Dated debris proves a dump’s age but not when the toxins arrived.

Evidence

Perhaps because of this, the judge seemed willing to tolerate some of Facher’s more frivolous objections. And not all of the objections were frivolous. On the seventh day, just as Drobinski was about to utter his expert opinion on the time of contamination, Facher asserted that there was no proper scientific foundation for this opinion, which was based on nothing more than digging up old beer cans, chopping down a tree, and looking at aerial photos. Maybe those piles of debris and drums had been there for thirty years, Facher allowed, but no one could say with scientific certainty that they had been contaminated with TCE back then. Someone could easily have come onto the property in 1979, after the wells had closed, and dumped TCE onto those piles. For this reason, Facher asked the judge to exclude Drobinski’s opinion and thus end the case against Beatrice then and there. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 1743

Categorization

• QUESTION: The late-dumping alternative is falsifiable — isotope ratios, TCE degradation products, or soil stratigraphy could distinguish 1960s from 1979 residues.
• XREF: connects to: Dated trash, tree rings, and aerial photos can establish when contamination began. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 1729; Communities learned of an existing dump only years later through news of its fines — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 56; Waste beds are not new land but old land chemically rearranged by industry — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1147

Broader Connections

• Communities learned of an existing dump only years later through news of its fines #qualifies (0.95) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 56
• Waste beds are not new land but old land chemically rearranged by industry #complicates (0.90) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1147