What we have here is a classic case of packing the fudge too tightly!
Posted on 02/28/2011 6:33:25 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.
Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.
The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem.
Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite - better known as bleach - to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city's treated water before it's dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.
That translates into 8.5 million pounds of bleach either being poured down city drains or into the drinking water supply every year.
Not everybody thinks it's a good idea.
A Don't Bleach Our Bay alert has just gone out from eco-blogger Adam Lowry who argues the city would be much better off using a disinfectant like hydrogen peroxide - or better yet, a solution that would naturally break down the bacteria.
As for whether the supposedly environmentally friendly, low-flow toilets are worth the trouble? Well, according to Jue, they have helped trim San Francisco's annual water consumption by about 20 million gallons.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
San Francisco.... no telling what else is stuck in those pipes...
Amen, sister!
“Good bye advanced Japanese toilet!” Frye
“But wait, I give you happy poopy time!” robotoilet
“You know too much!” Frye
From Futurama
You just had to post that and I just HAD to watch that fool! Thanks NOT! LOL!
HA HA!
What we have here is a classic case of packing the fudge too tightly!
Of course not every 'Greenie' so machiavellian; but many of them qualify; as we well know. Of course, the worst only 'wear' green.
Know two Gov employed 'Environmentalists' who believed and aspired - and now hate their jobs. A great deal of corruption and 'real' disregard for the environment going on; under the green banner. Corporations pay; the Government does not. . .
To the rest of you, This is just another attack on low water consumption toilets. Why this is a cause celeb among Conservatives I'll never understand. Low flow toilets was and is a great benefit. While in the beginning, some manufacturers made lousy toilets, the toilets today flush better on 1.6 gpf than the 5.0 gpf or 3.5 gpf toilets of yesterday. Manufacturers have ALWAYS made some lousy toilets. I remember going on plugged toilet calls and the first thing I would look for was the brand. If it were a UR (Universal Rundle) toilet, they needed to replace the toilet. When 1.6 gpf toilets were first required, American Standard (Cadet) had a toilet redesign that they must have spent five minutes on. Unless the 1.6 device in the tank was defeated, they didn't flush solids. Even then they flushed poorly. Now, the American Standard Cadet 3 is the toilet I recommend.
Now manufacturers have finally come around to the functional design of Swedish “Ifo” toilets I bought 20 years ago from a guy who drove to Massachusetts and picked them up and delivered them to me from his Subaru station wagon. Mansfield acquired the rights to sell these toilets. They changed nothing, except the price, raising it $100. Pricing themselves out of my market. By design I'm sure.
Being a plumber for 35 years, I've flushed more toilets and more kinds of toilets than you can imagine.
Does this make me an expert? You could say that.
While I'm sure everything you said in your post is true, the reason it's a cause celeb amongst us conservatives, is that it's the Nanny State dictating what kind of toilets we can use. If indeed the lo-flo toilets are as good as advertised, then let the market prevail.
They use toilets in San Francisco? I’m surprised. I bet most don’t.
THAT explains the stench.
Why can’t these morons just leave things alone that we know work perfectly fine?The Romans invented indoor plumbing. The envirowhackos broke it.
Not to say that Chlorine (Cl) and Caustic Soda (NaOH) presence in already-corroded 50-Year+ old carbon steel sewer pipes, at much higher concentrations than used in drinking water disinfection, will accelerate corrosion of huge underground networks.
The cost of repairs and replacing sewer networks will be prohibitive. However, SF can pay for it in a jiffy, just raise taxes 100% to solve EVERY liberal $hit problem.
The idea looked soooooo good on paper!”
CFLs are similar to 1.6 gpf toilets in that they are hated by many Conservatives. Sometimes (not Often) liberals have a good idea. These bulbs save an enormous amount of energy normally wasted as heat. Okay, you have to wait for them to warm up. I can wait. Where I don't want to, I don't use them. Now, should incandescent bulbs be banned? NO WAY. Let the market decide.
Forget the mercury issue. It is a red herring. You haven't been worried about the mercury in fluorescent tubes (8 times as much) for the last 70 years or so?
I will say that I am not a fan of low flush toilets...and I have defeated the devices in my toilets. Admittedly they are fairly bottom of the line toilets; but, they really did not work well before I did that.
Notwithstanding anyone’s opinion on low flow toilets, I think the city of SF is using the public disdain for low flows as an excuse to spend money to remedy poor sewer line design.
I’ll leave the toilet argument for another day. I will say this - the managers of our city water system are seeing budgets in the red, because people are using less water (the big deciding factor is always how much people irrigate in the summer). Their solution was to raise rates...of course that had the reverse effect, which was surprising to them. I just found it odd that the utility desperately wants to sell more water...while we are forced to install water saving devices.
I'll vouch for that. One night I saw a guy taking a dump next to a parked car. And this was pretty close to the Moscone Center not in some back alley somewhere.
Dead gerbils — lots of them. Poor things.
Heh heh - good ole Sodom-by-the-Bay... Rotting from within...How appropriate for the Fudgepack Capital of the World to smell like crap.
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