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The statement about the acids doesn't make any sense. Every building engineer in charge of an industrial site knows that the pH of wastewater has to be within r

The statement about the acids doesn't make any sense. Every building engineer in charge of an industrial site knows that the pH of wastewater has to be within range, or the city will come after you for messing with operation of the sewage plant. My undergraduate university had a neutralization plant at its science site. And what's with the solvents dumped down the drain? Only water-soluble material is disposed of through sewage, with constraints on biological oxygen demand. Solvents don't go into sewage, they are burned, and some halogenated solvents are exquisitely toxic to the biological stage in the treatment plant, but that is known. Also, the sewage engineers would notice. With semiconductor plants it's usually halogenated solvent plumes. No leaky sewage lines involved.

dekhn 9y ago
This all happened in the 60s and 70s when Fairchild was getting started. AFAICT, they just ignored all the rules. Note that this was before "semiconductor plants" as a thing existed: Moore invented a lot of the technology underlying semi plants at Fairchild.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  They really shouldn't have skipped the rules, a common source of solvent plumes in groundwater is drycleaners. When did they start using halogenated solvents, in the 1930s?
  - Gibbon1 9y ago
    [When did they start using halogenated solvents] Post war I think. I saw an old educational movie from the 30/40s. 'How a dry cleaners works' they were using ether or some such for dry cleaning. Film went over how the fire alarm/suppression system worked. I think the issue with halogenated solvents wasn't really understood at first. Businesses would just dump the stuff in the drain or on the ground. I remember a news report in Santa Cruz country, some business was getting harassed because they were supposedly illegally dumping perch. Turned out there was dry cleaners there in the 1950's and they were dumping perch in the septic system. 50 years later it was seeping into the San Lorinzo river.
    - Aloha 9y ago
      Mid-Late 30's, before that it used gasoline or naphtha to do the cleaning.
  - dekhn 9y ago
    I agree they shouldn't have skipped the rules. But, at the time, I guess they kind of knew they were onto something (semiconductors) and the decided to cut a few corners?
  - kbenson 9y ago
    At this point it should be obvious that those starting out an industry, or those disrupting it so much as to make it in their image, have all the incentive in the world to break rules in small to medium ways consistently and pay for it later (if at all) from a position of dominance. Not only can they afford it later, but enough elites usually get in on the deal to make money on the way up help shield it from any major blowback. Just look at Uber for a recent example. I'd bet you could pick any decade of the last 150 years and it wouldn't be that hard to find obvious, well known examples.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Those aren't 'small to medium ways'.
      - kbenson 9y ago
        While I mostly agree, I was mainly trying to distinguish ignoring regulations and fraud and generally being horrible from murder, kidnapping, treason, etc which some people's minds might have gone to otherwise. That said, I don't doubt some companies fitting my initial criteria also dabbled in these more extreme crimes occassionally to get what they wanted. I'd like to think it's much less common though.
  - Aloha 9y ago
    I dont think they did skip the rules - there were few regulations of environmental discharge of chemicals before the 70's.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Aloha 9y ago
  Largely they followed the rules as existed at the time, consider that before the late 60's most states had no rules on dumping chemicals into the environment - and the EPA didnt even exist before 1972 - the regulatory scheme as it exists now was developed largely between 72 and 92.
Spooky23 9y ago
The consequences were not very bad, at least for the 60s guys. In my hometown, GE did stuff like dump PCBs into the Hudson River and “donated” contaminated oils to towns for oiled gravel roads. The company had to do some remediation, long after the folks who did it were gone.

dekhn 9y ago

This all happened in the 60s and 70s when Fairchild was getting started. AFAICT, they just ignored all the rules. Note that this was before "semiconductor plants" as a thing existed: Moore invented a lot of the technology underlying semi plants at Fairchild.

HarryHirsch 9y ago
They really shouldn't have skipped the rules, a common source of solvent plumes in groundwater is drycleaners. When did they start using halogenated solvents, in the 1930s?
- Gibbon1 9y ago
  [When did they start using halogenated solvents] Post war I think. I saw an old educational movie from the 30/40s. 'How a dry cleaners works' they were using ether or some such for dry cleaning. Film went over how the fire alarm/suppression system worked. I think the issue with halogenated solvents wasn't really understood at first. Businesses would just dump the stuff in the drain or on the ground. I remember a news report in Santa Cruz country, some business was getting harassed because they were supposedly illegally dumping perch. Turned out there was dry cleaners there in the 1950's and they were dumping perch in the septic system. 50 years later it was seeping into the San Lorinzo river.
  - Aloha 9y ago
    Mid-Late 30's, before that it used gasoline or naphtha to do the cleaning.
- dekhn 9y ago
  I agree they shouldn't have skipped the rules. But, at the time, I guess they kind of knew they were onto something (semiconductors) and the decided to cut a few corners?
- kbenson 9y ago
  At this point it should be obvious that those starting out an industry, or those disrupting it so much as to make it in their image, have all the incentive in the world to break rules in small to medium ways consistently and pay for it later (if at all) from a position of dominance. Not only can they afford it later, but enough elites usually get in on the deal to make money on the way up help shield it from any major blowback. Just look at Uber for a recent example. I'd bet you could pick any decade of the last 150 years and it wouldn't be that hard to find obvious, well known examples.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Those aren't 'small to medium ways'.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      While I mostly agree, I was mainly trying to distinguish ignoring regulations and fraud and generally being horrible from murder, kidnapping, treason, etc which some people's minds might have gone to otherwise. That said, I don't doubt some companies fitting my initial criteria also dabbled in these more extreme crimes occassionally to get what they wanted. I'd like to think it's much less common though.
- Aloha 9y ago
  I dont think they did skip the rules - there were few regulations of environmental discharge of chemicals before the 70's.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Aloha 9y ago
Largely they followed the rules as existed at the time, consider that before the late 60's most states had no rules on dumping chemicals into the environment - and the EPA didnt even exist before 1972 - the regulatory scheme as it exists now was developed largely between 72 and 92.

Spooky23 9y ago

The consequences were not very bad, at least for the 60s guys. In my hometown, GE did stuff like dump PCBs into the Hudson River and “donated” contaminated oils to towns for oiled gravel roads. The company had to do some remediation, long after the folks who did it were gone.