Freon going into the ottawa river!!

Post by **nips** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:26 pm

Public works employees and the water and wastewater department for the city of ottawa needs a serious kick in the head

. Nuclear waste, raw sewage and now 6000 lbs of freon, what the ----!!. In this day and age with the technology we as human beings have and this crap still goes on, it's unbelievable and unacceptable

. I want to hear you freak out about this!!

I guess one good thing about this crap is that I fish musky, mostly in the st.lawrence river, but i will have to start fishing the ottawa river and maybe i will catch a mutated 10 foot long record musky.

Post by **MLR** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:46 pm

Do you

Use a gas powered boat to fish?

Own a vehicle?

Heat your home with a 100 % envriomentally friendly methood?

Have air conditioning in your car or home?

Post by **valley_boy** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 2:31 pm

I agree that some of the stuff going into the river is unaceptable, and what I keep hearing about from chalk river is really concerning, but the freon thing is news to me! I'm no chemist, but I'm almost positive freon is a gas at atmospheric pressure, so if it was dumped it would just evaporate away- not saying this is any better, but I think you may be trying to refer to the incidents going on at chalk river which are still unclear to me!

Post by **nips** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:26 pm

valley_boy wrote:I agree that some of the stuff going into the river is unaceptable, and what I keep hearing about from chalk river is really concerning, but the freon thing is news to me! I'm no chemist, but I'm almost positive freon is a gas at atmospheric pressure, so if it was dumped it would just evaporate away- not saying this is any better, but I think you may be trying to refer to the incidents going on at chalk river which are still unclear to me!

It's in today's ottawa sun if you want to read the article, but freon 22 can either be in a gaseous state or in a liquid state depending on temperature, and in this case it was in a liquid state.

Post by **nips** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:30 pm

MLR wrote:Do you

Use a gas powered boat to fish?

Own a vehicle?

Heat your home with a 100 % envriomentally friendly methood?

Have air conditioning in your car or home?

Yup i got a gas powered boat

and yup i own a truck with air conditioning

my home heating is 98% efficient and i got no AC there either

Post by **muskymatt** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:31 pm

This might clear up some concerns

http://www.epa.gov/chemfact/f_freon.txt

Post by **Prairieboy** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:33 pm

Could it be they just wanted to extend the ice fishing season

Post by **nips** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:01 pm

muskymatt wrote:This might clear up some concerns

http://www.epa.gov/chemfact/f_freon.txt

This article refers to the chemical freon 113, the chemical released into the ottawa was freon 22. Are the chemical properties the same

Post by **Fishing 24/7** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:27 pm

MLR wrote:Do you

Use a gas powered boat to fish?

Own a vehicle?

Heat your home with a 100 % envriomentally friendly methood?

Have air conditioning in your car or home?

Post by **rodbreaker** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:39 pm

MLR wrote:Do you

Use a gas powered boat to fish?

Own a vehicle?

Heat your home with a 100 % envriomentally friendly methood?

Have air conditioning in your car or home?

So its ok for the city to dump all this crap in the water and have the taxpayers flip the bill to clean it up and pay the fines the Ministry hands out?I agree this is unacceptable and heads should roll over this.If not charges?
Do i feel guilty for driving an suv?No...i dont dump it in the water when im done with it

Post by **MLR** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:50 am

I never said it was ok for the city to do it, I only asked the question if anyone uses certain things, but apparently you feel the need to lash out at me. Feeling guilty about something?

If you use any of the things I mentioned , like it or not, you are dumping into the enviroment, maybe not on the same scale as the city, but you are still doing it. Outboard motors are not doing any of our lakes and rivers any favors. Although the new 4 strokes are a bazillion times better than the old 2 stroke I have.

But its natural for everyone to just go with the don't blame me, blame everyone else attitude.

Keep throwing those rocks from your glass house

Post by **Dan Smyth** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:49 am

I can tell you from experience as an engineer onboard Canadian naval ships that Freon in any of its many makeups is considered as hazmat.
This material is considered hazmat by all of Nato.
The Canadian navy monitors the use of freon and keeps precise records of the consumption of this material by each and every vessel down to the ounce.
The use of many types of freon have been banned from use completely and if you have tried to get rid of an old fridge lately you know how strict the regulations are.
This amount of freon being dumped is absolutely mind boggling and I would certainly like an explanation of where it came from and how it happened.

Post by **nips** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:58 am

MLR wrote:I never said it was ok for the city to do it, I only asked the question if anyone uses certain things, but apparently you feel the need to lash out at me. Feeling guilty about something?

If you use any of the things I mentioned , like it or not, you are dumping into the enviroment, maybe not on the same scale as the city, but you are still doing it. Outboard motors are not doing any of our lakes and rivers any favors. Although the new 4 strokes are a bazillion times better than the old 2 stroke I have.

But its natural for everyone to just go with the don't blame me, blame everyone else attitude.

Keep throwing those rocks from your glass house

MLR you don't know what your talking about man. I myself and probably most of the people on this site take pride in protecting the environment to the best of my ability, and I do blame everyone else when this crap happens. It's nothing but human negligence that allows this to happen, I know, I work in the maintenance field and when a valve fails for three days and no one finds it???

. A pipe carrying nuclear waste has a 2 inch crack in it???

. I know it wasn't public works that allowed the freon leak, but it was public works that maintains the sewer system and the sewer gates for the city of ottawa. For a department in the city of ottawa with a bad reputation already for laziness and just lack of work ethic, this doesn't help there already tarnished reputation.

Post by **Andy_L** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:23 am

easy there guys....great discussion, but don't make it personal please

I thought the leak at the reactor was a coolant leak...thats not nuclear waste. water pumped from the river, cools the reactor and then returned??

Post by **rodbreaker** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:28 pm

MLR,
Not trying to bash you,only it seemed as if you were saying "so what,everyone pollutes".
Yes,everyone is guilty to some extent when it comes to the way we treat the planet,but over the years we have grown and learned alot i think?Wasnt very long ago when nobody recycled anything!Now...its the norm.
But....big difference between dumping crap in the water supply and mowing my lawn with a gas powered engine.I work with freon(r-134)all the time and am very carefull with what i do because im suseptable to VERY HUGE fines.Again,bashing you was not my intention at all.