Nowhere near the stink cause by the "no-flow" type.
Posted on 02/28/2011 6:33:25 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.
Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.
The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem.
Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite - better known as bleach - to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city's treated water before it's dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.
That translates into 8.5 million pounds of bleach either being poured down city drains or into the drinking water supply every year.
Not everybody thinks it's a good idea.
A Don't Bleach Our Bay alert has just gone out from eco-blogger Adam Lowry who argues the city would be much better off using a disinfectant like hydrogen peroxide - or better yet, a solution that would naturally break down the bacteria.
As for whether the supposedly environmentally friendly, low-flow toilets are worth the trouble? Well, according to Jue, they have helped trim San Francisco's annual water consumption by about 20 million gallons.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
That would be true in most cities, but people don’t use showers or washing machines in SF.
"Everybody who walks through here says it smells like urinal," said Dina Hilliard, interim executive director of the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District.
Actually, it smells worse than that. SF Clean City, which does yeoman work cleaning Tenderloin streets, charted the "incidents of human waste and urine," between January and July of last year. Including data from the Department of Public Works, the totals ranged from 600 to 800 incidents a month.
And yet, with all the service organizations in the neighborhood - offering everything from counseling to drug treatment, housing advocacy and free meals - almost none of them provide a supervised public toilet.....
But Hilliard, who has lived in the Tenderloin for 12 years, says when her group surveyed Tenderloin residents they found that "not acknowledging the impact of the food lines in the neighborhood" was one of the top complaints.
"I just find it offensive," said Hilliard. "They are willing to serve food, but not deal with the impact. It is left for the residents, and particularly children, to walk through feces because these groups are turning a blind eye to the problem." [end excerpt]
Because they don't know how to do anything constructive so they go into government.
Everyone gets to feel ecologically superior, and GE gets to get in on the eco-toilet scam.
. . .and does California. Do hope 'they' pay for them, of course. . .and not 'we'. (As they are hoping...)
That is nothing. That is the equivalent normal annual usage of 1,100 people.
>> They obviously need to switch to composting toilets.
Is it part of the operating procedure of a composting toilet to get up after you’re done and smile at yourself in the mirror? :-)
I can’t think of a better place - and I hope their gasoline prices skyrocket to $5.00 a gallon - environazis!!!!
>> The idea looked soooooo good on paper!
Cut it out, will ya? We’re trying to use less paper here.
That's what SF needs.
Had a hippie neighbor back in the 70s who insisted on re-using all the gray water for his garden and such.
Clogged up his septic system since only the toilet went into it and had to get it replaced a second time after half a dozen years. The extra water does help. All the Tofu and bean sprouts probably didn’t help either.
Ahhh - the stench that is Koli-fo-nya. You can almost smell it from here. I thought it was the unwashed hippie leftists that stunk. Come to find out it is just their waste, a synonym for their legislative intellect.
San Francisco, have fun reaping what you have sown!
And they all failed....but someone made a lot of money while we jumped through hoops and paid through the nose.
When I read the article, I was envisioning the fountain in the title shot dropping when he flushed the toilet.
SF has always been full of $h*t, how can they tell any difference?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.