rain water putting pressure on treatment plants?

A guy on the radio saying, If you get 3 1/2 inches of rain in NYork, that's 3 1/2 inches of rain washing all sorts of things into the reservoirs in the Catskills, 3 1/2 inches of rain putting pressure on treatment plants.

Huh.

Isn't everything that would be washed into the reservoirs already in the reservoirs or there would be no water there either?

And NYC doesn't treat rain water, does it? It just goes down the drain and into the river or the ocean, right? There are septic sewers and rain sewers and they're separate.

I came in in the middle so I don't know who was saying this stuff.

Reply to
micky
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It's a non issue for the reserviors, modulo a bit more inthe way of leaves and debris 'cuz the water is flowing faster. Not a big deal.

The sewage plants, though are a real problem.

NYC, for the most part, has a "combined sewer outflow" arrangement. In other words, the "sanitary" (household) sewage goes through the same pipes as the rain water (storm) flow.

The latter is easily a _huge_ multiplier higher than the household number, and it's got a rapid peak when it rains..

As such, whenver there's a heavy rain, yes, the sewage plants are in danger of getting overloaded. When this happens, the workers activate bypass valves and the storm water, _ALONG_ with untreated (or only marginally treated) household/sanitry sewage, gets dumped into the harbor/rivers.

The EPA doesn't like this, and the city is in a multi billion dollar plan to do something or another.

Me, if asked, would say that given a choice between the current situation of shutting down beaches maybe two weeks/year (3/4 of which is during non swimming time...) versus spending billions of dollars... would opt for saving the money.

Reply to
danny burstein

They are talking about 2 issues. One is chemical and e-coli pollution of the water supply upstream the other is the fact that in some parts of most old cities the storm drains and the sewer lines are the same pipe. DC has the same problem and it is a big issue in pollution that gets into the Potomac, ending up in Chesapeake bay. When rain water overloads the treatment plan, they end up dumping raw sewage. They are also finding out that the water DC drinks is not as pristine as they always said. I assume New York has the same problem.

I know for sure I have pissed in a NYC reservoir and laughed about it. Of course I understood that the flock of 100 ducks I saw swimming around there were doing much worse things to the water.

Reply to
gfretwell

??? Those reservoirs are typically fed by streams or have water pumped into them from rivers. If there is an exceptional, heavy rain, then more undesirable, unexpected stuff can wash downhill in torrents and go into the sources that feed the reservoirs.

AFAIK, NYC uses a combined system. That's why there have been incidents over the years where with an exceptional rain, the treatment facility can't handle it and stuff, eg bags, bottles, plastic that was in the storm drains winds up going into the rivers. I think that has gotten better over the years, but again, AFAIK, raw water in exceptional cases can wind up in the river.

Reply to
trader_4

Answering Trader because his was last.

Well, you all agree. I'm sorry NYC -- where I Lived for 12 years and had a good time, and moved to Baltimore partly because it was close enough to NY -- has this problem but I'm glad it wasn't nonsense from someone on the radio. It's one thing t hat people post nonsense on AHR, but I like for the radio, especially NPR, to use some judgment about who they air.

Yes the ducks do terrible things in the reservoir water. They should be in jail.

I lived in Indianapolis for 7 years and they have two reservoirs, Geiss or Geist and Morse. The first one had sailboats in it -- you could dock your sailboat there. And Morse had motor boats. You could dock your motor boat and they had something like a steam paddleboat giving tours (I don't know if that exhausts into the water, but all the other boats did.) Still, people drank the stuff.

There was a tour in Baltimore a couple months ago of the east side water treatment plant (Dam Jam) and I told one of the managers about Indy and she was pretty surprised. I think they said it took from 6 to 9 hours from the time the water (which comes from the Gunpowder or Little Gunpowder River, for the east side) reached the treatment plant until it left. Started off with turbidity of 60 iirc and ended with 0.06 or 04. They added chlorine, then something that made the dirt clump, then they gave it several hours to settle, and I forget what the final stage was.

The guy running it had started off 40 years ago mowing the lawn.

The woman I mentioned pointed out that bottled water only had to meet FDA standards, but their water had to meet maybe it was EPA standards, that are stricter. Bottled water costs thousands of times as much as water from the tap.

Reply to
micky

Not really. The combined water/sewer rate here is $6-10 a 1000 gallons plus all of the service charges and taxes depending on how much you use. Top rate > 18000 gallons is about $10 per thousand or a penny a gallon plus fees and taxes.

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The grocery store sells gallon jugs of water for 78 cents. If you buy the half liter bottles it is more like a dollar a gallon if you shop around. (case of 24, 3 gallons $2.99) Worst case is paying a buck a bottle at the shop and rob ($8 a gallon). Expensive for the convenience but nowhere near "thousands of times as much". You also need to treat the tap water here because it sucks. You need a carbon filter, at least and to get close to bottled water quality (usually R/O treated) you need an R/O. That ain't cheap either.

Reply to
gfretwell

"Alum" or a similar chemical is usually the clumper upper thinger.

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Reply to
danny burstein

Yeah, alum, she said.

They also had vanes on shafts spinning slowly to help the clumping along. A couple of the vanes were missing because the place is old.

This treatment plant is about 80 years old iirc and most of it is unchanged. He said they aren't allowed to build new ones open to the sky anymore, but I'm not sure if that's because of birds or terrorists.

Reply to
micky

I think we have water meters but no one to read them, so I don't really know how much I would pay for water if the bill were not split evenly about 500 ways. And I don't know how much water I or all of together use.

For a long time it was $60 a year. If each home was using 150 to let's say, 200 gallons a day, that's over 70,000 gallons/$60 or over 1100 gallons /dollar or over 11 gallons for a penny, including fees and taxes. 1/10th the price you came up with.

Sure you can get it cheaper but most people I see use 8 or 12 ounce bottles, often buying them one at a time.

So $8/gallon : 9cents/gallon is 100 to one.

Not thousands but I thought I read that and the guy had a way to reach that number. Maybe not.

Reply to
micky

Yea, Chicago has a combined (old) system. That's why they built the so called "Deep Tunnel" project. It consists of water tunnels running all over the place with drop shafts to take excess storm water in specific areas where the rain was the heaviest. It was also to have several "tanks" formed by old quarries where the rock had been removed, but I don't think these have ever been used yet. The tunnel is so big that it takes up the excess water/sewage and then, when the rain stops, the water/sewage is pumped to the treatment plants. Expensive, but, apparently less expensive than building a storm sewer system over the whole city and nearby suburbs. I used to live in one of the nearby suburbs and all our storm water went into the combined system, even gutter water.

Reply to
Art Todesco

If that bothers you, better not live in any of the towns and cities that pump their water out of rivers, with other towns and cities upstream discharging their sewage systems into those rivers. Personally, I'd be more worried about chemicals from all kinds of sources that go into those systems, as opposed to some boats on a reservoir. The biologicals are probably easier to neutralize and deal with than arsenic.

Reply to
trader_4

I've drunk water from Detroit almost all of my life. Downstream of Port Huron and Sarnia (whose refineries can be seen from across the St. Clair river).

Except for growing a tail, I'm fine.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
angelicapaganelli

I don't.

Speaking of New Jersey? a friend who lives near Hackensack wanted to go swimming in the Hackensack River, so when he was at work and I was visiting I call the H. police department, and they said that when they had to send divers, even in full suits, to dive in the river, they still got sick. This was 20 years ago, but if it was getting better, Rump is trying to put a stop to it.

Reply to
micky

Where do you live that doesn't meter water? Must be nice. I lived in Clinton Md and they certainly metered my water there. I agree it was cheap then but that was 35 years ago. It probably also had lead in it. Much of the water in the DC water system does ... still.

The standard water bottle is a half liter (a little over a pint) and the ones in vending machines and convenience stores is 20oz. People buying them one at a time are usually getting water instead of a soft drink. Pepsi and Coke don't really care because the cost of the sugar and color is insignificant in the price of the product.

Reply to
gfretwell

Around 1980 I was in a small development of about a dozen houses . We all paid a flat rate from a comunity well system for about 10 years as there were no meters installed. Then meters were installed and we were charged by the usage. I don't recall the prices back then. About 2006 I moved to a house with my own well, so have no idea what the actual water cost would be. I doubt the well pump uses very much power, but I do have to pay for any repair cost , which sofar has only been about $

30 for a motor part.
Reply to
Ralph Mowery

The electricity to run the well is not outrageous maybe about 25-30 cents per 1000 gallons (2 pumps) but that does not include the $10,000 it costs around here to drill the well, install the pumps and the water treatment equipment. For me it is 2 pumps, 2 expansion tanks, an aerator tank, a course filter, a water softener, a carbon filter and an R/O for the water we drink. Just replacing filters, membranes and adding salt averages over $150 a year. I seem to get about 5-6 years out of pumps and expansion tanks. It is pretty much as long as the warranty lasts ;-) Well water is far from free.

Reply to
gfretwell

I was wondering how he could have such cheap municipal water in MD too. The rates you gave, I think that's about the rate here we're paying too.

The environmental impact from needlessly shipping most of that water, consuming oil to truck it, all the plastic, it winding up in streams, lakes, the oceans, is one big mess. I don't buy water by the bottle. Not buying water that way would save people money and be an easy positive step for the environment.

Reply to
trader_4

They meter the water with one meter for 500 households, of which I am one. We split the cost evenly.

I never heard anything about lead in our water. This has nothing to do with lead.

Reply to
micky

For us bottled water is a survival thing. When you have a hurricane, bottled water is pretty important stuff to have. I always go into summer with around 10 cases on hand. Since I had my generator going after Irma and we had water I was distributing it to my neighbors. We usually work our way through it throughout the winter and stock up again in the spring. I also keep bottled water on the boat in case of an emergency although most of it gets given to kayakers who thought a bottle or two would be plenty. That is always the first question I ask them. "You have plenty of water"?

We also pick up everything we see floating in the boat. I try not to confuse containers with the assholes who litter with them. Most of the trash I pick up is not water bottles or straws.

Reply to
gfretwell

If you are getting water from WSSC (DC) there have been lead problems reported. Not sure about Baltimore but if the water is going through the older parts of town, they probably still have lead pipe and older houses (before the 90s) have lead soldered copper pipe. Lead is one of the issues for the "bottled water people"

Reply to
gfretwell

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