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Old 02-22-2013, 06:26 PM   #41
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Link to the EPA test, published January 2010 establishing that fecal coliform was as low as non-detectable in tests of the Raritan "Lectra Scan unit.

The only portions of the test where the unit did not perfrom well was during a period when the testers failed to keep brine in the tank. In an actual application aboard a boat, diagnostic fail-safe software would prevent the unit from running without adequate salt or any other fault.

Document Display | NSCEP | US EPA
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Old 02-22-2013, 06:41 PM   #42
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The waste that is pumped out to be treated in the municipal sewer plant reenters the sound. When it does, according to figures from the EPA, Seattle Metro, etc, it is measurably dirtier after treatment in the municipal system than if it is treated onboard.
Depends on who you talk to and who you choose to believe. A fellow in our neighborhood works for the new Brightwater plant and is also a boater. According to him the output of Brightwater is considerably "purer" than the standards set for on-board marine treatment systems and the output of the Lectrasan system on his own boat which he told me he tested in their lab because he was curious.

And there is also the issue of where treated municipal sewage enters the Sound as I mentioned earlier.

In any event I think designating Puget Sound, if not the entire Salish Sea, an NDZ is an outstanding idea and I very much hope they decide to do it. As I said, it will have zero effect on our boating and I see no downside to it whatsoever.

However I completely agree with THD when he wrote earlier that any NDZ designation should be applied to every vessel-- recreational, cruise ship, commercial carrier, fishboat, etc.

Now I haven't heard their side of the story so don't know what reasons they might give for being exempted or if these reasons are truly credible. But at this point I think all vessels in Puget Sound should have to comply with any NDZ regulations that might be put into place.

But if in the end an NDZ is applied only to recreational vessels, that's better than nothing as far as I'm concerned.
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Old 02-22-2013, 07:48 PM   #43
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BTW, the claim that sending on-board treated waste into the shoreside treatment plants will increase the pollution going into the Sound is not valid even if it is a bit "cleaner" than the output of the plant.

Regardless of whether you dump your treated waste directly into the Sound from your boat or send it to a shoreside treatment facility via a pumpout, your treated waste and the municipal waste are going to get mixed together. The only difference is where they mix--- in the Sound or in the treatment plant. So the amount of waste and the level of pollution ultimately ending up in the Sound will remain the same.

The difference is that if your boat is down at the bottom end of Hood Canal where the water exchange rate is extremely low--up to a year to exchange completely in some places-- your "treated" waste will stay there and add to the problem. If you pump your treated waste into a shoreside pumpout in Seattle or Everett or wherever that feeds it to a municipal treatment plant, your treated waste still ends up in the Sound but at least it will be dumped out in a high water-exchange area.
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Old 02-22-2013, 08:21 PM   #44
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More power grabbing by unelected bureaucrats from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The sky’s the limit when it comes to imposed regulations from this group. Here in the Puget Sound when it comes to water pollution, the government itself is usually the biggest offender. Routinely we hear about millions of gallons of raw sewage spilling directly into Puget Sound from various municipal sewage treatment plants.

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Old 02-23-2013, 07:00 AM   #45
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I'd like to see a NDZ in some of our local areas where there is little water movement. We have much less traffic than the PNG, but the water quality is still affected.

The treated systems obviously negatively affect the water quality. If the output was as clean as some seem to believe, you wouldn't need to discharge. Just flow back to the fresh water tank and have a closed loop system.

Marin is right regarding the comparisons to treated municipal water. The location of any modern treatment plant outflow is very carefully studied to ensure the dissipation rate is maximised. It would be impossible to ensure that boats dumping treated waste do the same.

Our generation (baby boomers) have made more of a mess of this planet than any other in history. We are kicking and screaming as the next generation is trying to clean things up.

Hopefully our grandchildren won't need rules and enforcement to ensure the oceans are respected. It will be just common sense.
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Old 02-23-2013, 07:51 AM   #46
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While I like clean water too...some of this can get rediculous.

Every year some sewage plant near me dumps MILLIONS of gallons of raw sewage because of some system fault.....more than all the boats in the area could dump all summer long on continous flow by a long shot...yet nothing ever comes of it...no attempt to make the system better, contain it or even worry about it.

They close shellfishing in the area for a week and move on.

The same after a heavy rain and some minor floodign where local cesspools flood and wash into the local bays...close shellfishing for a week and move on.

I hardly think the "treated" effluent from boats is a widespread threat as there are so many other sources of sewage and dangerous pollution...

Based on most even boaters reaction to working on their own head systems.....I think MOST people overreact when it come to sewage.
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Old 02-23-2013, 10:05 AM   #47
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If they really want to clean up the water, they will kill all the fish and marine mamals that live in it. They pee and poop in the water.

Same with land based animals living on the land near the water. Their waste washes into the water.
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Old 02-23-2013, 10:15 AM   #48
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Ron, that is a bogus argument. The eco system can work within its own parameters most of the time. Man has come along and upset the balance so badly that it can't meep up.
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Old 02-23-2013, 10:41 AM   #49
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This topic is heading toward OTDE
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Old 02-23-2013, 10:42 AM   #50
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Ron, that is a bogus argument. The eco system can work within its own parameters most of the time. Man has come along and upset the balance so badly that it can't meep up.
Not "bogus" at all. There are many sources of polution and fish and mamals (and birds) are sources of polution just as humans are.
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Old 02-23-2013, 10:49 AM   #51
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I understand that, but the volume of pollution by humans and livestock and farming is more than the system can take. The system con control the ammount of waste it produces naturally. It can't control the order of magnatude that we add to it.
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Old 02-23-2013, 10:50 AM   #52
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Not "bogus" at all. There are many sources of polution and fish and mamals (and birds) are sources of polution just as humans are.
No Ron, it is totally bogus and totally ignorant, only demonstrates you know less than nothing about ecology and natural ecosystems. It's ignorance like that in the general population which encourages the greenies to go to sometimes irrational extremes to protect us from ourselves.
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Old 02-23-2013, 11:00 AM   #53
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Wow, this thread has sunk to the level where some people are no longer carrying on intelligent discussions, but rather have resorted to name calling.

Caltex, Is that really the best way you can respond to something you don't agree with?
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Old 02-23-2013, 11:43 AM   #54
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No Ron, it is totally bogus and totally ignorant, only demonstrates you know less than nothing about ecology and natural ecosystems. It's ignorance like that in the general population which encourages the greenies to go to sometimes irrational extremes to protect us from ourselves.
I'm pretty sure I read the biggest source of polloution in many of the Eastern shore creeks emptying into the Chesapeake are the pig farms.

I think the message here is why bust the stones of boaters (usually without significant help to resolve the issue of the difficulty in removing waste from boats) when they are so far dow the list of polluters.

I think all of us would be glad to help when the other sources are attacked as vigorously AND we get our fair share of supplemental funding to make or lives easier like the other pigs at the trough so to speak...
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Old 02-23-2013, 12:16 PM   #55
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Do we know that they aren't? Any of you guys pig farmers? All we need is a lobbyist group like the farmers have and we would be all set. Otherwise, we/you guys have to accept that the farmers get to pollute and we don't. If that is what is happening and I am only speculating. Like everyone else here I suppose.
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Old 02-23-2013, 12:20 PM   #56
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To add a little more confusion to the marine water pollution arguments, the journal SCIENCE (29 Mar. 2002) reported on a study which tracked the biological sources of fecal bacterial in Virginia watersheds. Only 15% of E. coli bacteria had a human origin (i.e. septic runoff and boat discharge). The remainder came from other animal hosts, the largest contributor being waterfowl with 32.5% of the total. Similar studies are being carried out in California, Washington, and Oregon.

Whats next? Diapers for geese?
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Old 02-23-2013, 01:53 PM   #57
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Living in Puget Sound ( notice I refuse to use " Salish Sea".. a bigger load of crap than this topic ) and being in the building industry we are constantly bombarded by WA. D.O.E. I do support no discharge of untreated waste in all of Puget Sound, and try my best to uphold that at all times. But... the real issue in Puget Sound is untreated septic discharge from old non conforming septic systems, over flow of untreated waste from municipal waste treatment plants ( unintentional ) and street run off.

How many times have we heard in the news that 250,000+ of untreated waste was dumped into P.S in a rain storm or from a "systems issue"?. We now keep a boat in Portland and the Tri Cities had a dump last year of 4,000,000 gallons of untreated raw sewage into the Columbia River creating quite a mess ( chime in GFC with details ). Keep in mind that D.O.E. needs to justify their budget and thus needs to constantly come up with fresh ideas to be able to sustain their jobs.

I agree with stiff fines to enforce pump out regs. of non treated effluent...But don't do it at the cost of those who have been doing the right thing and treating their waste.

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Old 02-24-2013, 08:36 AM   #58
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To add a little more confusion to the marine water pollution arguments, the journal SCIENCE (29 Mar. 2002) reported on a study which tracked the biological sources of fecal bacterial in Virginia watersheds. Only 15% of E. coli bacteria had a human origin (i.e. septic runoff and boat discharge). The remainder came from other animal hosts, the largest contributor being waterfowl with 32.5% of the total. Similar studies are being carried out in California, Washington, and Oregon.

Whats next? Diapers for geese?
No, get ride of them, the fish, and the marine mamals as I suggested above.

For those who didn't get it, this was a bit of sarcasm. Of couse we can't kill all the fish and mamals, but what this thread started out as was a complaint that the government is proposing outlawing the discharge of treated sewage from boats. Sewage that is treated to the point where it's cleaner than the sewage discharged by municipal treatment plants.

Boaters are an easy target, There are few of us compared to non boaters and many non boaters look at us as some kind of rich, elite group that can be brought down a notch. Politicians can pass these law, pleasing a large portion of the electorate and assure themselves of re-election.

As I posted above, these are "feel good" laws. Laws that don't accomplish anything, but make the public think things are somehow getting better.

As I also posted above, anyone who is inclined to dump sewage, treated or not, into the waterways will continue to do so, he or she will just look first to make sure no one is watching.
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Old 02-24-2013, 08:39 AM   #59
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........... Any of you guys pig farmers? ..........
We don't have to be pig farmers to understand that pigs poop and if all the poop isn't contained and disposed of properly, it's going to end up in the waterways.
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Old 02-24-2013, 10:54 AM   #60
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You have to be a pig farmer to understand if they are the target of regulation too. I would bet they would have the exact same argument as you. That they are easy targets. What some here are missing is that a combined effort of small steps across a wide range of polluters is what eventually leads to cleaner waters.
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