Slashdot Mirror
ATF Puts Up Surveillance Cameras Around Seattle ... To Catch Illegal Grease Dump (muckrock.com)
v3rgEz writes: Last summer, Seattleites noticed that utility poles around town were showing some odd growths: A raft of surveillance cameras that, under Seattle's strict surveillance equipment laws, shouldn't have been there without disclosure and monitoring. But Seattle Police said that they weren't theirs, and one enterprising citizen followed up with a series of public records requests, only to discover that they were actually the ATF's cameras — on the watch for grease dumpers. Now the requester is fighting for the full list of federal surveillance watching over Seattle, and answers to how often federal agencies pursue what appear to be purely local crimes.
Grease dumping? Grease dumping?
1) How the hell does that fall under the ATF's jurisdiction?
2) Who dumps something they can sell as a (heating) fuel?
3) Does Seattle actually have that much of a problem with french fries that they need federal intervention?
4) Why can't you dump a biodegradable substance? Better bulldozed into an empty lot than rotting in a landfill for 150 years...
The BATFE started as a taxing agency, and is now a law enforcement agency, but should really just be a convenience store ....
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
If the ATF is monitoring the sewers for secret bomb makers, dumping cooking grease into a storm drain would create a false positive. Watch fight club if you don't understand how to make explosives from used fat. Restaurants are supposed to have grease traps to prevent grease from going into the sewer in large quantities, but those cost money to clean out. It is common for low end restaurants to illegally dump their grease. Installing a camera to see if it is restaurant employees are dumping grease straight into the sewer drain seems more reasonable than A. a stake out with people in a car for X weeks until the grease dumped is discovered or B. a military style raid based on a false positive. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't question it, just that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the ATF to be interested in illegal grease dumping, ie eliminating a false positive.
Grease = tryglycerides = fatty acids + glycerin
Glycerin + Nitric acid = Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin + diatomaceous earth = Dynamite
Dynamite = Profit!
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
It isn't too much of a surprise that the economics of producing biodiesel from used restaurant oil are shaky; and it also wouldn't be much of a surprise if on-site/near-site illicit dumping by individual operators looking to avoid paying for collection would be pretty common; but I am a little surprised that, if you are going to go to the trouble of collecting the stuff, it isn't economic to burn in less demanding applications.
Coal-fired power plants, say, are much less picky about the details of the fuel than internal combustion engines or combined cycle gas turbines are(plus, given the sheer volume of coal involved, you could get rid of a lot of grease without changing the behavior of the fuel by much) since the fuel doesn't interact with the intricate moving parts; and whatever nasty mixture of grease, fried food scraps, carbony bits, etc. should release more energy when burned than it takes to get burning, and probably has lower sulfur, mercury, and similar contaminant levels.
Near the coast, "bunker fuel" might also be an option. Since operating costs depend heavily on fuel costs, and there are few air quality regulations once you get out of port, large ships burn some of the nastiest dregs of oil refining that nobody else wants; because they are cheap and because it's easier to deal with very high viscosity fuels when you are operating large, purpose built, engines. Given the horrible crap that gets used, you might not even need to strain used grease for it to qualify as an improvement.
Don't normally respond to ACs, but the closest link I could think of is that the BATF is actually the BATFE today, they added in explosives a while ago.
One of the ingredients of your standard 'fertilizer bomb' is generally diesel, but most high-lipid sources would do.
That being said, it's the other half of the bomb formula that's actually hard to get, as opposed to pulling up to any fueling station with some yellow cans. Well, the color doesn't really matter, but yellow is the convention for diesel.
Still, as you say, this is an overreach by the ATF, and should have been done by the EPA in concert with local authorities.
I don't read AC A human right
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
That's my guess also.
The emails and things have a discussion about a camera near 23rd ave and Jackson, and one of the people in the emails guesses that it might have been placed on the pole by Walgreen's, to monitor their parking lot. Here is a link to Google Maps, centered right about the power pole in question. Here is a direct link to street view looking right at the camera mounted on the pole. If you look around, you'll notice that there are no drains on the street in that area where someone would pour grease. The closest drains are at the intersection of Jackson and 23rd, and there are poles that would have a much better view of those drains than the pole with the camera (and it's a little conspicuous to pour grease down the drain at an intersection with lights). The Google car drove around that parking lot, and if you wander around there you'll notice that the camera isn't on the pole in those shots. Directly in front of the Magic Dragon Chinese restaurant (next to Papa Murphy's pizza), there's a drain cover that does actually look a little bit stained (weird, I know). But there is a pole that is closer to that drain and restaurant, and still, why the hell would the ATF care about people dumping grease down a street drain?
If you go back to where the pole with the camera is in street view and look at the parking lot across Jackson, there are a couple women walking through the parking lot wearing hijabs. There's a store/restaurant back there called East African Imports, next to the Navy recruiting office, and it looks like there's also a marker for the Islamic Presentation and Invitation Center, which lists an address at 2301 S Jackson, which is that corner.
I bet the ATF/FBI is watching the Muslims instead of grease dumpers, but I should probably just get back to work.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black