Ecological Damage Case

[proper dome]

Hello. Today I bring a case of great importance to the Federal Government. Right now, there are two individuals that have failed to manage their pollutants in a way that would do the least damage to the environment. The two individuals are named Ravaan and ?-_-?. They both did not store their tailings in a manner that would cause the least amount of damage to the ecosystem. They only stored them just below the surface. They also are storing a large amount of tailings in carts. Due to their failure and the damage they have caused to the local ecosystem, section 1 and 3 of the environmental law should apply here. Picture will be provided below.

(1) 1Failing to contain environmentally damaging substances in a way that reasonably protects the environment from harm entails an administrative fine of up to 1.000 €.

(3) 1Being responsible for notable and reasonably avoidable damage to nature on either public or private property is punishable with a fine of at least 3 and up to 10 daily rates, in especially serious cases with a fine of at least 5 and up to 15 daily rates or imprisonment. 2The convict shall additionally pay compensation for all caused damages, present or future.

The green area belongs to Ravaan, the purple belongs to ?-_-?.

?-_-? storage location. Several carts with tailings along with 1-2 large lumber stockpile full of tailings, garbage and wet tailings.

Ravaans place. An entire large lumber stockpile of tailings. Also several carts with tailings stored under a river spreading the pollution much further.

Clear view of the damage they have caused on the surrounding ecosystem. Seagrass have been killed off. If this were to continue, other species like the blue shark and bass would not beable to live in these areas.

[proper dome]

This one is Strawman. He is a very heavy oil producer and decided to set up their facility in the middle of a forest. This has caused a large amount of the surrounding species to die as a cause. They could have easily done their refining in another location that would have minimalize ecological damage.

Likely falls under section 3 of the ecological law due to the shear amount of damage caused.

(3) 1Being responsible for notable and reasonably avoidable damage to nature on either public or private property is punishable with a fine of at least 3 and up to 10 daily rates, in especially serious cases with a fine of at least 5 and up to 15 daily rates or imprisonment. 2The convict shall additionally pay compensation for all caused damages, present or future.

[spiral wasp]

all of my machines are connected to waste filters, and i've purchased an industrial generator to minimize air pollution

[proper dome]

Another one do to the clear destruction of a biome that should be protected. This one is metallicdragon. He, like strawman, are doing their refinery on site. This has caused a large chunk of the jungle to die off. They could have conducted the refinery off site. A suitable location is just south of him in the desert.

Likely falls under section 3 of the ecological law due to the shear amount of damage caused.

(3) 1Being responsible for notable and reasonably avoidable damage to nature on either public or private property is punishable with a fine of at least 3 and up to 10 daily rates, in especially serious cases with a fine of at least 5 and up to 15 daily rates or imprisonment. 2The convict shall additionally pay compensation for all caused damages, present or future.

[spiral wasp]

my location with the oilfield overlay

kyokes' argument, as i understand it, is that i've failed to protect the environment because i refined my oil on-site, in a cedar forest, instead of transporting it to the desert. i don't see where it's written in the law or otherwise communicated that when environmental damage is unavoidable (such as from oil refining), that it's better to do that damage to the desert than any other biome - and while the law says that it's my responsibility to prevent avoidable environmental damage (federal law I.3.3), i do not see where the law says it's my responsibility, when environmental damage is unavoidable, to preferentially damage one biome over another.

to reiterate and elaborate on my point from earlier, i've done three things so far to actively mitigate preventable environmental damage in my oil operation. first, i've connected all of my machines to waste filters to eliminate direct ground pollution. second, i bought an industrial generator at significantly greater expense than an equivalent set of combustion generators in order to limit air pollution. third, i've proactively connected myself to the global power grid in order to get off combustion generators entirely (the highway electric poles haven't reached my location yet, but i ran my own poles for a couple hundred meters to reach the nearest global connection point).

finally, a little more about my motivation - i also played last cycle and watched how electricity was mostly handled by spamming cheap wind turbines. i picked my build specifically in an effort to rush wind turbines, but eventually realized they had been nerfed so much that it wouldn't be feasible to do. nevertheless, once my orders that are currently running finish and i deliver to the government store later tonight, i will have put more than 20 solar and wind generators into the market so far this cycle, which is the lion's share of all green energy that currently exists on the server.

[proper dome]

Strawman, this is a case as of yet. These just brough to the government.

[spiral wasp]

i'm not going to wait for a judgement to be rendered to present the arguments in my defense

[waxen warren]

Three things:

1. Something like 90% of the pollution was caused by combustion generators, which cannot reasonably be moved off-site. If I put them somewhere else I'd need to connect with power poles, which would have connected my power network to other player's machines, which would have interfered with my machines.
2. The remaining pollution from the refinery also cannot be reasonably moved off-site. Doing so would require I truck barrels and petroleum back and forth from the refinery to pumpjacks every hour or two, which is not a reasonable way to do things
3. The pollution has not caused any neighbors any monetary damage nor irrecoverable environmental damage.

[latent canyon]

Alright I am going to start going through this now. I am treating the tailings and the oil rig as two separate cases. I ask that no one speak at this point unless answering a question I ask so things stay orderly. I will start asking questions soon once I have read what's already been presented

[latent canyon]

@feral basin @polar elbow I have 2 questions for each of you. Do you understand that tailings stored in vehicles, no matter how deep underground, do not get any pollution reduction? Their location is ignored so they pollute more. Also, how deep underground are those stockpiles (how many blocks are above them?)

[latent canyon]

Just to make sure since I'm waiting for the other case to respond, you have a waste filter right?

[feral basin]

I have 6 blocks above the stockpiles since the beging. befor the powerplant was there, there was no ground pollution. The tailings where only stored temparly in carts for like 5 hours. i needed to get space, but now i have the space.

[latent canyon]

Ok, can you send screenshots proving the tailings are no longer in carts? Just want to make sure because storage in vehicles long term (ie using them for compact storage) is considered an exploit per the server rules

[waxen warren]

I do not. I don't like to use them since are buggy and tend to break for no reason, or cause generators to run when they're the only thing that needs power

[latent canyon]

Thank you

[latent canyon]

are you able to get your hands on a green power source or get on the global grid so the waste filter turning a generator on is no longer an issue? also @spiral wasp have you had issues with your wastefilter turning off randomly?

i understand the compost management can be a hassle, but that is unfortunately part of what needs to be dealt with

[waxen warren]

I've completely disabled my combustion generators since I got connected to the grid. I can add a waste filter for my refinery and at least try it out, it's admittedly been a while since I've last used them.

[spiral wasp]

yes, my waste filters regularly turn off and cause one of my refineries or generators to stop running. it happens less since i disabled !epforce but sometimes i still find the sewage backed up on a machine for no explainable reason

[latent canyon]

weird, ill take a look to see if its a known bug or something, sorry its such a hassle but it is considered part of "reasonable measures" to reduce pollution

as for transporting barrels of petroluem to another location for refinement, I do not see much good coming from doing so. As Metallic said, it would need to be moved every hour or so to keep running. It would also put pollution in two locations instead of 1 (the refinery being separate from the generator now). While there could be an argument for less plant damage in the desert, I do not think it constitutes that kind of facility separation

for the oil case: are there any further arguments anyone would like to submit?
for the tailings case: I will continue to wait for Ravaan to respond, as they may cooperate and take care of the tailings properly

[proper dome]

If i can chime in, both individuals are tied to the global network, meaning they do not need their power generation on site as well. Additionally, pumps only need barrels as an input. Queueing up several thouands to run can take hours. That does not feel any different from others moving garbage to other safe locations across the map or transporting goods from mines to a central location to operate.

[polar elbow]

I honestly didn't know that carts didn't work. I don't usually mine and when I do I'm in the desert so it doesn't matter anyway. I had been meaning to move them anyway, those tailings were from my above ground stockpiles when I wanted to try be more careful.

My main tailing stockpile is literally one tile underground. I was in the desert and didn't see why it would be a problem.

Also we didn't have this problem until the power plant between us was built. When I looked at it, it looked like someone had added extra electricity production onto the side of the power plant but didn't route the sewage pipes underground.

I think a lot of the water pollution could be from that.

But I don't really understand the pollution mechanic fully.

I'm just away from my PC but I'll gladly try sort out the tailings properly tomorrow when I log in. Not sure quite what to do, but happy to try.

[spiral wasp]

only one additional thing - this is an updated picture of the valley in the original post about my property. it was taken a few minutes ago from a different angle than the original. note the naturally-occurring sapling to my right, which indicates receding ground pollution

[proper dome]

Are u just dumping your compost on the ground?

[latent canyon]

If you could remove the tailings from the carts and put them into stockpiles lower underground that would be great

[spiral wasp]

yes, as far as i know, terraforming filler is a fully legal use for compost

[proper dome]

An argument can be made that covering the dirt with compost stops the regrowth of crops and trees on that tile.

[latent canyon]

An argument can also be made that there is plenty of dirt for topsoil later

Let's not get into compost landfill in this case please

[proper dome]

Wont

[latent canyon]

To close out the tailings case:
So long as @polar elbow and @feral basin keep their tailings properly stored underground, there will be no further action. Please keep in mind that storing in carts long term is also a game exploit and punishable via server rules. If there continues to be high pollution in that area after some time of proper storage, perhaps the power plant needs to be looked at.

Does either party have anything to add to the oil drilling case?

[proper dome]

No I dont

[spiral wasp]

i don't

[waxen warren]

nope

[latent canyon]

To close out the oil case:
So long as @spiral wasp and @waxen warren are willing to continue using waste filters and control their pollution, there will be no further action taken. There is no need to move refining to one biome or another. Each biome should be taken care of in reasonable ways so as to not cause damage to farmland and endagered species. This includes limiting your pollution from machines like refineries, blast furnaces, and cement kilns, even if that means reducing your production as well. This also includes responsibly storing solid pollutants like garbage and tailings underground to mitigate their effects, and using waste filters to handle waste water.

[waxen warren]

If you haven't done oil drilling before, Kyokes, I can tell you that barrel logistics is a huge pain. Making them from iron on-site and reprocessing petroleum back into barrels on-site saves a huge amount of effort. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd need to truck a load of barrels back and forth every 2.5 hours, either that or keep 4x as many barrels in stock at any one time, which would mean 4-5k euros in barrels just sitting around waiting to be used. Doing things like this saves literal hours over a couple of days of oil drilling

[proper dome]

If you havnt done mining before, I can tell you moving rocks and such is a large logistical effort. We have to move rocks for hours just to attempt to make enough quicklime. See, it doesnt work. Every profession has effort baked into it. Yours shouldnt get a pass. Ill stop. This is closed.

[polar elbow]

I did relook at the problem. The carts are my bad, I did not know. But most of the problem is the power plant. So I do not think this is likely to change. Potentially take it up with Ceelish as he appears to be the main polluter.

[latent canyon]

Correction to my statements: using carts for storing tailings is not a game exploit, just a pollution issue.

[night lynx]

Is it OK for other stuff ? like dirt, raw rocks...
Similarly, is it OK to dump rocks into the ocean ?

[latent canyon]

That's what I've gathered, Dennis said it's not an exploit 🤷‍♂️

Not dumping in the ocean

[night lynx]

Thanks for the clarification.