Rainwater passing through Solvay waste becomes corrosive leachate at pH 11

Evidence

Rain bound for waste beds is in trouble too. At first, the waste particles are so fine that they trap the water in white clay. Then gravity eventually pulls the drops through sixty feet of sludge and out the bottom of the pile to join a drainage ditch instead of a stream. As it passes through the chalky depths, the rain cannot help doing what it has been called to do: dissolving minerals, carrying ions intended to nurture plants and fish. By the time it reaches the bottom of the heap, the water has picked up enough chemicals to be as salty as soup and as corrosive as lye. Its beautiful name, water, is lost. It is now called leachate. Leachate seeps from the waste beds with a ph of 11. Like drain cleaner, it will burn your skin. Normal drinking water has a ph value of 7. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1152

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines leachate by tracing what water becomes when it dissolves industrial waste — grounding the term for the environmental-science and listening legs.
• SHARE: The rain-cannot-stop-dissolving detail plus the pH 11 number is a vivid, citable fact for someone working on water pollution mechanics.