New entry of AI-generated #comics and #jokes added to our #website:
comics.lucentinian.com/7095
#DailyJokes #ComedyGold #VisitUsNow #AIComedy #AIJokes
The Guardian podcast on pharmaceuticals in UK waterways, found even in national park streams.
Drugs like Metformin, Paracetamol and antibiotics pass through the body, enter the sewage system and end up in streams. #Wastewater treatment plants do not filter them properly. Some biodegrade, others persist. The substances and their metabolites disrupt river #ecology. Antibiotics in water bodies worsen the problem of antimicrobial resistance.
Master plans allow an entity to make fiscal/infrastructure decisions based on projected population growth and give it flexibility to make, somewhat rational, decisions. Decatur, Arkansas treatment plant is at capacity and can't expand its treatment processes due to insufficient funds to cover costs. #Arkansas, #wastewater #MasterPlan #infrastructure #finance #politics /https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/decatur-wastewater-plant-capacity-tariffs-growth/527-419669ca-a339-4bb2-a3fc-be0e387e45bd
Microplastic reaching Estonian gardens through sewage sludge | News https://www.byteseu.com/884154/ #Estonia #MargitHeinlaan #Microplastics #Pollution #wastewater #WaterTreatment
#Ontario #wastewater graph updated with Mar 16 data
- Sudbury data updated: https://wwater.ca/Ontario
- Also updated: BC, NB, NS, PEI, SK
Hello, it’s the weekly #washingtonstate #kingcounty (that is, #seattle and environs) #COVID #COVID19 #wastewater toots.
A quick reminder that this King County respiratory disease data comes from Washington State, not the federal government.
Let's start with the West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant. The Sars-CoV2 7-day running average was modestly down this week. Last data is from 3/9.
WSPT is one of three King County(-ish) sewersheds in this dataset. You can find overviews, individual sewershed results, and a breakdown of variants for the state wastewater surveillance program, along with other metrics like case counts and hospitalizations for Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses, at https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/diseases-and-chronic-conditions/communicable-disease-surveillance-data/respiratory-illness-data-dashboard#WasteWater. If you go to the page and click "learn more" in the statewide view tab, you can find out lots of details about how these data are calculated and how to interpret them. The dashboard gets updated every Wednesday (generally). New! the Department of Health is here on the fedweb, at @WADeptHealth
#Ontario #wastewater graph updated with Mar 2 data
- Sudbury data updated: https://wwater.ca/Ontario
- Also updated: AB, BC, NS, PEI, SK
- #ElbowsUp 
Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) slowly dismantling what had been a bipartisan approved Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 aka Clean Water Act. SCOTUS Throws EPA's Wastewater Discharge Regulations
#SCOTUS #Law #water #wastewater #pollution https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/ninth-circuit/scotus-throws-epas-wastewater-discharge-regulations-out-to-sea/
Hello, it’s the weekly #washingtonstate #kingcounty (that is, #seattle and environs) #COVID #COVID19 #wastewater toots.
A quick reminder that this King County respiratory disease data comes from Washington State, not the federal government.
Normally I start with the West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant, but the state site has this week's Sars-CoV2 7-day running average at ... 0.0?!? The same extremely unlikely reading is up at King County's version of the same data, available at https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/health-safety/disease-illness/respiratory-virus-data. This is some sort of hiccup, obviously.
WSPT is one of three King County(-ish) sewersheds in this dataset. You can find overviews, individual sewershed results, and a breakdown of variants for the state wastewater surveillance program, along with other metrics like case counts and hospitalizations for Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses, at https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/diseases-and-chronic-conditions/communicable-disease-surveillance-data/respiratory-illness-data-dashboard#WasteWater. If you go to the page and click "learn more" in the statewide view tab, you can find out lots of details about how these data are calculated and how to interpret them. The dashboard gets updated every Wednesday (generally).
Note: when the state switched over to new data providers in September, they also removed the previous historical data from the graphical interface. That's because the two providers used different methodologies that made direct comparisons difficult. Unfortunately, it also removed valuable context for interpreting the results. So, keep in mind we're just seeing what happened in September 2023 until now.
@augieray @elliek I think Ellie is in Canada
we have slower but cleaned results from:
@MoriartyLab at https://covid19resources.ca/covid-hazard-index/
we have @ratnegative posting wastewater data, with some careful hand cleaning to remove artefacts
we have lots of bots like @wastewater @covid19ab_wastewater @OntarioWasteWater_GTA and more - you can search zeroes.ca for "wastewater bot" and click on "Profiles", I'm not sure if there's a graphic map or a list of known wastewater bots in Canada, but now I kinda want to compile one.
@theguardian_science We've known this for decades ... sampling wastewater is a great way to monitor a city's health and habits.
E.g.,:
"Estimating community drug abuse by wastewater analysis", Zuccato et al. 2008.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.11022
"Detection of enteric viruses in sewage sludge and treated wastewater effluent", Schlindwein et al. 2010.
https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-abstract/61/2/537/16096
"Virus Survival in Wastewater Treatment", Gerba 1981
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780080264011500117
The dispute fundamentally focused on human waste & how #SanFrancisco disposes of it. The question before the court was whether the #CleanWaterAct of 1972 allowed the #EPA to impose prohibitions on #wastewater released into the #PacificOcean & to penalize the city for violating them.
Satellite Data Study Pinpoints Areas Sinking And Rising Along California Coast
--
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-satellite-areas-california-coast.html <-- shared technical article
--
https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads8163 <-- shared paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #sealevel #sealevelrise #subsidence #model #modeling #SLR #coast #coastline #verticallandmotion #VLM #California #climatechange #planning #policy #remotesensing #groundwater #pumping #risk #hazard #infrastructure #damage #wastewater #injection #tidegauge #dynamic #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #numericmodeling #uplift #projections #flood #flooding #mitigation #satellite #ocean #marine
@nasa
#Ontario #wastewater graph updated with Feb 9 data
- Kingston, Peel, Toronto data updated: https://wwater.ca/Ontario
- Also updated: AB, BC, MB, NL, SK
I've written before in frustration at #NYC's inept reporting of #COVID #wastewater concentrations. They collect the data at least weekly, but the most recent report is from February 2, on coronavirus.health.ny.gov and that is only an embedded Tableau graph.
The numerical #COVID19 data is posted to the NYC Open Data Portal, but the most recent report there is from Dec. 31.
I've discovered the embed on https://contagion.grieve-smith.com/ is pegged to the time I shared it, so I have to update it manually!
Sewage scandal: The dirty secret polluting England and Wales.
Since Brexit, the UK is no longer subject to EU water quality standards. In England and Wales, floods of untreated wastewater have been discharged into rivers and seas, harming the health of residents and destroying ecosystems. FRANCE 24's Down to Earth team reports.
Greetings all, it’s the weekly #washingtonstate #kingcounty (that is, #seattle and environs) #COVID #COVID19 #wastewater toots.
A quick reminder that this King County respiratory disease data comes from Washington State, and isn't affected by the Trump administration communications clampdown from the U.S. federal health agencies.
The West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's Sars-CoV-2 7-day rolling average improved dramatically from last week's strange spike. The last 7DRA number was calculated on 1/21.
WSPT is one of three King County(-ish) sewersheds in this dataset. You can find overviews, individual sewershed results, and a breakdown of variants for the state wastewater surveillance program, along with other metrics like case counts and hospitalizations for Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses, at https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/diseases-and-chronic-conditions/communicable-disease-surveillance-data/respiratory-illness-data-dashboard#WasteWater. If you go to the page and click "learn more" in the statewide view tab, you can find out lots of details about how these data are calculated and how to interpret them. The dashboard gets updated every Wednesday (generally).
Note: when the state switched over to new data providers in September, they also removed the previous historical data from the graphical interface. That's because the two providers used different methodologies that made direct comparisons difficult. Unfortunately, it also removed valuable context for interpreting the results. So, keep in mind we're just seeing what happened in September 2023 until now.
High tide for #Holtec
#Tritium dumped into #CapeCodBay will wash back onto community shores, says a new report
"The permanently closed Pilgrim nuclear power plant is now owned by Holtec, which wants to dump #RadioactiveWastewater into Cape Cod Bay. While waiting for a permit, so far denied, the company is quietly venting #tritium into the air."
by Linda Pentz Gunter, Posted on December 29, 2024
"Holtec, the company that has purchased a number of permanently closed #nuclear reactors in order to decommission them, has encountered yet another obstacle to its '#dilution is the solution to pollution' plans.
"One of the reactor sites Holtec has taken over is #PilgrimNuclearPlant in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Cape Cod Bay, which closed permanently in 2019. Holtec’s not-so-little problem there is what do with what started out as at least 1.1 million gallons of radioactively contaminated #wastewater stored at the site.
"The company first suggested it would simply release the wastewater into Cape Cod Bay, assuring residents and the immediately alarmed fishing community not to worry because (a) the wastewater isn’t dangerous anyway (b) everyone does this all the time at reactor sites and no one has gotten sick so far and (c) it would quickly disperse into the wider ocean. Holtec chose this disposal method for one reason alone: it is the cheapest.
"The proposal was vigorously fought by citizens, the state, and powerful Massachusetts Democrat, Senator Ed Markey. The state of Massachusetts effectively banned the discharge option, a decision Holtec is contesting.
"That Final Determination to Deny Application to Modify a Massachusetts Permit to Discharge Pollutants to Surface Waters was issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection [#MassDEP] Division of Watershed Management on July 18, 2024. A month later, Holtec launched its appeal to reverse the decision, something that could take months or longer to find its way to court.
"In the meantime, help has come from a new quarter in the form of an in-depth study by the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [#WHOI], also, as it happens, based on the Massachusetts shoreline, near Falmouth.
"The study — Model-Based Study of Near-Surface Transport in and around Cape Cod Bay, Its Seasonal Variability, and Response to Wind — found that contrary to Holtec’s claims, the wastewater would not immediately disperse into the ocean, but would linger potentially for months, and wash up on the shores of area communities.
“'We found virtually no out-of-the-Bay transport in winter and fall and slightly larger, but still low, probability of some of the plume exiting the Bay in spring and summer,' said Woods Hole study leader and physical oceanographer, Irina Rypina.
"The radioactively contaminated wastewater stored at Pilgrim is contaminated with what Holtec and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health have described as 'four gamma emitters — #Manganese54, #Cobalt60, #Zinc65 and #Cesium137 along with #Tritium, a beta radiation emitter'.
"While the Woods Hole Study did not look at the health outcomes of releasing the radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay — only at the plume pathway — there are plenty of data that demonstrate the harmful effects of these #radioisotopes on human health, especially women and children.
"After acquiring the Pilgrim reactor, Holtec’s President and CEO, Kris Singh, assured surrounding communities that,
'the decommissioning of Pilgrim will replicate the superb record of public health and safety and environmental protection that typified the plant’s 47 years of operations.'
But since that acquisition, Markey observed, 'Holtec has fallen woefully short on this commitment.' He noted of the Woods Hole report that 'In light of these recent findings, I urge Holtec to develop a wastewater discharge plan that is informed and guided by scientific fact and community input.'
"Long-time #PilgrimWatch activist, #MaryLampert, welcomed the report’s initial findings and said that 'Holtec dumping Pilgrim’s radiological and chemically #contaminated wastewater into semi-enclosed CapeCod Bay is harmful to human health, the environment, and our marine economy.'
"In a handbook explaining Pilgrim’s decommissioning process on the Pilgrim Watch website, the authors note that 'Cape Cod Bay, #PlymouthBay, #DuxburyBay, and #KingstonBay are all protected #OceanSanctuaries. Cape Cod Bay is a critical habitat for right whales and other endangered or special species. Dumping this #radioactive and chemically contaminated wastewater into them would cause incalculable economic damage and would harm both the environment and public health.'
"Absent a liquid discharge permit, Holtec’s preferred solution since has been to quietly evaporate the wastewater into the air. It has done this, as revealed during a Pilgrim Nuclear Decommissioning Citizen Advisory Panel meeting, by installing submerged electric heaters to increase the plant’s ambient temperature, ostensibly in order to improve worker comfort and expedite the drying of plant components.
"But, as Markey noted in an April 30, 2024 letter to Singh, the consequence of installing the heaters in that location 'is an increased rate of wastewater evaporation above the pace at which it occurs naturally.' That 1.1 million gallons is now down to 880,000 gallons remain, according to Holtec’s own reports.
"As Lampert points out, 'Meteorology studies show 60% of winds blow offshore,' which means at least some of that evaporated wastewater is going to fall into the bay anyway.
"Under Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules, Holtec has four disposal options: liquid discharge, evaporation, storage onsite, and shipping to a licensed facility. None of them are good solutions.
"In August, Holtec filed an appeal against the state’s ban on liquid radioactive discharges, in part claiming that the decision on whether or not to allow the discharge falls under federal not state jurisdiction.
"This, argue some opponents of Holtec’s discharge plans, is a stall and a distraction while it quietly gets on with the gradual evaporation of all the wastewater.
"'They’re using the appeal to buy themselves time,' Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, told radio station WBUR. 'And what they buy themselves, with time, is the ability to continue to induce evaporation of the wastewater, so that ultimately it’s gone, at minimal cost to them.'
"Lampert agrees. 'Holtec can evaporate all the water to meet its schedule to dismantle the reactor building,' she said.
"In October, Lampert, along with other citizens representing the fishing, environmental, real estate and medical communities traveled to Boston to meet with staff in Massachusetts Governor Mary Healy’s office to demand that Healy’s administration call a halt to the evaporation.
"'There are laws on the books already that prohibit #AirbornePollution,' Diane Turco of #CapeDownwinders told the local NPR station after the Boston meeting. “And we’re asking our governor to immediately enforce those laws… She’s been very strong about no dumping in the bay. And we see this as a parallel assault on our communities,' Turco said.
"So far the governor has not taken action."
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/12/29/high-tide-for-holtec/
#HoltecLies #PilgrimNuclear #NuclearPowerCorruptionAndLies #NoNukes #RethinkNotRestart #NoRadioactiveDumping #WaterIsLife #AirIsLife #RadioactiveWaterDumping #NewEngland #BeyondNuclearInternational
Hello, it’s the weekly #washingtonstate #kingcounty (that is, #seattle and environs) #COVID #COVID19 #wastewater toots.
First off, you may have read about the Trump administration “pausing” all communications from the U.S. federal health agencies. Which is, you know, pathetic bullshit. Anyway, just a reminder that this King County respiratory disease data comes from Washington State, not from the federal health agencies. It is not “paused.”
Let's start with the West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant, which was nuts last week. How wild? The 1/12 reading was far and away the highest that’s been recorded since last winter. It’s reassuring that it subsequently came down quickly on 1/14, but it’s still quite high when you look at the entire time series.
WSPT is one of three King County(-ish) sewersheds in this dataset. You can find overviews, individual sewershed results, and a breakdown of variants for the state wastewater surveillance program, along with other metrics like case counts and hospitalizations for Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses, at https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/diseases-and-chronic-conditions/communicable-disease-surveillance-data/respiratory-illness-data-dashboard#WasteWater. If you go to the page and click "learn more" in the statewide view tab, you can find out lots of details about how these data are calculated and how to interpret them. The dashboard gets updated every Wednesday (generally).
Note: when the state switched over to new data providers in September, they also removed the previous historical data from the graphical interface. That's because the two providers used different methodologies that made direct comparisons difficult. Unfortunately, it also removed valuable context for interpreting the results. So, keep in mind we're just seeing what happened in September 2023 until now.
We are launching Nat4Wat, an open decision-support system to select, compare and explore nature-based solutions for #wastewater treatment and #urbandrainage. The tool can be accessed using the web-based GUI: https://nat4wat.icradev.cat or via REST API: https://nat4wat-api.icradev.cat.
You are welcome to contribute complementing the knowledge base or the codebase: https://github.com/icra/nat4wat-api
Greg Cocks 
