Why are water trucks labeled as such?

Yesterday on the way to lunch we passed a construction site. There was a water truck there. Know how I figured it out? Because it was labeled as such: "water truck" in giant letters?

It looked like this:

Or this:

Or this bad boy:

Having a label near the filler makes sense. You don't want to accidentally fill the truck with gasoline, vodka or some other colorless liquid. You'd also want a label near the tap for the same reason. But spend the money on those giant letters?

I can see flying a red cross on a medical compound. In the heat of battle, yeah, definitely, you don't want that accidentally being shelled. Do water trucks face the same hazards?

Just wondering.

Because they are used to spray for dust control. They want everybody to know it's not chemtrail compounds, agent orange, or used transformer oil.

When we were in Germany last week, we drove past a construction zone and there was a truck with "Wasser LKW" (water truck) on the side. Clearly there's some international law or NATO guideline covering this.

Creating the perfect cover for shady government entities to transport UFO fuel...hiding in plain sight

I always assumed it was the same reason you had to label all liquid trucks - so that when emergency responders showed up to an accident with a 10,000 gallon spill they knew how to treat the situation.

I mean, you have to label all of the thousands of other liquids you transport, it just doesn't make sense to not label the one liquid that doesn't need special treatment.

Usually they say Non-potable water.

Water is some seriously dangerous E36 M3. Do you know how many people a year die from water? Drinking it can kill you. Immersion in it can kill you. Inhaling it can kill you. The list goes on. You damn sure want large warning letters on anything carrying that stuff around. The HazMat guys really want to know what they are dealing with.

Yea when I was in Afghanistan all the trucks on base had what they were on the side. Obviously you wouldn't want to mix up the "Black Water" and "Potable Water" trucks. Some of them tasted like they mixed up JP-8 and water from time to time though.

But.... It actually goes deeper than that.

In the event of a tank truck accident first responders will go looking for the placards to see what was in the truck before they approach it. Those are defined in 49 CFR 172 Subpart F

Water isn't noted the CFR as it isn't a hazardous material that needs a placard. So in the event of an accident either A) The truck is carrying something nontoxic, noncorrosive, nonnuclear, nonexplosive or nonflammable or B) the truck is out of compliance.

I sure as hell wouldn't want to be approaching a tank opened in wreck and just assume the spillage is benign.

GameboyRMH wrote: Creating the perfect cover for shady government entities to transport UFO fuel...hiding in plain sight

I thought water was UFO fuel?

That is, "according to ancient astronaut theorists"

Dihydrogen monoxide is like a bad clown: it can really berkeley you up.

Only heavy water, D2O, D2H.

Woa, you guys realize that there is a significant amount of heavy water in those trucks, right? Damn, that stuff is used to make ATOMIC BOMBS and E36 M3. No wonder they put those large warning labels on them.

Back in the plant every drum, bucket or container needed a HMIS label. It got to be berkeleying silly.

I wrote MT on a bucket.

Safety man did not get it.

Dr. Hess wrote: Water is some seriously dangerous E36 M3. Do you know how many people a year die from water? Drinking it can kill you. Immersion in it can kill you. Inhaling it can kill you. The list goes on. You damn sure want large warning letters on anything carrying that stuff around. The HazMat guys really want to know what they are dealing with.

Every single person who has consumed Dihydrogen monoxide has or will die. Just think about that. Dangerous stuff.

fasted58 wrote: Back in the plant every drum, bucket or container needed a HMIS label. It got to be berkeleying silly. I wrote MT on a bucket. Safety man did not get it.

Was it an empty bucket?

In reply to David S. Wallens:

Unmarked tank truck involved in an accident rolls over on your front lawn. Liquid pouring everywhere, including down the storm drain, which drains to a protected wetlands area. Driver is unconscious.

Will you be content to assume the liquid is water?

EastCoastMojo wrote:

fasted58 wrote: Back in the plant every drum, bucket or container needed a HMIS label. It got to be berkeleying silly. I wrote MT on a bucket. Safety man did not get it.

Was it an empty bucket?

BINGO

One other note:

Trucks relegated to water truck usage are usually unusable for anything else. They have been modified (usually dividers in the tank to reduce the volume- water is heavier than oil). Additionally, the inside of the tank is usually seriously contaminated with rust.

Painting "water" on the truck prevents repurposing it or reselling it for other uses.

GameboyRMH wrote: Creating the perfect cover for shady government entities to transport UFO fuel...hiding in plain sight

They have fiberglass air cooled engines and they run on WATER, man!

That's the beauty of it. They label them WATER to make you THINK it's not water, but the real secret is that they really do run on water!

Dihydrogen-monoxide is not a chemical to mess with.

Dr. Hess wrote: Only heavy water, D2O, D2H. Woa, you guys realize that there is a significant amount of heavy water in those trucks, right? Damn, that stuff is used to make ATOMIC BOMBS and E36 M3. No wonder they put those large warning labels on them.

There's enough uranium in the first few yards of depth in your backyard to build a critical mass.

fasted58 wrote: Back in the plant every drum, bucket or container needed a HMIS label. It got to be berkeleying silly. I wrote MT on a bucket. Safety man did not get it.

Totally true story. I am not making this up.

So, when I was a kid, for a long time my mother was dating someone with the initials T.M. Wallett. He was the older brother. He said that his parents were planning on just reversing his first and middle name for the next kid, until they realized that his initials would be M.T. Wallett.

Knurled wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: Only heavy water, D2O, D2H. Woa, you guys realize that there is a significant amount of heavy water in those trucks, right? Damn, that stuff is used to make ATOMIC BOMBS and E36 M3. No wonder they put those large warning labels on them.

There's enough uranium in the first few yards of depth in your backyard to build a critical mass.

Probably only the first foot around here This here's uranium country. Although even then, that seems a bit aggressive. Uranium ore isn't usually all that pure.

Fun fact: as a kid, my wife was sent home from show and tell because she brought in a chunk of uranium.

I think SVreX has it right about the water trucks.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

I will admit, I'm not fully up on how much uranium it takes to make a critical mass, but the amount of uranium in common ol' yard dirt is measurable in kilograms. Maybe I'm thinking of plutonium where you need a hardball sized amount.

Mind you, there's enough other stuff in the way that it's still a VERY small percentage... But it's there, silently... well, doing nothing at all, really, but people are deeply afraid of the big ol' R, aren't they?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3VKzqAefBVY

In reply to Dr. Hess: Google dry drowning. Well, you're a doctor but ya know what I mean.

You would need a prosessing plant, oh, say, the size of Oak Ridge, TN to do that. Almost all uranium is the 238 isotope. U-235 constitutes about .73% of that. You need about 33 lbs of it for critical mass.