The Purity Distilling Company of Boston

The Great Boston Molasses Tsunami

A little less than a century ago,  great big storage tank filled with molasses fell apart and a tsunami about 25 feet high swept down the slope.  I'm not talking a little puddle here;  a couple million gallons of the stuff seeped into the area killing (by no pleasant means I might add) 21 folks, some horse, and lot of the area that was knee deep in the stuff for a long while.  It was January and cold so the term thick as molasses was appropriate but by summer...well whew! the stench.

I bring this up because of regulation.  The tank that held this glop was half as strong as it should have been.  That it was in the midst of an area that might not have been appropriate (zoning??) is just half the story.  As the name of the company, The Purity Distilling Company, indicates, the by-product of molasses is rum and alcohol;  if my chemistry is correct, both flammable.  Anyway, we were discussing it at my location and to a person felt that drowning in a sea of molasses was perhaps not the

I bring this up for no other reason than we have an administration hell-bent on deregulation

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regardless if it is vital and life saving or not. Baby with the bathwater seems to apply.  Unbelievably silly rules such as for every new regulation passed must be offset by 2-3 regulations crossed out is so much nonsense.

Regulations aren't arbitrary although some are just political and cut-throat business practices as in "I don't like you so I'm going to regulate you out of business".  Those, of course, have no place.  But storage tank inspectors who x-ray welding and make sure the laws of physics are applied to tank construction are adhere to is quite something else.

Don't mean to get worked up about this but I've got grand kids. 4 of them. I want their world to be safe, not arbitrary.  I want them to trust that folks aren't just being dumb and stupid and greedy when they build things; that someone is double checking.  Who is to say that the swings at the playground are made from chain that is strong enough by 2 isn't, in fact, some cut-rate crappy link that is just enough but not an ounce more. Regulations say what it should be so, God forbid, something happens we can sort out the clues and correct the "mistake".

Grrr.