deeper thoughts
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A win for now, lets hope they he keeps up the good fight
Broward County deals with pollution
- Thread starter DennisS
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deeper thoughts
Contributor
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sorry for post 11, A win for now lets hope he keeps up the good fight
Do some deep web searches on all the people mentioned in the article and youll find ties to the Axis of Logic who claim their enemy to be the Corporate Global Empire, and Common Dreams where Jimmy Carter claims North Korea never cheated on nuclear weapons until President Bush forced them to and they were always honest with him and Clinton.DennisS:Who is this attorney? What's the group?
He's against putting sewage in canals, has worries about the integrity of electronic voting machine, doesn't want drilling off the coast of florida. That's terrible!
Who are some of the major socialist groups that quote him?
As for the drilling issue theres some real hypocrisy going on when they oppose drilling for natural gas, drilling for oil, nuclear power, construction of newer and cleaner powerplants, demand conversion of oil based energy generation to natural gas, and never acknowledge how much a local natural gas source could do to clean up the environment when used to replace much of the oil burning sources.
Remember that sewage from many of the new wastewater treatment plants is cleaner and purer than the city water supply in older cities.
OP
DennisS
Contributor
George Cavros, an environmental lawyer who has organized opposition to the plan, said he supports the idea of reusing water but said it should be done without lowering water quality.
Keeping our current water pollution standards doesn't sound like an unreasonable goal. If the plants are putting out drinking quality water there is no need to lower water quality standards, which is what they are proposing.
One of the problems is when it rains, storm water overloads the plants and they dump raw sewage. The beaches have been closed on several occasions because of this.
I live on a canal, I don't want it to become a sewage holding facility so that condo developers don't have to worry about water shortages slowing down construction .
Keeping our current water pollution standards doesn't sound like an unreasonable goal. If the plants are putting out drinking quality water there is no need to lower water quality standards, which is what they are proposing.
One of the problems is when it rains, storm water overloads the plants and they dump raw sewage. The beaches have been closed on several occasions because of this.
I live on a canal, I don't want it to become a sewage holding facility so that condo developers don't have to worry about water shortages slowing down construction .
OP
DennisS
Contributor
Surprise, surprise, the county commission turned down the proposal, now everyone in the state can have sewage in a canal near them.
Sun-Sentinel
"State proposal would lower standards for canals.
Be careful out there. People are trying to mess with your water. If you let them, you'll regret it.
First it was the Broward County Commission's own environmental staff, which recommended lowering pollution standards so treated wastewater could be dumped into canals. Commissioner Kristin Jacobs and others pulled the plug on that dubious idea.
Now it's the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which is considering reclassifying the state's bodies of water. The result, among other things, could be a reduction in water-quality standards for Broward's 1,800-mile network of canals. Currently the standards are set at levels that, at least in theory, should make the canals fit for swimming and fishing. "
That's amazing, The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has decided we need lower water standards in the canals that feed the bays and oceans. Kids swim in these canals and lots of people fish them, one guy even guides fisherman on foot.
Sun-Sentinel
"State proposal would lower standards for canals.
Be careful out there. People are trying to mess with your water. If you let them, you'll regret it.
First it was the Broward County Commission's own environmental staff, which recommended lowering pollution standards so treated wastewater could be dumped into canals. Commissioner Kristin Jacobs and others pulled the plug on that dubious idea.
Now it's the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which is considering reclassifying the state's bodies of water. The result, among other things, could be a reduction in water-quality standards for Broward's 1,800-mile network of canals. Currently the standards are set at levels that, at least in theory, should make the canals fit for swimming and fishing. "
That's amazing, The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has decided we need lower water standards in the canals that feed the bays and oceans. Kids swim in these canals and lots of people fish them, one guy even guides fisherman on foot.
This so called lowered pollution standard actually requires an increase in membrane and RO purification of the wastewater to levels that exceed drinking water in many parts of the world and will reduce the amount of less treated water that is pumped into the ocean. The proposal is also somewhat restricted in that water will be diverted to canals primarily during periods of drought, which because of the natural animal sewage and ground water runoff tends to naturally become more polluted during droughts – so during those times it will actually dilute the pollution and make the canals cleaner than they otherwise would be.
Actually if the environmentalists of Broward County really wanted to do something constructive they’d stop blocking the attempts to use recycled water for irrigation like most of the rest of the state does and both the canal concerns and the aquifer concerns could be met. If the opposition to this were anything more than a backdoor way to stop development Broward would be recycling more than 5% of their wastewater anyway.
Actually if the environmentalists of Broward County really wanted to do something constructive they’d stop blocking the attempts to use recycled water for irrigation like most of the rest of the state does and both the canal concerns and the aquifer concerns could be met. If the opposition to this were anything more than a backdoor way to stop development Broward would be recycling more than 5% of their wastewater anyway.
OP
DennisS
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If this sewage water is so clean, why do they have to lower the standards. If putting sewage water in the canals lowers pollution why not leave the standard as it is. There should be no need to lower the standard to accomodate this crystal clear sparkling effluent.
It's not a backdoor attempt to stop developers, nothing can stop florida developers-the county shot them down(and the commisioners like developers), they steamrolled them with their contacts in the state legislature. It's about not having sewage in your backyard, even the Perrier sewage effluent put out by a perfectly operating plant, on a perfect day with an attentive perfect operator.
I think it's a great idea to use it for irrigation of landscaping and golf courses.
why not leave the standard as it is. There should be no need to lower the standard to accomodate this crystal clear sparkling effluent.It's not a backdoor attempt to stop developers, nothing can stop florida developers-the county shot them down(and the commisioners like developers), they steamrolled them with their contacts in the state legislature. It's about not having sewage in your backyard, even the Perrier sewage effluent put out by a perfectly operating plant, on a perfect day with an attentive perfect operator.
I think it's a great idea to use it for irrigation of landscaping and golf courses.
When you dig through the proposal they point out that this entire action is being done as a proactive ruling “IF” they have to feed more water back into the aquifers during a drought condition. It doesn’t make economic (or environmental) sense to do a massive wastewater plant upgrade for something they may or may not ever have to use. The proposal also discusses that many plants and conditions will not require any lowering of standards – but they want the authority to do so if the need arises rather than trying to get it pushed through in a rushed authority hearing while the city is running out of water. Knowing how political issues like this work I find it rather ironic that there are so many ill-informed objections to proactive planning, which is much preferred to the really poor environmental decisions that would be made in haste if they weren’t working on this now.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of Broward politics, but I do have a number of friends working on the Everglades Restoration Project and they have indicated that there are some in Broward that are trying to make this recycle plan inoperable so they can use it as an excuse to keep sucking water from the Everglades watershed – which neither the feds nor the state is going to allow. This makes sense to me as to why the state would step in and revise their regulations as a means of reducing the economic objections Broward might raise to losing their Everglades water access.
In many ways this is parallel to some of the debates going on about wasterwater dumping by cruise and casino boats right now. We have many environmental groups objecting to the current federal (and international) laws on offshore dumping and wanting to extend state law out into international water. What most stories about this fail to point out is that the current MSD (Marine Sanitation Devices) on the cruise ships clean and purify waste to a higher level than required of land based treatment facilities. So if we were to outlaw offshore dumping we would have ships bringing their waste back to shore where it would go through a municipal wastewater facility and be pumped back out into the near shore ocean less treated than what the ships could do far offshore. Facts just don’t stand a chance against the emotion in these cases.
As to what is considered crystal clear effluent – that’s also part of the debate where many standards are old and based on what was considered measurable 30 years ago. Now that we have the ability to measure pollutants more precisely some of these older standards are working against sensible quantitative standards available today.
What I do think needs to be raised in this discussion is not how to block it from happening, but to define what conditions would be needed for it to come into effect. It’s too easy to fight the proposal rather than sitting down and figuring out a way to make the proposal a safe and economical alternative to doing nothing. I’m amazed that none of the opponents have addressed what they specifically would consider safe levels – and quantities - for effluent rather than just saying we don’t want anything changed.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of Broward politics, but I do have a number of friends working on the Everglades Restoration Project and they have indicated that there are some in Broward that are trying to make this recycle plan inoperable so they can use it as an excuse to keep sucking water from the Everglades watershed – which neither the feds nor the state is going to allow. This makes sense to me as to why the state would step in and revise their regulations as a means of reducing the economic objections Broward might raise to losing their Everglades water access.
In many ways this is parallel to some of the debates going on about wasterwater dumping by cruise and casino boats right now. We have many environmental groups objecting to the current federal (and international) laws on offshore dumping and wanting to extend state law out into international water. What most stories about this fail to point out is that the current MSD (Marine Sanitation Devices) on the cruise ships clean and purify waste to a higher level than required of land based treatment facilities. So if we were to outlaw offshore dumping we would have ships bringing their waste back to shore where it would go through a municipal wastewater facility and be pumped back out into the near shore ocean less treated than what the ships could do far offshore. Facts just don’t stand a chance against the emotion in these cases.
As to what is considered crystal clear effluent – that’s also part of the debate where many standards are old and based on what was considered measurable 30 years ago. Now that we have the ability to measure pollutants more precisely some of these older standards are working against sensible quantitative standards available today.
What I do think needs to be raised in this discussion is not how to block it from happening, but to define what conditions would be needed for it to come into effect. It’s too easy to fight the proposal rather than sitting down and figuring out a way to make the proposal a safe and economical alternative to doing nothing. I’m amazed that none of the opponents have addressed what they specifically would consider safe levels – and quantities - for effluent rather than just saying we don’t want anything changed.
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