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AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

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Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#51

Post by nerdsniper »

jnmandal wrote: post #47

Data centers should do everything they can to reduce water usage. That said, this is masterful scapegoating. The ag lobby must be gleeful if they're not directly responsible for this narrative. In 2003 my middle school in Central Pennsylvania had this exact same problem. All our water fountains had to have signs posted stating that the water was not safe to drink. Many of my classmates had the purple-tinged skintone…

What type of contamination causes purple-tinted skin? Googling isn’t turning up much (but then…maybe I should try Kagi instead these days)

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#53

Post by stingraycharles »

skylurk wrote: post #20
yread wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, none of the methods used in normal water purification remove nitrates: https://www.freshwatersystems.com/blogs/blog/how-to-remove-n...

Those are residential systems. At the municipal level it is more often done with bacteria in large tanks. It's not unlike brewing beer in that you need to adapt your recipe constantly to account for variations in inputs in order to get a consistent product out the other end. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-08/documents/de...

I was about to say, I happen to have aquascaping / aquariums as a hobby and getting the right bacteria in your water and keeping those in balance is a crucial part of keeping nitrates down.

Plants also use nitrates as a nutrient.

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#54

Post by foxyv »

nerdsniper wrote: post #51
jnmandal wrote: post #47

Data centers should do everything they can to reduce water usage. That said, this is masterful scapegoating. The ag lobby must be gleeful if they're not directly responsible for this narrative. In 2003 my middle school in Central Pennsylvania had this exact same problem. All our water fountains had to have signs posted stating that the water was not safe to drink. Many of my classmates had the purple-tinged skintone…

What type of contamination causes purple-tinted skin? Googling isn’t turning up much (but then…maybe I should try Kagi instead these days)

The short answer is nitrate poisoning. It usually happens in infants before it hits adults. The reduction in water volume in the aquifer is reducing the dilution of existing nitrate contamination from agriculture.

From the article:

> Morrow County, Oregon, has recorded nitrate readings as high as 73 parts per million (ppm) in household wells—more than ten times the state’s legal ceiling of 7ppm—following reports that local data centres are intensifying aquifer contamination.

From the CDC:

> The first reported case of fatal acquired methemoglobinemia in an infant due to ingestion of nitrate contaminated well water in the United States occurred in 1945 [Comly 1945]. This condition is also termed “Blue Baby Syndrome”.

https://archive.cdc.gov/www_atsdr_cdc_gov/csem/nitrate-nitri...

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#55

Post by ASalazarMX »

monerozcash wrote: post #36
zbentley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> .1% at most. Is it a big deal? Not in my opinion. Depends. .1% increase in the number of calories going into my body? Not a big deal. .1% increase in the number of radioactive particulates going into my body? Big deal.

>.1% increase in the number of radioactive particulates going into my body? Big deal. Why would that be a big deal? It is a .1% increase.

Yearly average exposition is about 600 mrem, don't take risks with those aditional 0.6 mrems!

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#56

Post by jnmandal »

nerdsniper wrote: post #51
jnmandal wrote: post #47

Data centers should do everything they can to reduce water usage. That said, this is masterful scapegoating. The ag lobby must be gleeful if they're not directly responsible for this narrative. In 2003 my middle school in Central Pennsylvania had this exact same problem. All our water fountains had to have signs posted stating that the water was not safe to drink. Many of my classmates had the purple-tinged skintone…

What type of contamination causes purple-tinted skin? Googling isn’t turning up much (but then…maybe I should try Kagi instead these days)

Cyanosis is the medical term is but I should clarify its not like their skin was purple all the time. What happens is that if you drink a lot of the polluted well water then when your veins narrow (like from cold) it gets a more purplish hue. This happens naturally (like when your lips are cold after swimming) but its just more noticeable if you are drinking polluted well water from farming runoff.

A thing kids would do at my school is stick their hand out the window of the bus in the fall/winter and then compare whose hand is "more purple". Dumb kid stuff. I still remember a single person I knew whose cheeks would be super purple every time we came inside from playing in the winter. Almost like the character in the willy wonka movies.

So like its well known the color is simply more noticeable when you are being constantly exposed to nitrates. The person I am thinking of -- he was almost certainly drinking bad well water at home, perhaps for his whole life. I can't imagine that was only from the fountains at school. As far as I know its not a huge deal but like the article is saying... it quite obviously has knock on health effects.

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#57

Post by zbentley »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #55
monerozcash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>.1% increase in the number of radioactive particulates going into my body? Big deal. Why would that be a big deal? It is a .1% increase.

Yearly average exposition is about 600 mrem, don't take risks with those aditional 0.6 mrems!

I didn't say radiation exposure, I said radioactive particulates in my body. 0.1% increase in radiation exposure is a high altitude plane flight. Nothing to be concerned about as you say. 0.1% increase in radioactive particulates in my body is a Fukishima sand grain in a clam. Or a leaky medical iodine cell. Or a speck of Chernobyl ash stirred up by passing soldiers and inhaled. That's a much bigger concern.

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#58

Post by zbentley »

kingstnap wrote: post #41
zbentley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> .1% at most. Is it a big deal? Not in my opinion. Depends. .1% increase in the number of calories going into my body? Not a big deal. .1% increase in the number of radioactive particulates going into my body? Big deal.

Typical global yearly background radiation dose according to Canadian nuclear safety commission is around 2.5 mSv per year [0]. Ignoring the major issue that the location dependent variance is orders of magnitude more significant than 0.1% we can reason that 0.1% is an extra 2.5 uSv over an entire year. Thats like a 20 minute flight... or half a dental xray, or if you planned to eat like 20 bananas this year you bett…

Not what I said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116920

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#59

Post by monerozcash »

zbentley wrote: post #57
ASalazarMX wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yearly average exposition is about 600 mrem, don't take risks with those aditional 0.6 mrems!

I didn't say radiation exposure , I said radioactive particulates in my body . 0.1% increase in radiation exposure is a high altitude plane flight. Nothing to be concerned about as you say. 0.1% increase in radioactive particulates in my body is a Fukishima sand grain in a clam. Or a leaky medical iodine cell. Or a speck of Chernobyl ash stirred up by passing soldiers and inhaled. That's a much bigger concern.

This still doesn't make any sense.

Let’s say you have a hypothetical 25 nanograms of radioactive particulates in your body. Now we add 0.1%, and you have 25.025 nanograms of radioactive particulates in your body.

This is not a meaningful difference at all.

Re: AWS data centers' water use tied to spike in cancer and miscarriages in Oregon

#60

Post by ASalazarMX »

monerozcash wrote: post #59
zbentley wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say radiation exposure , I said radioactive particulates in my body . 0.1% increase in radiation exposure is a high altitude plane flight. Nothing to be concerned about as you say. 0.1% increase in radioactive particulates in my body is a Fukishima sand grain in a clam. Or a leaky medical iodine cell. Or a speck of Chernobyl ash stirred up by passing soldiers and inhaled. That's a much bigger concern.

This still doesn't make any sense. Let’s say you have a hypothetical 25 nanograms of radioactive particulates in your body. Now we add 0.1%, and you have 25.025 nanograms of radioactive particulates in your body. This is not a meaningful difference at all.

You wouldn't be so cavalier if you had to live with 1,000 Fukishima sand grains in your body all the time. That 1,001st one could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
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