Post by EXO on Nov 14, 2023 14:37:52 GMT 8
I wanted to make a point about scrap thieving on Corregidor.
Scrapping is too nice word for thievery.
Thievery comes in all sorts of guises. Official, semi-official, and outright.
Surely it doesn't happen these days? Oh yes it does. At all levels.
Why is it so?
ANSWER IN ONE: It is pre-1945 steel. In the desirability stakes, pre-1945 steel is the premium price model of scrap metal. It justifies wreck removal, no matter how significant.
Here's an example.
This image was 2008. In all the years I've visited Corregidor, this is NOT a place where boats dock. But it needed to be cleared.
Why is pre-1945 steel so valuable? In short, because it is so rare. Most steel created before nuclear testing began is long gone, having been recycled, scrapped, or repurposed. Pre-1945 steel, more accurately termed low-background steel, is any steel produced before the first nuclear bomb was detonated on the 16th of July, 1945. Codenamed "Trinity," this detonation would change the world in many ways, including chemically. Nuclear explosions released into the atmosphere dozens of radioactive isotopes that had never before existed in nature, such as Plutonium-239, Strontium-90, Caesium-137, and Technetium-99.
Over the next 35 years, the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China conducted more than 1,000 atmospheric nuclear tests. This resulted in the spread of huge quantities of isotopes across the entire planet — and its atmosphere.
The Bessemer Process, used to make steel, involves blowing atmospheric air through molten iron. Consequently, the isotopes not only ended up in the air, but also in nearly every piece of steel produced post-1945. This may not seem important, but the contamination is actually enough to disrupt some scientific apparatus made from this steel. Pre-1945 steel is precious for applications requiring little contamination from radionuclides. This includes scientific equipment, medical equipment, and some aerospace applications.
That means a premium price in the pocket if you bring Corregidor steel into the local scrap merchant. Not that he might tell you, if you're just a run of the mill thief. Or if you work on Corregidor.
I've seen it. Stuff disappears. Small stuff, big shells. Stuff I've handed in.
It's collected, placed where no one sees it, stuffed behind a tree on Bottomside, or under a few bushes at Middleside, and then it disappears.
Sorry, I just don't subscribe any more that CFI, throughout the years, worked up a sweat to stop it. Nor the Department of Tourism. (I heard it called "The Depravement of Tourism" the other day. I had to laugh!) I think CFI needs to be reinvented, reconstituted, revamped.
Corregidor has never been a National Park. Instead it's been run as a fiefdom. There has never been a "National Park" mindset. They may talk about it being "sacred" or a "place of remembrance", but anyone with eyes to see can see how it has deteriorated under the stewardship of those who were supposedly appointed to protect it.
Scrap metal you can sell only once, Tourism you can sell by "day trips" for ever and ever.
Scrapping is too nice word for thievery.
Thievery comes in all sorts of guises. Official, semi-official, and outright.
Surely it doesn't happen these days? Oh yes it does. At all levels.
Why is it so?
ANSWER IN ONE: It is pre-1945 steel. In the desirability stakes, pre-1945 steel is the premium price model of scrap metal. It justifies wreck removal, no matter how significant.
Here's an example.
This image was 2008. In all the years I've visited Corregidor, this is NOT a place where boats dock. But it needed to be cleared.
Why is pre-1945 steel so valuable? In short, because it is so rare. Most steel created before nuclear testing began is long gone, having been recycled, scrapped, or repurposed. Pre-1945 steel, more accurately termed low-background steel, is any steel produced before the first nuclear bomb was detonated on the 16th of July, 1945. Codenamed "Trinity," this detonation would change the world in many ways, including chemically. Nuclear explosions released into the atmosphere dozens of radioactive isotopes that had never before existed in nature, such as Plutonium-239, Strontium-90, Caesium-137, and Technetium-99.
Over the next 35 years, the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China conducted more than 1,000 atmospheric nuclear tests. This resulted in the spread of huge quantities of isotopes across the entire planet — and its atmosphere.
The Bessemer Process, used to make steel, involves blowing atmospheric air through molten iron. Consequently, the isotopes not only ended up in the air, but also in nearly every piece of steel produced post-1945. This may not seem important, but the contamination is actually enough to disrupt some scientific apparatus made from this steel. Pre-1945 steel is precious for applications requiring little contamination from radionuclides. This includes scientific equipment, medical equipment, and some aerospace applications.
That means a premium price in the pocket if you bring Corregidor steel into the local scrap merchant. Not that he might tell you, if you're just a run of the mill thief. Or if you work on Corregidor.
I've seen it. Stuff disappears. Small stuff, big shells. Stuff I've handed in.
It's collected, placed where no one sees it, stuffed behind a tree on Bottomside, or under a few bushes at Middleside, and then it disappears.
Sorry, I just don't subscribe any more that CFI, throughout the years, worked up a sweat to stop it. Nor the Department of Tourism. (I heard it called "The Depravement of Tourism" the other day. I had to laugh!) I think CFI needs to be reinvented, reconstituted, revamped.
Corregidor has never been a National Park. Instead it's been run as a fiefdom. There has never been a "National Park" mindset. They may talk about it being "sacred" or a "place of remembrance", but anyone with eyes to see can see how it has deteriorated under the stewardship of those who were supposedly appointed to protect it.
Scrap metal you can sell only once, Tourism you can sell by "day trips" for ever and ever.