I have a story to share that this crowd will appreciate.

I got into TNG with my Dad. We'd watch it on broadcast when I was young whatever day of the week it was that is on.

Thing is, the afterschool daycare I was at, the last 45mins or whatever, as kids were trickling out, they'd sit us down to watch something while they closed up shop, vacuuming, wiping the kid grime off stuff etc. Frequently what they put on was reading rainbow.

So being young, I'd ask my Dad about Geordi's visor and his eyes. He would patiently explain that Geordi was blind but could see with the visor. Somewhere in there was the episode where his visor breaks and he and the Romulan bond. So far so good, I'm with you.

But what I could NOT square, and didn't have the means to articulate, was that just earlier that day Geordi was reading me godamn books. WITHOUT HIS VISOR.

... and then there we got to the godamn crossover episode of reading rainbow.

oh I'm not shortchanging it, I work in the field. It's crazy how "simple" it is in concept and hard to deliver. But it's on par with antibiotics with how many lives it's changed. Like you said, it's like a lot of civil stuff. A solid highway system, for instance. Just some dirt with fancy rocks on it right? Righhhhhhht?

And don't get me wrong, wastewater has tons of complications. Any plant is operated in equal parts science, engineering, and art. It's a living, breathing, bioreactor. They've each got their own distinct personality.

Thrilled you asked! So yes: Treatment is always required, but the final destination of the treated water can vary. For instance, in a lot of places they may have municipal water TO a home or business, but that may be discharged to septic, as opposed to the river. Also in a lot of areas, water may be taken out of an underground aquifer (either by private well or a municipality) but when treated it may be discharged into a river or ocean. That can create problems because if you're near the coast, the empty space in the aquifer may be filled by salt/brackish water that can lead to salinity rises in the aquifer. To solve that some places turn to "ground water recharge", which is just a fancy way of saying "we built a big well to put it back in the aquifer".

Increasingly, you're seeing some places essentially sell their treated water. Santa Rosa CA, for instance, built an entire pipeline that goes from their treatment facility to another municipality to be injected into their groundwater.

So yes, everywhere treats it, but the final destination makes a difference. Las Vegas (or anyone else on the river) only gets credit for what goes back into the river, so any evaporation etc is a problem. It sounds trivial, but there is a reason those other strategies exist. It essentially doubles every pipe, limits where you can park a treatment plant etc. Vegas also does some great grey water re-use. That essentially means it doesn't go "back" but can get used many many times, limiting the initial draw.

Wastewater is funny because it's far from rocket science, but the numbers to implement any of it get staggering very quickly.

I don't know about power, but Vegas is actually incredibly water efficient. Due to the way the water rights work with the Colorado river, they're not allowed very much, but it doesn't "count" if you put it back in. So nearly every drop they use is treated and put back (probably cleaner, tbh). Boggles the brain, but somehow it's actually a fairly sustainable city. More than any other other major metro, in any event.

So first of all, through JA17 all things are possible and this is just wrong.

That being said this is awesome and hilarious, and a sincerely hope at least one person brings in a bills jersey to swap. That would just be funny.

Class moves all around. Glitter kitties are always our trap game.

Man, late to this party but if you want a wild ride this guy's got a few... Humans to elements. I realize the statement wasn't looking for a response but if you actually want to know buckle up...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ett_8wLJ87U

Oh I don't disagree, it can be done and is clearly an issue, I just think we have to be careful on how. The EU probably has good framework given how different it's members are

There's definitely issues with the EC, but you're bringing up a feature not a bug.

The executive branch wasn't supposed to be an extension of the legislative. The office of the president wasn't supposed to be a "super duper senator". The blame for where we're at is entirely in a defunct congress. With a presidential office that is genuinely executing, not the forefront of, legislation, the checks and balances in congress start to make a lot more sense.

And regardless of the way it's supposed to be, we've got to work with what we've got, I get that. But the US is huge and wildly different. I'm not particularly rural, but took a friend of mine born and raised in NYC out to a friends cabin once. Offered to give em a ride on the ATV. They were excited, I grabbed my jacket, and came out to them sitting on the ride-on lawnmower, all ready to go. To flip it around, I have very little business giving an opinion on what minimum wage in a major metro should be (although after a recent visit to sanfran my guess is about $1,000/hr...).

My point being, an over correction the EC will 1) see a ton of opposition that makes it unfeasible, and 2) ultimately be fairly destructive. The challenges in different parts of this country are worlds apart, and we do a TERRIBLE job understanding one another, mostly by design because it helps reelection. Threatening the EC without a replacement that takes the concerns of otherwise under-represented folks into consideration will feed into this partisan crap more that it has already, entrench identity politics further, and just accelerate things.

I have no solution for this.

I wanted to add an addendum here: We are also increasingly dealing with the fact we made tons of chemicals that the medical science and stats are now catching up on. I was at a town hall meeting of a tiny tiny town that had big issues with PFOAS before it "popped". At that point it time, it was something the EPA was researching, but hadn't officially come out against. I have some biochemistry background, and while that kind of thing is outside my field, I could read that the EPA positions was "look... we don't have the data to say this definitively, but for the love of god don't put this in your body".

So this town, with a mayor that isn't even a full time appointment is being asked to read into data that has a TON of nuance and subtext to take actions that will absolutely destroy their budget for decades... or if they don't, destroy their citizens instead... and oh yeah, all of this involves shutting down the reason you can afford to fix the school roof...

I don't have a solution to any of this, but it's going to be an increasing problem. There are some cases where it's cut and dry, you could arm the city of East Palestine Ohio to disallow rail traffic based on inspection failures, for instance. However, PFOAS will not be the last compound we get new data in for that makes us go "ohhhhhh thats not good". I don't know what you do to help a town handle that proactively where the town is usually focused on paving contracts and new park benches.

While the jailtime for C-level would be cathartic, it's really just upping the fines and/or something that goes well beyond a defined amount of money. For instance: If you're under investigation, there is an immediate stoppage on any stock transfer. Whoever holds the shares holds the shares, and they may be about to drop considerably. Traders would evaluate a purchase based on the risk they get stuck with an asset they can't unload. Board members/large shareholders would be unable to unload either. Stock trading is the lifeblood of large corporations, a board would not allow a CEO that put that at risk.

I just don't think there's a fine big enough, and I don't think jailing the c-suite would get it done (although I'd certainly give it a shot!). Part of what keeps people in compliance with water regs is if you violate permit, the state agency can and will pull your permit. If you proceed anyway, armed enforcement officers get involved and start seizing the property. Now thats not perfect, and through a lack of staffing and/or political favors, stuff slips through depending on the state, but my broader point stands. Crappy c-suites are the symptom not the disease. I find it awful, but they're "just doing their job" in these situations. You have to threaten the business itself to make compliance a paramount "part of their job". So yeah, I mean we can jail them, but the worlds got no shortage of people willing to take a fall for the right price.

This does happen in some cases. A water operator in my state just went to jail for fabricating report numbers.

Here's an idea: Let's keep the for-profit prison lobby happy by having them push jail time for white collar crime?

Broader point stands, but I want to split some hairs around love canal because there's an important part of that story that's normally swept under the rug.

The offending company tried to keep the land from development. They knew the land wasn't safe, said as much, and when eminent domain was threatened sold it for $1, discharging their responsibility. But again they tried not to sell it all.

Now, the dumping was pretty crappy, but that was also the practice at the time. I'm not saying companies shouldn't carry liabilities to clean up their messes, intended and/or following best practices or not, they absolutely should. It's important, though, I think, to remember the company knew and communicated the risks, and tried to keep the land from being transferred. Ironically, part of what moved the domain threat along was that they intentionally stopped using the dump as housing developments expanded out closer to it.

When it became clear it was leaving their hands one way or the other, they sought to limit their liability, and to a certain extent that has to be understood: We said you don't want this land, you're taking it anyway, it's not on us.

My point in all this isn't to stump for Hooker Chemical, it's to point out most of these disasters have layers of problems to them. I'm all for strong regulation, there are things which just cannot be fixed after the damage has occurred, so it has to be avoided. But it's important to remember the regulations are only as good as we make them and their enforcement.

Ironically, there are very cherrypicked examples of voluntary regulation working well. A good example of that is Underwriters Lab certification for electronics. It's not required by law, but is required by a lot of insurance companies. I not using that as an example against governmental regulation, I just think it's an example where interests align pro-, rather than retro-actively: If you don't abide by the regulations, you are not selling any product. Same with how a bank won't issue a mortgage unless the home passes inspection: they're protecting themselves, you're just a happy side benefit.

Bit of a first coffee rant, but especially as all this stuff is getting gutted, the nuance needs to be appreciated. Trump would be a disaster for the little mechanisms we've managed to get put in place over the years to protect ourselves, but a Biden administration is going to have a tough road. I'm optimistic they'll have some wins, but they're going to lose ground in some areas as well as they're forced to make compromises and allocate focus and political capital. The net result is we're all going to need to become a lot smarter and more active.

The local government at love canal had all of the information they needed, and proceeded anyway. They were decided by local elections. It could have been stopped.