Train Carrying 10M Pounds of Poop Stuck in Alabama Town

Newser ^ | 04/05/2018 | Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

[Responsibility2nd]

'God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here'

(Newser) – Springtime in one small Alabama town smells more like manure than magnolias this year—and it's going to get a lot worse as the weather gets warmer. Dozens of freight cars carrying some 10 million pounds of human waste, enough to form a malodorous train more than a mile long, have been stranded in a Parrish rail yard for two months awaiting transfer to a landfill site, and residents say they can't take the stench for much longer, NJ.com reports. They say the freight cars smell like rotting corpses. The sewage sludge waste, shipped south from treatment plants in New York and New Jersey, is destined for a private landfill in Adamsville that has been accepting "biosolids" for more than a year. But nearby West Jefferson sued in January to prevent the foul-smelling waste from being handled at a local rail yard where the containers had been moved to trucks that would get the waste to the landfill.

And so the cars were shifted to Parrish, which didn't have zoning laws to prevent the move, and now they sit. Residents say the foul odor pervades the town, which has a population of 982 in 2 square miles. "It greatly reduces the quality of life," Mayor Heather Hall tells CNN. "You can't sit out on your porch. Kids can't go outside and play, and God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here." She says the landfill told her it would take about a week to get the waste shipped out—but that was months ago. She says she is worried about the health of residents, though officials have told her that since the waste is "Grade A biowaste," not raw sewage, there should be no problems.

[rockinqsranch]

Reminds me of the time in rural S. Korea 1966 one of those “Honey” dippers with a home built “truck” that was actually a self propelled tiller connected to a small wagon with a barrel for the “Honey” (Human poop) tried to out run the commuter train, and lost the race right outside the fence next to our Quonset hut at the 55th MPC across the tracks from Red Cloud. Stunk like HELL for a couple of weeks.

[NorthMountain]

EPIC?

Epic stench, apparently.

Ship it back to Noo Yawk.

[bitt]

p

[Oatka]

No one light a match.

[Responsibility2nd]

Did you just ping the Q anon list?

Cause if you did, I salute you!

[Buckeye McFrog]

There are 4 mini-mountains that were “grown” with garbage from NYC and Philly over the last 30+years.

There is one of those outside of Detroit. They put a ski lift on it and it's now called Mount Trashmore.

[Darteaus94025]

I love a story with a happy ending.

[9YearLurker]

You won’t be getting any competition on that contract from me! ;-)

[sweetiepiezer]

I read the other day that an escalator was stuck at a Bart Station in San Fransico because of poop stuck in it.
Google poop map San Fransico and you will get streets to avoid the poop.
A true Sh@thole.

[2ndDivisionVet]

$#*+ just got real!

[Responsibility2nd]

I posted a story a week or so back about how a real Frisco native knows - by smell - human waste on the sidewalk verses animal feces.

Ain’t diversity wonderful?

[petitfour]

Why don’t New Yorkers keep their poo in their own towers?

[eternalgreenknight]

Hey, I have a new idea on how to build the wall! :-)

[shotgun]

As my brother the plumber would say, “another man’s shit is his bread and butter”!

[dayglored]

> I bet it’s gone anaerobic and is cooking in those containers. They should probably check for methane.

Just open a lid at the top and look inside with a match for light, right? /s

Can you imagine one of those rail cars exploding?

[Vigilanteman]

Of course I don't. My point was that first world cities in Asia (Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka) do not smell anything like cities of similar size elsewhere (Manila, Shanghai and, yes, even Philadelphia) and have far more sophisticated ways to deal with their excess poop than loading it on trains and sending it to the countryside.

Regular trash and poop require entirely different methods of handling. I know that Japan uses regular trash to compact and build off-shore islands. Tokyo has a number which may be green areas, parkland and the like before it turns into light development. Kobe, Nagano and other cities have trash incinerators which produce electrical power and year round water parks. Sewage is processed into fertilizer pellets through a sophisticated drying and concentrating process which produces minimal odor.

All the foregoing methods cost more than simply dumping it on the country bumpkins.

[hal ogen]

I bet those rail cars are really filled with LIB DIM voters.

[9YearLurker]

That’s unappealing...

[Beach333]

If the biosolids haven’t been stabilized appropriately, it could be a real concern...an Epic train reaction.

[EinNYC]

Slap some posters on the cars saying “Visit Wonderful San Francisco”...