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MIT stunt could end volunteer Charles River cleanup
By adamg on Tue, 09/11/2007 - 9:24pm
The group whose cleanup boat was contaminated by that exploding sodium says decontamination is so expensive the whole effort might be scuttled. One volunteer writes:
The real problem is the financial cost of the chemical decontamination carried out after the incident. This is an unexpected cost that must be paid by a small nonprofit that does not have any extra funds. Unfortunately, the Cleanup Boat may be forced to stop operating unless more funds are found to pay for the decontamination.
MIT officials, meanwhile, have yet to acknowledge the sodium that burned volunteers and EMTs came from the annual student prank known as the Sodium Drop, in which MIT students drop a large bar of the metal to watch it explode.
The Dig has more.
Earlier:
It's all fun and games until somebody's gloves start melting in a sodium fire.
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Comments
Come on, MIT!
How pathetic that a wealthy university refuses to acknowledge its clear responsibility here--or even to pay for repairs to the boat! If river clean-ups end because MIT won't help cover the costs of baot repai, it will be truly an absurd loss.
Musta been someone else's
Because there are so many people running around with big blocks of sodium, and throwing them in the Charles River... from the Longfellow Bridge... this month. Maybe MIT started it, but MIT's so cool that all kinds of wannabes are throwing hundred-dollar chunks of pure sodium in rivers all the time now. So it was probably someone else, eh?
This week's prize for lame-o cop-out goes to MIT! Hey, MIT, thanks for teaching your students all they need to know about responsibility. And a special shout-out to the head of the MIT ethics department, Dr. Bart Simpson!
More than a lost boat
For MIT to admit this came from their students is more than a matter of a lost boat - it is a matter of losing track of hazardous materials, of failing to secure hazarous materials, and of the possible ordering of hazardous materials specifically for the sodium drop.
In other words, they have a lot of motivation for their denials. It isn't a matter of wealth (and MIT isn't all that wealthy or large - 5,000 undergrads at most), it is a matter of liability and possibly criminal negligence.
The state and federal inspectors don't take the unreported loss of this much sodium too lightly. It can, after all, be used to make some major havoc.
Recruiting issue?
I hope that there are no cleanups in that section of the river from now on - particularly in the weeks leading up to big recruiting events in the spring. In fact, it would be great if the trash were left alone to accumulate in that end of the river just like it always does if somebody doesn't take care of it. Show those prospective students and their parents what a clean and sanitary place they are sending their kids. Bonus points if the river builds up a good odor that wafts in their direction while they walk around.
MIT should be paying for this service ANYWAY! Harvard and BU should too! Not just because their ill-advised traditions haven't kept pace with reality and damaged the boat.
not a bonus
Nice idea, but too bad it will screw the people who work nearby and residents who walk along the river.
Pitch in and help....make a donation
The Charles River Cleanup Boat [www.cleanupboat.org] is an effort started and sustained by some dedicated high school sailing coaches from the Massachusetts Bay League [www.MassBayLeague.org] who were distressed to see so much floating trash on the Charles. Since 2004, these volunteers have gone out on the river 3-4 times a week removing trash, making the river a cleaner place for all of us.
Unfortunately, the sodium metal incident has put a wrinkle in their activities. While they were back on the water this past Sunday, removing trash, they have some unexpected bills to pay. The boat's bimini (the canvas awning) needs to be replaced and there is money owed for the chemical decontamination the boat. The Cleanup Boat enjoys a the support of quite a few organizations and individuals in the community, but this incident has created a financial burden that they need some extra help to overcome.
Anyone interested in pitching in and keeping the Cleanup Boat running should visit their web site at www.cleanupboat.org and make a tax-deductible donation.
So let me understand this.
So let me understand this.
Distributing lite-brites advertising a crappy movie around the city is an act of terrorism and sparks outrage and action.
Dumping known explosive devices into a public waterway where it injures five and causes significant property damage and expensive decontamination efforts is .... a prank?
For chrissakes! Let it go...
For chrissakes! Let it go... the lite-brite thing is OVER.
Because ...
teh stupid that led to the "litebrite thing" still marches merrily along thanks to generous contributions of amnesia from those who simply don't want to think about broken systems that don't magically self repair!
MIT needs to donate
If the Clean Up Boat needs immediate funding, then MIT should donate money. Not because it's a sign of culpability. Not because they are being fined and forced to pay some paltry amount in debt to government and society for their negligence. But because they should be in-step with anyone who is spending time and money to help clean and maintain the river that borders a significant amount of their campus! Even if the boat didn't have a solid sodium problem, MIT should be willing to financially back their efforts!
If this is how MIT wants to spin it, then by all means, justify it to themselves in this way...but get the money and the job done, MIT. Help them out in repairing or replacing their boat and getting appropriate healthcare paid so that they can get back out on the river to keep up the great work. You want to be a good member of the Charles River community? Then donate money to those trying to help the Charles River...just the same as any one of us is doing in this group's time of need!
MIT already supports.....
If you had looked on the web site of the Charles River Cleanup Boat [www.cleanupboat.org], you would have noticed that MIT is already a sponsor of their efforts, having made donations in 2004, 2006, and 2007.
That's not to suggest that MIT should not pitch in now. But remember it was not MIT that did this but some unidentified individual(s) that might or might not be associated with MIT.
They only needed to give
They only needed to give $500 each year to keep their logo on that page. MIT admissions blogs tie the sodium drop to the school's official knowledge of occurrence. They don't call it a tradition without good reason.
Access to sodium.....
As someone who studied chemistry at a school outside of Massachusetts, I, and all of my fellow chemistry students, had ample access to a wide range of chemicals, including sodium metal. That access was a key part of conducting experiments and research. A typical chemistry laboratory may have hundreds of chemicals, with dozens of people having access to them. Without any doubt, the access to these chemicals comes with the responsibility to use them appropriately and safely. And dumping sodium in the Charles is not a resposible thing to do. But to blame MIT for the actions of some unidentified students is somewhat off the mark. As with most schools, MIT probably does try to ensure that access to chemicals are limited to those with appropriate need to use them, but the truth is that chemicals are fairly easy to obtain if you know how, especially if you are at a university or company that uses chemicals. Short of explosives, controlled substances (i.e., illegal drugs) and some of their precursors, and some radiactive materials, I could have easily ordered almost any chemical I wanted while I was in school, provided that my professor signed off on it. Since sodium metal is a common and inexpensive ingredient to many chemical reactions, I would have had no problem justifying its purchase and no one overseeing the purchase or the chemical inventory would have thought it to be out of place. I suspect that there are hundreds of people at MIT that have access to sodium metal as part of their job or studies, and thousands have access to a vast array of other assorted chemicals. The vast majority of those people use these chemicals in a safe and responsible manner in their laboratories.
If it were MIT students that dumped the sodium into the river, MIT as well as local law enforcement should pursue them. Unfortunately, no individual(s) have so far stepped forward to take responsibility and it is unlikely that they will be identified.
MIT's responsbility
Let's not assume MIT only learned of the sodium drop from WBZ. It's become one of those time-honored MIT things that official MIT even celebrates in its official house organ (or, at least, allows to be mentioned in it).
Allocate the blame....
While MIT has some institutional responsibility on this, it is the individuals that carried it out that have the biggest part of the blame. It is bad enough to throw sodium into the river but not making sure that all of it reacted and stayed in the water is worse. With everyone blaming MIT, it seems that no one wants to hold the individuals to account.
Where and when matter
I studied Materials Science and Engineering at MIT in the late 1980s and also had access to a wide range of chemicals and materials. However, the purchase and use of those materials was tracked, particulary hazardous materials.
After I left for local private industry, state and federal laws aimed at reducing the storage of dangerous materials and toxic waste due to overpurchace kicked in. Record keeping improved, and purchasing and storing unusual amounts of material became more restricted.
Suffice it to say that nobody uses that much sodium at one time at a university unless they are supplying a large laboratory section for a planned experiment or up to no good. In other words, somebody had to buy a large quantity of sodium and have it delivered for the occasion, and leave a paper trail of some sort in the process. MIT has sufficiently centralized records to investigate this.
Post modified
Based on an MIT Tech story, I originally wrote the boat was heavily damaged and that the cleanup was an annual thing. In fact, I learned from a volunteer, the boat itself came out relatively unscathed (aside from a covering used for shade); it's the cost of overall decontamination that's the problem.
Also, volunteers are (or were) out on the river three or four days a week between April and October, removing trash between the Science Museum and Watertown.
Careful with observation here, guys...
If you read The Tech's article, you'd notice that the sodium was reported to have been found at Gloucester street. Look on a map - Unless the students lobbed it off the end of the Harvard Bridge closest to Boston, it doesn't seem to make sense that bits and pieces of sodium would rocket itself across the river intact enough to still cause injury. It's certainly *possible* but it's a big stretch of physics.
Looking at their video, it doesn't look like the drop was near the Boston side.
Can alkali metals like sodium be purchased by a private party? Until they release more details, I think the possibility that someone else farther up the river and in Boston (or on the boston side) was trying to pull the same stunt.
Sodium floats......
Sodium is a silvery-white metal with a density of 0.968 grams per cubic centimeter. With that density, it would float on water. The wind could push the sodium to the Boston shore with little problem, even if it had been thrown into the river from middle of the Harvard Bridge as the videos seem to suggest.
Sodium is quite reactive with water, forming sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas then reacts further with the oxygen in the air, forming water vapor and the visible flames that are seen. Small pieces of sodium (1/4-inch cubes) will bounce along the water surface, reacting quickly and comparatively under control. Larger pieces of sodium (1-inch cubes) can cause explosions. When really big pieces of sodium, such as the 1-pound cylinder (2x10 inches) allegedly used in this incident, the reaction can be incomplete since a thick crust of sodium hydroxide can form on the outside. On smaller pieces of sodium, this hydroxide is readily dissolved into the water, exposing more sodium metal for further reaction, until all the sodium is consumed. If the crust is thick enough, it can take some time to dissolve away, delaying the complete reaction of all the sodium metal. This appears to be what happened in this instance and hydroxide-encrusted partially-reacted cylinder washed up on the shore to be discovered by the Cleanup Boat the next day.
As to your other query on the availability of chemicals to the general public, the sad truth is that there are ways for the public to get chemicals, including hazardous materials. In general, vendors of chemicals try to verify who you are and if you have a legitimate reason to have a chemical when they are ordered. Typically, this means demonstrating that you are affiliated with some entity such as a company, university, or institution that works with chemicals on a routine basis. For people that are inclined to play by the rules, this would screen out people that might be ordering materials for mischievous or illegal activities. But for people that are inclined to bend, twist, or break the rules, I am sure that there are ways to foil the best intentions of most chemical vendors. Moreover, if you had some connection to a legitimate "chemical user" entity, you could probably order most chemicals on your personal credit card and have it shipped directly to you at your place of business with little difficulty. Another more alarming example is the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols managed to get 108 fifty-pound bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and three fifty-five gallon drums of liquid nitromethane without a lot of notice. Does anyone seriously think that someone could not amass that much ammonium nitrate again without anyone noticing? By comparison, a one-pound cylinder of sodium ($125) seems like child's play.
Cleanup Boat Update
Based on some of the postings here, there seems to be some confusion on the status of the Charles River Cleanup Boat after the sodium incident. The Cleanup Boat was not destroyed or sunk, but did receive some minor damage. In fact, the boat was back in operation a few days after the incident, patrolling the Charles between Watertown and Science Park, removing trash from the water. And the dedicated volunteers plan to patrol the river on their normal schedule of 3-4 days a week until the end of the season in October.
Beyond the injuries to the volunteer crew, the big problem that resulted from the sodium incident was the unexpected expense for the chemical decontamination of the boat. The bill for the decontamination was $10,873. The company that did the decontamination, Triumvirate Environmental, is a long-standing supporter of the Cleanup Boat and has generously picked up half the tab as a donation-in-kind. MIT has also made a $6000 donation toward the decontamination costs, in addition to their previous annual contributions. A number of other organizations and individuals have also made generous donations in support of the Cleanup Boat. Any funds not used to recover from the sodium incident will be applied to operating the boat.
Anyone wishing to support or volunteer with the Cleanup Boat, should visit their web page at www.cleanupboat.org.