The drinking fountain button(theverge.com) |
The drinking fountain button(theverge.com) |
That'd be me. I traveled quite a bit all over the world and these seem to be a pretty American thing.
It's also a bit strange because for the countries that have them it is generally not recommended to drink tap water and for the few countries where tap water is considered safe to drink they are virtually non-existent.
Toilets in Europe will still seem to flush using the full power of Niagara Falls, which are quite rare in the US now.
National manufacturers have to design toilets for western states where conservation is a huge issue - might just be cheaper to sell those toilets nationwide than to have a different product line for wetter states.
Is there really an area that never faces water conservation measures?
Even normally wet Washington State is facing a drought due warm weather resulting in lower than normal snowpack, which is where much of the drinking water comes from.
https://m.kuow.org/stories/washington-state-drought-emergenc...
At least you can usually tell, if the ground is wet around it... that it's going to take your head off, if you put your mouth over it before turning the knob.
p.s. europeans just have fountains, and you drink the water out them with your shoe like it's champagne!
Water fountains are somewhat normal in New Zealand and Australia.
In gyms/libraries/airports it always feels like refilling stations get 5x more use than drinking fountains, but when you're anywhere else, what are the odds you're carrying a bottle?
To be clear, I think fountains should do both direct drink and bottle fill-up.
0.50€ for tap water in restaurant
No public drinking water facilities
https://overpass-turbo.eu , the sample query is already for drinking fountains. I navigated so Berlin is on the map and clicked Run, and it shows me all drinking water fountains on the map. A few of them even have image links, for example: https://imgur.com/d6UheOw
Someday I'll get arsed enough to figure out where the valve/plug is.
Don't even get me started on water fountains that require power.
See: <https://www.kqed.org/science/15191/california-communities-th...> and <https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article201568164.html>
Other regions without use-metered water include parts of the UK, and Asia where the concept is called "non-revenue water (NRW)":
UK: <https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/households/your-water-bill/unmetere...>
Asia: <https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jscejer/76/7/76_III_277...> (PDF).
Most forever-on fountains in the city are that way not because the water is abundant but rather as a means to reduce the amount of lead consumed by users.
Each spring all fountains run continuously for about a month to flush the system from winter stagnation.
The details of everyday items are fascinating.
I know nothing about fabrication or physical engineering, but surely it can't be that hard to make it simpler, like a safety pin or a <second thing>.
Not a joke. Thanks.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/EZ-FLO-Drinking-Fountain-Univers...
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/27/1d/b6/2f0ca95...
Also maybe less of an issue over here as you can generally just ask for a free glass of tap water in most places that serve drinks.
Good thing indeed, but then you go ie to France where you have sometimes such fountains too, and often reverse applies - don't drink unless its singed as drinkable.
What were they thinking?
Shared glasses were quite safe because every machine had special button to clean the glass with pressurized technical water (several calibrated jets) with some chlorine in it. People cleaned the glass with it before pouring soda water.
USSR has been eco/green paradise: no plastic bags or wraps. Meat was wrapped in paper. Milk, butter and sour cream were poured into whatever container buyer had provided. Glass bottles, paper and alike have been routinely recycled mostly by kids as there was small payment for bringing that stuff.
It’s only after the fall of the Soviet Union that shit with plastic poured into. As well with the fall of recycling, morals, etc. (say what you will about hollywood films of the 90s — nothing upstanding about it).
I'm basing this on nothing, by the way, but it feels like a fun hypothesis.
In the US, they seem to exist in offices and schools. Airports tend to have them, and often with a bottle filler on the side, which is great since we can't carry water through security.
But, just walking down the street, truly public water? Is that a thing anywhere in the US, or elsewhere?
More and more the newer ones are also "dog watering stations" which is basically a foot-operated drinking fountain with a slow-drain bowl (or just a concrete bowl with no drain).
Even parks that don't have restrooms will often have a fountain.
I'm struggling to think of any parks or high pedestrian areas around me that don't have a public fountain, nor in any of the cities I've lived in. Like, yeah, you're not going to have a fountain out in the middle of a parking lot. But they, to my recollection, seem to be everywhere that people tend to be walking a lot.
As for Europe, they also tend to be in a lot of high pedestrian areas, but really only in southern Europe (Italy, Spain, etc). In northern Europe it seems that everyone is just fine with being constantly dehydrated.
It's literally rule 0 of hospitality, to offer those in need a glass of water.
The only way it's awkward is if the place is very busy.
Often the fountain will just drain into the dirt nearby, which means it is often the only green area when it's a desert fountain.
I’m actually fine with tap water most of the time but I want to carry a bottle to sessions etc.
The park across the street doesn't have one. There are none in the town center (gotta buy Starbucks or similar).
And I don't recall seeing any public ones in downtown DC, other than the Mall and Smithsonian areas.
I already stated they do exist in quasi-public spaces (airports, offices, etc).
Like, if I'm running errands downtown, and I'm not in the tourist zone, there really isn't much without ducking into an office (that might be locked on the weekend).
Maybe a state level law thing then.
Usually the problem around here is sewage capacity - but perhaps it's a population density thing, and as long as you're below a certain density and it rains enough, nothing really is needed.
I expect plenty of parts of the US have loads of water and no droughts as well.
https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...
It set a max volume for toilet flushes of 1.6 gallons and since it's a federal law, it covers everyone.
The city of Amsterdam has 500 fountains or bottle filling stations[1]. The rest of the country has at least 2400 more[2].
[0]: https://www.wateratairports.com/topic/schiphol-airport-ams/ [1]: https://www.waternet.nl/service-en-contact/drinkwater/gratis... [2]: https://drinkwaterkaart.nl/waar-kan-ik-gratis-water-tappen/
We replaced the old 3.5 gallons per flush toilet in our house with a new Kohler 1.28gpf unit and it flushes and clears the bowl just fine - no worse than the previous toilet with about 1/3rd the water use.
Just like how I run the dryer twice on "hyper-giga-dry" if I actually want dry clothes.
It has a multitude of different modes, but "Normal" succeeds at this every single time -- regardless of the amount or dampness of what I put in there.
Am I doing this wrong?
How energy-intensive are we talking? Compared to what?
Why is this a problem? Flavor? This is certainly different than places like Mexico, where the tap water isn't potable.
> We don't need to talk about the things that you cannot taste or smell and what happened in Flint.
If we're talking about unknown unknowns, this is true of anywhere in the world.
Yes, if it already smells after chlorine, how can I know what else is in there. If it was from a clean source, it would not need chlorine in the first place.
> "If we're talking about unknown unknowns, this is true of anywhere in the world."
No, water supply in Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties. Also, our water supply is not privatized, like in the US. A disaster like Flint could not happen here.
I advise you look into the Flint water crisis, because your understanding doesn't sound accurate. The decision to change the source from one body of water to another was a municipal decision - made by the city's Emergency Manager (indicted on felony charges) - not one made by a private company.[0]
The EPA (another governmental agency) mandates contaminate limits and testing. MDEQ (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, another government agency) was not properly testing to federal requirements. Still, the issue was known by residents long before it was fixed, due to... private testing.[1]
What happened in Flint was criminal negligence, but it had nothing to do with water supply being privatized (it wasn't), or a lack of monitoring requirements (although it's believed testing may have been manipulated... by government workers.[2])
[0] https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2014/04/closing_the_valve_o...
[1] https://flintwaterstudy.org/2015/09/commentary-mdeq-mistakes...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/21/us/flint-lead...
Edit: Here's a good place to start - https://mphdegree.usc.edu/blog/the-flint-water-crises
Edit 2: Citations added.
San Francisco area also has surprisingly good tap water, likely due to the clay/soil in the areas the water is sourced from. In other places, like Florida, minerals and sulphur give the water a distinctly unpleasant taste, and shallow pipe depth keeps the water from getting cool.
Absolutely in taste. In terms of safety I think it is okay pretty much everywhere. If you live anywhere long term you should definitely look up the municipal water testing results at least once though.
Here is the link to a paper that compared contaminants in drinking water in various developed countries. When it comes to residual chlorine the USA demonstrated the highest levels followed by Singapore and Canada. After these three countries there was a huge gap before the UK and other countries which much lower levels.
Could it be that you are all so used to the chlorine, that you don't notice it anymore?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343719890_Comparati...
In addition, here is the WHO list of countries ranked by access to safe drinking water. The US is number 42 after Bulgaria and Guadeloupe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_access_...
Residual levels show 3 mg/L of chlorine in the United States which is higher than most other countries (Singapore, and to a lesser extent, Canada, excluded.) What I don't understand is why you see these levels, which are considered safe by most health agencies, as a cause for concern. As another commenter pointed out, the chlorine exists to ensure the water is safe to drink.
The European Union is not a country and it is not surprising that it has no guideline, because the member states have. That the United Kingdom and Ireland are similar to the US is not surprising. I could not find a source for the value of 5 mg/l for Germany, most sources say 0,3 mg/l but the actual text of the current law doesn't corroborate that. What it does is strictly regulate the reaction products of chlorine, which makes sense from a health standpoint.
"Residual levels show 3 mg/L of chlorine in the United States which is higher than most other countries (Singapore, and to a lesser extent, Canada, excluded.)"
I am not a native English speaker, so forgive me if I read this wrong, but the paper says of all the considered countries the US has higher residual chlorine levels than all the other countries (Singapore, and to a lesser extent, Canada, included)
In other words US is highest, followed by Singapore and then Canada.
"As another commenter pointed out, the chlorine exists to ensure the water is safe to drink."
As the paper shows most developed countries have safe drinking water without chlorine. So the question is not why I am against it but why the US needs it in the first place .
It's has a small amount of water at the bottom that receives our "output". There are also no problems urinating as it is easy to either hit the water or the porcelain wall at the bottom, that are much more vertical. Most of the accidental splashes that occur are either because the man is drunk and can't hit the toilet, or that the foreskin is pulled a bit back and doesn't contain the stream as well as it should.
(the above is false, but it is unironically there so that you can look at your poop. admire the shape, the volume, the coloration. and just wait until you learn there's an easy at-home diagnostic test for diabetes mellitus!)
But you should be jealous of my toilet: The American Standard Champion 4. It just flushes shit. There's no long-winded swirling water display to make a spectacle of dancing turds. Instead, it is fast and to the point: Push lever, SPLASH, gurgle, and the shit has disappeared. Every single time, without fail.
It scares children.
This present dryer was free -- it's a Whirlpool Duet Sport (yes really) that is probably around 20 years old.
The toilet...was not free. Changing out toilets is never fun, especially under duress. (But this one happened to be on sale the week that buying a new toilet became necessary, which was handy. I already know that it was the one I wanted, having once had an earlier version of that model, in an earlier version of my life.)
That municipal decisions played an important role too, is - if anything - an argument for the thesis that the water supply in the United States should not be trusted and not against it.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2018/05/20/pittsburgh-flint-veolia-...
This is entirely separate from the federally mandated requirements around testing that was performed by government agencies.
> That municipal decisions played an important role too, is - if anything - an argument for the thesis that the water supply in the United States should not be trusted and not against it.
We arrived here in response to your misinformed claim that "A disaster like Flint could not happen here" because "Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties. Also, our water supply is not privatized, like in the US. A disaster like Flint could not happen here."
I've demonstrated that the US has similar policies in place, and neither the water supply nor the mandated testing for metals were privatized, yet the Flint disaster did happen. People and governments are fallible. Corruption and criminal negligence happens everywhere.
I also think we have different views what privatization means. Here privatization begins at the location where the water pipe enters the building. There is just no scenario where something like in Flint could play out because the incentives are not there.
If that does not convince you I'd like to point you to the list of water crisis in Wikipedia. There have been none in western Europe while the US had Flint and Jackson.
The alternative is dead organisms plus a quite toxic substance in your water.
Chlorine being toxic in drinking water is your personal opinion. Your opinion is not shared by the people who are experts in drinking water treatment in the US. Chlorine kills microorganisms that aren’t filtered out in previous water treatment steps.
Please cite some evidence that chlorine in drinking water is dangerous to humans at concentrations lower than 4mg/L.
Here is the source, as you requested:
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/7782505.html
And here the definition of TLV from Wikipedia:
The threshold limit value (TLV) is a level of occupational exposure to a hazardous substance where it is believed that nearly all healthy workers can repeatedly experience at or below this level of exposure without adverse effects.
So much for that, but it is only half the story. Chlorine is a gas and therefore volatile. The measured chlorine in the waterworks says little about the amount that ends up in your body.
What it does though is, that it forms compounds with organic substances (the microorganisms it kills) in the water, which in turn can be toxic or carcinogenic. Instead of regulating the volatile chlorine it makes much more sense to regulate the harmful compounds, which is exactly what many European countries do.
Chlorine is a very hazardous substance after all.
According to the CDC the TLV for chlorine is 1.5 mg/m3. Note, that this is per cubic meter and not per liter. So a TLV of 0,0015 mg/l vs 4 mg/l in US drinking water.
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/7782505.html
And here the definition of TLV from Wikipedia:
The threshold limit value (TLV) is a level of occupational exposure to a hazardous substance where it is believed that nearly all healthy workers can repeatedly experience at or below this level of exposure without adverse effects.
Most health authorities agree that chlorine is safe at 4 mg/l.
Ultimately proactive and reactive approaches both have pros and cons. But implying levels of chlorine in US drinking water are unsafe has no scientific backing.
Except it may be worth noting that this dryer came to me with the matching high-efficiency front-loading washer that it was originally sold with.
I'm not near them right now, but I think they both have remains of an EnergyStar sticker on the front.
They're both very, very digital compared to what I consider "old" appliances (like the sort that had motorized mechanical timers running the show).
> Here privatization begins at the location where the water pipe enters the building.
As far as I am aware, the same is true in Flint. I do not understand the distinction you are drawing.
Additionally, your Wikipedia link is obviously not an exhaustive list of "water crises" nor does it offer any insight into whether lead in tap water has been an issue in Europe.
From an initial search, here's evidence to the contrary. Ctrl+F "Germany": https://www.zerowater.eu/zerowater-knowledge-center/lead-in-...
If that was true, how could Veolia - a private company - ever come into a position to be even partly responsible for the disaster? Did all the wrong-doing happen inside the buildings? Of course not, and before you say Veolia had no responsibility: If they hadn't they would have paid no compensation.
"Although lead pipes have not been used here since 1973, they can still be found in old buildings."
As long as it is not a rental building the state's responsibility ends where the pipe enters the house. We do not have any lead pipes in public water supply anymore and for rental buildings we have mandatory water analysis.
Also we are talking about a limit of 5 μg/l where the us limit is three times that.
The occasional home owner that refused modernization could hardly be described as a water crisis.
Let me be more clear: The fact that something hasn't occurred is not proof it can't.
I wish you the best.
Chlorine is a gas. I started this subthread with my claim that I always experienced a smell of chlorine in American tap water. Now the threshold to smell chlorine is 3 ppm while the TLV is 0.5 ppm. In other words, when you can smell it is already way above the TLV.
But it is even worse: While chlorine is absorbed when ingested, this is a lesser problem. Copyed from my comment above: "Chlorine forms compounds with organic substances (the microorganisms it kills) in the water, which in turn can be toxic or carcinogenic. Instead of regulating the (volatile) chlorine it makes much more sense to regulate the harmful compounds, which is exactly what many European countries do."
"Most health authorities agree that chlorine is safe at 4 mg/l."
Authorities agree that chlorine is safer than dying from the pathogens in dirty water. We all agree on that. If you have the choice of dying from cholera next week or bladder cancer in 15 years, you sure will pick the cancer. (Yes, there is a link between chlorinated drinking water and bladder as well as colorectal cancer).
Safety is always a trade-off and the EPA's task is to find a compromise [1]. That is where the 4 mg/l come from. Other authorities and organizations have different priorities, which result in different thresholds. For example, The International Botteled Water Association limits chlorine in botteled water to 0.1 mg/l. In Germany, the level for water in swimming pools is 0.3 mg/l. And by the the way the current SDWA encourages alternate treatment methods too.
Ultimately proactive and reactive approaches both have pros and cons. But implying levels of chlorine in US drinking water are unsafe has no scientific backing.
It is not about proactive and reactive approaches. That point is that with clean drinking water chlorine is unneccessary as evidenced by all developed countries except the US, Sinagpore and Canada.
[1] "EPA must conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis for every new standard to determine whether the benefits of a drinking water standard justify the costs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Drinking_Water_Act
And once again, whether necessary or unnecessary, the original question was whether the water supply is safe to drink in the United States. And - at least in regards to municipal water (houses on well, e.g. in rural areas, obviously vary) - it is.
Soviet Union was green not because of morals, but because it was poor and couldn't afford single use packages. I remember when Nutella entered my country, the empty Nutella jars were washed, kept and used as glasses for drinking - because buying new glasses was hard or expensive.
>And yes, most glasses have never been stolen.
I assume that's only because they were chained and in crowded places. Whole eastern Europe of that time was a thief paradise with casual theft almost completely normalized. (source: I am from Eastern Europe)
That’s why it so ironic sometimes to see west slowly turning into soviet union :-)
From recycling to cancel culture, just with 100 years of delay
What GP described might have been first and foremost the signs of a poor society, but then this only gives credence to the whole "decadent rich" line. Single-use plastics are a sign of a lazy and wasteful society.
I'm glad we live in the 21st century where we can afford single use packages. It will only cost us our civilization: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/?int...
I think it's quite common and not especially linked to poverty.
For the smaller containers with a snap on lid only though, because the large Nutella jars with a screw on lid are unsuitable for glasses, but they can contain sauces, paint, screws or nails.
You do understand that sand is one of the most common things on earth (hence the glass is dirt-cheap).
Just as an example of those mentioned faceted glasses: their price was 7 or 14 copecks (good thing every one of them had the price stamped on the bottom). It’s less than the price of bread.
The only thing I could imagine about those Nutella being used as glasses is common “this is a thing from the coveted west”.
If only it worked this way I could finally afford a 4090
There's a lot that goes into the cost of a good rather than the value of the raw ingredients.
We're doing a pretty good job of making it a lot less common: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/problem-our-dwin...
There's even such a thing as Sand Theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_theft
"The former Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. Total emissions in the USSR in 1988 were about 79% of the US total. Considering that the Soviet GNP was only some 54% of that of the USA, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the USA per unit of GNP" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/095937...
Modern construction with heavy insulation certainly reduces energy use, but at the cost of air quality. Even more modern construction includes air exchangers, but there's a lot of buildings with insufficient airflow.
Nothing wrong about it as water temperature in pipes is regulated based on the temperature outside if not at building-level (not uncommon) but at least at heat-station providing hot water to several buildings.
These were both common in mid-century US too. These practices were slowly discontinued because other packaging was cheaper and more sanitary, especially as foods were packaged further away from the end consumer.
And when buying meat fresh at a butcher in the US, it's still fairly common to get it wrapped in paper.
(Basically if using your own container, you put it on the scale, hit "tare" which zeros the scale with the container and then you fill it up. Most bulk sales are via standard plastic containers the store has which are already in the machine's database.)
As for glasses, at least in Lithuania those were stolen often. It was common for the machine to have only one glass.
But, of course, maybe it was different in other parts of the union.
Some paradise.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0959378094...
Has nothing to do with it. You simply lied. Would have called you out no matter the subject.
USSR was poor as fuck therefore is saved money on packaging whenever it could. It was occasionally ecologically benefitial as well, but to go from that to "eco/green paradise" is absurd.
USSR was polluting like crazy, significanly more than more developed economies. It treated its citizens as replacable cogs, to the point that after Chernobyl catastrophe it was Sweden not USSR that informed people there was, in fact, a catastrophe.
USSR was denying any problems with asbestos, calling it "asbestos hysteria" of the west. Russia is still doing it to some degree, and russian asbestos mines are causing significant health problems to the people living there. About 60 000 of them.
Soviet heavy industry was ignoring any health, safety and ecology concerns in the name of cost-saving. The reason most "commieblocks" are gray is the air pollution from all that industry and 19th century tech heating with unfiltered coal-fired powerplants.
USSR accidently destroyed Aral Sea. As in - it's no longer there. That's some amazing ecologic paradise.
The only reason Russia isn't the most polluted country in the world is that it's the biggest country in the world by area and very sparsely populated. There's a lot of it to devastate.
This type of arguments are still as annoying as the first time I've heard it. Reusable containers just don't satisfy modern day safety standards.
If they could get away without paying for packaging they will happily do so. They can't because chances of poisoning followed by lawsuits becomes real at scale, causes including not just accidental contamination but also terrorism.
Reusable containers are currently not cheaper and so they're not used - but the fact that they're not used for non-food items is pretty indicative that it's a cost thing, not a safety thing.
It really feels strange that this level of basic understanding hasn't permeated across, at least, developed nations. The humanity collectively got as much as 6x mortality variance _among developed countries_ with COVID. It's appalling if things like this had been a contributory factor.
As for your article, I don’t have access to the PDF, so I cannot verify it.
The place I grew up sometimes I could see Elbrus even though it is almost 300 km away. That’s for air pollution.
> in the early 1990s the air pollution became an issue of great public attention
This as well may be the coordinated effort to bring down every remnant of Soviet industrial force. You have no idea how many factories have been deliberately bring to their knees and closed down by “effective” new management.
The same way “green” policy is used today for economic warfare (just to think Germany being so stupid as to close their nuclear plants).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_distance_observations#Gro...
Just google “макулатура” and “пункт приема бутылок”
When Poland got independent in 1989 and energy prices got real - everybody started buying cheap styrofoam and in a few years we cut our energy usage for heating 3 times. It was CRAZY inefficient because of the pricing of energy vs materials in Warsaw pact.
This "mass styrofoamisation" still haven't happened in Russia to that degree BTW. It's still wasting crazy amounts of energy in all these old commieblocks without insulation.
The disaster was that harmful substances ended up in citizens body's. Veolia had very well a responsibility in that outcome, evidenced by the fact that they paid huge damages to the victims.
"Let me be more clear: The fact that something hasn't occurred is not proof it can't."
Of course not and that was never up for debate. I brought that point up after your claim that the water supply in Europe and the US are on par, which is just not the case.
Germany's water supply is secured by multiple layers in a swiss cheese model of security and has set up the incentives of the involved such that the holes will not align.
What happened in Flint was that the hole of the city and the hole of Veolia did align.
Once again: Veolia's role was in addition to the normal requirements and testing required by the US federal government (which is very similar to what Germany requires.) This was not privatization in lieu of public services, it was an additional stop-gap that failed.
The point being that privatization is not the issue - the same roles performed by the government in Germany are performed by the government in the US. All of which is a response to you stating it could not happen in Germany, because water isn't privatized.
> Of course not and that was never up for debate.
This was literally your evidence for saying it couldn't happen in Germany.
>> "If we're talking about unknown unknowns, this is true of anywhere in the world."
> No, water supply in Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties.
(Again, same as the US.) Followed by...
> If that does not convince you I'd like to point you to the list of water crisis in Wikipedia. There have been none in western Europe while the US had Flint and Jackson.
Your arguments have honestly been so disingenuous I can't even continue this.
> What happened in Flint was that the hole of the city and the hole of Veolia did align.
You are clearly still missing something if you think that Veolia had any hand in creating the water crisis, lol. They were hired as an outside party to keep the city (i.e. the government) honest after it became clear to citizens that the water supply had issues - and the government covered it up. Why do I keep having to repeat this?
Your argument has been that the water supply issues cannot happen in Germany because it's a public utility, controlled and monitored by the government. The same was true of Flint, and yet the government was responsible for creating the crisis and for failing to resolve it.
If so much control has been shifted from the municipality to a private entity that said entity had to pay damages, it very well means that part of the system was effectively privatized.
My point still stands: The system in Germany is different (different incentives, different form of checks and balances) and would have prevented an incident analogous to what happened in Flint.
In addition to that I have a hard time to understand your point that Veolia is not responsible for the crisis just because it was not responsible for the root cause.
So, assuming you weren't at sea-level, it's reasonable that you could see the peak of this mountain from 300km away.
However, seeing the peak of a mountain on the horizon isn't sufficient. You'd need to see a large portion of the mountain on the horizon in order to determine that it's actually the mountain you see in the distance, and not a closer peak that's less tall. This means that the observer would need to be at sufficient altitude themselves in order to view the mountain from this distance. I don't know enough about the math to calculate the necessary altitude required by the observer, but I would estimate an elevation of many hundreds of meters above sea level to be necessary. If anyone else can calculate this better, I would love to know how to find the answer myself.
Without knowing the general area of where you were, all I can say is that it sounds very unlikely.
There have been photos even from Rize, Turkey 300km, albeit very-very blurry.
But I think you are most definitely right: I checked and it’s only 240 from the straight line in my case (my memories of something closer to 290 is more about road distance)
