Oh, Shit

[thør]

Back in the mid 70's, I remember a engineering prof telling the class that, "Dilution was the solution to pollution."

 

[MisterGarrison]

I lived in San Diego for 10 years and know a little about this subject.

There are two different types of waste water known as greywater and blackwater.

Blackwater is sewage from toilets. Greywater is from all other sources like sinks, bathtubs, washing machines, etc.

Blackwater cannot be recycled. The solids are removed then the liquid is pumped several miles out to sea where the current takes it away.

Greywater is recycled and used for irrigation, golf courses, car washes, and other uses of water except for drinking and bathing. That is because human waste contamination is still possible. For instance, washing baby diapers and soiled cotton cloth items from Hospitals.

Anyway, the waste water treatment technology must haved advanced significantly to enable people to drink greywater that originated from someone's garbage disposal.

Worst case scenario:

If reclamation of blackwater is what this news article is about then there could be dire consequences. What if the purification process had a catastropic failure and sent millions of people contaminated drinking water? Hundreds of thousands of people would become sick and perhaps thousands would die.

My thoughts:

There are trillions of gallons of salt water off the coast of California, but to date, nobody in the world has invented an effective, affordable, large capacity system to make the water potable.

Water desalination plants are costly to build and operate, plus they provide only a fraction of what the surrounding community requires.

I suggest spending money on research to investigate how desalination can be improved.

Conclusion:

Why is the city of San Diego doing this?

It's a cheaper alternative to building and operating desalination plants.

 

[domroger]

Black water can be treated ,it is a fairly simple process although lengthy .

 

[Hard_Rom]

Pretty sure this is greywater. If bad water gets in municipal water system you have mega issues.

My region had Walkerton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak

 

[oggbashan]

Black water can be treated ,it is a fairly simple process although lengthy .

Pretty sure this is greywater. If bad water gets in municipal water system you have mega issues.

My region had Walkerton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak

Black water can be and is treated to make it drinkable.

Waterton was incompetence that didn't meet standards that London had been using since the 19th Century.

 

[Bookishleigh]

Getting closer and closer to the movie Idiocracy.....

http://i.imgur.com/SGQNtcz.jpg?1

 

[Hard_Rom]

Black water can be and is treated to make it drinkable.

Waterton was incompetence that didn't meet standards that London had been using since the 19th Century.

So you folk use black water?

Sounds dicey to me. I know it can be treated but the repercussions are huge. Risk/hazard assessment IMO says it's not worth it.

We have the Great Lakes and will be many many years in the future before we consider even using grey water.

 

[thør]

Black water can be treated ,it is a fairly simple process although lengthy .

I have worked on repairing some of these systems.

Even when there's tons of snow and ice, water in the arctic has to be managed carefully.

 

[MisterGarrison]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/treadhead/dale-gribble-9955.jpg

It's a conspiracy to destroy the human race as we know it.

Doesn't anybody remember the mad cow disease?

If you don't, the invaders from Mars caused it.

This time though, Neptune has arrived.

They are going to kill all of us by poisoning our water supply.

Just look what happened in Flint, Michigan.

The Neptune people are very clever.

- Dale Gribble

 

[BoyNextDoor]

so everyone will be taking golden showers bro?

Stew

Urine is sterile. So ....

 

[Hypoxia]

I live in a mountain hamlet. Uphill are the alpine lakes supplying water to San Francisco's East Bay metroplex. Our local water system tapped into one of those with an open aqueduct. This was fine until bears and deer started falling in, drowning, decomposing, etc. So they covered the aqueduct. Whew.

How many animals died (and excreted) in the water you drink?

 

[thør]

I live in a mountain hamlet. Uphill are the alpine lakes supplying water to San Francisco's East Bay metroplex. Our local water system tapped into one of those with an open aqueduct. This was fine until bears and deer started falling in, drowning, decomposing, etc. So they covered the aqueduct. Whew.

How many animals died (and excreted) in the water you drink?

My well gets water from 244 feet below my house.

 

[Hard_Rom]

We had a well when I grew up. Once a year my dad would have it tested and then toss a couple of pucks of what I think was chlorine down it.

There was a spring which was popular for years and years near us. Good place to get water during blackouts when pump was down. Eventually dad hooked up a bicycle to pump. That got used a couple of times before municipal water came through. The spring though was capped off. Too much heavy metal content. Bog only knows how many folk drank from it over the years. On any given day there were people filling up large containers of what was thought to be good clean water.

Up north the cabin has a UV residential 12 v system for drinking. Usually we just use the regular system. It is heavily filtered but not sterilized by any means.

I had a nasty tooth infection from drinking Georgian Bay water on a camping trip. Bought a hikers water system after that. Seagull, otter and bear poop probably. Although we would dump latrine 5 gallon pail on far side of island. Wasn't a nasty e-coli infection so doubt it was human waste.

Scotch works well to make up north water drinkable straight from side of boat.

 

[thør]

When floating the Grand Canyon, you piss in the river and pump water through a ceramic filter, out of the river.

 

[stickygirl]

Urine is sterile. So ....

meh - another urban myth I'm afraid
Is it true that if you get 'stung'? by poison ivy then asking a friend to pee on you helps the reaction? We don't have poison ivy, but I saw it on a back issue of Friends with Monica

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

San Diego opts to process toilet water for drinking.

It's Waterworld!

 

[JohnnySavage]

There used to be a natural spring in Deer Park, MD where, as a lad, I would go with pops to fill up jugs. That was our drinking water supply for years and years. Then a bottling plant was built on top of the spring and nobody was allowed there any more.

Now Nestle owns the brand name and the bottling plant is abandoned. Deer Park water doesn't actually come from Deer Park, MD any more.

 

[oggbashan]

Pfizer used to manufacture Viagra at its plant near Sandwich, Kent, UK.

Waste water from the plant used to go unfiltered into Pegwell Bay. Local fishermen avoided fishing close to Pegwell Bay because the fish were sometimes "unusual" - and would fuck anything.

Eventually Pfizer had to comply with local authority demands to process their waste water and to ensure that all water discharged into Pegwell Bay was of drinking water quality.

Almost as soon as the treatment plant was operational Pfizer stopped manufacturing Viagra at Sandwich, and eventually moved most of their operations off site.

Before Pfizer, the local coal mine and the coal fired power station used to discharge dirty water into Pegwell Bay. Even when the coal mine closed and the power station had changed to using Orimulsion (a particularly dirty form of waste oil) the sea at Pegwell Bay was still blackish.

Now the waste water plant processes very little and NO Viagra. The power station has been closed and demolished.

But some of the fish still behave oddly...

 

[domroger]

But some of the fish still behave oddly...

Well it is Kent after all .

 

[domroger]

So you folk use black water?

Sounds dicey to me. I know it can be treated but the repercussions are huge. Risk/hazard assessment IMO says it's not worth it.

We have the Great Lakes and will be many many years in the future before we consider even using grey water.

It's no problem if the system is set up properly .London gets a large proportion of it's water this way and has done for over a 100 years .There have been few problems over the years and they were usually due to heavy rainfall affecting the treatment works .

 

[domroger]

I have worked on repairing some of these systems.

Even when there's tons of snow and ice, water in the arctic has to be managed carefully.

It's a lot easier with reasonable winter temperatures and low snowfall .

 

[MisterGarrison]

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/1f/1f5fab0f9cdbe0e1afaa5b577e3cc31ed5419326a9e109ec24b29c24a620c7d1.jpg