Is water quality protection only worthwhile where humans are involved?

This link from the Oregonian highlights a conundrum that I have often pondered.  (EPA may fund mine cleanup)  While this particular situation appears to be getting a fix, there are so many others that are not being fixed because there is not that grand conjunction between an environmental crime and impacts on humans.   At what point is it stupid to say that, just because humans aren't immediately affected, we shouldn't fix a problem?  Hmmmm, I have to admit, on retrospect, that my own question smacks of one of those legendary stupid questions in light of all the problems that do have an effect on humans that don't get fixed.

For example, check out the red dots on the map on this site:  http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/onsite/nitrate.htm.  While this particular web page focuses on the headwaters of the Deschutes River, the map is a statewide view of groundwater contamination in the state by one contaminant, nitrate, for which there is a federally established drinking water standard of 10 mg/L nitrate as N.  All the little red dots show where groundwater resources exceed that standard.  I know of the voluntary groundwater management programs that Oregon DEQ has undertaken in the southern Willamette, Umatilla and Malheur regions  (see the map at:  http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/groundwater/gwmas.htm) and am somewhat skeptical of real progress in those areas, but at least there is DEQ attention.  After all this is our state agency that is concerned about environmental protection.  But what about all the other clusters of red dots in Oregon?  Many of these dots are are located in areas of much higher population densities than where GWMAs have been designated and, by extension of the line of reasoning with which I began this post, there would be a greater conjunction between environmental contamination and impacts on humans.

But of course, more humans means more politics and we have witnessed the politicizing of DEQ over many, many years.  To be fair, I will point out that the story with which I began this post related to the EPA's Superfund program to deal with hazardous waste and the red dot map relates to nitrates and not toxic substances.  However, it is interesting to note that EPA gives priority where there is the contamination/human impact conjunction, whereas in a very broad brush look, it appears, merely based on active groundwater management programs, that DEQ's first priority is vague to say the least.  And while I do not say that DEQ acting on groundwater issues in less densely populated regions is a measure of their backbone in protecting the environment in general, I would have to poke a thorn firmly in the side of the DEQ for not taking action on these other areas of the state, particularly in those areas where the problem has been studied for decades.

From Toilet to Tap

Yes, I am slow at getting around to posting/commenting.  Get over it.  Some things, like fine wines, take time to gel.  I post the following link under the label of water reuse, with the introduction, to quote a colleague who beat me to a great sound bite, that we're all drinking dinosaur pee.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/02/from-the-toilet-to-t.html

Comments on a Graywater Reuse Demonstration in Bangalore

I stole this link from the Rainbow Water Coalition site (thanks to Todd Jarvis).  It is a great little demonstration of how easily kitchen sink water can be reused.  If my math is correct this will treat up to about 30 gallons per day, easily accommodating what comes from a typical single family residence.  How many of you know people with water features in the back yard?

Bangalore graywater reuse video

There are a couple of things to think about here depending on if you are in a big municipal sewer context or in the little septic system context.  The big municipal sewer might really like these diversions because in the sense of total volume these kinds of installations will "buy" them sewer treatment plant capacity, probably at no cost to the municipality (assuming that homeowners install them on their own dime).  The other issue that municipalities may face if there is a very large proportion of graywater flow being redirected is a change in the quality of the sewage reaching the plant.  Depending on the proportion of commercial/industrial/residential contributions in the community waste stream, changes in the sewage quality may cause a change in the treatment process.  Not necessarily in all cases, and the change may be so gradual that little tweaks to the system can accommodate the change in incoming quality to still meet discharge standards.

In terms of small septic systems, particularly those that serve one house, the change in water quantity through the system can have a significant impact, positive and negative, depending on the kind of system in use.  A simple septic tank and trench kind of system will probably benefit from having graywater removed from the flow going to the septic tank because the remaining blackwater will be retained in the septic tank (primary digester) for a longer period, allowing more anaerobic digestion to take place.  In addition, the flow going to the trenches that distribute the water to the environment have to take less water and therefore, the life of the trenches is prolonged.  And that leads to lower costs to the homeowner, etc. etc.

With more mechanized (i.e. pumped) systems, you would hope and pray that the homeowner is working with a professional to make sure that the pumping cycles are lowered in this system to account for the lowered flow to the septic system because the septic tank will have a higher concentration of solids that could start moving towards the trenches.  These kinds of systems are supposed to have water levels sensors and alarms on them that help protect the system and alert the homeowner to the presence of a problem, but homeowners have been known to quietly cut the electrical connection to the alarm.  If this is done before the graywater diversion is installed or if the mechanized system is otherwise malfunctioning, then the effects on the treatment systems could be bad.

There are new kinds of septic systems permitted by the DEQ currently and some of these produce very high quality effluent, which is worthy of its own reuse discussion.  In these cases, why take only part of the water when all of it is potentially reusable?  This presents another opportunity to "buy" municipal treatment system capacity:  allow homes in urban areas to install an individual system and reuse the water on site.  Each home taken off the grid in this manner means treatment capacity to the city treatment works.

Climate Change - part 3

I got these comments from a colleague and thought I would post them here in response to my previous postings:

I don't think it is fear. My impression is that Global warming denial has become a kind of conservative fashion statement. Its conservative chic. Its effectively the same thing as thinking that Sarah Palin is hot and cool, and shoots big animals and Liberals are a bunch of panty waists - nyah nyah nyah.

The only problem with treating pressing global environmental issues as a political fashion accessory is that ignoring the problems will not mitigate the real consequences. In this case pulling the covers over our heads won't save us. In fact, a critical mass of people being willing to play dumb has kept timely action from being taken up until now.

Let me explain "playing dumb". In reality some of the deniers really are just stupid. Dumb as rocks... They at least have that excuse. But I can't believe that this is the majority. Maybe I am optimistic?

For others, those of average intelligence for whom denial is like a stone wall, they cannot possibly be unaware at this point of a couple of simple facts.

1) All the real science supports the basic idea of anthropogenic global warming. Basically human produced CO2 changing the climate. That is all the real science. Done by scientists, peer reviewed by other scientists, and published in scientific journals, with full disclosure of data and method. There is no actual descent among climate scientists who study this.

2) The basic theory is supported by real observations in the real world - CO2 data, Ar temperature time series data, measurements of glaciers etc.

3) The points of actual debate among scientists are limited to details of how the effects will play out - rapidity, effects on specific weather patterns.

At this late date if you have a brain, and 2 ears and 2 eyes and any power of critical judgement you know these things.

So to continue to deny the warming actually require active intellectual gymnastics. To pretend to believe the counter arguments requires a willfully ignorant conflation of climate a weather ("its snowing outside I guess global warming doesn't work) - willfully conflating scientific journal articles with OpEd's in the popular press ("I read an article in Enquirer that said global warming is bunk!") - Or postulating a global conspiracy among governments and scientists to perpetrate a fraud that would be in absolutely no one's interest.

The last one, if it was anything besides climate change, to propose this kind of conspiracy would put you in the ranks of the people in cellars with aluminum foil on their heads. For climate change apparently its still socially acceptable.

My position is that it should not be. There no excuse for playing at being stupid. Its not conservative. Its immoral. Real people are going to suffer. Real damage will be done. Its not about scoring political points. Its about the science, a real challenge we need to be on the right side of and the real down side if we fail.

Water and Martin Luther King

I was re-reading a transcription of Martin Luther King's speech because I was a bit embarrassed that I could only remember the sound bites.  What a tremendous piece of oration.  Despite its dated language it still resonates and serves to highlight how far we are from equality still, over forty-five years later.  There is still racism of the type that spurred King to make this speech, but now we also have covert -isms that perpetuate inequality in often more subtle ways:  the low income housing next to industry that is more or less careful about its emissions, the menial, dirty jobs that no one but the poor are willing to do, the energy efficiency programs that only help folks that have the disposable income to participate.  I also keep getting confronted by environmental issues on a daily basis, especially those related to climate change and pollution in general.  Long, slow developing issues that will have big consequences in a hurry by accounts I see reported in the general science press.  So perhaps you will be as struck as I was by this quote from Martin Luther King:  "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.  This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."