harm to them and their children from misguided neighbors duped into believing the election was stolen. They are being driven out of their jobs and their homes by angry mobs amped up by power-hungry politicians who can’t win office on the basis of having superior ideas for governing this great and diverse nation. Republican state legislators throughout the country are devising and passing laws to overturn our democratic institutions. Where will it lead? When does it end?

Will our history be a prelude to future events?

In 1856 Senator Charles Sumner gave an impassioned anti-slavery speech on the Senate floor during which he unleashed a blistering verbal attack on Steven Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. After the Senate adjourned, while Sumner was still in the chamber, Preston Brooks of South Carolina struck Sumner from behind with a cane and beat him nearly to death. Brooks was subsequently lionized for his violent actions in the South while the shock of violence galvinized the North to condemn the violence and speak out against slavery. The event revealed how polarized the country had become and how intractable the perceptions were of those living in the North and South. The schism ruptured on March 14, 1861, and the civil war soon followed.

Please God, let’s find a way to bridge our differences now to avoid such violence in the future.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm#:~:text=On%20May%2022%2C%201856%2C%20the,beat%20a%20senator%20into%20unconsciousness.

On May 22, 1856, the "world's greatest deliberative body" became a combat zone. In one of the most dramatic and deeply ominous moments in the Senate's entire history, a member of the House of Representatives entered the Senate Chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness.

The inspiration for this clash came three days earlier when Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state. In his "Crime Against Kansas" speech, Sumner identified two Democratic senators as the principal culprits in this crime—Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. He characterized Douglas to his face as a "noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator." Andrew Butler, who was not present, received more elaborate treatment. Mocking the South Carolina senator's stance as a man of chivalry, the Massachusetts senator charged him with taking "a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean," added Sumner, "the harlot, Slavery."

Representative Preston Brooks was Butler's South Carolina kinsman. If he had believed Sumner to be a gentleman, he might have challenged him to a duel. Instead, he chose a light cane of the type used to discipline unruly dogs. Shortly after the Senate had adjourned for the day, Brooks entered the old chamber, where he found Sumner busily attaching his postal frank to copies of his "Crime Against Kansas" speech.

Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner's head. As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended.

Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers. Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions.

Surviving a House censure resolution, Brooks resigned, was immediately reelected, and soon thereafter died at age 37. Sumner recovered slowly and returned to the Senate, where he remained for another 18 years. The nation, suffering from the breakdown of reasoned discourse that this event symbolized, tumbled onward toward the catastrophe of civil war.

Flood Waters and Climate Change on the Rockaway River in Denville

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

A network of storm drains built over decades relies on our rivers to carry stormwater away and to prevent floods. The system is maxing out and climate change is making matters worse. Here is one example.

The recent flooding of the Rockaway River at St. Clare’s in Denville piqued my curiosity as to how much water it takes to flood the parking lots at the hospital. Starting at the Calvin L. Lawrence Memorial Bridge on Diamond Spring Road, the river at its normal level looks to be about 40 feet across and maybe two feet deep. The manmade river channel looking east from the bridge is about 100 feet wide and maybe 10 to 12 feet above the surface of the water.

Just past the bridge area the channel lowers as it widens into the natural flood plain and the natural riverbank reemerges. The right bank (northern bank) of the river is maybe 2 to 4 feet high as it cuts through the expansive flood plain, while the left bank is even lower in places. A secondary embankment leading up to the parking lot surrounds and defines the flood plain. This embankment is about 7 feet above the flood plain. From what I could see the embankment on the other side was of similar height. The flood plain stretches out more than 1,000 feet in some parts. This flood plain can hold a lot of water before spilling into the parking lot opposite the main hospital entrance. Nevertheless, this parking lot frequently floods and there are signs warning visitors to park at their own risk.

A short way further east the river turns north under a bridge across Pocono Road and the flood plain narrows once again. On the other side of this bridge the height of the riverbank remains about 2 to 3 feet high, but the eastern parking lot opposite the Emergency Room entrance slopes down almost to the river’s edge. The flood plain on the other side is about 100 feet across leading to an embankment of perhaps 10 feet in height.

Standing on the parking lot beside the river at this spot, and looking back towards the hospital, it is apparent that this lower parking lot is built within the flood plain of the Rockaway River. The lot slopes up toward an embankment on which is built the access road to the ER entrance. So, when the river fills this eastern parking lot, it is merely flowing into its natural flood plain. At least that’s how it appears to me.

With its extensive flood plain at this location, the Rockaway River can retain an enormous volume of water before spilling into residential areas and causing serious damage. It has mostly been adequate for this purpose in the past, but that that may no longer be true. As global warming produces heavier and more frequent rain events, the river’s capacity to hold stormwater runoff will be exceeded more often and to a greater extent. However, when the lower eastern parking lot fills with water, it should not be considered a flood event.




The network of storm drains in the highlands of New Jersey relies heavily on the existing flood plains, wetlands, tributaries, and rivers to hold and carry away runoff from impervious surfaces in developed areas. Through the decades, the area of impervious surfaces continues to grow while wetlands are filled in, flood plains constricted by development, and wilderness areas where rain can soak into the earth diminished. As a result, less rain is available to recharge our aquifers. More rain rushes out to sea where it isn’t available to support us or the biosphere on land. Climate change, with its near-drought conditions between episodes of heavier than normal rain events, exacerbates the consequences of excessive land development. Heavy rainfall quickly saturates the soil and leads to more runoff. Dry spells in between rainfall cause more water to evaporate from the soil, leaving less to recharge the aquifers below.

The assumptions and calculations used in the past to mitigate flooding need to be revisited. There is much that can be done to retain more of the freshwater that falls from the sky, but it requires a change of thinking and a willingness on everyone’s part to do things differently.

SAFE AIR - Facts We Should Know to Avoid Covid Infections Indoors

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

SAFE AIR - Fifteen essential facts that everyone should know by now. 

An inexpensive co2 monitor for home or office use.

Fact 1) We remain in a global pandemic. 

Fact 2) The pandemic in the U.S. is expected to result in a spike in the number of new weekly infections over the next few months due to the omicron variant. A soon-to-be-released study of early research found that the omicron variant is twice as infectious as the Delta variant. It isn't known yet if the new variant is as pathogenic or less pathogenic than the Delta variant. 

Fact 3) The primary safety measure for everyone to take right now is to get be fully vaccinated, including getting the booster shot. This isn't happening quickly enough in this country right now, but, even if everyone was triple vaccinated, there will always be breakthrough cases of Covid-19. 

Fact 4) According to the CDC, "The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 is through exposure to respiratory fluids carrying the infectious virus," from both breath droplets or breath aerosols. Breath droplets are larger moisture particles that we breathe out. They are pulled down by gravity and most fall out of the air within six feet of a person's breath. Aerosols are tiny moisture particles that remain suspended in the air for minutes to hours depending on how small they are. 

Fact 5) Social distancing and mask-wearing in public indoor settings is a good secondary strategy to avoid getting sick or infecting others. It is the essential strategy for one not fully vaccinated.

Fact 6) Most masks can block out the larger breath droplets exhaled by someone near us who is infected with Covid-19. Social distancing allows most of these larger moisture droplets to drop out of the air before reaching us. 

Fact 7) As we breathe, a concentrated "breath-cloud" of aerosols surrounds a person as it dissipates into the surrounding air. Social distancing helps keep us from this potentially infectious breath cloud." 

Fact 8) Most masks are not very effective in keeping us from breathing in infectious aerosols. Some masks are much more efficient at preventing us from expelling aerosols when we breathe. The amount of aerosols a mask material captures, and the amount of air that leaks around the edges of a mask are two important factors. A tightly fitted N95 mask is the most effective of the commonly available mask choices.

What happens to potentially infectious breath aerosols that mix with the air in a room? 

Fact 9) Inhaling a tiny number of an infectious virus does not necessarily result in an infection. There is a tipping point beyond which the amount of virus inhaled will trigger an infection. That point can be different for different people. 

Fact 10) Breath aerosols being exhaled in a room swirl about until gradually diffusing through the space, or even throughout an entire building in some cases (see CDC article). Airflow patterns influence how aerosols mix within the volume of air in a room or building. Without ventilation and/or filtration, aerosols from people's breath build up in any given space. The smaller the air volume, the quicker aerosol concentrations will increase in a room. The more people in a given room, the quicker the aerosols build up. Whether or not the aerosols are infectious depends on whether or not one or more people in the room are shedding the virus. 

Fact 11) If there is no air exchanger in a building's HVAC system (and most systems don't have air exchangers) or if there are no open windows at the very least, breath-released aerosols from an infected person may build up to levels that can result in the transmission of the virus. In other words, the air itself can become infectious. Only the best, closest-fitting N95 masks can trap these tiny breath-aerosols. HEPA air filters on some HVAC systems or portable HEPA air machines can capture some of these aerosols. 

Fact 12) As infectious aerosol concentrations rise, our exposure time in the room should decrease to prevent infections. These two factors, the amount of virus in the air and the length of time you are exposed to it determine whether or not you inhale enough virus to trigger an infection. These are the basic facts about aerosol transmission of the virus that everyone should know.

How do you know if the air is safe to breathe in a room? Directly measuring concentrations of infected aerosols cannot be done in any practical way; however, there is a way to monitor CO2 levels in a room.

Fact 13) Every time we exhale, we release CO2. If there are no other CO2 sources in the room, the concentration of CO2 is a proxy measure for the concentration of breath-aerosols. According to the CDC, this can be a means of identifying how safe the air is in a room.

Fact 14) While many factors impact aerosol concentration levels, the CDC recommends that CO2 levels should not exceed 900 to 1,000 ppm (parts per million) over the background (or ambient) level.  Ambient co2 levels outdoors generally measure about 420 ppm.  Ambient indoor levels may be higher if, for example, there are gas pilot lights on a gas stove. 

Fact 15) An inexpensive monitor to measure CO2 levels for home or office use costs as little as $85. 

Here is an example of how a co2 monitor can be helpful to assure the air in a room is not unsafe. Suppose that the ambient levels in an unoccupied room are 450 ppm and the room is later occupied by people whose Covid status is unknown. Using the CDC guidelines, co2 levels in that room should not exceed 1,350 to 1,450 ppm. If it does reach those levels steps should be taken to lower the co2 levels. Remediation steps may include: 

• Increasing ventilation in the room. The use of exhaust fans in the bathroom and kitchen may be helpful.  In fact, if you are entertaining in your home or working in an office, it is a good idea to leave exhaust fans running during the entire day. 
• Open windows or doors. 
• Move some people to other rooms.
• If you have a HEPA air filter machine, make sure it is on. 
• If you have a window fan, place it in an unoccupied room and bring in fresh air while exhausting room air out windows in the occupied room. 
• If you have a whole house fan, it is able to exchange a large volume of air with fresh air quickly.

Good luck and stay safe!

For more on aerosol transmission and building HAVC systems from the CDC go to: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/ventilation.html?fbclid=IwAR1QMm-WV7Z1YeUWy2dfaOc3GL8S8H6H7y7c3dUwqCnrrVJL1V_6YsO363M

Keeping My Home's Air Safe to Breathe - Aerosol Transmission Precautions

By Brian T. Lynch, MSW

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):


DISCLAIMER: Aerosol transmission by the SARS-CoV-2 virus isn’t well understood by many people that I know because it really isn’t easy to understand. What follows is my understanding of how breath aerosols transmit air-borne viruses. It is based on what I have read in the literature on this topic over the past 18 months. My understanding may be flawed, but it is the basis on how I will try to reduce the risks of infection for my family over the holidays. I am not a scientist or a medical professional. These are my questions and how I have answered them. Don’t rely on my answers without first reading about aerosol transmission yourself and doing your own due diligence.

Question: What explains why the number of people getting Covid-19 is on the rise now in late November 2021?



My Short Answer: Notice that the states with the fastest increase in cases are the northern states. One likely explanation is that people in the colder states have started moving indoors where the risk of infection is greater.

My Long Answer: Think about how you can see your breath when it is cold outside. That frozen cloud of air is caused by the moist aerosols you expel when you exhale. If you happen to be positive for Covid-19 and shedding the SARS-CoV-2 virus (or any air-borne virus), each of those tiny particles of water would contain a small amount of virus. These tiny aerosols stay afloat in the air. They aren’t immediately pulled down by gravity, as are the larger breath droplets we avoid by social distancing.

When you are indoors, every breath sends more and more aerosols into the air. They float about and eventually disperse throughout the volume of air in the room. When the concentration of virus-laden breath aerosols becomes too high, or if you are exposed to them for too long, you may eventually breathe in enough virus to trigger an infection. This initial infection stage can happen whether you are fully vaccinated or not. Aerosol transmission of Covid-19 IS THE PRIMARY WAY people become infected with SARSpCoV-2. Indoor spaces are the places where most people become infected. So, as people move indoors when the weather gets colder it increases their risk of infection.

Question: Are infected aerosols from a person who has COVID-19 uniformly distributed in a room?

My Answer: Yes, eventually, but not at first. The breath cloud around an infected person, for example, will always have a higher concentration of virus than the rest of the room. This fact is true even if they are wearing a mask. Some masks are better at capturing some of the aerosols from your breath, but no mask can stop all of it.

Beyond that, how aerosols flow around a room while dissipating can be complex. There are always currents and eddies in the air that can create hot spots in a room. Think of human activities' impact on the air as you would imaging fish activities' impact in the water in a fishbowl. The fish create water currents as they move, push water through their gills, blow the water out their mouths, or sprint across the bowl. Likewise, people sitting and talking quietly don’t create much air disturbance, but when people shout, sing, run around, or sneeze, they create lots of are currents that can temporarily create uneven patterns of breath aerosol in a room. A sneeze can travel up to 200 miles per hour, sending a cloud of potentially infected aerosols across a room in seconds. Masks help diffuse breath aerosols more uniformly than talking or singing without a mask. This can help to lower aerosol concentrations in the portion of the air column where people are breathing and prevent hotspots.

But there are also the airflow characteristics in any given room from HVAC air handling systems, open windows, doorways, and more. Most heating and air conditioning systems in the United States recirculate the air within a building carrying aerosols throughout all the rooms. Few HVAC systems provide fresh air exchangers or HEPA-grade filters to lower the concentrations of potentially infected aerosols. And as one study of infection patterns in a public restaurant found, when air flows across a room from an infected person towards people seated nearby, those people can become infected. So, airflow patterns in a room are an important factor. 

A HEPA filter is capable of removing over 95% of the aerosols in the air but the blower motors on most heating and air conditioning systems are not built to handle the extra pressure it takes to move air through these thick, denser filters. Portable home and office HEPA filter machines are widely available and some are relatively inexpensive, but most homes and offices have not purchased them. 

In my home, we have five machines which we can move about to handle different situations. As a rule of thumb, whether you have an air exchange system are HEPA filters, the volume of air in a room should be exchanged about six times per minute to keep the levels of breath aerosols at a safe level. 

Question: Are there practical ways to keep aerosol concentrations down when having guests over to my home?

My Answer: The most obvious way to lower the risk of aerosol transmissions when entertaining is for everyone in your house to be fully vaccinated or have everyone wear a good quality N95 mask. Leaky surgical or cloth masks have little effect on aerosols being released by our breath. People with cold or flu symptoms should stay home.  But, breakthrough cases and asymptomatic infections can happen. Additional precautions should always be taken. 

If your home isn't equipped with air exchangers or HEPA filters, the most uncomplicated strategy is to crack open the windows in the rooms where you are entertaining your guests, and if you have bathroom or kitchen vents that exhaust outside, turn them on. Leave these vents running. Start before your guests arrive and continue until well after they have gone. Seat guests who are fully vaccinated (or least likely to be infected) nearest the open windows if practical. If you have a whole house fan and outside temperatures permit, turn on the fan and open the windows. These fans quickly exchange the air in the room, keeping breath aerosol levels low.

Another strategy is to create a positive pressure air exchange arrangement in your house with the use of window fans placed in a vacant room (such as a bedroom, perhaps) and set it to pull in the fresh air. Then open the windows a crack in rooms where you will be entertaining guests. The advantage of this method is there are no strong cross-currents. With this method, bathroom vents should only be used when the room is occupied.

If you have purchased portable HEPA-grade air filter machines, turn them on full in the rooms where you are entertaining. These machines can filter out about 95% of the aerosols in the air. If they are of the proper size for a room, they should recycle the volume of air in the room about six times per hour. Be sure to place them in a way that the filtered air blowing out faces along the wall and not across the room.

Please keep in mind that these strategies only reduce the risk of aerosol transmission of the virus and not transmission risks by other modes of transmission. Social distancing and mask should also be in place if guests’ vaccination status or health status is in doubt.

Our COVID Choice - Walk the Next Hill or Climb Another Mountain

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

As of today, the United States’ new COVID-19 cases are up 11% over last week. New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are leading the charge up yet another statistical hill of misery.

If you want a glimpse of our immediate future, check out the trends in Europe right now. They always seem to lead the way. Europe is up 17% over the prior week for new cases. France is up 82%; Spain is up 59%; Switzerland is up 50%; the Netherlands is up 49%; and, Portugal is up 46%.

We don't have to wait for those numbers to arrive here before taking more precautions again. We have relatively cheap in-home rapid test kits. We have masks to wear in congregate settings. We have an ample supply of vaccines and booster shots, even for all but our youngest children. We know how to take precautions if we were not so damn tired of having to live like this. Collectively speaking, we can take precautions and climb the next hill with relative ease, or abandon precautions and face scaling a mountain of new cases.

I will do my part to make things as easy as possible and hope everyone else agrees to do the same.

Electric Cars Have All the Advantage

by Brian T Lynch, MSW

A deceptive Facebook post circulating about the dubious value of electric vehicles over combustion engine cars was reposted by a friend. It is obviously dated, but since it is still spreading, let me debunk it and offer you updated information on the value of electric vehicles. The text in parentheses and bold italics below are the main talking points from this post. If you see the post on your timeline, repost this rebuttal.

"A Tesla requires 75-amp service. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load."

Tesla vehicles do not require 75-amp chargers. And 200 Amp service has been the standard for most newer homes for decades. Small, older homes may indeed have between 100- and 150-amp service, but the average U.S. home today has something in between 100- and 200-amp service. Regardless, the assertion that a Tesla requires a 75-amp charger is false (see Tesla chart). And if you can afford a Tesla, you almost certainly live in a home with 200 amp service. That said, electric utility companies are in the business of selling electricity. If everyone on the block needed more juice to charge their vehicles, the utility companies would be responsive to see that you have the electricity you need.

"… not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells..."

This is comment is patently false. Renewable energy generation is cheaper than the dirty, polluting coal, gas, and oil-fired plants. These dinosaurs (pun intended) need to become extinct. This bar chart is just a sample from one very politically conservative state. Do the research, and you will see ample evidence that renewables are cheaper.

"Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors, and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine."

Apparently, Eric was invited to drive the Chevy Volt plugin hybrid, which was discontinued in 2019. This post circulating on Facebook has to be older, at least three years old. To be clear, a hybrid and a plugin hybrid are not electric vehicles. They are gasoline vehicles with an electric assist to lower MPG. A hybrid car does that by killing the engine during idling and when traveling very slowly, as in a parking lot. A plugin hybrid has a larger battery capacity to eliminate the need for the gas engine to kick on during short trips, which is the bulk of most travel. No electric vehicle has a gas engine or is gas-assisted. Whatever Eric was invited to test drive, it was not the current 2022 Chevy Volt E.V. Here are some particulars on this all-electric vehicle:

"According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kWh of electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with the amount used and the seasons) $1.16 kWh. 16 KWh x $1.16 per kWh = $18.56 to charge the battery. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery."

Maybe that was true for the plugin hybrid Volt in the past. However, a 2022 all-electric Volt E.V. has a 65-kWh battery with a 259-mile range on a full charge, which takes 7 hours (@240 volts) to entirely change. But, a D.C. fast public charging system also reduces the time to 1hr and 15 minutes (a leisurely meantime on a long trip).

 

"I pay approximately $1.16 per kWh. Sixteen kWh x $1.16 per kWh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile."

First, if your electric company charges you $1.16/kW, I recommend getting rooftop solar to reduce your electricity bills. In my area (see below), the electric company rate is $0.0846 per kWh. Multiply that by a 65 kWh storage battery, and the cost of a full charge is $5.50. Say that I am an erratic driver who can only get 200 miles on a charge. Then $5.50 divided by 200 miles = $0.0275 per mile. That's 2.75 cents per mile, which is much less than ten cents per mile.

"The gasoline-powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus."

Wrong again! I'm not advocating for the Chevy Volt. I have no opinion on the various electric vehicles on the market today. But the cost of them all has come down in recent years, bolstered by multiple federal, state, and local incentive programs. For example, this clip is from the Chevy Website:

"The 2022 Bolt EV starts at $31,995 (including DFC), before any available state, local, or utility incentives."

The U.S. Department of Energy grants up to $7,500 in nonrefundable tax credits to the first 200,000 buyers of eligible E.V.s per automaker (Jun 12, 2021). That drops the base price down to about $24,500. That brings the cost of the vehicle under the gasoline model in this factitious Facebook post.

Finally, and here is the real point of it all, one gallon of gas produces 19.64 pounds of carbon. One kWh of electricity generated at a fossil fuel-powered electric plant produces 0.92 pounds of carbon. If your gasoline engine car gets 30 miles/gal., you release .654 pounds of carbon into the air per mile. In the Chevy Volt EV you release .254 pounds of carbon into the air from a fossil fuel power plant. If the electricity that charged your battery happens to come from a solar or wind farm, you produce ZERO carbon emissions per mile. And isn't that the real goal?

Henry Hank Shapiro 9/3/21 Video 2

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

It has been about 40 years since Piano Man Hank Shapiro played with a small band. He said he wanted to experience that again sometime. He said he would like a bass player, jazz drummer, and maybe a clarinet player. ... (Was this his bucket list?). So, I suggested that my wife, his daughter, do this as a birthday gift. 

My wife got in touch with a friend of ours, Nick Scheuble, who we met through another musician friend we went to see at a performance, the wonderful jazz pianist, Tomoko Ohno. Nick has seen Henry performing on his Facebook Live pandemic performances every Saturday at 5pm since the pandemic started. Nick liked the birthday idea and agreed to arrange for a bass player and clarinetist to join him in a birthday gig for Henry Hank Shapiro. The bass player he got was the internationally well know, 93-year-old Bill Crow. And the clarinet player was Jack Stuckey, clarinetist for the long-running Broadway musical "Chicago" (which is reopening in about a week). 

The birthday event was held at our home in Mine Hill, NJ under the gazebo on a beautiful afternoon, September 3, 2021. The feeling was magic. The chemistry was great. You would think these musicians had played together for the past 90 years, but this was the first time they met Henry. 

A few neighbors join the family to hear the music. It all went off smoothly. The musicians had fun and dad was grateful for this chance to relive the glory of his youth when the Henry Shapiro Orchestra played in the many music halls in Northern New Jersey back in the 1930s and 1940s. 

So, here is a clip of the band playing Satin Doll on Facebook. (If you don't have Facebook, come back later. Once it is posted on YouTube you can view it here.) There are many more Henry Hank Shapiro performances on YouTube. Search for Henry Hank Shapiro!

https://www.facebook.com/1411785985/videos/370515491284284/

Global Cyber War Still Goes Unnoticed By Many

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

I know it is hard, but very few of us grasp just how destructive the Russian cyber-war is in this country and throughout the world. Its main goal is to polarize and disunite citizens living in democratic countries. It is working. Russian cyber-farms run by Russian military are spreading extreme fake news on both sides of every controversial domestic issue to widen divisions and radicalize extremists on both sides of every issue. Russia and our own domestic oligarchs are pushing authoritarian alternatives to our democratic institutions. Fascism is gaining traction here and abroad.

We are all certain that our opinions and feelings are our own - and in a sense they are. But everyone’s opinions arise from broad networks of facts and myths within a collective social fabric. It is the social fabric in which we live that is being deceptively altered on social media platforms and through traditional mass communications media. False narratives and carefully curated webs of lies are being amplified and endlessly echoed within our social spaces. No one wants to admit that they are being manipulated by bad actors with the means and motives to do so. Moreover, the influence that the fabric of our social space has on our thinking can be imperceptible. As an analogy, would an astronaut traveling in space detect that her straight line of travel had been bent by the influence of a massive object in the distance?  Probably not! 

In the same way, the topography of our social environment subtly influences our thinking in ways that are not self evident. Rather than admit that our world view has been maliciously altered, we dig in when challenged and we  harden our positions. Discussion between people on opposite sides of a disinformation divide become nearly impossible.

Disinformation on social media comes from many sources. It is big business for some folks, much like tabloid magazines that figured out people will pay to read outrageous things. The political divisions created by disinformation campaigns cause governing paralysis, serving the interests of many billionaire elites who don't want governments telling them what they can't do. There are also homegrown nuts that pick up and run with fringe ideas to garner attention. But then there are big, well-funded, and coordinated rogue nations that can't compete fairly in a global economy dominated by Western democracies. These countries are attacking world democracies, and Putin's Russia is chief among them. He has created an entirely new military branch, thousands of soldiers, to wage cyber warfare on western democracies. So far, he is meeting with little resistance.

 

Here is a good article about the situation: https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/countering-russian-disinformation

Our Climate Has Changed, and So Must We

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Massive wildfires, droughts, intense tropical storms, massive rainstorms causing epic floods, and rising oceans are already baked into the coming decades due to carbon dioxide we’ve already dumped into the air. This is the certain conclusion documented in the most recent United Nations, IPCC AR6 Climate Change 2021 Report.

Locally changing climate patterns are already evident to us here in the Highlands. We don’t need scientists to tell us what we can already see; Heat waves, higher water temperatures, toxic algae blooms, lakes that don’t freeze solid, tropical-like rainstorms followed by long periods with little or no rain, plants that start to bud in winter, cloudy cover that can last for days without bringing any rain, strong and frequent windstorms, the list goes on.

Scientists who study these things tell us these patterns are here to stay and will grow more severe over time. How will these changes affect us locally? What impacts can we expect on our food, water, and wildlife? If we anticipate the impacts, can we act now to mitigate the consequences?

The answer seems to be a qualified yes! One big qualifier is the need to reduce carbon emissions. Now! starting today! We can’t let the root causes grow worse.

Collectively, humanity needs to become carbon neutral very soon. As individuals, there are things we can do to help lower admissions. We can install rooftop solar electric systems, install LED lighting, increase the insulation in our homes and businesses, switch to electric cars, energy-efficient appliances, and electric-powered lawnmowers, etc. Pressing our community members and our governments for bigger systemic changes is also a must. But regional weather patterns have already changed. We need to understand what we are facing and how we might avoid the worst consequences. We must act now.

I want to be a better environmental steward and do my part. I want to share what I am learning and doing to make a sustainable difference in the hope that you join me or help guide me if you are further along in implementing sustainable practices in your life.

________________________________________________

RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG: 

A Drop in the Bucket - How Small Steps Can Have Big Environmental Impacts

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-drop-in-bucket-how-small-steps-can.html

The Waters Around Me in the New Jersey Highlands

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-waters-around-me-in-new-jersey.html

The Waters Around Me in the New Jersey Highlands

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-waters-around-me-in-new-jersey.html

Water Quality vs. Lawn Care Practices - Doing Less is Best

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2021/07/when-it-comes-to-mowing-grass-less-we.html

HENRY SHAPIRO'S August 2021 MUSIC SPECIAL

    

Henry "Hank" Shapiro is a 100-year-old piano man whose professional career spans from 1933 to the present. During the pandemic, his public appearances were sidelined for the first time since his service in the Army Air Corps in WW2.  At the suggestion of his family, he began performing on Facebook Live every Saturday @ 5:00 pm. His past pandemic performances are archived on YouTube, just search for Henry Hank Shapiro. This post is a special, prerecorded jam session with a drummer, Leo Labarge, who last played with him about 40 years ago. They were so happy to get together again and this video is a portion of their jam session. Please Enjoy it. 

Brian T Lynch, MSW

(Henry's Son-in-Law)

CLICK ON THE YOUTUBE LINK BELOW

We Are What We Wear

 

by Brian T Lynch, MSW

They say we are what we eat. We can now add that we are also what we wear. One way or another, microplastics are pervading our world, getting into the food chain and in our bodies. As microplastics break down further, they can release toxic chemicals into living tissue. Also, their physical presence and size can impact organ or cell functioning.

Whether it’s from weathering erosion of plastic water bottles careless tossed away by a stream or from wastewater from an industrial plant, microplastics are getting everywhere. And now this revelation, according to an article in the New York Times:

“Today, scientists estimate that [our synthetic clothing and other modern fabrics] produce 35% of the microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans (in the form of synthetic microfibers), which would make textiles the largest known source of marine microplastic pollution. That’s about 2.2 million tons of microfibers entering the ocean every year.

To help put that into perspective, all the car and truck tires worldwide release a huge amount of microplastics into both the atmosphere directly or through storm drains and into our lakes, rivers, and streams. About 1.6 million tons of tire microplastics end up in the world’s oceans each year. That is less than what reaches the oceans from washing machines discharging into sewer systems. Most sewage treatment plants capture as much as 98% of the microplastic particles found in wastewater. The high contribution from textiles to the ocean’s microplastics is just a fraction of what gets pumped into sewer lines, and god only knows how much more is blown into the sky from clothes dryers.

What happens to the microplastics that sewerage plants can capture? 

 They become part of the solid waste sludge. Some of that ends up in a landfill, but a lot of sludge is dried, mixed with mulch, and spread on farmland, releasing microplastics back into the biosphere.

What can we do to limit microplastics from clothing? 

We need to do everything we can to keep all plastic out of the biosphere, either by recycling or burying it in a landfill. There are inexpensive washing machine filters for the discharge water that can capture most of the microplastics from our plastic clothing. You have to replace used filter cartridges periodically and toss them in the trash for deposit in a landfill. Think of this as prefiltering before the final filter stage at the sewage plant. NEVER let the washing machine discharge into a stream or the street.

There are no filter systems to capture microplastic for dryers. So, when buying clothes, fabrics that are tightly woven and smooth release fewer microparticles than fleece or softer feeling fabrics. Of course, the best solution is to buy clothes made with natural fibers, like cotton, wool, etc. That’s something we try to do anyway, but I’m going to be more diligent about that now.

What can we do about car tires? 

The smallest wear-particles are so small they become aerosolized. They stay in the air and go wherever the wind blows. The bulk of the larger microplastics from tires currently settle on the roadways and surrounding land. But there is a newly invented device that sits in the wheel well. These capture devices should eventually get installed on new cars and trucks. Replacing the filters would then become part of routine maintenance. 

________________________________________________

Further Readings for the curious

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/reduce-laundry-microfiber-pollution/

https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2017-002-En.pdf

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30803634/

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5b05416