Free Republic

Migrants and an advocacy group in Denver decried the city's new Asylum Seekers Program that offers six months of free housing, calling it "insufficient" and "offensive" despite the mayor cutting the city's emergency budget to accommodate the migrant surge.

Who ever claimed Californians were full of crap? Officials in the Golden State this week approved new “toilet-to-tap” regulations, allowing water agencies to take wastewater from homes, recycle it and pump it back to households in an effort to boost the state’s dwindling water supply. “It will truly be the highest quality water delivered in the state when it’s done,” said Darrin Polhemus, director of the Division of Drinking Water ... the water will be more expensive than imported water, ... California has been using recycled water for decades on vegetable and fruit crops and for watering lawns, but this...

California’s plan to recycle sewage into drinking water is a risky decision, raising concerns about public health and safety. Introducing treated wastewater into the same pipes that deliver drinking water lacks thorough consideration of potential contamination and long-term consequences, especially given the state’s history of extreme droughts. While there’s a noted shift in public opinion, the approval of such a plan doesn’t guarantee its wisdom. Past backlash against similar projects suggests initial skepticism was justified, and California’s recurrent droughts call for a more cautious approach to water management.

The migrant crisis worsens in New York City as a Staten Island shelter continues to cause hygiene issues in the area. School turned controversial shelter, St. John Villa Academy is currently housing nearly 300 migrants, something it was never built to do. The 67-year-old building is currently acting as full-time residence and bathroom for the migrants in the area. Due to the age and purpose of the building, it was never meant for 24/7 use, and the ejector pumps are incapable of moving huge quantities of raw sewage into the city's sewers. To address the issue, a septic-treatment company visits...

Joe and Jennifer Montana are among the people suing San Francisco, alleging city departments did nothing to prevent "torrents of water and untreated sewage" from flooding their homes. The lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court on Aug. 24, was brought by dozens of families who live, rent or own property in the Marina District. According to the lawsuit, the problem originates with San Francisco’s unusual sewer system, which is the only one in coastal California that “treats both wastewater and stormwater in the same network of pipes.” The plaintiffs allege that the city knew its aging system...

Parque Baja California should be the ideal community park. Mature trees provide shade and benches give visitors a comfortable place to sit and feel the ocean breeze. But running through the middle of the park is a drainage culvert with water flowing year round. Martin Acosta recalls seeing a couple of kids jump into the water to retrieve a soccer ball there earlier this year. One of the kids said the water “smelled like doo-doo,” said Acosta, who is an architect and environmental activist. “The kid was right, because that’s exactly what it is,” he said. The sewer water in...

Longtime LGBTQ rights and environmental activist Precious Brady-Davis was appointed on Wednesday by Gov. JB Pritzker as a commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Brady-Davis is the first Black openly transgender woman appointed to public office in Cook County history. She is also the first Black openly trans person to serve on a water reclamation board in the United States. Brady-Davis mounted an unsuccessful run for the MWRD post in 2022. She is taking a seat vacated by MWRD Board Commissioner Kim DuBuclet, who has been appointed to the Illinois General Assembly.

Some 555 days after Tijuana spilled millions of gallons of raw sewage onto San Diego's otherwise environmentally regulated beaches, the local Board of Supervisors, which is nearly all Democrat, has up and taken notice.According to the local Times of San Diego:San Diego County supervisors unanimously approved a proclamation Tuesday declaring a state of emergency due to pollution and sewage flowing across the U.S.-Mexico border. Board Chairwoman Nora Vargas and Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer introduced the proclamation, which asks Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden to issue similar declarations, “suspend red tape that may hinder response efforts, and expedite access...

I wrote recently about Canada’s state broadcaster airing a program in which they introduced drag queens to nervous and awkward-looking children for the purpose of indoctrination — normalizing queer and transgender culture. That show was only one of scores of current examples that I could cite, including the inaugural episode of “Sharing Spaces” in which Daniel Radcliffe, presumably still attempting to escape his Harry Potter past since J.K. Rowling became a culture warrior fighting the transgender movement, grovels before a group of “transgender” and “non-binary” youth and begs them to help him understand.But the Dutch TV show “Gewoon Bloot” —...

PARIS — Beetleburgers could soon be helping to feed the world, according to new research. The creepy crawlers’ larvae — better known as mealworms — could act as a meat alternative to alleviate hunger worldwide. The process uses a fraction of the land and water and emits a smaller carbon footprint in comparison of traditional farming. To make this a reality, French biotech company Ynsect is planning a global network of insect farms, including nurseries and slaughterhouses. A pilot plant has already been been set up at Dole in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region of France. Unlike the livestock industry, where rearing...

Following years of increasingly controversial scandals, Kanye West finally appears to be facing the consequences of his actions to a level like never before as Adidas officially cut ties on their $1.5 billion partnership with the rapper - ending a lengthy list of big name brands to have severed all links to the scandal-ridden rapper. After shocking the world with a series of outbursts on social media in which he made anti-Semitic comments as well as derisive remarks against other celebrities, the 45-year-old musician - who first revealed his bipolar disorder diagnosis in 2018 - has also seen his lucrative...

[Video 7:38] Human Feces, Other Biohazards on San Diego Sidewalks Cost City Nearly $1 Million Every Year NBC 7’s Alexis Rivas takes a look at the issues behind filth on public streets, and the price tag for cleaning it up. NBC Universal, Inc. Taxpayers in San Diego spend nearly $1 million each year sanitizing sidewalks from biohazards, including needles, personal hygiene waste and human feces. It’s a problem that is not only gross, it's also a major public-health threat some say the city isn’t doing enough to fix. “Maybe this is really gross,” said Sherman Heights resident Essence McConnell, “but...

Scientists at UC San Diego could be among the first to find the omicron COVID-19 variant in the United States, and they’re using sewage to help them do it. There are about 130 wastewater collectors above sewer grates near dorms and other buildings at UC San Diego that help detect the virus's presence. Now those same collectors are being used to try and detect the omicron variant on campus and at others across the county.

This weekend, a U.S. satellite intelligence firm Simularity released a report connecting the movements of more than 200 suspected Chinese vessels in the South China Sea with massive deposits of human waste.From May 14, 2016 to June 17, 2021, Simularity tracked clusters of anchored ships operating around the Spratly Islands and matched them with concentrations of Chlorophyll-a, indicative of the ships dumping raw sewage.While Chlorophyll-a deposits can happen near shorelines due to runoff from fertilized agricultural areas, erosion of riverbanks and land clearing, Derr said the Chlorophyll-a deposits this far out in the ocean are due entirely to “ship wastewater...

Communist countries are renowned for their pollution, but China is taking it to a new level.Here's their latest, which comes of their expansion into the South China Sea, according to WION of India:Swarms of Chinese vessels have dumped human waste and wastewater for years in a disputed area of the South China Sea, causing algae blooms that have damaged coral reefs and threatened fish in an unfolding catastrophe, a US-based expert said Monday.Satellite images over the last five years show how human waste, sewage and wastewater have accumulated and caused algae in a cluster of reefs in the Spratlys region...

HAZELTON — The West Virginia Department of Transportation has entered into a consent order with the state Department of Environmental Protection for violations of the water pollution control permit at the Interstate 68 Welcome Center near Hazelton. The order, signed March 10 by Division of Highways District 4 Engineer/Manager Michael Cronin, calls for the DOT to pay up to a total of $75,175 in civil administrative penalties and to hook onto the public sewer system, eliminating the treatment facility at the welcome center. Half the penalty, $37,587.50, is to be paid to the DEP within 30 days of the effective...

Introduction Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been gaining traction in organizations throughout the Western world for over 50 years, but increasingly so for the past 5 years leading up to 2021. It is either highly criticized or highly-regarded, with little room for fence-sitting—a phenomenon facilitated by the widespread adoption of social media. This essay will attempt to provide additional information about the connections between Critical Race Theory and its philosophical parent Critical Theory (CT). A thorough reading of the historical development of both philosophical disciplines reveals a genealogy that is closer than simple intellectual similarities. A brief overview and explanation...

Sharon Smith has to plunge her toilet to get it to flush. On rainy days, wastewater spills into her yard from nearby drainage ditches. Twice in the last year her house has flooded, leaving behind the sickening smell of sewage, she said. Her carpets are ruined, the floorboards are buckling, the bathroom wall is pulling away from the tub, she said. In the laundry room, the worst-hit part of the house, the smell of mold lingers. “I want to move, because this flooding is ridiculous,” said Smith, 59. For decades, residents of Centreville, a nearly all-Black town of 5,000 in...

Authorities in Alabama have busted an illegal winery that was operating at a municipal sewage plant. Sheriffs in DeKalb County discovered what they described as a “large” illegal alcohol operation in the Rainsville municipal building after receiving an anonymous tip about the setup Thursday. Photos released by police show glass containers, buckets, a fermenting rack and other equipment often used by bootleggers and amateur home wine makers in the same building that processes wastewater.

RAINSVILLE, Ala. - Sheriff’s officials say they’ve busted an illegal winery that was operating at a municipal sewage plant in a small north Alabama town. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement it received an anonymous tip about an alcohol operation at a municipal building in the town of Rainsville on Thursday. Investigators then uncovered what’s described as a large illegal winery inside the Rainsville Waste Water Treatment Plant. Photos released by investigators show glass containers, buckets, a fermenting rack and other equipment often used by people who make wine at home. The agency says officers seized a...