Recycle your batteries!!

[battplus]

This is a sad sight, batteries dumped from a light house onto the reefs. The lead and acid would cause all sorts of pollution hazards. RECYCLE YOUR BATTERIES! You can contact RBRC on-line for the nearest center to you. Keep them out of landfills and the reefs!

[DensityMan]

Guess I'll be the first to 'bite,' where is that picture from?

It is a sad sight regardless...

[The Lance]

Wow, I have heard of man made reefs, but they should stick to ships on that one. It does however remind me of a place in southeast Kansas that has a multitude of appliances dumped into a ditch right off the road.

[battplus]

Here's the website-

http://www.mpm.edu/reef/future.html


Lots of good info. on future protection.

[DgenR8]

That is sad indeed

[edsreef]

Unbelievable and sad. Don't some people ever stop and think?????

[Tyr-Sog]

And people wonder why whales beach themselfs.

[Scuba_Dave]

Sort of like people that changed the oil in their car, then dumped the used oil out in the back of their house...to seep into the ground...and groundwater....and then into the drinking water.

[krobb]

some people just have no common sense

[Trumpet12]

It was really stupid to put those batteries in the ocean.

[friedenmeister]

that's bioterrorism for ya

[M.Dandaneau]

The truly sad part is, from the appearance of that photo, they were likely hauled out and dumped off barges by a liscensed waste company, still quite common in the waters around larger cities like NY and LA.

Mike

[friedenmeister]

yeah, have you ever seen the ships full of garbage that are being taken out to sea. it is really common. they go out and dump the garbage in the water.

[windycityblues]

Try an aircraft carrier with 3000 people on it for a 5 month cruise going in circles around the Persian Gulf. Sooner or later I'd a thought we'd beach ourselves on our own crap. Truly a sad site. A million dollars a day to run one of these and they can't come up with something better. They process plastics everything else........well you get the picture.

[M.Dandaneau]

The sad fact is that no matter how many well meaning groups and individuals point out what is going on, most people, if they care at all, feel a mild sense of irritation and then return to their everyday life and concerns.

In large urban areas, land is worth money, while waters outside (and sometimes inside) the 12 mile limit simply aren't their problem, and nothing will ever change unless the word "Sea" becomes the word "$ea".

Americans point fingers at the Africans and S. Americans and proclaim "save the rainforest", while our current administration just opened up logging of our National forests and our only pristine rainforest (Wash. State and Oregon) are still being utilized for lumber as the "people there know no other way of life".

Apparently they are too stupid to be retrainable or the government won't cough up the fees for any one of thousands of "learn at home" courses that flood the airwaves, in which case, maybe it's THEY who deserve to become extinct (probably half of their food comes from poaching wildlife anyways, an acceptable practice in MANY remote rural areas.)

Mike

[JSB5776]

Americans point fingers at the Africans and S. Americans and proclaim "save the rainforest", while our current administration just opened up logging of our National forests and our only pristine rainforest (Wash. State and Oregon) are still being utilized for lumber as the "people there know no other way of life".

And here you are pointing fingers that its our governments fault for logging in our national forests... You built your house out of wood that came from someone's local forest... and you use paper everyday??? How come you have a right to use timber products and others don't??? Pretty much the same as yelling at the Latin Americans cutting down a rainforest for subsitance farming... Its not our governments fault... Its the consumers fault... Stop buying wood and paper... and the logging industry will come to a hault... Its not our governments job to reducate loggers, into another buisiness that probably isn't as profitable... What will that solve??? Only that new loggers will take their place, as long as there is a demand for timber products...

Supply and demand is the only driving force in this industry as well as the world... Untill we builld houses out of 100% synthetic materials, and stop using paper products... Trees will always get cut down... Fortunately, with the exception of old growth, they grow back...

Lets accept the fact that we are going to use this planet and degrade it... The more people, the more this planet will suffer... We can only make informed decisions, and with the help of new technologies, slow the overall degredation of the global ecosystem...

Stop blaming the government for our own conscious decisions, the consumer is the one who ultimately destroys this environment, Not George Bush

[M.Dandaneau]

Ouchie......someone touched a nerve, eh?

Sadly, I have to pretty well agree with almost everything you said, even though you appear to have missed my point about the forests, but perhaps that was just my poor way of attempting to make a point, that being that in actuality it's easier to forgive 3rd world countries for subsistence survival than the one with the highest standard of living in the world that HAS developed a renewable timber industry (among many others) and yet insists on condemning those who, literally, know no better.

Since you seem vehement on making your argument personal, my home is cinder block....here in Florida, we have a primitive organism that has no respect for wood, no matter where it originated .

While "trees" can be regrown, the other biodiversity within pristine forests, like those in coral reefs often cannot, at least not in the span of human history, let alone a generation.

Mike

[Ryan]

Originally posted by JSB5776
Stop blaming the government for our own conscious decisions, the consumer is the one who ultimately destroys this environment, Not George Bush

The consumer is powerful, but haven't you ever heard of corporate welfare? The government DOES have a huge hand in the availability of "eco-friendly" products.
Just ask anyone running a mom and pop business when Wal-mart was PAID BY THE US GOVT to open up, and then paid AGAIN to undercut all the competition.
We're the ones losing- The freedom of the consumer is only as good as his options to consume.

[M.Dandaneau]

I'd like to agree with you aquaholic420, but sadly most who have the option of eco-friendly versus eco-destructive often choose the latter.

What's the #1 LR choice for both reefers and FOWLR tanks both?

Is it Florida Aquacultured LR that places no strain on the planet in any way, shape or form, or is it Fiji or Tonga?

As to the Government, I don't place much blame on Mr. Bush, but rather instead on Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfelt, the puppeteers who make his arms and mouth work.

In this last term, more has been done to undermine the ecological programs initiated by the US Govt. than any other in my memory, possibly in history, or at least since the inception of the US Army Corps. of Engineers.

Mike

[Shablin]

Aside from the world geopolitics, where is this? Who owns the lighthouse and when were these dumped? What kind of batteries? They look old. I would think it would be possible for someone to start a fund and find a salvager to reclaim these. I'm sure he'd make no money, but the batteries may have some value, depending on the type (lead?), depth and location.

[battplus]

I found this picture on a reef recovery site, I'm sure they took the liberty to clean up this mess if they had time to photograph it.
For money purposes, they are worth about 0.14 cents a pound!
For batteries at about 80lbs, this probably would not be worth salvage, it's a shame, the people who left them there would have known that nobody would want to claim them.

[JSB5776]

Just ask anyone running a mom and pop business when Wal-mart was PAID BY THE US GOVT to open up, and then paid AGAIN to undercut all the competition.


Ok there Aquaholic.... Please explain to me how a mom and pop store is more ecofriendly then Walmart??? This ought to be good...

Now look I'm not a fan of walmarts... especially how they instruct their employees on how to recieve food stamps instead of paying them enough money so they don't have to...

But I would really like to here your reasonings behind this....

And like Mike said... How many of you out there buy Tonga "Live" rock??? The worst part is... Its ****** rock that sits DRY for days and virtually has no life on it when you get it... Hence you need to cure it for four weeks... But yet the majority of people on this website feel its appropriate to destroy the native ecosystem of a far away land so they can be amused in their living room... Do you actually belive that the natives removing this rock from the ocean are careful not to remove the one with live coral on them... SUUUUURRRRRE... they will grab anything they can get their hands on... Lets be honest they are too ignorant to comprehend sustainabilty... but only trying to feed their families... and I cant blame them for that... But I can blame anyone on this web site who buys the stuff, becuase they know better...

But I'm sure there are people out there who will drive their SUV's, run their air conditioners all summer, but yet find some way to tell me that George W. Bush and the rest of the republican party is destroying this earth by drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge... While you all ***** at the current Gas prices... And when the reefs in FIJI are all gone... that will be Bush's fault too...

Bush is not perfect, and not the best environmentalist... but look at the ALTERNATIVES!!!???!!! Hmmmmm a lapse on the environment... or Homeland Security??? Yeah lets trust Kerry to to keeping us safe..

I for one have 110#'s of AQUACULTURED TAMPA BAY SALTWATER ROCK that arrived with LIVE coral, has never been dry for more then a few minutes, cycled in 10 days... and actually improved the tampa bay ecosystem by its production...

Save the Natural Reefs which are IRREPLACEABLE in the relative future and support www.TBsaltwater.com

Please Aquaholic cry to me some more how Big Buisiness is the great evil... Look we live in a society based on Capitalism... if you don't like it... I hear Tibet is nice this time of year....


Jeff Bartkowski
bartkj@rpi.edu

Reef Central uses profanity filters for a reason. Please do not attempt to "fool" them by using symbols in place of letters, and keep in mind that this is a family friendly community. You can get your point across just fine without profane language.
Dgen

[DgenR8]

I notice this thread taking a decidedly political turn. If it continues on that course, it will be closed.

[shan820]

Responsible reefkeeping IS political. Youre either responsible or youre not. A reflection of your own personal views. IMO

[JSB5776]

Sorry Dgen... you're right you don't need to use profanity to get your point across, and will always sound more intelligent when you don't... won't happen again...

I just get enraged when it's so blatent that someones hatred for a person or political party actually makes decisions for them and stuctures their views rather then what is in my opinion common sense...

But as far as closing a thread because it takes a political view, I don't neccesarilly agree with that... after all if theres any place on reef central where people can discuss (argue) their views of environmental laws brought forth from one side of the political spectrum or the other... It should be in this forum...

But one of the main reasons I wrote back to this thread is because I was really curious of Mr. 420's (remeber this is a family atmosphere... oh wait I bet April 20th is his birthday... sorry...) statement of how Walmart is more detrimental to the ecosystem then mom and pop stores??? Afterall, I consider Walmart to be highly comparable to the Mass Transit system. Smaller #'s of larger stores, but I bet the square footage of all the Walmarts is less then all of the mom and pop stores nation wide... Walmarts are definitely more energy efficient with newer, improved technology HVAC and lighting... Not that they neccesarrily care about the environment, but after all companies are greedy and energy is expensive... And the consumer can go to ONE store for Food, Housewares, Hardware, Sporting Goods, and heck even Firearms... To me thats more benneficial to the ecosystem then driving my car to 5 different places... But hey thats just my opinion not rulled by hatred of a political party and hipocritical views of Big Buisiness... How many mom and pop "Mobile Phone Operations" companies are out there anyway??? With all those cell fones being made proudly here in the United States of course Creating Jobs for all the ones that George W lost??? Right??? AHHHH sorry cheap shot... I guess we should get back to Reef Keeping... I have a water change to due....


Unless someone wants to tell me of the conspiracy by the republicans and oil companies about a push for more mass transit and diesel powered busses because its more profitable to produce than gasoline??? I can almost hear it now =)

Ok sorry back to that water change...

Jeff Bartkowski
bartkj@rpi.edu