Water
Pandemic Wipes Create Sewer-Clogging Fatbergs – Bloomberg
Even before the pandemic, Americans were already flushing far too many wipes into the sewer system. After a year of staying at home, the pipe-clogging problem has gotten worse.
Just ask Larry Hare, who says he immediately observed the change from his vantage point as the manager at a wastewater reclamation facility in Des Moines, Iowa.
Sewer backups are up 50%, and he attributes this to the flushing of wipes, which don’t break down in water like toilet paper. “We’ve always had the problem, but it just hasn’t been as big a problem as it is currently,” Hare said.
Hauling Water π¦
Hauling Water π¦
I was listening to a Robert Caro lecture about Lyndon Johnson the other night. He was talking about what a big deal electrification was to rural Texas homes in an era when many ranch wives were still hauling water by hand from wells to their homes, backbreaking work without electric or mechanical pumps and hoses. I follow a lot of off-griders these days out west, and many still rely on hauling water onsite, although they tend to use electric or gas powered pumps to move water between tanks from their pickup trucks to storage in buildings and and barns.
Hauling your own water must make you much more conscience of your water use, every shower you take, every drop of water you use for washing dishes, taking a shower or if you have flush toilets, every time you flush the toilet. But the flip side, is it makes you a lot more conscience of your use, especially if you are buying it in town, and hauling it back 250 gallons at a time on your 1 ton pickup. A lot off-griders who haul their water from town have big full-size pickup trucks, not because their good-ol’ boys, which many are, but because water is heavy, and you need the big truck to move water.
But alas, this day of age there are all kinds of pumps, so moving water is relatively easy when you fire up a gas generator and pumps to move the heavy product. It’s a lot easier to quantify a gallon of water when you are buying it and moving it, and using it. Especially in the desert or other drier western climate where water isn’t as accessible. And if your raising livestock, I can imagine it means moving even more water, although in such cases most farms have ponds and other sources of water, which might be good for watering livestock but maybe not so great for drinking, especially without purification.
Public Water Supply Service Areas
This geographic data set contains boundaries of the areas with water supply service for most public water supply systems in New York State that serve over 500 people. Many systems with fewer than 500 persons are also included. Most Schools (Elementary, Middle, High) which are designated water systems are now included. This data set is under development so that polygons still show the larger legal service territory for many water suppliers, and therefore may not represent ground conditions. Users of the current version of this data set should use caution when inferring water service when boundaries of Water Supply Service are the same as the corresponding boundaries in Water Districts. https://gisservices.dec.ny.gov/arcgis/rest/services/der/der_viewer/MapServer/4?f=pjson
How to Make Sense of an Undrowned Town
Residents of Celles in France were evicted so their village could be flooded. Then, it wasn’t.
Tunnel Vision
For the cities that are learning from Chicagoβs example, Bernstein argues, recent storms furnish an important lesson: Bottling rainstorms is really hard. βIf I was one of these other cities that have been convinced a deep tunnel system would make the difference, Iβd be pretty angry by now,Θ he says, βbecause putting big money and expertise behind the large structured system ended up delaying by decades action that might have [been] taken earlier to figure out how to make more use of the surface of the region."
While engineersβ penchant for megaprojects endures, some American cities are preaching deterrence. If Chicago built a bathtub, Philadelphia is trying to transform itself into a sponge with park space, street trees, and permeable pavement. The city is spending $2.4 billion to implement the nationβs largest green infrastructure plan, an experiment that positions it as the anti-Chicago. The city thinks keeping water out of the system will save billions of dollars compared to a rejected tunnel proposalβand that green initiatives will produce positive externalities, like improving air quality and creating verdant streets.
Wastewater Treatment Plant Tour – “Flush To Finish”
A very interesting video on how wastewater is turned into clean water at a typical sewage treatment plant ...
Most sewage treatment is biological (natural bacteria) encouraged by heat and stirring up of the sewage. Then there is screening. Chemicals are used very sparingly in sewage treatment, due to the the risk of chlorine disinfection byproducts, which cause cancer.