Jolly Video Of The LOWWP Being Built!

I was sticking my nose one again into the Nextdoor posts on the Morro Bay Sewer..... well, the word "debacle" sure does not fit the low key sewer battle they are having - maybe I can use the work "skirmish?" This is nothing like what possessed and emanated from the sewer followers over here. Fortunately.

But I digress. I was researching something to include in a post and I ran across a video that I had never seen before! It is just delightful, toe-tappingly so! It is early on in the sewer building process, so not much is built, but it is really worth a viewing! I have no idea who the creator of the video, the Mimiaga Engineering Group * is, so now I have to look them up.

Click this link, not the image:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyq3GNtLU1s

Note: Farmland.

* Oh! There we are, right on their Home Page! They were a sub-consultant to HDR, one of our main contractors. LOVE the video guys!!

Cayucos Sanitary Plant

Does anyone (besides me) see anything unintentionally hilarious in this screen capture?

Sewer Salmon!

OK. it is not quite sewer salmon, but the alliteration made such a good headline! What it really is, is salmon being raised in the treated wastewater from the Bangor, Maine WWTF. The salmon are the draw to get people to visit, and in the process, the plant gets to show off what a glorious transformation it can do to poopy water! Read the story here:

https://www.tpomag.com/online_exclusives/2018/07/effluent-raised-salmon-gets-community-involved-in-wastewater-treatment?utm_source=StreamSend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&utm_campaign=180725

BTW, one can find great stuff in TPO magazine!

Sewer Socialism

OK, this is a bit off topic, but it did involve sewers! 

Quote, "Milwaukee Socialists sought to reform the legacy of the Industrial Revolution on the local level by cleaning up neighborhoods and factories with new sanitation systems....."

(Learn about something that you never heard of! It may come in handy if you get on "Jeopardy.")

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-043/?action=more_essay

Alligator Swimming In Treatment Plant Pond

Our Los Osos sewer news is slower than frozen pancake batter these days, but fortunately other treatment plants have more exciting goings on! The Mineral Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant in Clearfield County Pennsylvania has a guest swimmer! Have a look at this video (and never mind the prologue ad - mine was for a law firm specializing in debt cases, a guy had his car towed, was going to have a problem getting to work, and got zero sympathy from the tow truck driver).

https://wjactv.com/news/local/gator-hunt-animal-seen-swimming-in-sewage-treatment-plant

Los Osos Park Septic Tank

Fun Fact: Well, it is gone now, likely filled in with slurry, but the Los Osos Community Park, when built, was outfitted with restrooms that flushed into an 800 gallon septic tank! I was researching something else at County offices today and ran into that tidbit. You never know where something sewery will pop up when researching any aspect of Los Osos!

San Francisco's Poop Problem

You can't say I never bring you horrible stories!

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/state/california/article214320174.html

Who collected this stuff is what I want to know, and I suppose WHY, too.

Recycled Toilet Paper!

Yeah - really!! My dear friend just found this group on Facebook - but as you all might not be there, I am giving you a link to their website:

https://us.whogivesacrap.org

You must see this video!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S4YGaz-7EE&version=3&hl=en_US%3Bautoplay%3D1

Stay and watch the second video, it gives a good explanation of what this is about - it's a TED talk.

Thanks XXXX for the tip!!  (And I won't give your name out, as you might not want to be identified on a sewer blog!)

Crocheted Toilet Paper

I was noodling around on Tumblr tonight and found this - have a look:

https://picsthatmakeyougohmm.tumblr.com/post/174918758345/hmmm

This just is not practical.

Movie - "Toilet: A Love Story"

This is a real movie:

"Directed by Shree Narayan Singh, the film was retitled Toilet Hero (Cesuo Yingxiong) for the China market. The movie tells the story of an Indian man who manages to win back the heart of his newlywed wife by building an in-house toilet for her, a break from the local custom of doing one's business out in the open air. The film was inspired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Clean India Movement, a campaign to improve sanitary conditions in the country."

Above is a quote from the Hollywood Reporter, see the full article here:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-indian-comedy-toilet-a-love-story-tops-quiet-weekend-1118937

I often wonder if our "Magic Sand" sewer story isn't movie worthy too. I just wouldn't call it a love story; it falls more into the tragedy category, with many sad vignettes that played out over the many years of looming crisis. Bring a full roll of toilet paper (as opposed to a box of Kleenex) to the premier if it ever comes to a cineplex near you.

Trump Solves Sewage Problem

No, I'm not talking about PRESIDENT Trump, but developer Trump, who managed to hide 24,000,000 gallons of sewage. Really!  There are SO MANY things I could say here, but I'll just give you a link to the article!

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donald-trump-tried-to-cash-in-by-dumping-sewage-into-the-hudson-river

Beer Has Pee Too!

I did not realize how much wastewater is generated by a gallon of beer - 6 to 8 gallons of plain water go to make 1 bubbly golden gallon - and more than half of that is WASTEWATER! Read all about it here (yikes):
https://www.tpomag.com/online_exclusives/2018/04/muffin_monster_takes_over_when_macerators_cant_cut_it_sc_001s5?ref=related_body

Los Osos Sewer Lateral Etc. Update!

The Basin Management Committee which manages the Los Osos water basin by court order meets today, May 16. There was sewer related info in the Executive Director's Report which will be of interest to sewer readers here!

Here is a quote from that report:

Los Osos Wastewater Project Flow and Connection Update

•   Of the 177 unconnected properties, 72 are waiting for the County/USDA/LOCSD low- income grant program to pay for their connection leaving 105 properties that may require enforcement. Of the 105 properties, 32 are in the process of connecting (ie: obtained a building permit), and 13 have responded to the County’s survey giving reasons why they are not connected yet. Subtracting those categories leaves 60 properties (1.3% of 4583 total parcels) that are the focus of the Code enforcement process.
  
  
•   The County is in the process of securing a Board date & preparing a staff report to amend the County Code. The Board date is scheduled for August 7, 2018.
  
•   
  Influent flows into the treatment facility are peaking at 0.50 mgd. No recycled water deliveries have been made to irrigation users yet. Effluent is being disposed at both Broderson and Bayridge leachfields. As of 3/31/2018, effluent disposal totaled 133.7 AF to Broderson and 6.5 AF to Bayridge leachfields. The development of the expected groundwater mount downgradient of Broderson continues as shown in the attached recent hydrograph of monitoring well FW-6. Recycled water agreements are being finalized with LOCSD and GSWC for the delivery of recycled water to the schools and urban areas, and the schools will be retrofitted to receive recycled water during the 2018 summer break.
  

Option to Bring Morro Bay Wastewater to Los Osos WWRF
Similar to staff’s last update, it was determined that both summer and winter peak day flows at the City of Morro Bay are expected to exceed the available capacity in the Los Osos Wastewater Reclamation Facility, and therefore an expansion would be required to accommodate the higher flows. A number of peak day flows of over 3 mgd have been observed at the existing Morro Bay facility. Additional information on the Morro Bay project can be found here: http://morrobaywrf.com/. 

View the entire report here: https://www.slocountywater.org/site/Water%20Resources/LosOsos/pdf/2018-05-16%20Los%20Osos%20BMC%20Meeting%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf

Purified Pismo Pee—Tastes Great!

Read all about Central Coast Blue here!
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/latest-news/article211170159.html

4/mg L Nitrogen!

Wow. These guys had even tougher standards than we did and our 7/mg L nitrogen, the Riverhead Sewer District on Long Island, New York.

https://www.tpomag.com/editorial/2018/05/a-new-york-plant-adopts-reuse-and-eliminates-the-pumping-of-100-million-gallons-of-groundwater-annually?utm_source=StreamSend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&utm_campaign=180425

This was just a fascinating read because of our similarities in treatment plant size and their being near an estuary, the Peconic River Estuary. "....an EPA-designated nationally significant waterway. The shallow estuary has been prone to algae blooms, including the brown tide that decimated the scallop population in the 1980s."

I signed up for an online wastewater magazine subscription. I'm sure I was supposed to be a worker in the industry.... but due to living in a town with most likely the l-o-n-g-e-s-t sewer war in history that I am still writing about, it seemed like a useful idea for this blogger: https://www.tpomag.com/

Poop Train Pauses In Parrish: 10 Million Pounds Of Poop Stuck Two Months!

A bureaucratic foul-up caused a 42-car train with 400 containers of New York poop to ferment in Parrish, Alabama's rail yard for two months. The residents were not happy. You can read about this rail constipation off the link. The New York Times finds the best stories, really, they do!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/nyregion/poop-train-alabama.html

Where does OUR sludge go? Last I heard, it was trucked to Engel and Gray in Santa Maria. But what happens if they fill up? A sludge train from our county to the large facility in the Central Valley (yes there was a great deal of controversy in the early 2000s and beyond) could help us out! We sure don't want oil trains in this county, but what about poop trains? (And will we have any choice?)

http://www.synagro.com/offerings/rail-transportation/

Check out their location map!
http://www.synagro.com/locations/

And finally, for more sewage information - a bit of history, a lot of money, wimpy regulations, and LAWSUITS! Read an excellent paper, Regulate This: The Politics and Practice of Poo Farming, by a Harvard Law School student on what we euphemistically call - biosolids!

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8852199/Christenson06.html?sequence=2

(There is a wealth of resources just in the footnotes!)

Museum of London - FATBERG!!!

I was tardy getting all parts to The New York Times read from their April 1 edition. Last night I was cleaning out my office and ran across an article in the New York Times Magazine section called "Fatbergs." 

Sewer followers, this is a MUST READ!!!! Below is the link. Don't be put off by the subscription pop-up, just remove it by clicking the "X" in the upper right hand corner. The fatberg in question was broken up by sewage workers in hazmat suits and a section of it was saved and put into a London museum! That London fatberg, reported here in 2017, was the length of 22 double-decker buses and weighed the same as a blue whale! The online image is far superior to the print edition, so do NOT miss this article—and, as with all things New York Times, the writing is superlative!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-fatbergs.html

Enjoy!

District 2 Supervisor Candidate With A Reclamator Past

Someone very interesting to Los Osos sewer history has popped up in our SLO County District 2 Supervisor's race - Patrick Sparks, the attorney for the "Reclamator" guy. Surely you remember crackpot Tom Murphy who tried to convince the citizens of Los Osos that we really didn't need a sewer, they needed a Reclamator in their yard instead? I think ("Wrecklamator" might have been a better name.)

(Click to enlarge images. Sadly, note the quotes around the words "Legal Opinion" on page 2!) 

Here is an article about Tom Murphy: https://calcoastnews.com/2008/10/reclamator-inventor-sues-water-resources-establishment/

Check out page 4 of the Regional Water Quality Control Board minutes to find Sparks and Murphy:
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/rwqcb3/board_info/minutes/2008/05_08_mins.pdf

Read more "Wreclamator" and the Fraud Alert put out by the Water Board: https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/fraud-alert-doesnt-deter-reclamator-proponents/Content?oid=2945838

Sparks speaks at the Board of Supervisors (Item 7):

Mr. Patrick Sparks: AES Chief Legal Counsel, states  the Reclamator meets the Gold Standard for recycled water...

http://slocounty.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=447

See a copy of the Water Board's Fraud Alert and what I wrote in 2017: http://losewersaga.blogspot.com/2017/07/ 

And last, but (maybe) least, here is the candidate Sparks himself, in an article in the CalCoastTimes: https://calcoasttimes.com/2018/02/03/patrick-sparks-enters-district-2-supervisor-race-macelvanie/

Here is a dangerous and a completely untrue Sparks quote: 

“Gibson cost the city of Los Osos in excess of $100 million for a sewer project that could have built a different way for less,” Sparks said. “The same problem is now occurring in Morro Bay.” 

First off, we are not a city, and crackpot technology will bomb just as bad in Morro Bay as it did in Los Osos. You people in Morro Bay really have to be careful about voting for someone willing to represent and support the inventor of an impossible faux sewer solution, which only caused the citizens of Los Osos time, confusion, and ultimately, money. 

San Francisco Sewer Video

Well, I suspect many of us reading this blog will not be around when our present sewer is ready for replacement, but here is a look at what San Francisco is up against:
http://abc7news.com/politics/sfs-aging-sewers-provide-gross-glimpse-into-need-for-repairs/2558293/

Check out the roaches! Reminds me of my hippie days in Venice, California.

ARB Lawsuit Settlement Followers Take Note

You will recall that there were not enough Supes present at the last Board of Supervisors meeting to be able to vote on $money$ matters, so here we go:

See item #2 under Board Business:
http://agenda.slocounty.ca.gov/agenda/sanluisobispo/1045/QWdlbmRh/6/n/91217.doc

And check all of the documents off of this link:
http://agenda.slocounty.ca.gov/agenda/sanluisobispo/Proposal.html?select=8476