I took a drive north along the river today in a garden variety pickup truck. I noted that the Guard troops were for the most part quite well camoflaged. In fact, so well camoflaged that only a few were to be found. I did see plenty of troopers patrolling around the water intakes and the nuclear plant upriver though- speeders, the highways of Minnesota are yours!
I stopped at several places along the river where it was quite possible to back a pickup truck or van right down to the river's edge. Thusly we can safely assume that a terrorist could easily rent a van or pickup truck capable of carrying and dumping a ton or more of toxin into our water supply. At current river flow rates a ton of toxins dumped in the Mississippi upstream of our water intakes produces a ratio of 100 parts per billion. That may not sound like much, but there are at least 10 toxins, some of them readily available, that have maximum safe limits in drinking water of from 2 to 70 parts per billion.
To obtain that level of 2 parts per billion would require maybe a 5 gallon can of some toxins. So besides keeping every pickup and van away from the Mississippi for a hundred miles or so upriver, they'd better make sure that no one can just walk up to the river with a 5 gallon gas can or whatever. Let's see, to cover a hundred miles of river with a Guardsman every 100 feet will require how many tens of thousands of guardsmen?
Fortunately our Water Works performs over 500 tests a day on our water and would likely catch these toxins long before they entered the plant, never mind left the resivour. But once our Water Works intakes have to be shut down, we have but a day's water supply in the resivour. Perhaps Governor Pawlenty should reassign the guard to shut down the major threat to Minneapolis water supply- the aging nuclear plant at Monticello.
peace,
Dyna Sluyter, hanging on in Hawthorne
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible.
________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
