From the “where the rubber meets the road” department, comes this bombshell finding that flies in the face of claims about the universal boogeyman of “climate change” killing salmon due to it supposedly raising water temperature in streams where they spawn.
Just last year, PBS and Popular Science were screaming about “climate change” being the cause with headlines likeClimate Change is Killing Salmon in the Pacific Northwest and Climate change is cooking salmon in the Pacific Northwest
It seems they were wrong, dead wrong.
New University of Washington research published December 3rd in the journal Science, exonerates “climate change” in the salmon killing caper and finds a surprise villain; an additive to automobile tires, not “climate change.” In fact, the researchers specifically ruled out climate-driven temperature increase as a cause.
Basically, the process is like this: stormwater runoff carries tire wear rubber particles into streams from the nearby roads, where a chemical called 6PPD-quinone, a biproduct from the 6PPD preservative added on tires to prevent breakdown by ozone, leeches into the water. It has been determined that this chemical is highly toxic to salmon. Researchers say they identified 6PPD-quinone as the “smoking gun” behind salmon deaths in freshwater streams.
Here are some relevant quotes from the University of Washington press release, Tire-related chemical is largely responsible for adult coho salmon deaths in urban streams, bold mine:
“We had determined it couldn’t be explained by high temperatures, low dissolved oxygen or any known contaminant, such as high zinc levels,” said co-senior author Jenifer McIntyre, an assistant professor at WSU’s School of the Environment, based in Puyallup. “Then we found that urban stormwater runoff could recreate the symptoms and the acute mortality.
“[We]…found something called 6PPD, which is used to keep tires from breaking down too quickly.
“It’s like a preservative for tires,” Tian said. “Similar to how food preservatives keep food from spoiling too quickly, 6PPD helps tires last by protecting them from ground-level ozone.”“But when 6PPD reacts with ozone, the researchers found that it was transformed into multiple chemicals, including 6PPD-quinone (pronounced “kwih-known”), the toxic chemical that is responsible for killing the salmon.
This chemical is not limited to the Puget Sound region. The team also tested roadway runoff from Los Angeles and urban creeks near San Francisco, and 6PPD-quinone was present there as well. This finding is unsurprising, the researchers said, because 6PPD appears to be used in all tires and tire wear particles are likely present in creeks near busy roads across the world.”
The findings suggest this is a worldwide problem, and since this research focused only on salmon, who knows where else in nature this chemical might be causing trouble.
Historically, climate activists like to use “climate change” as an immediate go-to cause for anything that they can’t explain, which is why I refer to it as the “universal boogeyman”. Now that real science without a climate change agenda has been published on the salmon issue, we can move from a baseless blame-game to a solution.
The solution is banning 6PPD preservative from use in anything including tires.
1. As a result of that, thousands of humans will die when their tires prematurely fail.
2. Thereby fewer people to eat salmon reducing demand AND fewer people alive to drive those awful pollution generating vehicles of all types.
WIN – WIN
Maybe the 6PPD by product isn’t good for humans, either.
Think of it as animal testing.
So generally I would worry about all life, rather than the “salmon issue”- which don’t know is a particular problem.
A question is how well does 6PPD work in terms of preserving tires and can any else work as well or better.
Of course a replacement could be worse than 6PPD. But I might buy tires which didn’t kill salmon.
If you drink the hi-way run off you may have trouble.
OR…..give the salmon a while to evolve a resistance to the effects of the chemical. Presumably all salmon are exposed to it, yet many still survive to breed. It shouldn’t take long to rectify the situation. Especially if hatcheries can more specifically breed the resistant group. Or maybe try a different chemical if one can be identified. Once again, the Great GOD, Climate Change= threw his bolt and missed by a country mile. Just one of the more serious problems with hitching our scientific wagon to a fantastically flawed pseudo-scientific paradigm of thought.
In a similar way the damage to the Greta Barrier Reef corals is more the fault of agricultural run off than any effect of global temperatures.
NO
Agreed, absolutely NO. The kill by run-off of returning salmon to urban/suburban streams and creeks has be known and documented for at least 40 years in Puget Sound watersheds. Salmon reproductive success has not improved in spite of decades of evolutionary pressure from the pollutant. Finally some outstanding scientific detective work appears to have identified the smoking gun. Now it is time for the tire companies to organize an industry-wide working group of chemists and engineers to develop a tire preservative lacking fish kill properties.
No.
Ask yourself why only salmon returning to their birth places suffer this toxicity?
From all appearances, salmon spawn, hatched fry, fingerlings and young salmon are unaffected as they head out of the waters towards the oceans.
Also ask yourself why, all of the close relatives to salmon are unmentioned?
No harm to steelhead, trout, chars?
If “6PPD-quinone” is so toxic, the streams and rivers should be bereft of salmo and salmo relations.
You can’t have it solely kill returning adult salmon.
Nor can it only kill salmon as they return from the sea while causing no harm to salmo and Oncorhynchus relations that live their life in fresh water.
Even water and sugar are toxic to humans in large enough quantities.
One suspects that either these salmon deaths are modeled or they are from huge overdoses of “6PPD-quinone” toxin.
oh dear then all the recycled tyres shredded rubber into road materials and paving might be a tad of an issue globally then?
ozspeaksup the truth – we may have to change the way we dispose of tires. 6PPD is an important insight, and now that we know, humans will adjust in a way that helps salmon and drivers. Also, someone will make a lot of money from replacing all those tires – good on them.
@ATheoK – it is only salmon because that is all they researched. They were looking for something and found it. That is how “science” funded with OPM (aka tax dollars) works. If you don’t find a problem that people can feel good about not solving then you won’t get any more OPM.
Undoubtedly many survive to breed, but it’s likely they do so because they were exposed to less of this chemical, not because they developed a tolerance for it. Bacteria develop resistance to antibacterials within human lifetimes, but only because bacterial lifetimes are so short.
“In a similar way the damage to the Greta Barrier Reef corals is more the fault of agricultural run off than any effect of global temperatures.”
Wrong. You insult all of those whose efforts reduced agricultural nutrient load to the level that it is now barely detectable. The problem was solved by “Landcare” projects. Farmers (cattle, sugar etc), local councils, engineers, real environmentalists, even hippies, all working together with moderate funding to create buffer zones, filtration beds, reducing excessive erosion (but not eliminate it, as that results in beach erosion).
I thought the reef coral damage was proven to be due to oxybenzone, a chemical commonly used in sunscreen
It seems to me that the areas of the GBR that the commercial operators take tourists would be the first to suffer if sunscreen chemicals were such a problem. That is not the case, though, is it? The times I snorkeled on the GBR the corals were doing just fine, just brilliant in fact.
That is just another send us money gambit!
It is also interesting that all this bleaching doesn’t affect the tourist areas, strange that!
John
Most of the GBR tour operators since some years have tourists change into head to toe ‘stinger suits’ prior to entering the water so sunscreen issues would be greatly reduced if they were ever really a problem.
Sort of like that arsenic resistant rice that they grow in old cotton fields? The arsenic hasn’t been used on the fields in 30+ years but it was used heavily for decades before that. Now the rice grown there takes it up and people end up eating it in very high quantities. No thanks.
https://nutritionfacts.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c1bae6687e1e6ab175fb56913&id=74e3d7dcfa&e=3ecc6e7878
From what I’ve read, virtually no hatchery bread salmon live long enough to breed in the wild.If true, GMO salmon are unlikely to help much.
Can’t let you get away with the ‘Greta’ comment untouched.
‘In a similar way the damage to the Greta Barrier Reef corals is more the fault of agricultural run off than any effect of global temperatures.’
Great Barrier Reef is in great condition and despite contrary pseudoscience promoted by the mad cult, well planned studies such as ENCORE published in the Journal of Marine Pollution were unable to model significant damage from high nutrient run-off. Professor Peter Ridd has just published a book ‘Reef Heresy’ calling such rubbish statements about the state of the Reef to account.
The greatest threat to reefs throughout the world, I argue will be the Great Reset where a remote totalitarian elite will be ignorant of or complicit in the destruction of world’s natural wonders while it enriches itself and engages in court intrigues. The local serfs will be left eat what remains or die of hunger.
“In a similar way the damage to the Greta Barrier Reef corals is more the fault of agricultural run off than any effect of global temperatures.”
Where is the Greta Barrier Reef? In Sweden?
Here is the problem. EV’s weigh more than ICE vehicles so tire wear will increase. Do nothing and there will be more 6PDD, eliminate 6PDD, fewer miles per tire. I’ll bet somewhere along the line more chemicals will be found (ala cigarettes) and then kiss tires goodbye. Back to steel wheels and draft animals.
BTW, wonder what this chemical does to humans. I’ll bet it is in our drinking after.
Mr. Gorman: I just drank a glass of water, and there is no affectectectectect%^&.
Sorry, that’s not due to the water, it’s a climate change thing.
Yes that was my thought, why not steel wheels? My Dad built a tractor with steel wheels many decades ago. The old steel wagon wheels used to be used on cobblestone and gravel. Think of the steel rim penny farthing cycle. But with today’ s well paved roads would be a much smoother ride.
After all train travel is on steel wheels!
After all train travel is on steel wheels! — on steel rails
Think roadways are in bad shape in many places? Just start using steel wheels on many vehicles.
All you have to do to see steel damage to roads is live near Amish. Their buggy tires traveling as fast as the horses can go put more wear on the roads than my car at 80 MPH- not that I ever actually go that fast on country back roads, really.
The argument as that 6PPD is only harmful when first reacted with ozone. Extended wetlands are proposed as mitigation zones, and I’m all for that.
Note that I have hinted that very shortly EV’s will not need their heavy battery packs.
Gothenburg, home of Volvo’s truck (and bus) division, has 145 electrical, articulated buses in service. I hope that Volvo plus ABB Ltd will use them as test beds for new power sources.. (Not, I hope, hydrogen fuel cells.)
Save tire wear. Ridee the bus (or train).
“Save tire wear. Ride the bus (or train).”
If the heat don’t get you, the Covid will….
Fill the tires with helium or better hydrogen to reduce weight/wear. Hydrogen has the advantage of adding to the cook off when Elon’s EV decides you get to die by battery fire.
Only an average of 1.5 hours wait for a bus to arrive, then a longish taxis ride to get to where you want to go at the other end.
Apparently, an alternative has been researched:
For protection of elastomeric materials against ageing, antioxidants such as UV-stabilizers and antiozonants are used. Although historically N-phenyl-N’-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-p-phenylenediamine (6PPD) was the only approved antiozonant in Germany, a range of other phenylene diamine antiozonants (excluding 6PPD) are permitted for use in rubber articles intended for repeat food-contact use in the US (FDA regulations chapter 21 Part 177.2600). The biggest disadvantage of 6PPD is its partial decomposition during the vulcanization leading to the formation of toxic primary aromatic amines (PAA), such as aniline and secondary aromatic amines (SAA). A number of new PPDs have been developed and patented, that due to their chemical structures, are far less soluble in aqueous solutions but a lot more soluble within the rubber matrix. They therefore show significantly less migration of PAA and SAA. These new antiozonants were investigated and compared to 6PPD using commercial rubber materials with a certain content of antiozonant with regard to their migration of PAA and SAA into three different food simulants. The lowest concentration of PAA and SAA in all food simulants was measured in the RU 997 stabilized elastomer. Due to this fact RU 997 was permitted as a new antiozonant for commodities based on rubber according to the Recommendation XXI ‘Articles based on natural and synthetic rubber’ of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). RU 997 therefore represents an alternative for 6PPD with less migration of aromatic amines.
November 2005Food Additives and Contaminants 22(10):968-74
DOI: 10.1080/02652030500098177
SourcePubMed
Authors:
R H Krüger, C Boissiére, K Klein-Hartwig, H. -J. Kretzschmar
Are you being facetious, or are you angling for a position in the possible Biden Administration working with John ( Iwas in Vietnam) Kerry.
Is the 6PPD preservative used in private jet tires, or the tires of chauffer-driven limousines? If so, there would have to be a carve-out for “the right people”…i.e. the people who scream that it’s really climate change.
The solution is ‘hovering cars’. Reading popular science magazines back in the 1960s, I was certain that by now we would be having ‘holidays on the moon’ and ‘hovering cars’. It looks like the moon holiday thing is more likely to come true first!
Report for re-education immediately! 😠
Yes, “Climate change” is the usual refuge of administrators from bee-keeper co-ops to federal government when their precautions against extreme events have proven to be inadequate.
I’m a naturally skeptical person, as all scientists should be. I would want to see a great deal more than one study of this tire preservative compound and its effects on ecosystems before deciding it is what is “killing salmon”.
If it is in wide use, as claimed by the article, then there is a reason that it is used and banning it would have impacts on the tire industry and consumers.
BAN TIRES!!! BAN CARS!!! BAN PETROLEUM PRODUCTS!!!
I’m sure that’s what we’re going to hear next from our glorious, cosmopolitan, virtue signaling lords and masters. Oh, wait… /sarc
Obviously we need to switch to electric cars immediately.
But, they use tires. Shouldn’t they be banned, too?
More than likely they’ll just ban 6PPD making tires wear out twice as fast and cost twice as much.
Much like MTBE … refineries said we would need to pay more for the gas additive when it was required, then stated we would have to pay even more for gas to NOT add it.
The government required that oxygenating agents be added to gas.
Even the cheapest, MTBE was expensive. When the government banned MTBE, the industry switched to the next alternative, which was even more expensive.
No evil conspiracy, just stupid government bureaucrats.
Stupid government bureaucrats can do so much more damage than any conspiracy.
That is because goverment very rarely has any beneficial solution. Almost all its “solutions” are punitive against whatever they don’t like rather than some benefit to something.
Those are special electric tires. They don’t wear.
Reading popular science magazines back in the 1960s, I was certain that by now we would be having ‘holidays on the moon’ and ‘hovering cars’. It looks like the moon holiday thing is more likely to come true first!
I’m fine with banning tires in the Pacific NW where coho salmon live. Seems the green Wacko’s up there should be too.
A new argument to be wielded by Greens in their unrelenting fight against the automobile.
Coming soon : A race between governments to ban the use of tires before 2040… 2035…2030…
What is up with the negativity? If some manmade chemical is causing the environment harm, is it not better to know?
The problem with leftists is that they always want revolutionary fixes, when wisdom dictates that evolutionary improvements are healthier. Change is like anything else, there is a smart way to go about it and a not-so-smart way. Just because there is a not-so-smart way to do something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything at all.
This shows how the climate change scam hurts the environment by distracting attention away from true hazards and pollutants. If climate change is incorrectly blamed for a problem, then the real cause will not be addressed.
Mr. Lee
+1
👍
Exactly put. It is the same in other disciplines. Example: Climate was blamed for decline in moose numbers in Minnesota. It took a while but researcher L. D. Mech et. al revisited the data and came to an entirely different conclusion; it’s wolves, hummm who would have thought that? What ever happened to the old wisdom of looking for horses instead of zebras when you hear hoof beats? I think that went down the postmodern sausage maker.
+100!
Well, it may open the door for researchers to find a safe alternative to 6PPD preservative if other studies come to the same conclusion.
It would be expensive, but we could redesign the run-off to go through a man-made wetland to filter the stuff out before it gets to the streams. We would have to redesign the drainage to all go to a central collection location and that would be extremely expensive.
Or we could find a different chemical tire preservative.
Peoria Illinois is redesigning its storm runoff system to keep water out of the Illinois River. Property owners are being charged not insignificant amounts to cover the cost. Supposedly an EPA mandate. Don’t see why Seattle area would be exempt.
Absolutely Owen.
It seems to be what happens here in the UK, at least with new roads and re-works of old ones.
They build lagoons beside roads and near large junctions & interchanges.
And they very quickly fill with life. Plant life certainly.
They have a funny name for them, can’t recall just now.
Not least as the road run-off typically went into the sewers and, of course with Climate Change,the treatment works were overwhelmed whenever it rained.
Sewage thus poured into the rivers and killed the fish
I got through a lot of old cars tyres – I used them to weight down the plastic sheeting on top of my silage clamps.
I wasn’t especially aware that Ozone was A Problem
Just being stored outside, as they were during summer, in conjunction with being epic rainfall catchers as they are, simply caused them to go green and disintegrate.
A process that took 10 years tops in Cumbria UK
If ever and when ever they escaped from their storage heap/pile, they’d be found in ditches, boggy patches of ground and under hedges. (they seemed to have a life of their own and obviously enjoyed going walk-about. (Roll-about?)
If one did make the effort to go retrieve them, you were always sorry you did.
They made perfectly epic homes, shelters and refuges for all sorts of sweet little critters and so, i do really rather ‘wonder’ about what’s reported here.
I do wonder about the poison part of things but there again, fish are exquisitely sensitive. I think.
Also not least and having seen them disintegrate as fast as they do, I would absolutely assert that Tyre Dust is a significant reason why UK roadside verges can be as verdant and overgrown as they are.
Fertiliser, esp as they contain Carbon Black** to protect themselves from UV light.
(**) Soot aka Bio-Char
hmmif its tocix in tiny ug amounts stated
then why dont the mosquitos and other bugs living in the hundreds of tyres on my block not die?
ttheyre a haven for buglife
One option is to tax tires with 6PPD to help pay for the mitigation and encourage the use of alternative preservatives. A similar issue exists with the copper used in disk brake pads.
Just what is needed, another tax. No thanks.
I would suggest we go back to the stone tires used by Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. A little hard on the bottom when you hit a pothole but nearly indestructible. Sometimes we just have to look into the past and rediscover or repurpose prior inventions.
On a more serious note, some of the chemicals that we put into our water really aren’t good for us or anything else living. Pharmaceuticals that go through us unmetabolized find their way directly into the waterways through our sewage plants and cause issues with aquatic creatures. The solution to pollution is dilution.. but only to a point.
The rapidly rising rates of Pancreatic Cancer probably has a chemical cause. Maybe it’s an artificial sweetener (which would affect the pancreas) or just our high carb diets. Humans have a history of poisoning ourselves over the last thousands of years. Lead in drinking containers and pipes is a good example.
I’m not against taking studies like this, verifying it in fact is correct and taking action on removing it. If it is poisoning the fish, it probably isn’t doing we humans any good either.
“The rapidly rising rates of Pancreatic Cancer probably has a chemical cause. ”
Most likely it’s an issue of aging. people used to die before they got cancers 100 years ago – we are now keeping people alive well past theuir sell-by date, and we end up with rapidly imcreasing issues like dementia…
The people I’ve known who had pancreatic cancers were far from old. And as for dementia, the correlation of dementia with age may reflect longer lifetime exposure to noxious things, such as the BBC.
The plural of ‘is’, is ‘are’. Automobile tires….are killing salmon….:-)
That depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
OR…..give the salmon a while to evolve a resistance to the effects of the chemical. Presumably all salmon are exposed to it, yet many still survive to breed. It shouldn’t take long to rectify the situation. Especially if hatcheries can more specifically breed the resistant group. Or maybe try a different chemical if one can be identified. Once again, the Great GOD, Climate Change= threw his bolt and missed by a country mile. Just one of the more serious problems with hitching our scientific wagon to a fantastically flawed pseudo-scientific paradigm of thought.
In a similar way, the damage to the Great Barrier Reef corals is more the fault of agricultural run off than any effect of global temperatures.
Still NO.
If its true for salmon then it must be true for other fish, trout etc? Here in calgary when we get a hot dry period in summer followed by a thunderstorm, the rainwater running into the storm drains is initially pretty black as a bunch of crap gets washed away, there is no treatment of storm water, goes straight into the Bow river which is why i don’t like using salt on the roads in winter as well (although a good friend and his wife work in the salt mine in Saskatchewan that calgary buys from).
Whoo there Pat …. much of Calgary’s storm water first goes to settlement ponds and has for about the last 40 years in all the newer areas. Downtown I think u are right and straight into the Bow or Elbow.
Re salt on the roads …. how many children would u like to kill with skating rink roads?? They tried no salt in BC on #3 around Fernie and it was a disaster although there is no way to know how many were killed although I know of two women killed at xmas the first year of the green experiment.
If u live near Bow Tr and Sarcee look at the big settlement pond in Edworthy … u would hardly know it is there … went in about 2004 right at the northeast corner of the intersection. The ponds are all over in parks and u wouldn’t know they are there until there is a rainy period and they flood.
Horsefeathers! The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 is killing, and eating, the Pacific Northwest salmon.
300 years ago the russians wiped out the salmon predators.
200 years ago we recognized the “historic” salmon runs.
100 years ago we trashed a lot of the streams.
50 years ago we began returning the predators to their historic numbers.
Now we make nutty efforts to return the salmon to their “historic” numbers without taking into account what happened 300 years ago.
Yabut, “climate change” makes them “more susceptible” to the pollutant, will be the claim, thus preserving the integrity of the CAGW ideology. Heads they win, tails we lose.
If they were wrong last year when they blamed “climate change” why should I believe them today when they blame tires.
It all comes down to the same luddite tendencies; all modern technology (except for Big Tech censorship) is destroying the planet. The simple fact is, in America, the air is clean, the water is clean, and there is no such thing as “climate change.” Instead of a luddite war on modern life, how about we focus on the only real environmental issue, the sites of historic contamination that were identified 40 years ago, but where clean ups still have not been done do to wheel spinning by EPA even though we have spent billions on Superfund.
I don’t know why humans are unwilling to return to an 1800’s lifestyle. It seems to be the best way to save the earth. Modern living is always destroying the earth and its always our fault as research always shows. So get yourself a horse, a wagon, a herd of sheep and a spinning wheel or its plain to see that you really don’t care about ecology.
So then we cut down all the trees, 1800 lifestyle
I thought many tires these days were made out of synthetics, rather than rubber.
No?
The tires would be OK without the 6PPD if we reduced the ozone. Didn’t Chlorofluorocarbons destroy ozone.
Just as I expected. The banning of CFCs has the unintended consequence of killing Salmon. 😉
I can’t recall tires being advertized as having 6PPD, but I wonder what else might have this chemical. Tires being the main thing; Yes?
[Much rather eat Salmon without added chemicals — that likely add to the cost per pound.]
I do think tires are still made with Walnut shells with the purpose of producing micro-pits in the surface, thereby adding grip. Sounds more environmentally friendly than (eek!) a chemical.
Shouldn’t they have said “in addition” to climate change or that something masks or contributes to climate change… harrumph. Can any of them remain employed with this on their resumes? Doing science in lieu of promoting the narrative is not what a modern university is all about
Where I live, automobile tires are responsible for killing lots of possums.
I just made a trip up the Pennyrile Pkwy in Kentucky. I’ve never seen so many roadkill deer in my life.
It’s the ‘rut’ AKA breeding season. Same thing happens most everywhere there are large populations of whitetail deer. The bucks get really stupid during this time…
Tires.
Roads
Asphalt will be eliminated because it comes from crude.
concrete roadways from dehydrated gypsum. Dehydrated in Natural Gas fired ovens.
No more paved roads.
Electric cars don’t pay tax on fuel to build roads.
Dirt roads raise dust which EPA deems to be pollutant “fugitive waste”
70%” of these tires are made of synthetic rubber. Crude.
John Deere has a large combine with a 60′ wide header. Huge. No more diesel.
So that monster needs to harvest fields that are half section plus or 320 acres.
The other half of the section of land will be solar panels to produce juice to run the John Deere after it is converted to electric.
Or we can go Amish and have a horse drawn binder to cut grain.
Anthony,
The quoted text in the article reference, “Jenifer McIntyre, an assistant professor at WSU’s School of the Environment.” WSU is Washington Sate University (GO COUGS) and not the University of Washington (UW).
Back when everything that got thrown in the water was often good habitat, it was evident that tires were not such, barnacles and oysters rarely set there, fish didn’t seem to hide there as much as other similar size trash. Old tires used as “artificial reefs” didn’t work, recall some in Florida being retrieved. A long known group of chemicals that could be toxic, abstract only established such levels in water. Further questions, maybe answered, are obvious in order to prove cause.
funny the tyre reefs in aus seem to work fine and fish live n breed there
Could it be that the salmon population isn’t in crisis? Could it be that unlike Canada, USA is still over fishing salmon? Could it be that this new discovery is interesting but not significant?
Part of the salmon problem is hatchery fish, not as strong genetically.
Here we go again, another alarm bell. What about low salmon runs in areas unaffected by tires? How about over fishing, increased populations of seals, sealions?
Marine Mammel Protection Act of 1972, sea lions/seals can eat all they want and man are they having a population explosion, the salmon not so much.
Hatchery fish were intended as mitigation to dams (as well as just creating more fish). Hatchery fish ARE regular old fish. There is no genetic difference between hatchery fish and “native fish” (but if there was, all a person would have to do is grab 100 non-hatchery fish to start over, and fix the local hatchery genetic deficiency … very simple, right?).
To get past this common sense practice it was then stated that it is the way that the hatchery fish are raised is what makes them less viable (remember that terminology). The hatchery fish are said to be less fearful of predators and less vigorous because they just hang out in the hatchery pool and do not need to swim around to survive. SO therefore, hatchery fish are a lessor fish.
BUT, if hatchery fish are less viable & inferior, why is it soo easy for them to out-compete the strong, vibrant, genetically superior non-hatchery fish? Sheer numbers …? If that’s the answer then the non-hatchery fish are getting skinny & starving while the inferior hatchery fish are eating up all the food; its a food availability thing. The research doesn’t go there though….
The desired solution has been determined before any investigation was made. What it really is: Dams must be removed, people are bad, non-natural solutions are bad (because humans are bad), and the guys that Hook and Release (over & over & over again) are hypocritical d-bags when they say that it not a taking.
Water temp as a pollutant parameter (in Oregon) is a joke.
Only one river in the entire state is characterized as not being too warm. All the rest of the waterways are said to be too warm … every one of them.
Anyone with any sense could recognize that temperature, as a problem, was exaggerated.
Tires, for the regulators, are the best place to find problems. Tires wastes are a problem that some one else can pay for. (Tire taxes can create a very nice fund for mitigation specific problems (like of salary stagnation & PERS debt).
Paint on the other hand, would not be a good place for the government find associated environmental problems, because it would be a problem to regulate. They would have to actually do something to themselves.
Ask your friendly DOT water quality enforcer how many of thousands of gallons of paint and glue(reflectors) are applied to all of the roadways in your state every year. After they spend a few months researching it and they get back to you, ask them where the old paint went.
+10
ALL:
A Blast From The Past!!!
Most of you will not remember this, sooo……
Set the Wayback Machine to 1970!!!
The big Environmental Movement was getting up to speed, notably with the rise of Greenpeace and many other such groups. The big environmental fear, or bogey man, if you will, was “Chemicals”. College campuses across the US and the world were obsessed with the notion of “Chemicals in the Environment”. Now, I grant you that “Chemicals” makes about as much sense as “carbon-free sugar”, but there it was.
Anyway, one of the big scare stories thrown out there was “Chemicals” from tires. Specifically, those “Chemicals” which come from wear particles and were put in the rubber as a preservative. The big “Concern” was that these rubber preservatives were getting into streams and rivers causing “Chemical Pollution”. Specifically,they were killing salmon in the pacific NW of the US.
Does any of this sound familiar???
This paper could have been, and was, written 50 years ago. Recycling at it’s finest!
I have scanned the comments and noted that several of the commenters seem to have no idea that this claim is just a recycled fright story from the “Chemicals in the Environment” scare of the 1970s and early 1980s.
I thought a walk down memory lane might be interesting.
The old tiresome argument.
Or is that sometire?
It’s time 4u2 retire.
One wonders why statements like this: ““We had determined it couldn’t be explained by high temperatures, low dissolved oxygen or any known contaminant, such as high zinc levels,” don’t make it into the abstract. 😉
6PPD is a suicide anti-oxidant. It reacts with ozone (or O2) and is irreversibly converted into the quinone. The quinone is the oxidation product. However, 6PPD is also a phenylenediamine, a class of chemicals long known to be toxic.
Phenylenediamines are planar molecules. They can intercalate into DNA strands. Their oxidation product — the quinone — is also planar but more reactive. If it intercalates into DNA, it can react with the nucleotide base and cause a mutation. Most mutations will be silent. But chronic exposure means millions of mutations. A dangerous mutation becomes more likely (apart from taxing the liver).
Looking at the structure of 6PPD, a possible solution to the toxicity problem is to incorporate the molecule into a polymer. It would do the same job with ozone, but be unavailable for biological uptake.
The result would probably be slightly more expensive tires, but perhaps less expensive salmon. 🙂
I wonder how much of the cost of material for the tire is 6PPD? If it’s a small fraction then doing as you suggest might not have much of an impact on price.
They should be encouraged to find a less toxic alternative. Who knows? Maybe they’ll find something that works better and is even cheaper.
Not such a small fraction, used up to two parts per hundred parts of rubber. Considering the millions of tons of rubber ground off tires and into the streams, this is not a small source.
In https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297889793_Non-exhaust_PM_emissions_from_electric_vehicles
The abstract states that electric vehicles will not reduce particulates much due to their increased weight increasing the output from tires and brakes….
“Particulate matter (PM) exposure has been linked to adverse health effects by numerous studies. Therefore, governments have been heavily incentivising the market to switch to electric passenger cars in order to reduce air pollution. However, this literature review suggests that electric vehicles may not reduce levels of PM as much as expected, because of their relatively high weight. By analysing the existing literature on non-exhaust emissions of different vehicle categories, this review found that there is a positive relationship between weight and non-exhaust PM emission factors. In addition, electric vehicles (EVs) were found to be 24% heavier than equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1-3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.”
Also a finding that tires are up to 1000 times worse as polluters than the fuel used in an ICE.
See here: https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions
Here is a good graph illustrating the fall in tailpipe emissions from 2020 to now.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7236155/Electric-cars-WONT-end-air-pollution-release-brake-tyre-particulates.html
When did they start using this chemical in tires?
Here where I live, it seemed that Coho returns dropped off two years after the state wardens stopped enforcing the indian fishery. If you tell a game warden that nets are being strung shore-to-shore on days that were agreed to be net-free, they will tell you “contact the tribal police — we don’t enforce that anymore”.
People gave up on restoring Salmon to the Connecticut river years ago, despite all the clean up effort. They realized that salmon had an a version to the water of long island sound. The roads near by has as much truck traffic as anywhere. Lets see how this pans out
Hello salmon fans. Good News! NW Salmon are NOT going extinct. The alarmotroids have it all wrong. Check the Fish Passage data here:
https://www.fpc.org/fpc_homepage.html
and then query Adult Annual Counts. You will find that 15 of the largest 17 runs since 1938 have been in this century, 2001 and after, and that the largest run ever recorded since the Columbia River dams were built happened in 2014.
How about that! All the foofrah about salmon disappearing is bogus crapola! Please moderate your ignorance and quell the panic attacks.
It turns out, if you really dig into the data, that NW salmon runs vary with ocean temperatures, especially the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/pacific-decadal-oscillation
During the cool phase (in the eastern Pacific) of the 30-year PDO, there are more salmon. It’s just a fact. It has NOTHING to do with tires! OMG, OMG, OMG!
Bombshell that!
Lookee here, all you Salmon Worrywarts. What I want to know is if you are going to take the tires off your Tesla and drive on the rims, OR if you are going to buzz-buzz down to your local fishmonger and buy some Terribly Endangered Salmon, grill ’em on the barbie, and EAT them?
Because if you’re one of the latter types, and you chomp down on so-called endangered species while wringing your hands and bleeding Liberally, then you are a Flaming Hypocrite!
People of Earth — Catch a Clue! I’m in real pain here, and it’s all your fault. Please staunch the stupid. I can’t take it any more.
The Europeans have been watching this chemical (CAS No. 793-24-8) for many years.
Here is a link to a review from about 15 years ago: 6ppd – ospar Commissionwww.ospar.org › documents
The document discusses many aspects of the chemical, including the acute toxicity of it and its degradation products, indicating lethal concentration (LC50) in the low parts per billion range.
The report also talks about alternative tire preservative chemicals. If WSU’s research is verified, which appears plausible, the tire industry’s chemists will need to find safer alternatives. Given that the chemical has been under watch for quite some time, the industry may already have options in the wings.
Of course, rather than just let them fix it, I expect we will see ambulance chasing lawyers and states attorneys general filing “Michelin Knew” lawsuits against the tire (tyre) industry.
“lethal concentration (LC50) in the low parts per billion range” Really ?
So, chewing on a bit of tire for a few minutes is a sure way to pass away ?
And all those guys working in tire factories or repair shops are in fact zombies ? Who knew ?
So, the Euros knew about this lethal chem 15 years ago? That would be 2005. Nothing was done about it, and since then salmon runs have done what? They have sky-rocketed up!
There has been no effect, but the researchers posit a cause. How can there be a cause when there is no effect?
The researchers say “urban stormwater runoff” is “the ‘smoking gun’ behind salmon deaths in freshwater streams”. Puyallup is a coastal city, as are all the large cities of the Pacific Northwest. The freshwater streams are hundreds of miles upstream in the mountains where there are few or no roads. The contention is that somehow 6PPD-quinone travels upstream, against the current, like a salmon, to poison waters way the heck and gone higher up.
This flies in the face of another theory, first proposed by Isaac Newton, that water flows downhill! Yet somehow, sometimes, it must flow uphill against gravity carrying a poison that depletes the salmon population, which is not depleted according to the actual data, but instead is burgeoning.
And it is “plausible” that this research will be “verified”? Maybe, when pigs fly. Of course, if CAGW is not to blame for this non-existent non-effect, then something utterly impossible must be true and let’s all celebrate the scientific breakthrough.
“Puyallup is a coastal city, as are all the large cities of the Pacific Northwest. The freshwater streams are hundreds of miles upstream in the mountains where there are few or no roads.”
Wouldn’t young Salmon have to swim downstream, through the 6PPD-quinone polluted waters, to the ocean? And adult Salmon have to swim upstream, through the 6PPD-quinone polluted waters, to spawn?
Conclusion, save the salmons, fly more, drive less.
Not really related but somehow interesting. There was a debate why regional (German) trains canceled their stops at minor stations. Reason, brake pads wear.
It seems that a regional train pulverizes in the air a cumulative mass of 0.5kg of brake pads at each stop. Increased maintenance costs ensue.
This said, to preserve clean air, smoking is regulated even at the open air train stations.
This alleged research smacks of gross assumptions and bogus models.
If “6PPD-quinone” is so toxic to salmon, then the entire populations of salmon must be destroyed; and one wonders why closely related steelhead, trout and char are not mentioned?
In that “6PPD-quinone” should have decimated salmon eggs and fry on their redds. Let alone killing the few survivors as they live in the streams and rivers on their way to thesea.
If
Once again we have to learn to read the articles and the research papers. (paywalled)
I see that this compound MAY be getting into the creeks and “We have a lot to learn “.
There may be something here, but others need repeat these measurements. It is also not clear that they have proven that the compound is actually the cause of die off. Maybe they have, or maybe not.
This is based on observing one creek??
I really doubt that this is a conclusive proof. I may be wrong.
“Puyallup is a coastal city, as are all the large cities of the Pacific Northwest. The freshwater streams are hundreds of miles upstream in the mountains where there are few or no roads.”
Wouldn’t young Salmon have to swim downstream, through the 6PPD-quinone polluted waters, to the ocean? And adult Salmon have to swim upstream, through the 6PPD-quinone polluted waters, to spawn?
Yes, Fred. Puyallup is on the Puyallup River Estuary which is flushed by the river and the tides into Puget Sound where abundant fishing birds, sea lions, and k*ller whales consume up-swimming spawners and down-swimming smolts by the millions. Predators hoover them with aplomb. It has been ever thus.
And yet, despite the carnage and the urban sewage/storm drain effluent, salmon runs are at record highs. Sensitive Planet Earthers might be, must be, quite shocked at this conundrum, and in utter denial over it. They have my sincere pity.
Please note a little known fact about salmon: for every 1,000 smolts that make it across the bars and into the ocean, 3 return to spawn. That’s a 0.3% survival rate; 99.7% die in the ocean. That is why oceanic conditions are the critical factor in salmon population dynamics. What happens in the ocean is what determines how many fish return. Ipso facto, the PDO matters, a lot.
Do I sense an equitable replacement tax for vehicle fuels taxing to pay for the road network? Wrap up rego and CTP with a national tyre tax only. Well apart from a cost recovery user pays recording system for number plates and tracking owners and their addresses of course. Drive lightly and minimally and you’re taxed lightly which might be a wee problem for EV owners as I hear they’re hard on tyres with their weight.
Reading a summary of the article it sounds like everything done in the lab with new and used tires. They analyzed an extract and found this chemical amongst 1000’s. They synthesized it and than poisoned salmon in the lab. Smoking gun ?????
Copper dust from brake pads affects young salmon.
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Here’s Why You Can’t Buy A Camaro SS Or ZL1 In California Or Washington Next Year
If you’ve been eyeing up a new Camaro SS, ZL1 or 1LE but happen to live in California or Washington, you’ll have to purchase yours before 2020 ends, or risk having to wait a year.
Chevrolet dealers in both states have been forced to put a hold on ordering Camaros with those high-performance packages, GM Authority reports. The models’ Brembo brakes are to blame, as new regulations in California and Washington that take effect on January 1, 2021, will ban the sale of brake pads that contain more than 5 percent copper.
https://jalopnik.com/heres-why-you-cant-buy-a-camaro-ss-or-zl1-in-california-1845833877
I’m tired of hearing about Klimate change causing everything
The study states that the deaths can’t be explained by high temperatures. It’s quite a leap to suggest they’ve “exonerated climate change.” There are many secondary and unknown connections to changes in average global temperatures, and of course the “climate change” label can refer to any or all of them. Here, though, the researches were talking about the temperature of the water in which the salmon live. Yes, climate change may be a cause of higher temperatures, but it would be a logical fallacy to suggest that all of the other impacts of climate change are not contributors. And — most important — the study did not actually try to address that. It’s dishonest of you to try to make that connection.
You end the piece saying, “Now that real science without a climate change agenda has been published on the salmon issue, we can move from a baseless blame-game to a solution.” But that’s not how real science works. First off, publishing a study is quite different from concluding a cause and effect relationship, especially one that will hold in the real world and real ecosystems. The next step is to continue studying more robust hypotheses about the toxicity impacts on other species and systems, in different contexts and with more data. Any attempt at implementing a “solution” would be an absolute waste of money. And, of course, your reference to the “blame-game” is a gross attempt to conflate public discourse with real science. Scientists don’t blame anything; they ask questions in ways that can provide measurable answers, continuously trying to falsify every theory so that something better can be determined. This study on 6PPD should be seen as just a new next step, maybe one that brings us closer to the truth. But there’s absolutely no reason to suddenly stop considering all the other possible causes at play and the possible cumulative effects of those.
Air has a puny heat content compared water. At room temperature of equal volumes of air and water the water has 3200 times more heat than the air. Hence a transfer of say one degree C from air to water will result in a miniscule rise in temperature of the water. Ergo no effect on fish
I appreciate your analysis of heat transfer, but it’s not really just a simple equation of warm air molecules touching water. There are bigger system issues like the water being held in reservoirs, absence of bank shading, and reduced springtime water volume. Anyway, even minuscule variances in temperature, dissolved oxygen, toxicity, and even the timing of seasonal changes do indeed have profound effects on salmon’s ability to survive, thrive, navigate, and spawn. The results aren’t massive die-offs; they’re much more insidious and long-term.
I would be most concerned about run off in urban areas. Not necessarily what is here which i’m quite skeptical. Biological and chemical oxygen demand are often the culprits in urban areas. My first suspects would sewage treatment plants and whether they have had any “accidents” or leakage.