ATF Puts Up Surveillance Cameras Around Seattle ... To Catch Illegal Grease Dump (muckrock.com)
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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.
Polls (Score:5, Funny)
What kinds of questions are on these odd, growth afflicted, utility polls?
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What editor?
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Slippery criminals... (Score:2)
Dumping grease on the grass, so we got to set up cameras and catch the slimy devils.
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maybe this surveilance slope wouldn't be so slippery if you stopped illegally dumping grease on it!
Re:Slippery criminals... (Score:4, Funny)
Darn, they slipped away!
ATF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does somebody think that Tyler Durden is skimming off the grease to manufacture nitroglycerin for Project Mayhem and his anarcho-primitivist insurgency?
Re:ATF? (Score:5, Interesting)
The BATFE started as a taxing agency, and is now a law enforcement agency, but should really just be a convenience store ....
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The BATFE started as a taxing agency, and is now a law enforcement agency, but should really just be a convenience store ....
I agree.
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Mod informative for telling us what ATF stands for, unlike the summary.
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It's ATFE now.... And it's the "E" part that gets them interested in kitchen grease. However how illegal dumping of same is that interesting to them is beyond me..
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I know what the "E" stands for, sorry if that wasn't clear....
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Why is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms interested in illegal grease dumping? Illicit grease disposal is a potential environmental, water quality, and combustion hazard issue; but that's more the EPA's thing, perhaps local authorities, maybe FBI if it's a interstate conspiracy.
From TFA, it looks like it may simply be a case of "So you can't put a camera on your own? Well, we can help you by putting up a camera and sharing the results..." to build interagency trust and cooperation.
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part of the ATF requirements for being a manufacturer in firearms/explosives or being an alcoholic drink producer is certifying there are appropriate controls in place to prevent contamination of navigable waters. If the ATF really is involved in this, then it's likely that some other investigation has uncovered a connection between a licensee and the greasy substance that is contaminating the water supply, and the ATF is trying to collect more evidence to see if they lied on the certification (it's ATF for
Re:ATF? (Score:5, Informative)
Why is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms interested in illegal grease dumping?
I'm the Seattleite who dug up those records. ATF were likely not interested in people dumping grease. Seattle City Light were, because it was damaging their equipment. Since security manager Doug Williams at SCL regularly lets ATF and other agencies covertly install surveillance cameras on SCL's poles (which I learned by reading e-mails to and from him I received via Washington Public Records Act request), ATF were likely paying back the favor.
Wait, *what*? (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:Wait, *what*? (Score:5, Insightful)
5) Who would actually take their cover-story at face value?
It doesn't pass the smell test.
Re:Wait, *what*? (Score:4, Funny)
It doesn't pass the smell test.
Neither does the grease...
Re: Wait, *what*? (Score:2)
Re: Wait, *what*? (Score:5, Informative)
That's not entirely state-of-the-art information. Current landfill technique is to indeed seal the contents from the groundwater - but they now encourage the contents to rot. In the 80s, they developed a technique of burying in layers, putting down a membrane, and then putting down another layer, etc. until the landfill is "full". At that point they cap it. Anything that leaches out of the bottom is hauled to a treatment plant. Over the last 10 years, they have modified this technique. Now between each layer they take the leech water and pour it back over the landfill. This encourages the landfill itself to become bio-reactive and to eat the nutrients in the leech water. They pretty much do this until the leech water runs more or less clear, and then they move on to the next step. This has several benefits:
1. Future leech water is much less nasty
2. Volume is reduced significantly, so more trash will fit.
3. It encourages methane production, which is captured and often used onsite or burned rather than slowly released into the atmosphere.
This - along with much improved recycling - is why we don't hear much about "running out of landfill space" anymore like we did in the 80s and 90s.
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I have a client who runs a waste-to-energy plant. They sort and shred trash to produce a burnable product for some power plants setup to handle it.
My contact says it's actually cheaper for haulers to landfill the trash. Currently the two counties involved in the plant require haulers to send their trash to the plant, but pay a subsidy to make up the difference.
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My municipality tried something like this.
It failed to generate more energy that it consumed, it polluted like mad, and after a couple of years the city cancelled the contract and the company who had claimed they could do all of this went bankrupt.
There was no way to make it economical or compliant with emissions regulations.
It sounds great, but in practice these things don't really seem to work worth a damn.
Re:Wait, *what*? (Score:4, Insightful)
1) How the hell does that fall under the ATF's jurisdiction?
I am sure it isn't but when in recent memory has that stopped a federal agency from doing anything. People talk a lot about waste fraud and abuse. Then the big government advocates say how import $AGENCY'S mission is and how it can't meet its obligations as it is. I wonder how much waste there is in duplication of effort, equipment, and training. Wow all that before we even get started on the civil liberties, rule of law, and accountability issues. We should all be calling our representatives demanding Sequestration 2.0 get started immediate, its the anything that has worked.
2) Who dumps something they can sell as a (heating) fuel?
Lots of people when oil hits $32 dollars a barrel. You probably can't economically process that used grease enough that the EPA would let you burn it, at these prices. Naturally this discounts the overall environmental impacts of shipping cleaner fuel in from elsewhere and the associated production impacts. Hey its clearing at the point you burn it though, big brother knows best.
3) Does Seattle actually have that much of a problem with french fries that they need federal intervention?
Probably not but FEDs want to play with their tax payer funded toys.
4) Why can't you dump a biodegradable substance? Better bulldozed into an empty lot than rotting in a landfill for 150 years...
See 2.
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Re:Wait, *what*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything after 1) is completely irrelevant.
Why would anybody believe that the ATF is even investigating illegal grease dumping into municipal sewers? You might as well expect me to believe the FBI is actively investigating people who don't mow their lawns or who spit on sidewalks.
It's completely implausible.
Yes, crap clogging sewers is a real thing. But this has nothing to do with a federal agency putting up surveillance cameras and then coming up with a bogus cover story for it.
This is the Men in Black saying "Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus" ... it's a cheap cover story, by agencies who won't admit to what they're really doing.
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Why would anybody believe that the ATF is even investigating illegal grease dumping into municipal sewers?
I and received [muckrock.com] e-mails that show Seattle City Light staff requesting that ATF install a camera on an SCL pole [amazonaws.com]. Why would they go to ATF? Because ATF owe them a favor or two for all the times SCL let ATF secretly install cameras on SCL poles for ATF's purposes. SCL security manager Doug Williams keeps a list of those. I've received an improperly-redacted installment [amazonaws.com] of my request for present and past versions of that list [muckrock.com].
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As for the rest that's a damned good question. It used to be that if you owned a restaurant you had to pay for grease pickup. Then individuals and eventually haulers starting doing it for free. These days it works the other way around, or it did (not sure since oil prices fell through the floor). They bought it and resold it for use in bio fuels. People steeling restaurant grease is (
Here's how reality works (Score:3)
Here's how it actually works.
The BATF is old and outdated, whose duties should properly be broken up and parcelled out to more relevant federal agencies (FDA, FBI, and so on).
Consequently, every couple of years they look for a big flashy bust that will put them in the news to justify their budget.
And so in recent years the BATF has given us Ruby Ridge massacre [wikipedia.org], the siege at Waco [wikipedia.org], the "fast and furious" scandal [wikipedia.org] (where the BATF gave guns to the Mexican drug cartels, said guns were later used to kill a US bord
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4) Why can't you dump a biodegradable substance? Better bulldozed into an empty lot than rotting in a landfill for 150 years...
Bacon grease may be biodegradable, but try dumping that shit down your kitchen sink next time. Let me know how that goes.
London has had problems with fatbergs [yahoo.com] for a while.
Grease is Clogging Seattle Sewers (Score:3)
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$1500 to clean a backup, is this an all week job or are they waiting to take those calls on holiday weekends where a crew of 5 is getting triple overtime?!?
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I'm sure that in addition to labor a good portion of that comes from the cost of buying, maintaining and operating equipment such as vacuum trucks and backhoes needed for sewer work.
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Ah so they're amatorizing equipment they already need over a few instances to intentionally inflate the cost of those instances, so basically cop math.
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You've not actually hired specialty laborers lately, have you? It's not uncommon to have a burdened labor rate of $60-70/hr, and a minimum crew of three. Add to that the charge for the equipment (go price the daily rental of large hardware at a rental center), plus the dumping and proper disposal fees. Don't forget to add the cost of the crew to wait for a local building, sewer, or health official to check the repair and sign off on the work. Shit gets expensive quickly.
And, to be honest, you wouldn't get m
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I know of a case in SF were a Chinese restaurant thought they had an underground storage tank for waste grease. Turns out they had an access manhole for a buried electric substation.
The transformers kept the grease nice and warm for the year or so it took to fill. I bet that really stunk.
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But the ATF is watching for people pouring it out on the ground, not down the drain. Perhaps we could put the CIA in the sewers to watch for illegal grease flushing.
So basically a way to say FU to the citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll just get the feds to do all the monitoring and share their information because they don't have to listen to the local ordinance. It's like the local departments that use the federal civil forfeiture rules when their city or state tells them they can't steal from their citizens anymore. I wish federal courts would start smacking departments that do this hard, both collectively and individual officers and higher.
Bullshit ... (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF does the ATF have to do with illegal grease dumping? What's that? Nothing at all?
They have neither the jurisdiction nor the interest in these crimes. If they're claiming it's for policing this kind of stuff, it's a big fucking lie.
This is just making shit up to allow them to put up cameras, against local laws, and then refuse to explain what the hell they're doing.
Yet more evidence that law enforcement doesn't give a crap about the law.
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While people are quick to pick on the ATF, and I don't defend them for installing surveillance cameras, if you read the article they were actually the only ones to explain what they were doing. However, they only seemed to be responsible for a handful of the cameras
The vast majority of the cameras belong to other agencies - FBI, local police departments - and neither they nor the local utility company on whose poles they are installed would offer any explanation, asides from providing a heavily redacted spr
Somewhat reasonable if you think about it. (Score:2, Interesting)
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 straig
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If you were into making explosives from grease perhaps you would buy new grease?, instead of scrapping smelly, sticky substances mixed with excrements and used toilet paper from a tunnel that would have trouble fitting a Vietcong midget.
In fact even working with raw and clean human excrements would be better than that, if you have some process to exploit the vast potential chemical energy left in it.
The slippery slope becomes (near) literal (Score:5, Funny)
Glad they only use surveillance to get terrorists. Lipid terrorism here
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You meant it as a joke, but in fact, it's not. Kitchen grease can be used to make nitroglycerin. Granted, you need to have nitric acid too, and that's probably easier to track.
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Who needs God? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Dumping grease in the rivers and oceans ... (Score:2)
... is not a "purely local crime". Those unruly rivers have a nasty tendency to flow right past State boundaries.
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flow right past State boundaries.
Not in Seattle.
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Because the Pacific ocean doesn't touch anywhere but Washinton State?
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I get that they probably have expertise in surveillance that (say) the EPA may be lacking, but it wasn't the EPA (or any other federal agency) that asked for the ATF's help, it seems to have been law enforcement of some kind. Which makes me think this was an effort by local law enforcement to avoid the disclosure requirements that local law imposes on them.
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International waters. Under the jurisdiction of UNCLOS [wikipedia.org] (to which we are not a party).
The faster way (Score:2)
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Creative, at least (Score:3)
Unique for surveillance, but not unique otherwise (Score:3)
Look up "Civil Asset Forfeiture" and you'll see that local police departments have been 'teaming' up with the Feds for years to bypass local and state controls in order to seize money that they can funnel straight into their departments.
Opposite Day (Score:2)
The degree of law-breaking by a federal agency is proportional to the level of pathetic bullshit offered as cover.
Obviously Not (Score:2)
The cameras are said to be use for some grease dumping project. That doesn't mean that they are. That's just a cover for whatever they are there for, looking for Meth labs or some such. Let's not go overboard on the wrong problems.
ATFG (Score:2)
Conspiracy Theorists much? (Score:2)
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You still need to refine and filter used grease to make bio diesel. That costs money on the small scale and oil prices have been dropping lately.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Uh, restaurants get paid [star-telegram.com] for their grease, this might not be the case right now since soybeans had a good year last year and crude is so cheap that biodiesel isn't going to be in high demand, but over the last 10+ years it's been the case. That's why people working on B90 conversions have to be sure to ask the restaurants before they take grease for their vehicle.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Insightful)
Grease can also be used as an animal feed supplement. My chickens love bacon grease, or used frying oil mixed with their feed. I don't understand why anyone would just dump perfectly good grease. It should be easy to find someone to take it, and possibly even pay for it.
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:4, Funny)
How do your chickens feel about hash brown potatoes?
This could be big, eliminate two items from breakfast but still have the same arterial clogging.
Find a statin manufacturer and apply for a grant right away.
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Yup, when asked why they were there, someone thought fast..." Yes, it's to catch.......grease dumpers..... Ya thats what they're for...grease dumpers......Because there are not laws against catching grease dumpers are there.....
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Grease can also be used as an animal feed supplement. My chickens love bacon grease, or used frying oil mixed with their feed. I don't understand why anyone would just dump perfectly good grease. It should be easy to find someone to take it, and possibly even pay for it.
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
It's PETA looking for people feeding grease to chickens.. or so I've heard.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [google.com] is a link to Google Maps, centered right about the power pole in question. Here [google.com] 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 [ipicseattle.org], 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.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask yourself why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is hunting down grease dumping instead of, say, the EPA?
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Funny)
Biodiesel is a huge win on smallish boats. Diesel fumes make many people sick. Biodiesel fumes just make people want to eat french fries.
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Waste oil burning heaters are very simple and easy. you can easily use this stuff and burn it cleanly to generate power, hot water, or even just heat for a building.
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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.
Could be that their fuel tax [seattletimes.com] has something to do with it:
A free barrel of grease used for fuel now costs $18.69 in Washington State.
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It isn't too much of a surprise that the economics of producing biodiesel from used restaurant oil are shaky
My guess is that you haven't even bothered to look at the economics of producing biodiesel from WVO.
For small hobbyist-level winter-safe B100 refinement, the total costs amount to roughly $3/gal. Besides economies of scale, there are multiple ways to subsidize that, not least charging a modest fee for disposal including clean-up, and selling the glycerine to soap-makers and others. If you maintain the fleet which runs on the B100, the savings on maintenance costs also start to reveal themselves.
Basically, you haven't got a clue, and you decided to tell the world.
So if money is your driving factor you should convert from B100 to gasoline and save over 33%.
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You still need to refine and filter used grease to make bio diesel. That costs money on the small scale and oil prices have been dropping lately.
Yet, theft of that type of grease is rampant around where I live. People steal grease then process it into fuel (or more likely, put it in their own dumpsters to make more money off the recyclers.)
There are locks and security cameras pointing at them in a lot of places now.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:4, Interesting)
Grease = tryglycerides = fatty acids + glycerin
Glycerin + Nitric acid = Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin + diatomaceous earth = Dynamite
Dynamite = Profit!
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The nitroglycerin can also be used to make nitrocellulose, and from there to smokeless powder, putting it squarely in the ATF's purview.
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The nitroglycerin can also be used to make nitrocellulose
Actually, nitrocellulose is made from ... cellulose. So the government should be watching for anyone using wood or paper.
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They may already be watching. Better file that FOIA request.
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Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Informative)
Actually once you get to the nitroglycerin step you are squarely in the ATF's purview, since they regulate explosives. "ATF" is an anachronistic acronym; since 1970 agency's full actual name is "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives".
But glycerin is a commonplace an innocuous chemical widely used in cosmetics and food; you can buy it by the barrel without raising any eyebrows. It makes no sense to reason that fats are under the purview of ATF because you can produce glycerin from it.
I tried to google the source of the grease story, and it appears that back in 2011 [twitter.com] SCL asked for ATF's technical assistance in tracking down grease dumpers, but that the camera placements currently in question are for use in a current investigation [thestranger.com] by the Puget Sound Regional Crime Gun Task Force.
So no big mystery about why the ATF is tracking down grease dumpers, that's just a misreading of the evidence trail.
Re: Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:2)
Say hi to your smartphone
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Ah, What a wiz bang noble idea....
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Don't forget Ammonium Nitrate (Score:2)
Add it to Ammonium Nitrate and you get ANFO, a different explosive.
Still, it's the Nitrates that get people's attention, you can buy diesel pretty much anywhere.
Re:Grease can be used as fuel. Why would you dump (Score:5, Funny)
Couldn't they sell it instead of dumping it?
They would probably make a lot more selling all the bullshit in that "We're just looking for grease dumpers" story as fertilizer.
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