Yes, I am a tad off the Los Osos sewer topic here. Yes, I could do a fancy lariat maneuver to capture a rationale for writing about this, but I will leave that to your fertile imagination readers!
There was a recycled article in our Trib. today from the Washington Post. Apparently the treatment of a very serious human bacterial infection is to introduce the healthy poop of a non-infected individual into the infected person's gut. Screened individuals donate poop, sometimes five working days a week, making $40 a pop with frequency bonuses for up to $13,000 a year! You will have to read the article to see how this is done, and who qualifies on both ends of this .
Anyway, the Post's article has a nifty poop chart showing you the size of poop in relation to the number of ill patients treated! Fortunately, for more squeamish viewers, the containers of "product" shown in the article are kept frozen, so the frost coating pretty much makes the content of the bottles indistinguishable from that of a hearty bean soup.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Sewage To Brewage!
I wish I had coined that stellar phrase! Anyway, this is for real...in Portland Oregon anyway! This summer more than a dozen home brewers in Washington County Oregon will be making beer from water recycled from sewage in a water re-use experiment! The water will first be filtered through a high purity water system, then it will be given to the brewmeisters to create their specialty home brews.
If only we could figure out how to do that here in Los Osos, we could be the coolest sewer spot in California! And our beloved dive bar, the Merrimaker, would be Wikipedia-ized in a whole new way! AND, so-to-speak, we would be re-recycling used water right back into our nifty new sewer plant (heh-heh)!
Check out the video here!
http://www.texomashomepage.com/story/d/story/turning-sewer-water-into-beer/40028/2ebTpUVOskilsgXtI7K4MQ
If only we could figure out how to do that here in Los Osos, we could be the coolest sewer spot in California! And our beloved dive bar, the Merrimaker, would be Wikipedia-ized in a whole new way! AND, so-to-speak, we would be re-recycling used water right back into our nifty new sewer plant (heh-heh)!
Check out the video here!
http://www.texomashomepage.com/story/d/story/turning-sewer-water-into-beer/40028/2ebTpUVOskilsgXtI7K4MQ
Monday, January 26, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, Save The Date!
I hope that the County won't mind if I do a copy and paste here off the LOWWP website, but this is the latest on the upcoming Town Hall!
Los Osos Wastewater Project Public Forum on February 25, 2015 (4 - 5 pm, or 6 - 7 pm)
at the Los Osos Middle School (1555 El Moro Avenue, Los Osos, CA 93402)
All is quiet on the streets of Los Osos and construction of the Water Recycling Facility is nearing the halfway point. Please join us on Wednesday, February 25th, to learn about the project status and begin planning for your 2016 sewer lateral connections. Location is at the Los Osos Middle School. Learn about upcoming workshops for grants and loans for low income residents, as well as, green options for re-purposing septic systems.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Licensed Contractors Take Note!
Licensed septic pumpers, plumbers, general contractors, electricians, landscape contractors, architects, landscape architects, grading contractors, and civil engineers
The Los Osos Wastewater Project Focus Group!
Thursday, January 29 from 6:30 - 8:30 P.M.
SLO Grange Hall—2880 Broad Street, San Luis Obispo
(805) 286-0072
I hope that this will be well attended by the above list of people.
We in the PZ will need your help in 2016!
Friday, January 23, 2015
Upcoming Sewer Town Hall Announced!
LOCAC, or the Los Osos Community Advisory Council, met Thursday night at the South Bay Community Center as it does almost monthly. County Supervisor Bruce Gibson, was in attendance as he is almost monthly. During his report to the Council and audience, he announced that there would be a sewer project Town Hall meeting on February 25, place and time to be announced. Topics will include the set up arrangements for financial assistance, and presentations, notably one by SLO Green Build on septic tank decommissioning.
Gibson took a tour of the facility Wednesday with state Senator Feinstein's staff and they all saw that a lot of vertical progress had been made, particularly when you are standing in the bottom of an oxidation-ditch!
The target date for substantial completion is March of 2016, although it could be completed earlier. So It is now time to begin the education for all of us, how those in need will get financial assistance and how we will know what to expect in our tank decommissioning.
SLO Green Build was tasked with developing a program to reuse our septic tanks for rain water catchment, so hopefully we will see what that is in February.
Mark you calendars!
Gibson took a tour of the facility Wednesday with state Senator Feinstein's staff and they all saw that a lot of vertical progress had been made, particularly when you are standing in the bottom of an oxidation-ditch!
The target date for substantial completion is March of 2016, although it could be completed earlier. So It is now time to begin the education for all of us, how those in need will get financial assistance and how we will know what to expect in our tank decommissioning.
SLO Green Build was tasked with developing a program to reuse our septic tanks for rain water catchment, so hopefully we will see what that is in February.
Mark you calendars!
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Nothing To Report, But Mites Are Fun To Contemplate!
Here we are, more than halfway through January 2015 and there is so little to report on our sewer project! Sure, there is the County's Monthly Report, and the Recycled Water Report from Cleath-Harris, and you can see from a distance off Los Osos Valley Road the heavy equipment behind the cemetery doing something. It isn't time yet for the next "sewer tour" of the treatment plant's construction, and the pump houses look like more like cute, little cottages every week. I almost expect elves to pop out to fetch the mail. So.....idle minds, as mine has been, sometimes stray onto other topics.
The February 2015 edition of National Geographic has a head-turner mite article! Page-sized photographic blowups of these microscopic, horror movie stars, a dozen of which could polka on the head of a pin, are given true-life stories that will give you unpleasant dreams for weeks, possibly months! They are roaming the pores of your chins and noses as you read this, eating by day, and at night, they come out at night to....no, no—I can't really say what they do on a family sewer blog.
They might be visually appealing if you like the rubbery tusk look with crusty skin, but frankly, by comparison, dog ticks are the adorable ones, the monster in the "Alien" movie series was a soigné dresser.
Don't you feel special now either! Mites live everywhere. Fruit bat eyeballs, stink bug glands, snake lungs, hummingbird nostrils, and those are just the places I'm willing to write about.
Anyway, if you want to see them, you can just Google "face mites." Or pick up a copy of National Geographic if you want a full-color, double paged spread, looking into a mite maw.
But I digress. The point of all of this is the curious fact that these personal cranial travelers do not wee-wee or poo-poo! After an egg hatches, the baby mite will grow and molt, getting larger each time. Once adults, they live a few weeks, fill up with excreta and—croak! No exit holes for that stuff anywhere at all! These guys have no need for a sewer, just a proper burial! Think of that while you wash your face, sending millions of grossly stuffed mite corpses into the swirling stew of your septic tank below. (Burial at pee!) I have more I can say here, but I think I am done.
(Do not despair readers. I will make every effort to stay on topic next post.)
The February 2015 edition of National Geographic has a head-turner mite article! Page-sized photographic blowups of these microscopic, horror movie stars, a dozen of which could polka on the head of a pin, are given true-life stories that will give you unpleasant dreams for weeks, possibly months! They are roaming the pores of your chins and noses as you read this, eating by day, and at night, they come out at night to....no, no—I can't really say what they do on a family sewer blog.
They might be visually appealing if you like the rubbery tusk look with crusty skin, but frankly, by comparison, dog ticks are the adorable ones, the monster in the "Alien" movie series was a soigné dresser.
Don't you feel special now either! Mites live everywhere. Fruit bat eyeballs, stink bug glands, snake lungs, hummingbird nostrils, and those are just the places I'm willing to write about.
Anyway, if you want to see them, you can just Google "face mites." Or pick up a copy of National Geographic if you want a full-color, double paged spread, looking into a mite maw.
But I digress. The point of all of this is the curious fact that these personal cranial travelers do not wee-wee or poo-poo! After an egg hatches, the baby mite will grow and molt, getting larger each time. Once adults, they live a few weeks, fill up with excreta and—croak! No exit holes for that stuff anywhere at all! These guys have no need for a sewer, just a proper burial! Think of that while you wash your face, sending millions of grossly stuffed mite corpses into the swirling stew of your septic tank below. (Burial at pee!) I have more I can say here, but I think I am done.
(Do not despair readers. I will make every effort to stay on topic next post.)
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Another Project Accomplishment!
Check out the new report on the County's Los Osos Wastewater Website! This was a requirement of the Regional Water Quality Control Board: Before any recycled water from the project can be applied to the ground in Los Osos, a baseline report of what the quality of the water is, must first be established. Testing had gone on for years, from 1982 to 2006 (when the Tri-W project was stopped due to Measure B and the recall election). Testing picked up again in 2012 and will continue through eternity perhaps.
Read the Baseline Groundwater Monitoring Water Quality Report, dated October, 2014! http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/document+library/Baseline+Groundwater+Quality+Report+Dec+2014.pdf
Read the Baseline Groundwater Monitoring Water Quality Report, dated October, 2014! http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/document+library/Baseline+Groundwater+Quality+Report+Dec+2014.pdf
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Human Coprolites Reveal Diet
Our climate in Los Osos is not conducive to leaving a fossilized record of what we humans ate, processed and pooped, either at present, or from thousands of years ago. While we have the wind needed to bury and dry such products in the sand, it is far a too moist a wind, as evidenced by the trailing mosses and lichens decorating our native oak trees.
Today's Tribune features an article on a retired Cal Poly biology professor studying the petrified poop of two different cultures on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island from 5 AD to 1170 AD. It is a fascinating read and you will find it off this link, along with a picture of said fossilized poop with a measuring device!
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2015/01/09/3434945_raul-cano-cal-poly-puerto-rico.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1
Oh, that such a record could be pulled from the sands of Los Osos long after we are gone! Think of the value in the history of consumption of Carlock's cookies and organic kale that will be lost to future scientists! And should that record be somehow preserved in our magic sand for future sociologists, (or entombed, in forgotten septic "caskets"), no one will be able to tell from the fecal fossils which side of the sewer controversy that anyone was on. Food for thought readers, food for thought.
PS—If you are needing a visual of just what we are talking about here, click on this link: coprolite.
Today's Tribune features an article on a retired Cal Poly biology professor studying the petrified poop of two different cultures on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island from 5 AD to 1170 AD. It is a fascinating read and you will find it off this link, along with a picture of said fossilized poop with a measuring device!
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2015/01/09/3434945_raul-cano-cal-poly-puerto-rico.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1
Oh, that such a record could be pulled from the sands of Los Osos long after we are gone! Think of the value in the history of consumption of Carlock's cookies and organic kale that will be lost to future scientists! And should that record be somehow preserved in our magic sand for future sociologists, (or entombed, in forgotten septic "caskets"), no one will be able to tell from the fecal fossils which side of the sewer controversy that anyone was on. Food for thought readers, food for thought.
PS—If you are needing a visual of just what we are talking about here, click on this link: coprolite.
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Wringing Water From A T*rd...
....not blood, and not a turnip, although that root vegetable might have some use in this process if they were processed first though through an alimentary canal, human will do. (Sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to write "t*rd" with four letters, although I have certainly used that word in speech.)
I was watching PBS tonight and they had a news segment on a new water making/electricity generating contraption created by Janicki Bioenergy based in Seattle, Washington. I couldn't find the link off the PBS.org/newsroom site for some reason, but googled my way to Bill Gates' blog where he explains this himself, and introduces you to the Omniprocessor. See the video off the link below, as his foundation is funding this as part of the mission to bring proper sanitation to third world countries. (Sadly, too late for our little Bangladesh-by-the-Bay...)
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to-Potable
This is a good bit of information for anyone wanting a better sewer education, and if you are reading this blog, let's assume that you are up for that! Cheers, with a virtual glass of Omniprocessored water!
I was watching PBS tonight and they had a news segment on a new water making/electricity generating contraption created by Janicki Bioenergy based in Seattle, Washington. I couldn't find the link off the PBS.org/newsroom site for some reason, but googled my way to Bill Gates' blog where he explains this himself, and introduces you to the Omniprocessor. See the video off the link below, as his foundation is funding this as part of the mission to bring proper sanitation to third world countries. (Sadly, too late for our little Bangladesh-by-the-Bay...)
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to-Potable
This is a good bit of information for anyone wanting a better sewer education, and if you are reading this blog, let's assume that you are up for that! Cheers, with a virtual glass of Omniprocessored water!
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
More Time To Get Your Act Together....
....for those of you who have not yet retrofitted your house's plumbing fixtures! Off the agenda for next Tuesday's Board of Supes Meeting:
You know this will be a golden opportunity for an angry Los Osos resident or two to scold the County on not having done more, and faster. Tune in to see the show starting at 9:00 a.m. next Tuesday; you can stream the video or listen to the audio off the link on this page:
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/clerk/BoardofSupervisors/Live_and_archived_meetings_online.htm
You also will find off the first link above, a document of the project costs. You can see what has been spent and what is left in the pot. But first place a towel in your mouth if you are prone to teeth gnashing over how expensive putting this thing out of town has been.
- Consent Agenda - Public Works Items:11. Submittal of a resolution extending rebates for the Water Conservation Program for the Los Osos Wastewater Project, Los Osos. District 2.
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/clerk/BoardofSupervisors/Live_and_archived_meetings_online.htm
You also will find off the first link above, a document of the project costs. You can see what has been spent and what is left in the pot. But first place a towel in your mouth if you are prone to teeth gnashing over how expensive putting this thing out of town has been.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
County Update—November 2014
It's out! The latest Los Osos Wastewater Project report! Read all about our latest sewer news at this link:
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/PM+Monthly+Update+Nov2014.pdf
The photos are really beautiful, they look like art, not construction.
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/PM+Monthly+Update+Nov2014.pdf
The photos are really beautiful, they look like art, not construction.
Thursday, January 01, 2015
U.S. Government Sewer Statistics
Happy New Year Readers! 2015 is here and we are closer to modern sewage in our little burg!
Here is a serendipitous find that is fun to share! Who knew these statistics were tabulated?
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/sewage.html
In 1990, these are the number of homes in California served by septic tanks or cesspools,
1,092,174 9.8%. Los Osos is among them, but not for long now; we are climbing out of the dark ages!
Here is a serendipitous find that is fun to share! Who knew these statistics were tabulated?
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/sewage.html
In 1990, these are the number of homes in California served by septic tanks or cesspools,
1,092,174 9.8%. Los Osos is among them, but not for long now; we are climbing out of the dark ages!
Happy flushing in 2015!
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