home.social

#wastewater — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #wastewater, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Hi, these are 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.

    Last week I highlighted really terrible SARS-CoV2 concentration numbers from the West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's 7 day running average for 8/25, but said, maybe this is a crazy outlier, let's see next week's numbers. Well, they're in, and the updated numbers are quite, quite bad. These calculations of the 7DRA were done on 8/30 and 9/1, and they are by far the worst numbers we've seen in a year (which is as far back as the dataset goes). :( :( :(

    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 doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistica. 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). The Department of Health is here on the fediweb, at @WADeptHealth

  2. Hi, these are 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.

    The West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's 7 day running average is, well, sucky. The last 7DRA calculation was on 8/25. The only thing I can say about this is that this running average was just bouncing around, but then completely busted out in the two days from 8/23 to 8/25. It will be good to get some more data points next week to tell us if this is some super crazy outlier or not.

    Also, you might notice the banner above the graph that says: "The CDC updated how it measures wastewater viral activity level (WVAL) in August 2026. Our dashboard currently uses the previous method while we work to incorporate these new updates." WVALs are the CDC categories used to describe very high/high/moderate/low/very low virus detection levels, and they get a fair amount of criticism because the category recalculations result in changing baselines that obscure year-over-year trends. I believe these WVAL categories get used in the state's "Statewide view" tab, so the CDC changes will affect that. By contrast, the facility-level graphs that I post each week are linearly-scaled graphs of seven day running averages of detected concentration levels. Whatever happens with the WVAL category definitions, it won't affect this facility-level reporting.

    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 doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistica. 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). The Department of Health is here on the fediweb, at @WADeptHealth

  3. Greetings, these are 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.

    The West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's 7 day running average climbed up some more from last week's numbers. The last 7DRA calculation was on 8/18. PS, it looks like the data for the ~ six week outage early this summer got backfilled for all three sites.

    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 doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistica. 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). The Department of Health is here on the fediweb, at
    @WADeptHealth

  4. Hi, these are 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.

    The West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's 7 day running average is higher. Looks like a (for now, modest) summer wave is upon us :( The last 7DRA calculation was on 8/11.

    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 doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistica. 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). The Department of Health is here on the fediweb, at @WADeptHealth

  5. 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.

    The West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's 7-Day running average of the Sars-CoV-2 levels went down a bit and then went up a bit. The last data are from 7/21.

    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 doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistica. 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). The Department of Health is here on the fediweb, at @WADeptHealth

  6. More about #StarIsland -- in addition to a #Solar array, they also have #wastewater treatment!

    Creating the Future of Wastewater

    April 25, 2018

    "Plans for the new wastewater treatment/reclamation system on Star Island are moving forward and our groundbreaking project should be operational next year! Financing approval for the project was assured last July with the signing of formal documents for a low-interest loan from the State of New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) under the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund. This program has until recently provided money only to municipalities for wastewater improvements. Recent changes in the program guidelines have opened the program to non-profit organizations. Star Island was the first non-profit in the state to qualify for a wastewater loan, which has a low fixed interest rate and a term of twenty years.

    "In addition to finding a reliable system that can address our seasonal occupancy fluctuation and effectively manage the high nutrient content of the island waste stream, engineers were also asked to recommend an approach which reduces electricity demand, and can allow recycling of treated wastewater for uses such as toilet flushing and irrigation.

    "The first recommendation in the Underwood Report is to install an expanded grease trap system that can remove more waste materials from the kitchen flow before they hit the treatment plant. This system will be installed this spring. A series of large plastic chambers will contain the wastewater from the kitchen, slowing it down long enough to cool. This allows suspended fats, oils and grease to be captured for later disposal before it reaches the waste treatment plant. Such removal is essential to efficient and reliable operation of any system.

    "The report goes on to evaluate ten different treatment system options on the basis of cost, feasibility, visual impact, ease of operation, quality of treated effluent, energy consumption and other factors. Underwood recommends a system called #Amphidrome, in technical terms a 'submerged attached growth biologically active filter (#BAF).' These systems are manufactured in New England and have been successfully deployed in hospitals, resorts, schools, office parks and similar developments with large wastewater demands not serviced by public sewers. The system, which fits entirely within the existing waste treatment tanks, relies on bacteria and filtration to process up to 17,000 gallons of island wastewater per day, using only 10% of the energy of our current system!

    "The final product, after disinfection similar to that used in our drinking water system, is expected to be non-potable re-use. No longer simply wastewater for ocean discharge, this reclaimed resource will ultimately be used to flush island toilets and for lawn irrigation. Star Island is working with DES to help write the rules for the use of recycled wastewater in what is recognized as an important pilot project in New Hampshire that will have statewide benefits for waste treatment and water conservation efforts."

    Learn more:
    starisland.org/2018/04/thefutu

    #SolarPunkSunday #IslesOfShoals #Gosport #WaterReuse

  7. 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."

    beyondnuclearinternational.org
    #HoltecLies #PilgrimNuclear #NuclearPowerCorruptionAndLies #NoNukes #RethinkNotRestart #NoRadioactiveDumping #WaterIsLife #AirIsLife #RadioactiveWaterDumping #NewEngland #BeyondNuclearInternational

  8. Ontario’s wastewater testing for disease must expand, not shrink

    Ottawa Citizen
    June 17, 2024
    By Raywat Deonandan

    “Now imagine that shortsighted policymakers decide to defund such a surveillance system, just as its worth and pioneering quality are being celebrated worldwide.”

    stillcoviding.ca/en/news/ontar

    #BudgetCuts #CoupesBudgetaires #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsntOver #CovidIsNotOver #EauxUsees #Ontario #wastewater #WastewaterWednesday

  9. OSPN responds to Ontario’s cut of the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative

    Ottawa Science Policy Network
    June 20, 2024

    The Ottawa Science Policy Network (OSPN) is concerned with the decision of the Ontario Government to cancel the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative (WSI) in Ontario.

    stillcoviding.ca/en/news/ospn-

    #BudgetCuts #CoupesBudgetaires #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsntOver #CovidIsNotOver #EauxUsees #Ontario #wastewater #WastewaterWednesday

  10. COVID-19 no longer novel coronavirus in Ontario

    Politics Today
    June 20, 2024
    By Katherine DeClerq

    The Ontario government is downgrading COVID-19 from a novel coronavirus to a “disease of public health significance,” limiting the kind of data that needs to be reported to, and by, medical officers of health.

    stillcoviding.ca/en/news/covid

    #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsntOver #CovidIsNotOver #DataSuppression #EauxUsees #OnPoli #Ontario #SuppressionDeDonnees #wastewater

  11. 📣 Ontario: Call Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) on #WastewaterWednesday!

    Let MPPs know you want funding for Ontario’s wastewater monitoring program to continue.

    Visit the StillCOVIDing.ca site for a contact list and ideas for points to make during your calls:

    stillcoviding.ca/en/take-actio

    #BudgetCuts #CoupesBudgetaires #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #EauxUsees #Ontario #wastewater #WastewaterWednesday

  12. 📣 Ontario : Appelez les député.e.s sur #WastewaterWednesday !

    Faites savoir aux député.e.s provinciaux que vous voulez que le financement du programme de surveillance des eaux usées de l’Ontario se poursuive.

    Visitez le site Web StillCOVIDing.ca pour obtenir une list de contacts et des idées de points à faire pendant vos appels :

    stillcoviding.ca/fr/passez-a-l

    #BudgetCuts #CoupesBudgetaires #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #EauxUsees #Ontario #wastewater #WastewaterWednesday

  13. 📣 Ontario: Call Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) on #WastewaterWednesday!

    Let MPPs know you want funding for Ontario’s wastewater monitoring program to continue.

    Visit the StillCOVIDing.ca site for a contact list and ideas for points to make during your calls:

    stillcoviding.ca/en/take-actio

    #BudgetCuts #CoupesBudgetaires #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #EauxUsees #Ontario #wastewater #WastewaterWednesday

  14. 📣 Ontario : Appelez les député.e.s sur #WastewaterWednesday !

    Faites savoir aux député.e.s provinciaux que vous voulez que le financement du programme de surveillance des eaux usées de l’Ontario se poursuive.

    Visitez le site Web StillCOVIDing.ca pour obtenir une list de contacts et des idées de points à faire pendant vos appels :

    stillcoviding.ca/fr/passez-a-l

    #BudgetCuts #CoupesBudgetaires #COVID #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #EauxUsees #Ontario #wastewater #WastewaterWednesday