Stop Badgering the Facts: Big Numbers and Big Whoppers

[XLFD]

Introduction:  The Players

 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a regulatory group of bureaucrats that look for new problems to tackle to justify their existence and their funding.  It's a common aspect of many government agencies, and one that can be more easily proved than refuted.  Let's note that the EPA was created in 1970 and the Clean Water Act was passed just shortly thereafter in 1972.  For 35 years after that, they considered the release of coal waste products (coal ash) by the car ferries into the waters in the form of a slurry, as no big deal.

This corresponds with a period of time on just Lake Michigan alone of the following sizable coal-powered ferries of trains, vehicles and people, although the era of the railroad car ferry was coming to a close without any help from the government :

     Ludington Fleet (see reference)

Pere Marquette 21 (in service since 1924), in service until 1973
Pere Marquette 22 (1924), in service until 1973
City of Saginaw 31 (1929), in service until 1973

SS City of Midland 41 (1941), in use until 1983, now the barge Pere Marquette 41
SS Badger (1952), in use until 1990, later converted to an auto ferry, still in that service
SS Spartan (1952), in use until 1979, laid up in Ludington, used for parts for Badger

    Grand Trunk Fleet (out of Muskegon)

SS Madison (1927) in service until 1976

SS City of Milwaukee, (built 1930), sailed for Grand Trunk until 1978.

 

This followed many years of coal-fired sailings by primarily railroad ferries, its heyday back before World War 2, where 15 sizable boats ran in Lake Michigan alone as ferries. 

 

The point is, there has been a lot of coal ash dumped in our lake from ferries, before and even after the EPA and the Clean Water Act, without an environmental hazard ever being in place.  As a resident of Ludington, the main hub of activity, I have never seen or heard of any coal ash discharge problems on or beaches or elsewhere.  And I swim in the lake a lot.

 

But these are small numbers and anecdotes, and I promised big numbers in the title.  If you haven't been able to tell yet, I feel the EPA's recent actions against the last coal-fired ferry have been capricious, the actions motivated by internal political factors as much as by environmentalists, and that Illinoisan Senator Richard Durbin's assault on the SS Badger has been ludicrous and factually overblown. 

 

Dick Durbin:  New Math Wiz 

 

 

Senator Durbin's numbers don't add up, and don't reflect the truth. Burning 55 tons of coal a day produces 4 tons of ash.  The Badger disperses 509 tons of coal ash per year, this will of course have varied over the years, but not by much.  For nearly sixty years of use, it would only use about 30,000 tons. 

But the lack of facts does not end there on this handout.  Let's say that the Badger's career ash discharge could fill Wrigley Field 15 ft. deep and cover the bottom of Lake Michigan 2.5 in deep, as it says.  15 feet (180 in.) is 72 times more than 2.5 inches.  Therefore, Lake Michigan is only 72 times larger of an area than Wrigley Field.  That's absurd.  The surface area of Lake Michigan alone is 22,300 sq. mi., which would put Wrigley Field at 310 sq. mi. to be consistent.  From home plate to the deepest part of center field is 400 ft., and that's a diagonal.  At best Wrigley is 500 by 500 feet as seen in the picture below.  That's less than 1/100th of a square mile, about 6 acres.  Lake Michigan:  14,272,000 acres 

 

Millenium Park covers 24.5 acres, so it's about 4 times larger than Wrigley (but 1/10 as covered by ash), and nearly 600,000 times smaller than Lake Michigan.  Yet it has only 7 times as much ash filling it.  Are Dick Durbin's aides pulling numbers out of a hat?

 

 

The above is a typical Chicago Transit Authority rail car.  Let's generously call its dimensions 12 ft. wide and 50 ft. long, making its area 600 sq. ft.  293 of these cars would have an area of 175,800 sq. ft., which sounds large, but is around 4 acres, smaller than Wrigley.  Using the Wrigley 18 ft. as reference the ash would be nearly 30 ft. high, which is much taller than the height of these.  If we use the Lake Michigan figures, since Lake Michigan has a surface area over 3.5 million times the red line cars, the height of the ash pile on these cars would be nearly 750,000 ft. tall! 

 

The scariest part about Dick Durbin's mathematics is that when he is not figuring and publishing bogus data to discredit the SS Badger, he is handling how to spend trillions of dollars in the US Senate's Appropriations Committee.

 

The EPA:  An Interlude of Creative Fees and the Rain Tax

 

In 2010 the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency ordered Maryland to reduce storm water runoff into the Chesapeake Bay so that nitrogen levels fall 22 percent and phosphorus falls 15 percent from current amounts. The price tag: $14,800,000,000.

And where do we get the $14.8 billion? By taxing so-called “impervious surfaces,” anything that prevents rain water from seeping into the earth (roofs, driveways, patios, sidewalks, etc.) thereby causing storm water run off. In other words, a rain tax.

The EPA ordered Maryland to raise the money (an unfunded mandate), Maryland ordered its 10 largest counties to raise the money (another unfunded mandate) and, now, each of those counties is putting a local rain tax in place by July 1.

http://www.gazette.net/article/20130405/NEWS/130409397/-1/the-x2018...

 

No, this is not The Onion, various public bodies in Maryland have buckled to the EPA to make $15 billion through taxation in order to reduce runoff of water during storms.  The state will be figuring out the tax to charge by using satellite images of properties.  This is so ridiculous on several levels, that I will only say that this is what that aforementioned group of bureaucrats trying to justify their existence and keep their funding do.  They make us tax sidewalks, buildings, and parking lots, even if these have proper drainage preventing most runoff.  Will this tax ever go away?  Nope.

 

Big Numbers:  Where the Problem Lies

 

Let's start off with some facts with generally small numbers:  The Badger dumps 509 tons of coal ash per year 

Avg. Depth of Lake Michigan is 279 ft.  and Lake Huron's depth is 195 ft. on avg., the average depth all around is about 250 ft. (Lake Huron effectively shares the same water as Lake Michigan)

Lake Michigan-Huron has a surface area of 45,300 sq. miles (1,263,000,000,000 sq ft.)

 

Illinois pulls out about 3200 cu. ft./sec. of water from Lake Michigan without replenishing it, to help fill out the Mississippi River.  There are 7.48 gal/cu. ft., or 23,936 gal/sec. drawn out.  Multiplying by 60, 60, 24, and 365 to get a yearly figure the number is huge:  755,000,000,000 gal/yr.  As each gallon weighs 8.3 lbs., the number goes over 6 trillion lb. of water or 3,132,609,638 tons. 

 

If all the ash slurry from the Badger went south and into the Mississippi, it would still be less than one part in six million of the totals.  But it doesn't; it generally gets circulated by the currents and spread out over Lake Michigan, Huron, and elsewhere.  Let's see how much water is in the lake.

 

Volume of water in lake (cu ft.) = surface area X avg. depth = 315 trillion cu. ft. = 2.36 quadrillion gallons = (by weight conversion) 19.6 quadrillion lb. = 9,800,000,000,000 tons. 

 

The yearly discharge of ash, 509 tons, is one part per 19,300,000,000 (19.3 billion).  In the last 20 years, this discharge equalled about 1 part in 1 billion.  Much less than the proverbial drop in a bucket.  Try a speck of dirt in a bathtub.  Illinois steals about 1/3000 of the lake's volume each year for the Big Muddy, a bigger concern for our lake, I would think, but again, almost insignificant.

 

But you may ask about levels of mercury and other stuff in the coal ash from the SS Badger.  Coal ash on average has about 1 part per 1.6 million of mercury.  Assuming the quality of coal is average and the mercury remains in the ash after burning, the amount of mercury put into the water over the last 60 years is .019 tons total, which means the Badger has added 1 part in about 500 trillion parts to the lake over its history.  That is well within the category of insignificant when you consider that people start worrying when you approach 1 part per five million, a factor of 100 million away from the Badger's additive. 

 

The coal ash is mostly inert, and dissipates around the lake.  What dangerous substances do leach out, do so in numbers that pose little problem to anyone other than the most ardent ecologist... or silly senators that don't know any better, and publish intentionally misleading factoids.  

[Willy]

Excellent article X. This should be printed and handed out. Why don't you send this article to the Chicago and Milwaukee   papers and see if they print it? Of course we all know that Dicky Durbin has been bought off by Lake Express ferry service out of Muskegon. It's so blatantly obvious since Lake Express and the city of Muskegon have been echoing Durbins twisted logic since Lake Express was founded. Lake Express has held a grudge against Ludingtons Lake Michignan Car Ferry service ever since they objected to Lake Express receiving Federally  guaranteed loans back when the Muskegon based car ferry service began.

[XLFD]

Aww, it's just simple mathematics after using the all-knowing oracle known as Wikipedia for the numbers.  Senator Durbin and his Lake Winds Express Car Ferry friends have better things to do than actual number-crunching, noodle-utilization, or putting out any true, salient information to the publique.

[XLFD]

I think Lake Michigan Carferry had put some addendum in their EPA submissions that addressed that list of five questions you just asked, or at least several of them.  They then made a statement concluding the Badger was actually a 'green' choice.  I'll check that out shortly.

When you're dealing with large numbers there is definitely the possibility of missing a digit here or there, or messing up a unit conversion, and welcome any corrections if I have made an error.  I believe in at least one case above, I am in the right ballpark, pun intended.  Getting accurate information out is more important than getting my feelings hurt, so I encourage anyone to crunch the numbers yourself and let me know if something's off.

Thanks for putting your trust in me, I treasure that, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to earn it.  Continue verifying that trust and keeping me honest.

[masonco]

The grudge against The Badger is simple...If they could bring the Badger down, then they believe that

1) Lake Express would get more business OR

2) More people (trucks) would travel through Chicago thus bringing them revenue from the truckers and other travelers.

3) many won't take the Lake express even if it is the only ferry. The badger is more dependable, and of course can they even carry the mass trucks and large cargo like the Badger does?

What they don't realize is (I think) when the Badger does not run truckers prefer to take US 2 in UP to avoid the Chicago snarls. (pun intended) Think how much Chicago is losing in tickets alone (they used to love to ticket truckers) not to mention travelers stopping to eat and buy gas.

[easymoney]

 Cal ash is a problem, but, not asian carp. Go figure

[XLFD]

A quick take from Dick Durbin, himself.  Whenever I see this guy talk of the Badger, he vilifies it in the worst way and paints the EPA as the protector of all that's holy.  Does he ever stops to think that all the stuff coming from the smokestacks around his area, all the wastewater leaks that happen in his area and Milwaukee (home of the fossil-fuel burning Lake Express), is many times worse than the almost 100% completely inert coal-ash released by the Badger?  No, the only villain is the Badger, and he will use his own fudged numbers to make whatever claim he wants, for whatever motivation he has.