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Funny things

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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Dr. Know, Williamette Week, "Poop Tales":
http://www.wweek.com/2015/10/21/dr-know-poop-tales/


[Image: safe_image.php?d=AQCxBnu_a75u_du2&w=470&...&upscale=1]
[Image: safe_image.php?d=AQCxBnu_a75u_du2&w=470&...&upscale=1]




Q: "At many street corners in inner Southeast (also downtown and in the Pearl), one is assailed by an unpleasant poo smell, presumably from the sewers. What's the deal? Is this our reward for paying billions in taxes for the Big Pipe?"

—Nose in Clothespin

A: "Let's be clear, Nose: You live in a relatively small geographical area that contains just more than 600,000 people (many of whom, this being Portland, eat a lot of fiber-rich kale).

Every 10 days, we produce enough shit—not watery sewage, but actual turds—to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The fact that you don't have to Michael Phelps your way through such a pool on your way to work every day is one of the unheralded miracles of modern civil engineering.

For most of human history, the obvious economic and social benefits of living in a major city were mitigated by the fact that everybody was ankle-deep in crap. Now it all just magically goes away, so pardon me if I'm not scandalized if it occasionally blows you a kiss on its way out the door.

Here's the deal: As we should all be aware by now, Portland, along with 771 other U.S. municipalities, has a combined sewer system. That means stormwater and chocolate thunder run through the same channels.

The Big Pipe project didn't change that (redoing the entire sewer system would make your "billions in taxes" seem like chump change), it just solved the problem of the system getting overwhelmed by rainwater and discharging untreated sewage into the Willamette.

Thus, there are still points at which open storm drains have to link up with the larger and more fragrant main system. This connection is particularly noticeable in the dry summer months, when the poo-to-stormwater ratio is high.

Still, it could be worse, and heavy-metal-loving Portland should count its blessings: Maybe not everyone can go on tour with Slipknot, but—thanks to modern sanitation—anyone can release a 7-inch with Korn.

(PS: Apologies for the confusion last week—there should have been a notice explaining that I'd be back, but it fell in the sewer.)"
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#3
C C Offline
(Oct 25, 2015 11:12 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: The fact that you don't have to Michael Phelps your way through such a pool on your way to work every day is one of the unheralded miracles of modern civil engineering. For most of human history, the obvious economic and social benefits of living in a major city were mitigated by the fact that everybody was ankle-deep in crap.


It's still like that in India. Walking by an alley or the back of a building is a scenic route to encountering people openly defecating (who are not homeless). Often there's far less attempt to obscure urination. Where there are public toilets [usually of portable ilk] they're so filthy from lack of maintenance that no Indian citizen could be blamed for avoiding them. Rural areas haven't even achieved an outhouse phase of their 19th and early 20th century counterparts elsewhere.

Doubtless there are 3rd-world countries in similar fix, but India's sanitation crisis stands out because it's a capitalist engine on the rise with maybe the largest middle class of consumers on the globe within 15 years. The problem might be a mix of taboo over discussing the topic, lingering remnants of a caste system where "that group is responsible for cleaning toilets, not us", etc. At any rate, it's a mighty feat to get anything moving politically in solving a troublesome nightmare that's become increasingly dangerous in a multitude of ways.
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#4
elte Offline
Quote:    A: "Let's be clear, Nose: You live in a relatively small geographical area that contains just more than 600,000 people (many of whom, this being Portland, eat a lot of fiber-rich kale).    

Maybe the smell could be better if they ate onions, and maybe peppers, with the kale. Sulphur compounds from chemically decomposed onions have a smell that some find might find pleasing. Similar to how people tend to especially not mind a wift of burnt gunpowder from spent fireworks, whose signature smell results from the sulphur component.
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