How transforming river banks can clean contaminated waterways

[@enterthecarp7085]

My dream is to buy a piece of tired land and enhance it or rejuvenate it

[@evilchaperone]

I hope your dream comes true. I recently bought a 5 acre distressed marsh and creek property. I hope to bring it back to life.

[@jungoogie]

Noble. Much respect.

[@brianjennings1624]

That would be a lofty goal. You can do it and get great satisfaction. Good luck.🍀

[@arturozons151]

My dream is that people understand and take care of nature

[@tonyhussey3610]

I hope you get your dream. I bought a ruin of a house and neglected garden. It's extremely rewarding to get it all back in shape. Hard work but worth the effort. Good luck with your poject

[@dgsantafedave1]

In Red Bluff, Ca the Yucca Tribe of Siskiyou have almost completed a project similar to the one mention last in the video. They restored a creek that will provide the small salmon a place of refuge from predators as they work their way down the Sacramento River. It is almost done and I am interested to see the results in the coming years.

[@collinmckenna8551]

Do you have any articles I can read about this?

[@dgsantafedave1]

@@collinmckenna8551 Check with KCRA news I think I saw a clip they did on the project. Also there is a campsite right along the new creek and a bike trail that you can see the results of their work.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Thank goodness

[@footfault1941]

With profound implications, footage impresses us all. Those scientists are doing a great job worth attention. An excellent pick!

[@dorothymerritts7877]

thank you!

[@mlindsay527]

@@dorothymerritts7877 Seems like an expensive solution, are there any less expensive, more passive solutions?

[@micah_lee]

Each stream is different and therefore requires different restoration efforts. Many times, simply remeandering the river and giving the stream a floodplain and other signature habitat can restore the ecosystem and fix all of the problems previously encountered. Not all streams are marshes. Trees colonize.

[@RondelayAOK]

Important point

[@tas5622]

How is this credible? Have you done research/studies or are you just saying this.

[@micah_lee]

@@tas5622 I took a class and part of it was about stream restoration. We learned about it and how they did it in an urban stream on my universities campus. That was last fall semester. it wasn't an in depth class about it but I learned quite a bit.

[@Sblatus]

It’s great to see these kind of projects actually happening (not here in México). And the result it’s pretty nice and pleasing.

[@odnamragallhdez814]

En la canalización del río Tijuana en Baja California, había mucho sedimento (incluyendo basura) y curiosamente la corriente adoptó esa forma serpenteante, comenzó a crecer tanta vegetación con árboles que superaban los 5 metros... Durante este año el estado "limpio" buena parte de la canalización esto incluida la flora muy abundante que ahí había crecido.

[@Sblatus]

OdnamraGall Hdez ¿se formó con parte de basura el sedimento y encima crecieron árboles? Ojalá si estuviera limpio lo hubieran dejado…

[@odnamragallhdez814]

@@Sblatus kzbin.info/www/bejne/pmjRZptupbmBrdU pues limpió no estaba, pero ya vez que la naturaleza se abra camino, además le daba hogar a los adictos y homeless.

[@FlyTyer1948]

If removing layers of legacy sediment helps streams & downstream areas, wouldn’t the removed sediment be valuable to be sold to spread on farm land & to spread on areas that have been eroded? Perhaps the sale would help fund more restoration.

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

Or lower it's cost so it can be done more often

[@potblack6043]

Another comment confirmed that the sediment here was sold to the restoration effort of a local factory brownfield.

[@dorothymerritts7877]

yes, absolutely!

[@robormiston2841]

They are leasing farmland and taking the topsoil and shipping it overseas now. Be warned. They will pay a good sum for your crop but not only take the crop but the top soil it was grown in also with no consent from land owners. FYI

[@bretthess6376]

Yep. I've been saying this for 50 years. As well, back in 1970 my great-uncle, a corn and dairy farmer, showed me the soils on either side of the fence line of his farm. His soil, fertilized by manure, was black and good. His neighbor's soil, artificially fertilized for many years, was leached out to red clay. In addition, my uncle used almost no pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides, because neighboring farms overused them so much, that he didn't need them. No farms, no food.

[@tas5622]

Very nice Mr. Hess. Did he have a stream on his land? How did he manage that if he did?

[@xaiano794]

It's really impressive to see how effective this short section is at preventing floods. Acre for acre it could be far more effective and far cheaper than building higher flood levies downstream. I think the problem will be convincing people in other counties to change rivers to benefit people and states downstream.

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

good job on figuring out the problem - now the harder part - repairing the damage!!!

[@StCreed]

In The Netherlands we're also returning from the practice of straight lines to more meandering rivers, as straight rivers tend to dump so much water that our country is flooded. Meandering rivers absorb more water and release it over a longer time period, which is both better for the environment (more water) and for the people living nearby (less water in their homes).

[@GamingFruguy]

At 0:51 that's not 6 meter high banks of sediment. Probably more like 3 meters or so.

[@sunflower50sun]

the guy is just 3 meters tall

[@kayzeaza]

It’s nice to see PA get some spot light for once on KZbin lol

[@adampalmer5399]

Really cool piece, definitely one of the most interesting videos I’ve watched in a while! 👍✅

[@dorothymerritts7877]

thank you!

[@lazarustenebrae]

Nice positive piece. I'm curious how it affected the number of mosquitoes in the area.

[@russellringland1399]

Cost per meter to reclaim waterways and reduce sediment and reduce nitrogen and phosphorus with Beavers is zero dollars. Every other solution would cost billions of dollars.

[@neltonrd]

Brazil has one of the best environmental protection laws in the world. Here, river banks are untouchable. Many meters at both sides must be kept with the original vegetation and the access of animal is controled.

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

I’ve lived next to a high banked river for a quarter of a century. It floods or at least rises significantly an average of once a month, each time depositing silt and reshaping the banks of the river. Based on my experience I believe the conclusion from geologists from the 50’s.

[@Doc-Holliday1851]

Having watched the rest of the video I can only conclude that these people are either fools or somehow benefiting from this theory. Anyone who knows anything about water knows that the banks of a still body of water will slope at a very shallow angle. You only see these kinds of steep angles where there are quick moving rivers.

[@potblack6043]

@@Doc-Holliday1851 That's exactly the point they are making. At one point this stream was dammed, and sediment built up behind the dam. The stream bottom underneath the water was on a shallow angle, but was meters above the original stream bottom. When the dam was taken down, the sediment settled where it was, but the stream eroded through the new sediment, leaving the steep banks. Every time the stream floods, new sediment is eroded into the stream. This sediment may not necessarily be polluted, but it would lead to more soil going downstream than there used to be before the dam was built.

[@potblack6043]

@@Doc-Holliday1851 Someone who participated in this project replied to another comment to answer the same question about the removed sediment. They said the sediment was tested multiple times and was confirmed to be not polluted, although it was built up on the banks because of a previously existing dam. They were actually able to date the soil and trace its origins, which came from topsoil of surrounding farms. The removed sediment was sold to a restoration project at a nearby factory brownfield site. Despite this profit, I doubt they made more money then was spent in the restoration effort. The restoration is not economically based, but rooted instead in the bettering of the environment, which was achieved.

[@dorothymerritts7877]

@@Doc-Holliday1851 :) we're defintely not fools, and would be delighted to talk more. Thanks for watching.

[@workingguy-OU812]

Perhaps the Army Corp of Engineers could watch this video and learn a thing or two? (They have proven to be inept.)

[@MichaelKlingerrr]

It's always amazing to learn new knowledge that you never knew you needed to know.

[@henriklarsson5221]

Also change the farming practices around streams, if to much phosphorus and nitrogen is the problem. Create wider "highways" around water, regulate the usage of artificial manure like NPK and foliar feeding on farms close to streams. If they are gonna spray poisons then create a license for spraying, like we have in Sweden(don´t know how it is in USA), and regulate how close they can spray/fertilize to water. And instead raise the price that the farmers get for their crops, so that they don´t have to go to the extremes all the time with fertilizers and spraying to get a profit. And i know, people will say "but we need the food", sure, we need all that High fructose corn syrup... if we would consume less of that shait, then there would be thousands of hectars of corn cleared up, for real food-production. The corn/sugar-industry will probably fight it to the bitter end tough.

[@soner818]

Simple solution teach farmers regenerative farming practices, no toxic chemicals at all. And have a 10 - 20 metre buffer zone of no farming next to rivers or creeks.

[@henriklarsson5221]

@@soner818 yes thats all good, but many farmers wont listen, if they are not regulated, because money speaks louder then reason. Cheers

[@audiosreality]

@@henriklarsson5221 Trouble is here in north america it's the tax burden on the farmers. The government has created the perfect storm of higher and higher inputs and lower and lower returns. 20 years ago summer fallow was a standard to help rest land, 20 years later not many can afford to take land out of production for a season. Manure spread is great for fertilizer till you have to pay the cost of hauling. You also have the increased cost of breaking up the compaction caused by hauling out the manure and working in the manure. Most NA farms have switched to trying to winter out livestock as much as possible to lower these costs but that increases weed issues on any crop lands so the winter feeding is usually onto pasture or hay lands. It's easy for foreigners or urbanites to say do this when they don't foot the bill. We also don't have the several feet of top soil europe does from centuries of managed lands across the great plains top soil for the most part is only inches deep. Because geologically central NA was under an inland sea for a few millennia. Sure we'd love to lower our input costs and be more "green" but until the urban elites quit using agriculture to fund their happiness and deposit money in their accounts (shareholders, investment funds ect.) farmers simply can't afford increased overhead with lower returns. Swedish ag is only about 1 % of your gdp Canada 7% US 5% couple that with a tax burden from a few wars you sat pat on that we are still paying and all the money our governments spend across the globe canada 3.5% gdp to international aid to swedens 1% you can see why our farms fund the coffers to much compared to yours.

[@henriklarsson5221]

@@audiosreality yeah that is sad, indeed it is a system-failure. Raise the prices paid to the farmers and stop paying interest on debts that only go into private coffers. Europe and many swedish farmers are now also dependent on money from EU to ’go around’ every year, also sad. Either that or they have more jobs or buisnesses along side the farming.

[@henriklarsson5221]

@@audiosreality but when you say sweden pays less international aid i dont understand… according to most lists we are alwyas in the top when it comes to aid counted in GNI. In fact we pay more then canada in total even. Our politicians always brags about that. Not to mention how many billions we pour into EU , while getting much less backCheers

[@veramae4098]

Wow! This is great! I've been "discussing" with my local drainage commission how to restore the *legally*protected*wetlands* on the family farm I inherited. The land south of me was tiled to drain it for farming, and the drains dumped into my swale. Over a hundred years the wetland has been raised about 2 feet or maybe more. My only question is: what was done with all the soil that was removed? Where did it go?

[@averagealien8389]

Maybe construction/ building or farming

[@Jzhongzhi]

The sediment is still full of nutrients, so you could probably use it as fertiliser for other parts of the land that are less fertile.

[@Maybe1Someday]

Longer the river in general the better, if you have a small creek in your backyard it makes it look nice also

[@PJ818]

Beaver dams, and where beavers aren't an option, beaver dam analogs (BDAs). Slow down the flow, cause meanders, help settle out sediment, particles, and pollutants, help raise the stream bottom up to meet disconnected floodplains, help mitigate flooding, raise the water table, helps creeks flow even in droughts, and encourage recharge. The wetlands the dams create tend to encourage biodiversity too.

[@mlindsay527]

My small farm is mostly in a creek bottom. The more I think about it, the more I realize the entire creek bottom was once likely a beaver created wetland that was destroyed by trapping the beaver and draining the wetland for farming. Restoration would be a hard sell with farmers, and mosquitos might be a major heath issue. Would be amazing, though…

[@wrightgregson9761]

are these high banks indicative of an incised river bed? Isnt the top of the bank the old flood plain? Could B-D-As gradually raise the river bed to its old level and save money by not having to haul the silt away???

[@poomuruganpoopandian9189]

we need to find ways to get both natural restoration and economy development. nature knows the cycle of its rejunivation

[@christopherneufelt8971]

An interesting issue with wetlands: moscitos. Effect: increase of health services. Next: the cost of environmental services to the State is also extremely high to USA due to the stance that private companies take against the state: a solution can be a state service organization for this thing, until the prices for such services can be low.

[@glowiever]

you mean mosquitoes?

[@christopherneufelt8971]

@@glowiever Hi. Sorry for the misspelling. I write in many languages, and I have a neurological disorder in my linguistic performance.

[@tas5622]

True mosquitos may be a nuisance

[@owenwoodward4467]

Typically steep banks are a result of erosion and incision not deposition. Interesting there may be another cause in many cases here but this video implies that it is the normal main driver of what is the major problems with human impacted streams the world over.

[@A.Martin]

what happens is when the sediment was put in the water channel, the channel sedimented all over and so the streambed was higher, but then after the sediment stopped entering, it gradually eroded the streambed back down but leaving the banks on either side.

[@tas5622]

@@A.Martin legacy sediments

[@masbaiy4858]

Great narrative, a mark of quality channel.

[@seetheforest]

River cane. In nature it used to line the banks of rivers in wide marsh areas. Developed land has no canes or grasses.

[@MRSketch09]

I take this kind of info with a grain of salt. When I was a kid, in the region I live, you could go & swim in creeks all the time, b/c they were clean for the most part.. BUT, whenever it rained, said creeks would flood.. they had no freaking "legacy" mills or whatever.. but the land around would CONSTANTLY go through change... The only time the banks didn't change, is when vegetation had managed to get a foot hold, and keep things together. OR if the baskets filled with big rock, were set up? to help control the water. Now I do live in an area that is not "flat" land... so there is a lot of "turbulent" runoff. I personally think if were going to manage water ways, we should do like Japan & how they've tackled the problem. Just build up creeks & rivers, and put stone along the edges. That'd keep the land in shape & keep a bunch of sediment from going into the water. It would cost money, but long term be better.

[@patryklewandowski5377]

So what happened to "contamination '? It washed down to the ocean or its in the soil?

[@l.siestador7248]

Erosion unleashes the contamination from the soil into the water.

[@stevencovacci9764]

Further disturbance of the river/banks = further increase of non-native vegetation / decrease of native vegetation -- and the fauna that depend on the same

[@microcosm1957]

All that sediment could be bagged and sold, right? I’m sure that’s part of their business model

[@oldmanfromscenetwentyfour8164]

OK the Sediment is removed,if it's polluted, where is it deposited? Fixing one problem but causing another elsewhere, is not a solution.

[@leac3]

Every mankind alteration done to nature has always kicked us back in a bad way.

[@gearandalthefirst7027]

If that was true, we would've gone extinct several hundred thousand years ago. It only started becoming a problem when certain humans decided they weren't a part of nature anymore and so acted accordingly

[@johnkeviljr9625]

Oh good God, our people unwittingly destroyed the land. We must restore it and gently live within the framework. Restore, restore, restore.........................

[@DustinMarsau]

Really gotta include the hundreds of millions of beavers and their dams being trapped and removed when colonists came to America

[@chrislecky710]

awesome video!

[@JohnSmith-zv8km]

VEry interesting, work like this is going on in the UK too, especially returning meanders to rivers and using flood planes to soak up floods to stop flooding in towns.

[@TorreFernand]

so let me get this straight: in the midwest we need to dam more rivers, but in the east coast we need to undo the damming?

[@gearandalthefirst7027]

almost like they're two different ecosystems, funny how that works

[@indoolderguy4041]

We are still very much economy bound. Any and all eco projects must fit into it. We have a real long way to go before we can shed this cloak. Maybe, this pandemic downturn would push us to a real eco conscious uncloaking. Good luck n god speed !

[@user-bk6vq3xm1t]

Sadhguru is bringing back rivers & forest aswell, lets do our best too lets go!

[@bobhoven3959]

True, that's why Holland must change back. Last 1000 years they are changing the wetland 😢 disaster for nature. 🌏💖👋

[@tas5622]

Fellow Dutchman, Holland itself an entire swamp. People who have lived a thousand years ago built great cities on it and have made the world progress in many ways, especially with religious freedom. Basically it wouldn’t be a good idea to make Holland a giant swamp again.

[@gustavgnoettgen]

How untouched rivers clean themselves

[@flanzie]

mother earth knows best

[@luckyunlucky3893]

This should be funded by all Government and make up 2% of annual budget

[@dustintacohands1107]

Does this increase mosquito breeding grounds?

[@endresalbrecht7275]

Der Planet das Universum holt sich auch das letzte zurück. Das ist ein Teil von gerechtigkeit

[@danachos]

Where are the local First Nations in this? These are their countries, and their ancestors were here throughout these monumental shifts. In many cases, Indigenous legal systems address how to healthily care for rivers and riverbanks (in ways English and Anglo-American Common Law does not)

[@tonyb83]

Interesting but not new. It is common sence to those of us who heve managed rivers for the benefit of people and wildlife, as opposed to those who have managed rivers for the benefit of people alone.

[@robormiston2841]

How about don't contaminate the river in the first place. Can't believe I need to tell humans that.

[@YakubibnEsau]

Well, it’s happened. I guess we should do nothing. That’d be a lesson to us.

[@aseashe3749]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I LOVE THIS ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@Alex_Plante]

Nice, but wait until the beavers move in...

[@Drskopf]

They been coexisting with the land for thousands of years along with native ppl, water was good for drinking and filled with all kinds of life, is what mother Earth wants to do, not what we want to do with the land

[@anvilhead59]

"Channelized" streams are less productive than streams with ox bows and meanders, and that's just observations from fly fishing.

[@tackywhale5664]

Productive in terms of biodiversity, fishing and hunting? Absolutely. Productive in terms of being less likely to threaten any agricultural land (all of which is practically necessary to exist in the grander scheme of addressing problems of hunger and supply)? That's far more debatable, for sure.

[@MrToradragon]

@@tackywhale5664 Those small streams would perhaps not cause hunger, but they were altered for harnessing of power and most likely for small scale water based transport which require some depth, at least 0.5 m or like 2 ft.

[@anvilhead59]

@@MrToradragon The ones in my area were to open areas for farming and milling. Productive for this conversation was solely about biomass. Not human productivity.

[@dmillk]

The mosquitoes though.

[@goodday5570]

Sounds logical

[@EnzoF105]

Awesome

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

They came, they saw, they despoiled for personal gain

[@JavenarchX]

Ecosystems just destroyed..

[@PlayerPunisher]

Now let’s fix LA river

[@edwaggoner7403]

Preventing the erosion of the legacy sediment and restoration of marsh to filter new sedimemt may very well help with sea level rise. Less sediment to the sea is less displaced water, it will take a very long time but it will help.

[@scootersonlyrepair6773]

Wanna stop sea level rise? Get rid of at least half of all giant ships that displace miles of water. #globalearmingisamyth

[@Arrica101]

The amount of sediment that washes into the sea is literally a drop in the ocean compared to glacier melt runoff. Not only that but the sea floor is continuously being pulled under in subduction zones by tectonic activity.

[@edwaggoner7403]

@@Arrica101 So you do agree that sediments add to sea level rise? Never said it was the largest contributor. As for being offset by subduction, that is and extreamly slow process, in human life time scale,

[@jerrelhurenkamp5251]

We dutch do this since the 1800's. Wtf.

[@YakubibnEsau]

Good for you.

[@tas5622]

Holland is different than U.S in many ways. Not appropriate to compare U.S practices to Holland practices.

[@adwarbarbar3722]

Actual environmentalism I can get behind instead of the virtue signaling elite

[@nathanlaing8441]

Facts !!

[@frank8534]

Well if their ideas work then great but you can’t question established science. That’s anti science.

[@bozo5632]

Beavers?

[@Alex_Plante]

I was thinking the same thing. Beaver dams can be huge. The beaver population of the North-Eastern USA was probably greatly reduced by the fur trade in the 1600s, and is only rebounding now.

[@DeminicusSCA]

@@Alex_Plante beavers suck and will eat all the trees you plant

[@mikeschuchs]

Why not just reintroduce beavers to these areas.

[@MrToradragon]

Maybe they were not native to those areas, hard to tell, but even their reintroduction might not help with those problems.

[@Fin4L6are]

2:25 that looks like moving water sediment deposit, right to left

[@dorothymerritts7877]

Deltaic sediment just upstream of the dam. Built in 1727. Dam removed 2015. Fresh exposures immediately after. Historic millpond deltaic sediment overlies cobble Boulder Pleistocene colluvium (solifluction deposit) with organic soil. I’m happy to explain more.

[@jexryder3863]

algae gobbles up Co2 not oxygen.

[@phoenixjim0527]

Throw in 400 million beavers (1600 population) to complete the picture

[@maxwalker1159]

Cool

[@escrituraglobal8058]

SIENPRE BA A BER ALGIEN CE CANBIARA EL RUNBO DE LA ISTORIA..( CODIGOS MONTOYA..2020.) ANIMOS Y GRA SI AS...

[@AtlasReburdened]

"Massive algal blooms which gobble up oxygen" Shows green, photosynthetic algae which produce more oxygen than they consume. Doesn't explain that the die off of this type of algae and subsequent bacterial decomposition is what causes oxygen depletion. I guess this is pop sci now.

[@larrysorenson4789]

“Still laden with pollutants,,,” from the colonial era? C’mmon, man. That is just silly.

[@MrToradragon]

Technically they can be. There is somehow similar case in Czechia in area that was huge on metal working since middle ages and there is mix of sediments laden with heavy metals from like 14th century to middle of 19th century (in that time most of foundries had moved to areas with coal mines and had focused on iron/steel rather than tin, copper, lead...). Experts had discussion what to do with that area as it is still contaminating rivers downstream and in the end they had concluded that alterations and removal of toxic sediments would do more harm than good as it would require significant alteration of whole area.

[@larrysorenson4789]

@@MrToradragon thank you for tour insightful note. I intended to simplistically comment on the hearing if ore to produce early metals that were used on a small scale worldwide for creation of tools and weapons. Yes there were “refineries” in operation but they primarily heated ore the byproducts were

[@MrToradragon]

@@larrysorenson4789 Could you bit reword your comment? I have hard time understanding what you wanted to say. Sure early foundries relied on primitive methods, but slag was produced in large enough numbers to became "problem" over the time. It was dumped, then it was used for road construction (they basically just dumped and leveled it on path, nothing more was needed) then the floods came, material was transported and deposited somewhere else. Then there are spoil tips that contain some amounts of metals, again and spoil itself was used for various purposes or was dumped back then and floods had spread it over course of stream and trace amounts of metals are now released into water. (BTW modern spoil tips from 1830's to 1980's are today "mined" for metals (or coal) as technology had significantly improved And waste is used in construction of roads, railways and so on.)

[@larrysorenson4789]

@@MrToradragon sorry, my comment was incomplete. In America, coal was the primary source of transportable energy. The industry was gigantic. Mining and distributing the coal posed little risk of environmental damage with a few exceptions like the mine that is still burning after 100 years. Using the coal was another issue. It allowed large scale creation of iron and steel that fueled the American economy for decades. Many of these industrial processes create truly toxic by products other than particulate soot(largely now controlled) and CO2 which is a problem. But the worst creator of environmental toxicity is the massive copper mining industry here in my native Arizona. The short version for now is that our groundwater, as tested regionally by the US Department of Environmental Quality, is within “safety standards” as set by somebody. As you probably know a major byproduct of copper process is sulfur compounds which easily morph into sulphuric acid. The acids are used several times after collection to leech copper, gold and other metals from the tailing mounds which can each cover 100,000 acres of land. It also releases trace amounts of radioactive materials like uranium. The acids are commonly stored in ponds until used again. Flying into Phoenix the planes pass over very large copper mines near the towns of Globe and Miami. The ponds in shades of fluorescent blue and teal are a sharp contrast to the beige of the surrounding mountains . The industry carefully collects and reuses the acids and byproducts and all processes are under continuous scrutiny by federal and state agencies and scientists. I have said nothing about the potential for environmental disaster. I must simply state that everyone seems to be doing the best that we can with available technology to minimize the risk, for now. Tomorrow we can hope that technology continues to advance so that we can be protected. Working together it is possible that European and American technologies can combine leading to breakthroughs that will make the world a safer place for us all. Best wishes for a happy new year and a peaceful 2022. Larry in Arizona

[@larrysorenson4789]

@@MrToradragon sorry, my comment was incomplete. In America, coal was the primary source of transportable energy. The industry was gigantic. Mining and distributing the coal posed little risk of environmental damage with a few exceptions like the mine that is still burning after 100 years. Using the coal was another issue. It allowed large scale creation of iron and steel that fueled the American economy for decades. Many of these industrial processes create truly toxic by products other than particulate soot(largely now controlled) and CO2 which is a problem. But the worst creator of environmental toxicity is the massive copper mining industry here in my native Arizona. The short version for now is that our groundwater, as tested regionally by the US Department of Environmental Quality, is within “safety standards” as set by somebody. As you probably know a major byproduct of copper process is sulfur compounds which easily morph into sulphuric acid. The acids are used several times after collection to leech copper, gold and other metals from the tailing mounds which can each cover 100,000 acres of land. It also releases trace amounts of radioactive materials like uranium. The acids are commonly stored in ponds until used again. Flying into Phoenix the planes pass over very large copper mines near the towns of Globe and Miami. The ponds in shades of fluorescent blue and teal are a sharp contrast to the beige of the surrounding mountains . The industry carefully collects and reuses the acids and byproducts and all processes are under continuous scrutiny by federal and state agencies and scientists. I have said nothing about the potential for environmental disaster. I must simply state that everyone seems to be doing the best that we can with available technology to minimize the risk, for now. Tomorrow we can hope that technology continues to advance so that we can be protected. Working together it is possible that European and American technologies can combine leading to breakthroughs that will make the world a safer place for us all. Best wishes for a happy new year and a peaceful 2022. Larry in Arizona

[@washablejunk281]

Pennsylvanians are taxed for those phosphorus sulfates through rain tax. Leave those rivers the way they are. The tax won’t go away so no reason to fix it.

[@wroughtiron7258]

Ah yes. Algae taking up all the oxygen. Definitely a thing that the world's producer of nearly 100% of its oxygen does.

[@Arrica101]

I can't tell of you are being sarcastic or not

[@thischannelisforcommenting5680]

To make it clear, algae get the material spills, overgrows and completely covered water surface will suffocate everything inside the water. And some algae is toxic too.

[@thebackyardbear]

It feels like you are trying too hard to make a hypothesis founded in feelings work. Before the big bad white man arrived, beavers did a pretty good job creating a dam network all by themselves.

[@thatguy5801]

Humans helping the planet haha, has never happened and will never happen.

[@TheKrussedull]

Schauberger

[@snowman333-]

wasting my time

[@TigerWoodsDUIcrash]

Terrible job narrating the video. Seriously, so many sentences sound like run-on-sentences...it's not even funny.