One of the advantages of hanging around for a number of years is that you get to see how things play out.

Consolidation is one example. Those of us who supported it were sure it would be advantageous but after almost 60 years, we can be certain we were right.

Another example that comes to mind is the Palatka pipeline.

Some 30 years ago the media, especially one left wing newspaper columnist, were continually berating the Georgia-Pacific paper mill for planning to build a pipeline that would reach into the St. Johns River.

The mill was doing so to meet new environmental guidelines.

The little-brained columnist misled readers by claiming the mill was a polluter seeking to introduce its pollution into the pristine river. He was a tree-hugger who posed as a champion of the environment.

The truth: the mill had been putting out the same wastewater for 50 years and it met water standards. Then the government changed the standards, making the mill a “polluter” for doing what it had done for years.

Furthermore, the wastewater had been going into the river the entire time. The mill is located on Rice Creek. It emptied into the creek, which flowed into the river.

The problem was that it tended to settle at the mouth of the creek, concentrating pollutants were in the wastewater.

The 4-mile pipeline was designed to carry it out to the middle of the river where it would be diluted by the huge volume of slow-moving water and carried away toward the ocean.

The solution to pollution is dilution.

Drinking a glass of water with a dose of arsenic will kill you but pouring that same dose of poison into the ocean will not mean your demise after a day of surfing.

The company spent about $200 million to improve its wastewater system and those improvements resulted in a 73 percent reduction in phosphorus discharges and a 54 percent reduction in nitrogen discharges from 1997-98 levels, so the wastewater was much cleaner even before being discharged.

But opponents, which included the local riverkeeper, were not at all unwilling to shut down the plant and put 1,500 people out of work. Have the same the planet, you know.

They weep when a weed dies.

In the end sanity prevailed. About 15 years ago the project finally was completed and the world did not end.

So now you know the rest of the story. It is worth remembering whenever the calamity and catastrophe crowd is shouting alarms.