[GreenYes] Re: Food outside the pipe.

[Alan Muller <amuller@no.address>]

At 01:37 PM 8/11/2006 -0400, RicAnthony@no.address wrote:
>In a message dated 8/9/2006 9:11:03 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
>hspie@no.address writes:Alan's concerns (which I share) relate to the 
>likelihood that conventional sewer systems will sometimes fail.
>
>
>Here is the problem;
>1.  early sewer connections did not require a lot of pre treatment 
>(industrial chemicals)..
>2.  Original clay  sewer pipers put in during the 60 ies are leaking 
>(this is called infiltration).  No problem  in dry or average 
>weather but in the big storm the water seeps into the pipes and they 
>flow at full capacity which a treatment plant or wet well can not 
>take for very long (capacity issues).  When that happens the 
>wastewater is diverted, usually to a holding basin and if necessary 
>to a live stream.
>
>During the big storms in SO CAL last year  million of gallons of raw 
>sewage was discharged into the ocean from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

This is far from a worst-case situation.  In many old Eastern and 
Midwestern communities the same sewers are used for sanitary and 
storm flows.  In other words, toilets, kitchen sinks, roof and street 
drains, and industrial discharges all go into the same pipe.  These 
systems were never designed to capture the wet-weather flows.  For 
example, in Wilmington, Delaware, a city of about 70,000, there are 
about forty overflow points throughout the city.  When it rains, and 
it only takes about 0.1 inches per hour, raw sewage mixed with urban 
stormwater (also nasty) pours into the rivers, streams, 
parks....  One of them, unmarked, is directly under the dock of the 
"Wilmington Youth Rowing Association."  Here's a pic of one of my 
favorites:http://greendel.org/images/cso29a.jpg , 
http://greendel.org/images/cso29e.jpg  it dumps into a county park 
(http://greendel.org/images/cso29c.jpg) and kids play in the discharges.

I will not argue if you say that the people running my fair city must 
possess an unusual degree of criminality, but the fact is that 
millions of people are using systems basically like this.  On a warm 
summer afternoon like this one, plenty of kids are swimming in sewage....

Need I say that the Bushies are doing their best to roll back 
interpretation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act so this will 
continue ....?

Of course, not all sewer systems are like this.   But the garbage 
grinder peddlers make no distinctions; they would just as well sell 
their wares in Wilmington as places with "modern" sewer systems.  As 
far as I'm concerned they can pipe down until they clean up their 
act.  If any of them want some advice on how to do that, I am 
available right here.....

End of rant.

am

>
>Alan is right,  taking the organics a and sorting  them for 
>composting is best practice and more consistently environmentally sound.
>
>
>
>Ricanthony@no.address
>RichardAnthonyAssociates.com
>San Diego, California
>
>

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