Free Republic

That’s a crap load of partying! A summertime island hotspot off Cape Cod will start testing its sewage for cocaine and other drugs to find out when and how often residents are getting high, officials said. Nantucket health officials want to sniff out when drug use spikes — including seasonally and around holidays — to help folks with recovery outreach in the scenic town, the Nantucket Current reported. “Everyone’s got a good idea of what the [drug] situation is, but we have very little direct measurement,” the town’s human services director, Jerico Mele, told the outlet. “When we get away...

San Diego officials say Mexico is continuing to release millions of gallons per day of raw sewage into the city’s waters despite its promises to end the flow that has sickened Navy SEALs and San Diego residents. “Mexico just dumped 6 million gallons of sewage into the Tijuana River—after promising they wouldn’t,” said San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond on X. “We are at the mercy of a foreign government that continues to pollute our waters—while we get stuck with the consequences.” Desmond also said Navy SEAL training is often being shifted farther north in San Diego from Coronado, where...

A beer brewed from recycled toilet water has become a hit among attendees at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference. "At first their eyes widen," Samantha Thian, a leader of Singapore's youth delegation at the U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, told the New York Times. "Then we reassure them. They're usually coming back the next day for another." The beer, a hoppy pilsner called NEWBrew, is a collaboration between Singaporean company Brewerkz and the island country's national water agency that aims to "draw attention to, and normalize, Singapore's water reclamation efforts." Singapore lacks major natural freshwater sources. While...

Southern California’s border-adjacent communities are pushing for emergency assistance from regional and state agencies as they contend with a cross-border sewage crisis that is poisoning the air they breathe. The writers, led by Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, pushed for immediate action to cope with dangerous air pollution impacting area communities, in a Sunday letter sent to officials from the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District and the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Imperial Beach and its neighbors have for years struggled with an unrelenting, transboundary sewage situation that results from insufficient wastewater treatment on the Mexican side...

Residents of a Hamptons enclave have been left up in arms after their pristine beaches were closed due to pollution from old septic tanks. The residents of swanky Southampton have been unable to enjoy the last of the summer sun after pipes from Lake Agawam were opened into the ocean. According to reports, Lake Agawam is one of the most polluted lakes in New York state and is home to celebrities including Calvin Klein and billionaire David Koch. The opening of the pipes caused Old Town, Gin and Cryder beaches to be closed after the polluted water flooded into the...

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...