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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Don't ski on yellow snow
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Surely 'treated sewer water' exaggerates the ickiness of what's being used. I mean, ultimately tapwater is treated sewer water ...
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Sewer water can be made fit for human consumption, and is in some desert countries. The water situation in the American southwest is such that people will almost certainly have to get over their aversion to the idea fairly soon.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Sewer water can be made fit for human consumption, and is in some desert countries. The water situation in the American southwest is such that people will almost certainly have to get over their aversion to the idea fairly soon.
It's used in many places here in So. Calif., particularly to water landscaping. It's sprayed on the hills and mountains to reduce fire risk. Our ski resorts also manufacture a lot of snow here, since our natural snowfall is so variable. That's a pretty water-intensive task for a desert area, so yellow snow sounds like a prudent measure. Just not something you'll tout in advertisements.
[ 27. September 2012, 13:53: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Yep- doesn't Phoenix have two water systems? One for drinking water and the other for perfectly potable recycled water that people just pour on their lawns.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I wouldn't bother ever visiting Birmingham in the UK. The drinking water has been sewer water.. several times..
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Then there's Budweiser beer. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
I ski through dog lots and moose poo fairly regularly. so long as I remember not to lick my skis afterwards, I'm not terribly concerned.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
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Posted
I was brought up in Brum (Birmingham UK - the real Birmingham, Brituns grate-ist provinshul citoi). There's nothing wrong with the water. It has been passed by the management.
But I think we all know that underneath this is a very serious point - we use far too much water to be sustainable.
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If something's worth doing, its worth doing badly. (G K Chesterton)
Posts: 57 | From: Greater Manchester | Registered: Jul 2011
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I love Midlands water.
And there is plenty of water in the UK, the problem is the way it is used not the amount available.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
At least people in the UK have the consolation of knowing that their water may have once been the urine of the queen.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I wouldn't bother ever visiting Birmingham in the UK. The drinking water has been sewer water.. several times..
"Of course, Ankh-Morpork's citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed." - T. Pratchett
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I wouldn't bother ever visiting Birmingham in the UK. The drinking water has been sewer water.. several times..
Speaking as a Brummy in origin, the water is Brum is famously soft, because it comes from the Elan valley in Wales. (There used to be a model of the dams and reservoirs in Cannon Hill Park, perhaps it is still there).
However, I now live in London, which gets its (hard) water from the Thames. It is said that Thames water passes through an average of 7 people between the river's source and the sea.
Posts: 313 | From: Near the Tidal Thames | Registered: Aug 2011
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Yep- doesn't Phoenix have two water systems? One for drinking water and the other for perfectly potable recycled water that people just pour on their lawns.
It would be nice if they did, but I don't think so (I used to live in Phoenix and now live in a suburb of it). There are some individual businesses, etc., that have their own system for this, but I've never heard that it's city-wide -- certainly wasn't when I lived there.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
The really complaint isn't that it's icky for skiing -- as Comet said, people don't usually lick their skis (their tongues would freeze and stick!).
The area in question is sacred ground to the Navajo. I don't think any of us would be thrilled to have treated sewage poured on land we consider sacred, especially for recreational areas for outsiders.
[ 27. September 2012, 14:37: Message edited by: Pigwidgeon ]
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Kyzyl
Ship's dog
# 374
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Yep- doesn't Phoenix have two water systems? One for drinking water and the other for perfectly potable recycled water that people just pour on their lawns.
The small town in which I taught in far west Texas (90 miles east of El Paso) has a duel water system like you describe. They also have rainwater catchment systems for municipal emergency water. This was back in the late 80's. As I understand it, they expanded the rainwater system just recently.
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I need a quote.
Posts: 668 | From: Wapasha's Prairie | Registered: Jun 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
With my biologist's hat on, when sewage is properly handled it becomes quite safe and drinkable. In London and the South-East of England we don't actually directly re-use significant amounts of domestic sewage as drinking water any more, but some of it does get treated and put on agricultural land. Its fine. And much of London's sewage water goes into the Thames Estuary ) after treatment in places like this They actually incinerate a lot of the solid waste which is a bit of a waste, I think. but...
About ten years ago I did a two-week microbiology course in the Firth of Clyde. One of the things we did was culturing gut bacteria we got out of sea-water. Lots of lovely E. coli and Salmonelle and so on. From all those sheep? Or he Glasgow sewers?
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
At least people in the UK have the consolation of knowing that their water may have once been the urine of the queen.
If you contemplate Avogadro's Number and the water cycle for a few minutes you will come to realise that ever drop of water you drink is likely to contain molecules that were once the urine of the queen. And everyone else in the world, for all of history. And all the other animals too. A Noah's Ark in every sip. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
. It is said that Thames water passes through an average of 7 people between the river's source and the sea.
They used to say it was 9, obviously we are improving!
London tap water tastes much, much, nicer than it used to twenty years ago. It was really quite unpleasant in the late 70s and the 80s. But even now it doesn't taste as nice as the water in Brighton - that's *real* hard water, and lovely it is too. Build your bones. And makes a decent cup of tea. Not like that soft muck they have up north!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
London tap water tastes much, much, nicer than it used to twenty years ago. It was really quite unpleasant in the late 70s and the 80s. But even now it doesn't taste as nice as the water in Brighton - that's *real* hard water, and lovely it is too. Build your bones. And makes a decent cup of tea. Not like that soft muck they have up north!
As a resident of a place called Brighton, I find the water to be bland. Back in Indiana we real, flavorsome water. Tasted like sulfur it did. Oh, how I miss you Indiana!
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Skiing on pee and poo is one thing, but [url=http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-02/your-sewer-drugs?single-page-view=true]skiing on drugs? I wonder what it does when it goes back into the water table as runoff and back into potable water supplies.
quote:
traces of cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin and any number of other illicit substances ingested, digested, and then flushed down the toilet
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I wouldn't bother ever visiting Birmingham in the UK. The drinking water has been sewer water.. several times..
In Bristol we have the best drinking water in the country. Six Welsh people have drunk it before it gets to us. Tastes slightly of leeks and you may start singing Cwm Ronddha but apart from that ....
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Ken said
quote:
...the water in Brighton - that's *real* hard water...Not like that soft muck they have up north!
I'm sure you're right - but on the up-side, I've had the same electric kettle for 22 years and it was second hand when I got it!
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
I'm not thinking too deeeply about the water I'm drinking at present... but during the day it's too hot so you can't. (stored on the roof in big black drums in rather high temperatures.)
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
Even backpacking up in the mountains one needs to be careful drinking stream water because trout have sex in it.
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
You can treat water to just about any standard of purity you want, from any starting point. It just depends on how much you want to pay to do it. Most places that re-use the water put it back into the river first, then abstract it a short way downstream, for fairly obvious reasons.
Sadly (re Ken's point), lots of toxic materials are concentrated by the sewage treatment process into the sludge, which is why some cities cannot re-use it and have to incinerate it (it has a calorific value and can be used for power generation). Most other places in the UK recycle it on the land, using kit that injects it directly into the ground, so the smell is not too bad.
Here's a link to the sort of considerations involved, and a picture of some of the kit they use. Though they use a different approach round here - they position a big tank by the roadside that is filled by an unending stream of tankers. The injection is done by an even bigger tractor than the one illustrated, but with no tank of its own - it is connected to the field tank by a huge snaking bowser.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
At least people in the UK have the consolation of knowing that their water may have once been the urine of the queen.
The Royal Wee?
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
One must remember the folks on the International Space Station, who recycle their urine regularly.
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
Posts: 1570 | From: Pittsburgh, PA USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I wouldn't bother ever visiting Birmingham in the UK. The drinking water has been sewer water.. several times..
Speaking as a Brummy in origin, the water is Brum is famously soft, because it comes from the Elan valley in Wales. (There used to be a model of the dams and reservoirs in Cannon Hill Park, perhaps it is still there).
However, I now live in London, which gets its (hard) water from the Thames. It is said that Thames water passes through an average of 7 people between the river's source and the sea.
I am also a Brummy in origin, and can confirm that the model is still there, or at least was in 2006. I understand that the distinction between soft water and hard water is generally between surface water and ground water. Water taken from the surface of the earth will have been rain relatively recently, and will have had less time to pick up the minerals that cause hardness. This is in contrast to water taken from below the ground, which may have been there some considerable time. In Bath, where I spent almost as much time as I did in Birmingham, the water is hard because it fell as rain on Salisbury plain and filtered down through the limestone. It played hell with the kettle and hot water tank.
The different ways that water is captured give rise to different levels of treatment. Water being supplied to Bath, having been highly filtered naturally, required only simple chlorination before supply. Water abstracted from the lower reaches of a river would require comprehensive treatment before being supplied for drinking. All sorts of different scenarios exist across the UK, and there are certainly many where water is abstracted from water courses below treated sewage outfalls.
The same is true in Australia, although much water is 'used once only'. In Sydney there is an 'ick' factor for people when there is any suggestion of deliberately introducing treated sewage into the water supply. Sydney's water is, like Birmingham's, captured from high up and far away (the catchment authority's tentacles reach 200 km away). But Sydney does also have desalination. It's as if the treated (and sometimes untreated) sewage that they put into the ocean is magically cleaned by the action of the waves and all they are taking is pure salty water.
Of course there's dilution and matters of degrees, but as other posters have pointed out it's all the same water in the end, and it's treated appropriately. I have no issues about the fact that some of the water I drink may have been urine since it was last rain.
As a side note, our water at home is captured from the roof into large closed tanks, from where it is pumped to the taps. We don't even have a first-flush device to enable us to discard the initial flow of dust and, I suppose, bird shit. Mum filters her drinking water but we use it straight out of the tap.
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I've started blogging. I don't promise you'll find anything to interest you at uncleconrad
Posts: 946 | From: Mount Fairy, NSW | Registered: Jun 2007
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Bean Sidhe
Shipmate
# 11823
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Even backpacking up in the mountains one needs to be careful drinking stream water because trout have sex in it.
A guy I knew at school spent 24 hours or so in hospital, groaning, after drinking stream water on a field course in Wales. It was contaminated with sheep dip.
Posts: 4363 | From: where the taxis won't go | Registered: Sep 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
At least people in the UK have the consolation of knowing that their water may have once been the urine of the queen.
The Royal Wee?
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) Quotes file.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
reading this thread makes me so thankful for my nice little personal well. the water's so hard it reaches out and smacks me in the face (and dyes my toenails orange) but the well is deep enough that I don't need to think about the last time my water filtered through something else's kidneys.
as for fish sex - when we lived without plumbing and hauled water from the creek, my dad used to say it was salmon sex that made the water so refreshing and the drinkers always horny.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Even backpacking up in the mountains one needs to be careful drinking stream water because trout have sex in it.
I think more of a problem is the odd dead sheep in it.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The only time I've been ill after drinking spring water it was a dead sheep further up the hillside. (I've lived in places where we only had spring and/or well water). I wasn't the only one who got sick and at the time the youth hostel was notorious for it. The next youth hostel up the Pennine Way was used to caring for sick backpackers. I really wouldn't recommend it.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
In Christchurch (NZ) the tapwater comes from artesian wells and is lovely. For a while after the quakes they added some foul tasting chemical to ensure it was ok but now we're back to normal ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) I will never take clean water for granted again.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
as for fish sex - when we lived without plumbing and hauled water from the creek, my dad used to say it was salmon sex that made the water so refreshing and the drinkers always horny.
It makes the plants grow!
(Seriously - the plant hormones called cyctokinins were first discovered in autoclaved salmon sperm)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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