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#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.

    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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. Though the weekly #washingtonstate #kingcounty (that is, #seattle and environs) #COVID #COVID19 #wastewater sampling has apparently resumed this week, there's a note up on the dashboard saying that the reporting won't start until July 22nd. That's about six weeks of no wastewater data on respiratory pathogens for the entire state, welp. I'm very disappointed.

    DoH's site: doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistica

  6. 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.

    So, ugh, this is not good: all of the Washington State wastewater data are not being updated. The note isn't making any promises about when the reporting will resume. Since Seattle has about eighteen kajillion people coming here for the World Cup, it would be really great to have wastewater reporting up and running. 😬

    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

  7. 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 low. The last 7DRA calculation was on 6/2.

    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

  8. 💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: 🚽🌱 #NASA is testing a mobile #wastewater system at the University of #NorthDakota that turns #astronaut #poop into water for #plants and drinking.

    Three #bioreactors process different waste types and feed the treated #water into a vertical #garden – growing #lunar salad from human waste. Engineers are stress-testing the setup in a simulated moon habitat to support a planned lunar base by 2029.

    👉 popsci.com/technology/nasa-was

    #moon #space #agriculture #recycling #science #engineering #food #nutrition

  9. Hello! 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 low. The last 7DRA calculation was on 5/26.

    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

  10. From 2024: Locals Say #SpaceX Is #Polluting #SacredLand. This Project Aims to Preserve It.

    “This wasn’t just something we wanted to do,” said 35-year-old Monica Sosa, who grew up in #BrownsvilleTX, a short drive from #BocaChica Beach. “We felt like we needed to do it.”

    by Cat Cardenas October 30, 2024

    "Among the #CarrizoComecrudo people of Texas, it is said that the state’s rivers are like ancestors. As they flow toward the sea, they bring their abundance, their beauty, and their knowledge with them. In South Texas, the place where these rivers meet and empty into the Gulf of Mexico is a sacred life source — the location they believe to be the birthplace of the first woman. Today, most Brownsville locals know it as #BocaChicaBeach — a public stretch of sand located at the end of #Highway4, along the southernmost edge of the Texas coast. But to many people outside of the #RioGrandeValley, that land, its name, and its history have largely been swallowed up by the operation of the #RocketLaunch facility just up the road: SpaceX’s #Starbase.

    "Growing up a short drive from Boca Chica Beach in Brownsville, 35-year-old Monica Sosa told The Barbed Wire she still remembers it as an escape: a piece of unspoiled coastline that was free for everyone to enjoy. On lazy summer weekends, she and her siblings would hop into her mom’s blue Chevrolet Astro van. The back seats pulled down to make room for more passengers as they stopped to pick up more family. Once there, they’d look forward to hours and hours of endless sunshine, and a cooler packed full of ham and cheese sandwiches, sodas, Cheetos, and fruit.

    "As an adult, many of those happy memories have turned bittersweet. The beach, while still free to the public, is frequently plagued by the closure of Highway 4 each time there’s a rocket launch or other 'space flight activities.' And even when it’s open, the construction has fundamentally changed the landscape: There’s a tall metal SpaceX launch and catch pad towering over the once-untouched sand dunes.

    " 'Boca Chica was bliss,' Sosa said earlier this month. 'I came from a working class family, and being out there was one of the only times we would come together and play. We’d be in the water, sitting in the sun, running through the lomas (hills), or burying each other in sandcastles. You could spend the whole day out there. But now there’s someone who has the right and the ability to privatize a beach that people have used for decades and decades.'

    "SpaceX’s operation in the Rio Grande Valley has been far from smooth. In recent years, they’ve been cited by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for multiple violations of #wastewater regulations and been the subject of multiple legal complaints. The company has disputed these claims as 'factually inaccurate' and has been allowed to continue their operations.

    "In April of this year, multiple Valley-based environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department over a proposed land swap that would grant 43 acres of #BocaChicaStatePark to #SpaceX in exchange for land near Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. In addition to their concerns about #pollution, the groups also argued that the land proposed in the swap was sacred to the #CarrizoComecrudoTribe.

    " 'SpaceX has always been polluting,' Christopher Basaldú, a member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe told the Texas Tribune, which first reported on the allegations. 'And I think people are kind of brainwashed into thinking that rockets — constructing rockets, testing rockets and blowing up rockets — that somehow that’s not causing pollution.' "

    Read more:
    thebarbedwire.com/2024/10/30/l

    #ProtectTheSacred #Colonialism
    #CorporateColonialism #OccupySpaceX #TwoHeartedPeople #GarciaPasture #EndangeredSpecies #EnvironmentalRacism #AncestralLand #ElonSucks #StarbaseCity

  11. 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