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Old 10-16-2016, 01:13 PM   #17
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City: AR
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Am I missing something??? I read that treated waste is prohibited from being discharged in no discharge zones. So why is there any interest at all to install an expensive system to treat waste?

Because although there are a few places where well-intentioned but misguided "no discharge" zeal have triumpher over common sense (New England is one), the discharge of treated waste is legal in more places than you think. On the east coast the only NDZ of any size between Connecticut and the Keys are parts of the VA and NC coast. Contrary to popular belief, although all the harbors on LIS are NDZs, LIS itself is not. The only NDZ on the whole Chesapeake Bay is Herring Bay--a small harbor about halfway between Annapolis and Solomons. The Keys are the only NDZ in FL...in fact, there are only two in the entire Gulf--The Keys and Destin Harbor. On the west coast, SoCal is a "hotbed" of NDZs, but north of Santa Barbara there's only one--a small harbor off SF Bay called Richardson Bay--on the whole west coast.

Inland, although all the non-navigable inTRAstate lakes are NDZs, the discharge of treated waste is legal on almost all of the navigable interstate waterways (rivers).

And there are a number of equally well-meaning but short-sighted marinas who think that putting waste in a tank and sending it to a sewage treatment plant to dump in the water is "doing the right thing"....the discharge of treated waste IS legal in most coastal waters.

As for NDZs...they're all just political. We've had laws on the books for 30 years that require all vessels to either hold or treat toilet waste...fewer than 5% have ever, or are every likely to, installed treatment devices...the other 95% should already be holding! And 5 boats out of every 100 who are discharging "waste" that's actually cleaner than the water it's going do not have ANY noticeable environmental impact!
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