FUSION PRODUCT EVIDENCE OF INDUSTRIAL TRESPASS AND CONTAMINATION

As a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, man has repeatedly and continuously been impacted by waste products generated by manufacturing and power-generation operations. Residential areas adjacent to these sources have undergone wind, soil, and water contamination and geoscientists and engineers have often been drawn into controversies to defend, or refute, allegations that the health and properties of individuals have been harmed by careless, or even strictly controlled trespass of effluent from municipal or industrial sources. Successful litigation in such matters often hinges on whether irrefutable evidence can be supplied to juries that documents that contamination events have taken place. While chemical analyses may provide information that is indicative of contaminate-generating processes in adjacent industrial sites, these data often do not provide conclusive evidence and their significance may be lost on jurors. Where manufacturing or industrial activities involve the use of high temperature furnaces, however, mineralogical and fusion-generated particulates emitted as smokestack effluent can provide categorical evidence that trespass has taken place. Three examples are described that illustrate this. One from a steel mill, a second from a municipal power plant, and a third from a paper manufacturing facility. In all three examples, unique fusion-generated spherules and/or minerals derived from site operations unequivocally can be used to identify the contaminant source.