TN: Mystery Crop Damage Threatens Hundreds Of Acres

[phantom power]

Oops, it's TN, not MS. Hmm.

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-mystery-crop-damage,0,187535.story?track=rss

[damntexdem]

1. Teeny-tiny crop circles?

Some run-of-the-mill blight that will only devastate agriculture and bring on famine?

Harbinger of global climate change?

Alien invasion? (Oh, wait -- I already asked about crop circles.) ;-)

[phantom power]

2. My money is on some kind of chemical, since it's cross-species, plants, animals, etc...

Unsettling.

[Nihil]

6. Agreed ...

> Tiny dots appear to have burned onto leaves of all types of plants,
> and they appear different depending on the plant.
> On corn stalks, the dots seem to turn white in the center.
> On other plants, a white dust speckles the leaves and then destroys the
> green life underneath.
> "We found it all in the herbs, in the flowers, in the plum tree, in the weeds,"
> said organic farmer Toni Holt. "It's apparently in everything."
> ...
> It appears to have hit everything in its path.
> There does not seem to be anything in common with the affected plants.
> ...
> Then Holt came home to find baby birds dead in their nests.
> "There are two dead birds hanging out of two different bird houses, so we're
> concerned about that. We don't know if it's related, but it's alarming,"

The worrying thing is that, being airborne, it doesn't have to have come
from anything close: all it takes is a strong updraft near the source and
suddenly it can be carried hundreds of miles from the source.

:-(

[phantom power]

7. A friend of mine found this from May 25:

Published : Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 10:22 AM CDT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Potentially dangerous chemical fumes at the Lucite International plant near Millington led to the evacuation of businesses and residences along Highway 51 and Fite Road Tuesday morning.

The Lucite plant, which is next to the Dupont plant, started fuming a vapor mix of sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide, which reacts with moisture in the air to create a dense sulfuric acid mist. Sulfur trioxide can be harmful if ingested or inhaled, and can also cause skin and severe eye irritation on contact.

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/052510-chemical-leak-leads-to-evacuation

[Nihil]

8. That would do it ...

... and SO2/SO3 (or, more generally, "acidic vapours") was what I suspected
from the "spotting" comments in the original article.

When I was growing up in an industrial town, the streets near one of the
chemical works were renowned for acid damage - damaging the paint on
parked cars, killing off plants & flowers, even rotting through clothes
that had been on the washing line in a few cases that hit the local paper.

My Dad used to work around the corner from the factory that caused that
pollution and reckoned that place did more damage to his lungs than any
of the cigarettes ... really unpleasant stuff ...

:-(

[phantom power]

9. Rotting clothes off the line?

Fucking hell.

Tangentially, I keep thinking: we didn't really clean that sort of nasty stuff up, so much as export it to China.

:(

[Nihil]

10. That happens when you effectively drip fairly concentrated sulphuric acid on them.

"Fucking hell" is right.

The chemical plant used to basically burn sulphur and hydrate it to form
sulphuric acid. The "normal" level was barely acceptable but there were
fairly regular "emergencies" when they shut down the steam side too quickly
and emitted a "cloud" (sometimes more of a "spray") of not particularly
dilute sulphuric acid ... not the ideal final treatment to add to your
wet laundry that is out on the washing line ...

Of course, the cynics who pointed out that such "emergency shutdowns" tended
to happen at shift end were called "unhelpful" and "divisive" by certain
union bodies at the factory.

From memory, one of the big snags with the chemical plant was that not only
did it employ a lot of people (in an area with between 22% & 26% unemployment
at the time), its product (the acid) was used by a bunch of other factories
in the town (including, ironically, the one where my Dad worked) and so the
management had the perfect blackmail to ensure that H&S regs were never
applied as tightly as they should have been. Ah, the joys of the 60s ...

Although better regs are indeed in place here & now, I suspect that your
guess about the conditions in China et al is not far from the truth.

:-(

[pscot]

11. On the plus side

The sulphur haze drifting across from China creates some spectacular sunsets here in the PacNW. Mix in a bit of airborne cadmium and some of that orange Mongolian dust and you get effects that JMW Turner would have died for.

[benld74]

3. ANYTHING industrial around the area?

[pscot]

4. For some reason

stories like this make me think of The Sheep Look Up, John Brunnner's great Jeremiad from the '60s.

[kas125]

5. I don't know if it's related, but I just read this and it

reminded me of your post that I'd read earlier today. If this is true, it's very frightening!

Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America
http://atomicnewsreview.org/2010/05/29/toxic-oil-spill-rains-warned-could-destroy-north-america/