Palm Beach sewage spill.... eeeeewwwww...

[MikeJacobs]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...dump,0,5487053.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines tells about 250,000 gallons of raw sewage that will be sloppin' in and out of the Intracoastal for a few weeks... we know from Hillsboro that "brown water" stays together for quite a while before finally being broken up.

Does anybody have a good feeling for when south Palm Beach County will be safe to dive again?

 

[zboss]

The interesting thing is that municipalities are now starting to purposely dump raw sewage, rather than treated sewage into the ocean (under certain rules like "it must be x feet off-shore" because it's better for the environment then flushing tons of chlorine into the ocean. It turns out that the bacteria cannot live in the salty environment of the ocean.

 

[baitedstorm]

Yuck..... I was out all week and was wondering why the water looked so icky until we cleared the channel..... It's weird to see the two sades of water.... One is icky brown, then it turns blue.... It's bad enough we swim in critter poo, now we get human poo as well..... joy

 

[archman]

The interesting thing is that municipalities are now starting to purposely dump raw sewage, rather than treated sewage into the ocean (under certain rules like "it must be x feet off-shore" because it's better for the environment then flushing tons of chlorine into the ocean. It turns out that the bacteria cannot live in the salty environment of the ocean.

Ugh. Whoever made those arguments should have their university degrees revoked, assuming they even have relevant degrees. That's an amazing amount of spin, that won't hold up under the most basic scrutiny. Sounds like some hair-brained government excuse to cop out of water quality standards. Dumping raw sewage into the environment is far worse than dumping chemically treated sewage, and everybody knows it. Raw sewage has undergone neither:
1. Particulate removal (primary treatment)
2. Chemical treatment (secondary treatment); U.S. standard
3. Biological treatment (tertiary treatment); most places don't do this

So it's basically a loose cannon. Chemical treatments do a good job of killing bacteria, and most facilities are efficient enough so that they're not using excessive amounts of chlorine. Besides, chlorine dumping is regulated; it's not supposed to be released in large amounts by treatment plants.

Saltwater won't kill all the sewage bacteria either. The stuff hiding in the particulates is protected, and there are various strains that can tolerate salinity, either actively or via encysting. Coastal areas near population centers are all-the-time reporting high fecal coliform counts, that track directly to storm runoff or sewage discharge.

Even IF all the bacteria are killed, there's still an enormous amount of nutrient waste entering the water column. That stuff directly promotes bacterial and algal growth (think fertilizer), leading to fun outbreaks of red tides and flesh-eating bacteria.

The further offshore you dump raw sewage, the worse the effect is on the ecosystem. That's because the further offshore you go, the more nutrient-limited the water column becomes. It's like popping a fire hydrant in the desert; sure it's great for a while, but keep it running, and you turn the area into a giant mudhole.

This idea is nothing more than another attempt at the classical adages, "the solution to pollution is dilution", and "out of sight, out of mind". No doubt the politicians kicked all their science advisors out of the boardroom; not one water quality specialist in their right mind would go along with this.

Hey zboss, you don't have an official weblink to these jokers do you? I'd like to look it over, and disseminate it amongst all my scientist pals.

 

[zboss]

Well - in principle I agree with everything you say but I believe I mis-stated when I used the word "untreated". The only thing they are not doing is using chlorine. All of the rest of the steps are followed.

No - this was a column from a major newspaper - I just don't recall which one. If I find it I will attach it to this thread.

 

[CBulla]

Ahhhhhhhhhh.. nice to see Palm Beach following suit with the rest of the coastal communities. We had a nice spill earlier this week... that means Venice will have their monthly sewer spill again soon to! Time to check for Poo-Diver cert cards!

 

[simbrooks]

The interesting thing is that municipalities are now starting to purposely dump raw sewage, rather than treated sewage into the ocean (under certain rules like "it must be x feet off-shore" because it's better for the environment then flushing tons of chlorine into the ocean. It turns out that the bacteria cannot live in the salty environment of the ocean.

There have been rules about such dumping or even just pumping out primary for years and municipalities that are more than happy to do so, but not due to that chemical treatment not working reason. Sometimes its cheaper to just dump the stuff rather than treat it, pay the fine instead of the treatment costs - which makes me think the fines are on the low side - this happens during the larger storms, and potentially that sewage is a little more dilute than normal, but it still doesnt make it right.

I used to be in a UK environmental action/lobbying group Surfers Against Sewage, there was a large problem in the bigger surfing areas of the UK with long outfalls, even pumping out secondary in short outfalls. Wish these groups would put up the cash and just hit it with tertiary all the time, i feel we pay enough in water rates as it is to afford such treatment.

 

[archman]

Well - in principle I agree with everything you say but I believe I mis-stated when I used the word "untreated". The only thing they are not doing is using chlorine. All of the rest of the steps are followed.

I believe all that's done prior to chlorine addition is primary treatment, which merely removes the solid matter and particulates, via screens and settling tanks. It gets all the "poo" out, but doesn't do a whit for liquid and dissolved sewage. Primary treatment is purely mechanical; it's a heck of a lot cheaper than following up with secondary chemical treatment, obviously.

 

[archman]

Sometimes its cheaper to just dump the stuff rather than treat it, pay the fine instead of the treatment costs - which makes me think the fines are on the low side - this happens during the larger storms, and potentially that sewage is a little more dilute than normal, but it still doesnt make it right.

My understanding is that storms and/or flooding grossly outstrip the capacity of most treatment plants, and so when they occur, the muninipalities are legally permitted to directly release the stuff. There is a dilution factor involved, true enough. In the U.S. we have "storm drains", that feed directly into the local water systems. Since they're only *supposed* to export runoff, they're usually exempt from many cities' water quality regulations. People are not supposed to dump wastes into storm drains, and you will often see signs stating this stamped on the drain itself. Motor oil's quite popular to dump into storm drains.

Upping environmental fines has long been advocated for a wide variety of applications, but lobbying efforts by the parties that pollute is very effective. In Texas, the legislature has repeatedly rebuffed any attempts by the public to increase fines to commercial polluters. Without increasing such fines to at least keep up with monetary inflation, it's cost-effective for polluters to do little/nothing to improve their emission efficiencies. In the long run, the actual costs of fines will go down for them.

 

[Tom Winters]

Oh boy - this is not good. When I dived every day in Kaneohe Bay on Oahu, one day I started getting some really interesting developments around my crotch area. I thought I had caught some mondo kind of weird tropical disease, so I packed myself off to the Diamond Head Clap Clinic where, lo-and-behold, those medical professionals who had previously seen everything, now saw something new.
They all ooohed-and-ahhed, poked-and-prodded, and groped-and-grappled - finally one of the medicos said that it sure like a staph infection. And it was.
I wore a shorty suit suit all day - seven days a week. The week, city and county of Honolulu had dumped 450,000 gallons of raw sewage into the Bay the week before. So I had all those lovely little organisms percolating inside my wetsuit and causing me some problems.
Hey Stormy - be careful diving up there - get that wetsuit off as soon as you're back in the boat.
I knew this guy named Albert who worked in the sewage treatment plant out there. His specialty was doing swan dives and cannonballsinto the giant tank of tertiary-treated, odorless brown sewage sludge. This is one dive I sure could never do...