Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Niceswanger
Hi guys. Been staying out of the discussion. Been busy and hanging around the pool when I'm not. Eddie you mentioned trichloroethane. Reminded me of a disaster that happened to our town. From 1973-1980 I worked for Essex Wire, which was gobbled up by United Tecnologies. We made electro-mechanical switches. I was a kid out of high school and was getting my roots in the maintenance department. 1300 women and 200 guys worked there. Anyway, they used huge amounts of trichloroethane. The plating department had big shaker belts that carried oily parts from the press room (brackets and assorted stampings) down into the trichloroethane. They came out spotless. Best parts washer I've ever seen. Charlie Taylor, one of the maintenance guys had the responsibility to get rid of a small amount of the runoff from those belts. Every morning, he would take a forklift, go outside and pick up a 30-gallon drum. It would be about half/three quarters full. He would take it and dump it into the gravel parking lot. It would instantly disappear. About 1000 feet from where he was dumping was the Muskingum River. It's the river you cross over while traveling interstate 70 as you go through Zanesville. A couple years after I left United Tech the entire front page of the Zanesville Times recorder newspaper reads "TRICHLOROETHANE FOUND IN ZANESVILLE WATER SUPPLY !!" To this day, although that business is long gone and nothing is on that property but grass, there are huge aerators that must be maintained on that property. I see maintenance crews maintaining them all the time. That land is a superfund site. One man's decision to dump cost somebody, most likely the taxpayers, millions. Good Old Charlie
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Yeah, I got a double dose of it with Camp Lejeune and cleaning electrical components of special weapons. Never told to mask or glove up. Bingo, 50% kidney loss. Just another paper cut as Randy would say.