MIT stunt could end volunteer Charles River cleanup

How pathetic that a wealthy university refuses to acknowledge its clear responsibility here--or even to pay for repairs to the boat! If river clean-ups end because MIT won't help cover the costs of baot repai, it will be truly an absurd loss.

The Charles River Cleanup Boat [www.cleanupboat.org] is an effort started and sustained by some dedicated high school sailing coaches from the Massachusetts Bay League [www.MassBayLeague.org] who were distressed to see so much floating trash on the Charles. Since 2004, these volunteers have gone out on the river 3-4 times a week removing trash, making the river a cleaner place for all of us.

Unfortunately, the sodium metal incident has put a wrinkle in their activities. While they were back on the water this past Sunday, removing trash, they have some unexpected bills to pay. The boat's bimini (the canvas awning) needs to be replaced and there is money owed for the chemical decontamination the boat. The Cleanup Boat enjoys a the support of quite a few organizations and individuals in the community, but this incident has created a financial burden that they need some extra help to overcome.

Anyone interested in pitching in and keeping the Cleanup Boat running should visit their web site at www.cleanupboat.org and make a tax-deductible donation.

So let me understand this.

Distributing lite-brites advertising a crappy movie around the city is an act of terrorism and sparks outrage and action.

Dumping known explosive devices into a public waterway where it injures five and causes significant property damage and expensive decontamination efforts is .... a prank?

If the Clean Up Boat needs immediate funding, then MIT should donate money. Not because it's a sign of culpability. Not because they are being fined and forced to pay some paltry amount in debt to government and society for their negligence. But because they should be in-step with anyone who is spending time and money to help clean and maintain the river that borders a significant amount of their campus! Even if the boat didn't have a solid sodium problem, MIT should be willing to financially back their efforts!

If this is how MIT wants to spin it, then by all means, justify it to themselves in this way...but get the money and the job done, MIT. Help them out in repairing or replacing their boat and getting appropriate healthcare paid so that they can get back out on the river to keep up the great work. You want to be a good member of the Charles River community? Then donate money to those trying to help the Charles River...just the same as any one of us is doing in this group's time of need!

As someone who studied chemistry at a school outside of Massachusetts, I, and all of my fellow chemistry students, had ample access to a wide range of chemicals, including sodium metal. That access was a key part of conducting experiments and research. A typical chemistry laboratory may have hundreds of chemicals, with dozens of people having access to them. Without any doubt, the access to these chemicals comes with the responsibility to use them appropriately and safely. And dumping sodium in the Charles is not a resposible thing to do. But to blame MIT for the actions of some unidentified students is somewhat off the mark. As with most schools, MIT probably does try to ensure that access to chemicals are limited to those with appropriate need to use them, but the truth is that chemicals are fairly easy to obtain if you know how, especially if you are at a university or company that uses chemicals. Short of explosives, controlled substances (i.e., illegal drugs) and some of their precursors, and some radiactive materials, I could have easily ordered almost any chemical I wanted while I was in school, provided that my professor signed off on it. Since sodium metal is a common and inexpensive ingredient to many chemical reactions, I would have had no problem justifying its purchase and no one overseeing the purchase or the chemical inventory would have thought it to be out of place. I suspect that there are hundreds of people at MIT that have access to sodium metal as part of their job or studies, and thousands have access to a vast array of other assorted chemicals. The vast majority of those people use these chemicals in a safe and responsible manner in their laboratories.

If it were MIT students that dumped the sodium into the river, MIT as well as local law enforcement should pursue them. Unfortunately, no individual(s) have so far stepped forward to take responsibility and it is unlikely that they will be identified.

If you read The Tech's article, you'd notice that the sodium was reported to have been found at Gloucester street. Look on a map - Unless the students lobbed it off the end of the Harvard Bridge closest to Boston, it doesn't seem to make sense that bits and pieces of sodium would rocket itself across the river intact enough to still cause injury. It's certainly *possible* but it's a big stretch of physics.

Looking at their video, it doesn't look like the drop was near the Boston side.

Can alkali metals like sodium be purchased by a private party? Until they release more details, I think the possibility that someone else farther up the river and in Boston (or on the boston side) was trying to pull the same stunt.

Based on some of the postings here, there seems to be some confusion on the status of the Charles River Cleanup Boat after the sodium incident. The Cleanup Boat was not destroyed or sunk, but did receive some minor damage. In fact, the boat was back in operation a few days after the incident, patrolling the Charles between Watertown and Science Park, removing trash from the water. And the dedicated volunteers plan to patrol the river on their normal schedule of 3-4 days a week until the end of the season in October.

Beyond the injuries to the volunteer crew, the big problem that resulted from the sodium incident was the unexpected expense for the chemical decontamination of the boat. The bill for the decontamination was $10,873. The company that did the decontamination, Triumvirate Environmental, is a long-standing supporter of the Cleanup Boat and has generously picked up half the tab as a donation-in-kind. MIT has also made a $6000 donation toward the decontamination costs, in addition to their previous annual contributions. A number of other organizations and individuals have also made generous donations in support of the Cleanup Boat. Any funds not used to recover from the sodium incident will be applied to operating the boat.

Anyone wishing to support or volunteer with the Cleanup Boat, should visit their web page at www.cleanupboat.org.