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by mousadafousa 2790 days ago
Could you explain what a superfund site is?
2 comments

> "Superfund is a United States federal government program designed to fund the cleanup of sites contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. Sites managed under this program are referred to as "Superfund" sites."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund

Fun fact: in a single Northwest Territories mine [0] lies an amount of arsenic trioxide dust sufficient to kill every mammal on earth many times over; and in the early '90s an organized labour terrorist planted and detonated a bomb inside the mine, killing nine workers who were there in spite of a strike.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Mine

Anywhere that Max Gergel worked:

"Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?"

https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book...

The Gergel mess was small and in no way comparable to the PCB mess in the Hudson or the Love Canal site in Buffalo.

Chemophobiacs may remember Edward Tyczkowski, featured here in a breathless Salon article: https://www.salon.com/2004/03/23/armageddon/

He was a very talented fluorine chemist, who ran a custom synthesis and contract research outfit out of a shed in the ghetto somewhere in the South. From colleagues who knew him I understand that he was a true gentleman and righteous. He wasn't known for mishaps, but when he retired he left behind cylinders of sulfur tetrafluoride (10 times more toxic than phosgene) and perfluoroisobutylene (100 times more toxic than phosgene, supposedly the Russians had a stash because it passes through your regular gas masks) and much other stuff.

A trained chemist knows how to use SF4 without incident (I have done so myself), but it's remarkable that Tyczkowski, who recruited his workers from the ghetto - Apartheid was strong in the 1960s Southern US, didn't have deaths amongst his workforce. It shows what properly training one's workforce can do. Meanwhile Information Technology tries to achieve the perfect fit through endless rounds of interviewing and teambuilding and keeps failing.

See also http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/index.html. While you're browsing around there, you might also want to pick up a copy of "Ignition!", which I personally liked even better than the Gergel books.