Posted on 06/30/2012 3:36:46 AM PDT by Pinkbell
With the summer in full swing and temperatures rising into the mid-90s, it may seem like a great idea to take a cool dip in the ocean, but according to a new report, some beach-goers may be getting more than they bargained for.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit environmental group, published on Wednesday its 22nd annual report which showed that storm water runoff and sewage pollution continue to spoil many of America's shores.
The study titled ‘Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches’ examined the results of water testing data at more than 3,200 beaches nationwide, which suggest that beaches ‘continued to suffer from serious contamination and pollutants by human and animal waste’ in 2011.
As a result, U.S. beaches had the third-highest number of closing and advisory days in more than two decades – only slightly lower than in 2010.
Two-thirds of those closings and advisories were caused by bacteria levels surpassing public health standards.
Swimming in bacteria-infested waters can cause stomach flu, skin rashes and pinkeye. The report stated that children tend to be most susceptible to these and other waterborne illnesses likely because they tend to submerge their heads.
The NRDC report labelled 15 beaches in California, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin as ‘repeat offenders.’
Louisiana fared particularly poorly, with 29 per cent of the reported water samples below safety standards, followed by Ohio, Illinois and Indiana.
However, there was some marginally good news in the report. The number of beaches that violate national recommended health standards remained steady at 8 per cent — the same level as 2010.
A dozen U.S. beaches received a five-star rating from the NRDC, indicating strong testing and safety practices, as well as low violation rates.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
They're most likely near outflows from sewer treatment plants. Spills happen...Deal with it. Even at the very popular Siesta Key beach in Florida. Not very often, but it happens.
(a free service of the English Translations Department of FR)
No idea.........I live in Oklahoma now.
The guy who convinced the Water/Sewer Department that they could then charge CUSTOMERS for the amount of STORMWATER RUNOFF.
Lest you think I be lying, that 'policy' was recently added to my WATER BILL.
There are 3 charges.
One for Water Used.
One for Sewer waste/water based on water used.
AND one for STORMWATER RUNOFF based on some arbitrary and unexplained hockey stick graph of Glacial Ice Melts.
It hasn't rained here for at least a week, and none is expected, but I bet I get charged for STORMWATER RUNOFF.
It looks a little green on zoom:
“...a non-profit environmental group...”
No point wasting time reading anything that follows.
No Texas beaches among them.
Medical waste is about as low as you can get.
Remember when you kiss someone your kissing the anterior end of a 25 foot tube, the end of which goes in the toilet.
They've been around for hundreds of years. Actually thousands. It used to be very common. These were built before sewage treatment plants even existed. The whole thing would just dump into a river or lake. Turds in the lakes and river, turds in flooded basements. We had that happen several times in the 50s.
Then, when treatment became common, the rebuilding of the whole thing was very expensive, so they ran everything into the treatment plant. It worked fine until a heavy rainfall arrived. When the plant was taking in more water than it could handle, the overflow went into the lake or river.
There are still a lot of them around. Some cities have spend huge amounts of money to separate the combined systems. An alternative is to build massive tunnels to store storm water.
Search "combined storm sanitary system" or "CSO" for more info.
This article says there are still almost 800 communities in the US with such systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_sewer
For many years Cleveland (and other cities) has been digging many enormous sewer lines that can store storm/sewage water and feed it to the treatment plants at a rate they can handle. Here's an article about another one that's just beginning. http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/06/massive_sewer_drilling_machine.html
Another $200 million chunk in the $3 billion storage tunnel project.
A lie? No, Ontario Beach in Monroe County really is pretty bad.
Read my post 30. Fix it at the State and Local level and leave the satanic epa alone. They will own you if you have anything to do with them. They are a cancer.
LLS
Stuck on Stupid...double dumb!
What a bunch of liberal EPA dysfunctional gubmint egghead claptrap.
The part you quoted was LONG before the EPA existed.
Yes, but that stuff is still going on, they should mandate the end of those systems.
Want more stupidity? In Maine, you can’t dump plowed snow into the rivers.
Might get salt into the ocean.
IIRC they built a treatment plant near the river to catch the nitrates running off from all the dairies in Ontario/Chino. Everything in the area flows down hill north (from the mountains) to south to the river.
Now the dairies are moving out and houses coming in. Don’t know the impact on the river.
The systems are NOT allowed for new cities.
To totally replace dual systems would require every street in old cities to be dug up. Hugh expense and tax increases.
The alternate is still expensive but not nearly as much. The giant tunnel sewers are capable of storing the mixed storm/sewage water for later processing. End result? No sewage gets dumped in the lakes and rivers.
Read the article about the tunnels in Cleveland. Good explanation.
Why would anyone want to do that?
Why don't they just run smaller septic sewage pipes inside the larger existing storm sewers, and then reroute them appropriately at the treatment plant end?
Or is that too simple, and something that the worthless unions would oppose?
Because of plugging.
“Don’t know about the others, but there is a sewage treatment plant very close to Doheny.”
Do you think Avalon and Doheny are fouled by the nearby pleasure boat moorages?
Dumping boat potties, dumping fish guts, dead bait, etc.?
It reduces the capacity of the storm drains, which are often inadequate in older cities. Also, they have to do a connection at every house and business. Where I used to live that would be every 40 feet they would have to dig down (usually through the street pavement), enter the storm drain, connect to the newly installed inner sanitary drain. Then seal it up and make above ground repairs as needed.
The latest of many giant storage tunnel systems going into Cleveland (200 feet down) and other cities requires NO above ground disturbances of yards, sidewalks, paving, or traffic interruption other than four shafts at the beginning, end, and two other places. No one will have any idea what is going on below them. In a few years, no more turds in the lake.
Another advantage is that the storm sewer system will have a much larger capacity leading to very little street flooding in massive downpours.
Not a perfect solution but a very good one nonetheless.
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