The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
MAYBE IT'S THE COFFEE
EDITORIAL - September 19, 2006
Fly ash.
It's pretty interesting stuff.
There were a few days in the past couple of weeks where the fly ash was, well, heavy.
It was almost as if someone's poorly designed science project barfed up a lot of charred bits of trees and twigs and forest parts all over our car one morning.
Did you ever bother to look at what came out of the sky? It was a very interesting mixture of things.
So as we were sweeping it off our vehicle and cursing what we were considering the ineffectiveness of free trade and cross-border relations, it happened.
Maybe it was the caffeine from our morning coffee, but we were sure it had something to do with the fly ash when we pondered the distance these little bits of bug-killed trees had travelled to rest on our car.
Once in the office, with another cup of coffee, and a topographical map of the Tatoosh Complex Fire location we did the math.
Ruler in hand - and careful to carry the one, regardless of the total - we determined the fly ash had floated no less than 70 kilometres hidden in the, er - smoke screen of a forest fire.
With this in mind, we wondered how far minute (translated to mean 'better than regulated standards') mercury particles would travel.
We're not trying to sneak in any secret messages here, but it did occur to us. It was also about this time we had wished we had paid a little more attention to what was going on in Science Class in Grades 8, 9, 10, 11 and likely 12 instead of figuring out how to shoot flames across the room with the bunsen burners.
Fly ash.
It's amazing what it can teach us about our environment in one very long and smokey lesson.
We're not scientists, but we figure your average collection of mercury molecules, on a normal non-forest fire day in September, will weigh somewhat less than fly ash.
Remember, we're not sending you secret messages here, just the facts.
