California Court Threatens to Reopen Rivers to Destructive Suction Dredge Mining..LOL

When WMA brought out Dr Nick Ralston (NASA mercury specialist from University of N Dakota) to talk to the State Water Board, I was invited to sit down and have lunch with him. He's a very bright guy, and we were brainstorming on how we could offer competition to the Sierra Fund for cleaning up the lakes of methyl mercury. We had all these big plans and he just laughed and said, "there isn't any money in it". No, no, no you've got it wrong, we said, the Sierra Fund is getting $7M to clean up Combie Reservoir. He laughed again and said (and I quote) " you can clean up a whole reservoir of its methyl mercury by spreading effectively a single bale of hay that was grown in selenium rich soil". One bale of hay in a whole reservoir apparently neutralizes all the methymercury IN A WHOLE LAKE. I guess if he is right, there is no money in it. But I guess someone forgot to tell that to the taxpayers of the state of California who are paying for a lot more than a single bale of hay for the Combie Project.
 

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minerrick said:
When WMA brought out Dr Nick Ralston (NASA mercury specialist from University of N Dakota) to talk to the State Water Board, I was invited to sit down and have lunch with him. He's a very bright guy, and we were brainstorming on how we could offer competition to the Sierra Fund for cleaning up the lakes of methyl mercury. We had all these big plans and he just laughed and said, "there isn't any money in it". No, no, no you've got it wrong, we said, the Sierra Fund is getting $7M to clean up Combie Reservoir. He laughed again and said (and I quote) " you can clean up a whole reservoir of its methyl mercury by spreading effectively a single bale of hay that was grown in selenium rich soil". One bale of hay in a whole reservoir apparently neutralizes all the methymercury IN A WHOLE LAKE. I guess if he is right, there is no money in it. But I guess someone forgot to tell that to the taxpayers of the state of California who are paying for a lot more than a single bale of hay for the Combie Project.
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Isn't REAL science great?
 

Yep we can neutralize it, easily dispose of it, and efficiently remediate it, next we need the ones writing the checks off our money to stop and listen for a change!
 

Maybe we should demand that they give that a try and have a third party do the work on testing before and after. Check the levels of methyl mercury before and after adding the hay. If the levels drop by a large margin, then there would be no need to dredge! Wouldn't THAT tick off the residents that wanted it dredged for their boating activities and were using the "Mercury Scare" as a way to get the tax payers to fund it!!!! (insert wicked grin here!)
 

minerrick said:
When WMA brought out Dr Nick Ralston (NASA mercury specialist from University of N Dakota) to talk to the State Water Board, I was invited to sit down and have lunch with him. He's a very bright guy, and we were brainstorming on how we could offer competition to the Sierra Fund for cleaning up the lakes of methyl mercury. We had all these big plans and he just laughed and said, "there isn't any money in it". No, no, no you've got it wrong, we said, the Sierra Fund is getting $7M to clean up Combie Reservoir. He laughed again and said (and I quote) " you can clean up a whole reservoir of its methyl mercury by spreading effectively a single bale of hay that was grown in selenium rich soil". One bale of hay in a whole reservoir apparently neutralizes all the methymercury IN A WHOLE LAKE. I guess if he is right, there is no money in it. But I guess someone forgot to tell that to the taxpayers of the state of California who are paying for a lot more than a single bale of hay for the Combie Project.
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Hey Rick...can we use his name and that quote about a bale of hay on a paper hand out or poster ? Something to that affect...to hand out at the serria fund meetings.
 

Hefty1 said:
Hey Rick...can we use his name and that quote about a bale of hay on a paper hand out or poster ? Something to that affect...to hand out at the serria fund meetings.
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Hefty, I wll call him and get the exact quote and pm you with what I find.
 

I just had an epiphany..... we all need to add hay "Scrubbers" on the back of our dredges. So when the waste water passes through the selenium rich hay, all the non-solidified mercury (mercury vapor) can be effectively neutralized. So instead of having a 98% recovery of mercury, we could gain the extra 2% by neutralizing the vapor constituent of the mercury in the water column. Then in effect we would be river cleaning operations as we would be cleaning both the sediments and also neutralizing any mercury vapor in the water column of the river. How's that for cool?
 

Interesting idea there Rick. There may be a few wrinkles to work out though. If/when you get a hold of Dr. Ralston, ask if he knows if there is anything like a significant reaction time required for the Selenium to work its magic. If the action is instant or almost so it could work and work well. If it has to remain in contact for too long a period, it isn't going to be as effective as the water flow down a dredge may not allow for a long enough contact time. One of the drawbacks to having worked as a lab tech is thinking of this kind of stuff. Hate to be the one to possibly burst the bubble of such a great idea.
 

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