Local officials nearly fall for H2O hoax

[greatbarrier52]

Web pranksters warn of dangers of 'dihydrogen monoxide'The Associated Press
VIEJO, Calif. - City officials were so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they considered banning foam cups after they learned the chemical was used in their production.

Then they learned, to their chagrin, that dihydrogen monoxide — H2O for short — is the scientific term for water.

"It's embarrassing," said City Manager David J. Norman. "We had a paralegal who did bad research."

The paralegal apparently fell victim to one of the many official looking Web sites that have been put up by pranksters to describe dihydrogen monoxide as "an odorless, tasteless chemical" that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled.

As a result, the City Council of this Orange County suburb had been scheduled to vote next week on a proposed law that would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events. Among the reasons given for the ban were that they were made with a substance that could "threaten human health and safety."

The measure has been pulled from the agenda, although Norman said the city may still eventually ban foam cups.

"If you get Styrofoam into the water and it breaks apart, it's virtually impossible to clean up," Norman said.

[MikeDeL]

Good ol' Californians


Mike

[GaryP]

Several years ago they passed Proposition 65 in Calif. I was working for a chemical company at the the time. We commonly used a compound called ethylene oxide. Ethylene oxide is commonly used in hospitals to sterilize things as well as to make soap type compounds. Proposition 65 was written by environmental activists to protect water supplies. Ethylene oxide was listed in Prop. 65. We had to put a special label on all of our containers stating it was present, even if it was in very tiny residual amounts. Prop. 65 did not have a minimum amount that required special handling. The law just said any detectable amount of listed chemicals required these labels. With modern analytical techniques, miniscule amounts are easily detected for most compounds.

The funny thing is that ethylene oxide very readily reacts with water to form ethylene glycol (antifreeze). There is no way that ethylene oxide can contaminate water. Ethylene glycol was not listed in Prop. 65.

Ethylene Oxide gas causes temporary sterility in men. The label we had to put on our 55 gal. drums said that it was a reproductive hazard. Grain alcohol was also listed in Prop 65, so a can of beer had the same label. One oilfield worker pointed at the label and said his wife and ten kids got a good laugh over the warning label every time he brought home a six pack of beer. So much for government protecting us folks that need them to protect us from ourselves.

Gary

[witecap4u]

I rem that dihydrogen monoxide email from a couple years ago. Pretty funny too, although I was smart enough to think about it while reading it.....cs

[Yano]

My chemistry teacher said something about this a a while back, I thought it was pretty funny.