We've pulled the following
information from http://www.lawetlands.org/h301.htm#Read
in an effort to help make more people aware of their issue. Of course,
this is an issue that effects all of us that live in Orange County and we hope
you'll educate yourself to the facts and help us take action!!
You can read more about this
wonderful group of local Indians at http://www.lawetlands.org/
Please get
involved!!
Orange County Sanitation District has
a "301(h) waiver" which allows it to avoid secondary treatment for at
least half of its 240,000,000 gallons per day of sewage discharges.
Quick primer:
- All sewage goes through primary
treatment,
settling for 2 hours with some chemicals to aid separation.
- Primary treatment does NOT
remove fecal bacteria, dissolved solids, urine, other "carbon
compounds".
- The 1972 Clean Water Act required that all districts
go to FULL
SECONDARY TREATMENT by 1985. 208
mostly smaller districts applied for, and about
half were granted, 301
(h) "waivers" to this
requirement.
- Outstanding
waivers have decreased
to 60 a few years ago, and now only
36 remain. Orange County is one of only
3 California waivers, the other 33 are
small Alaskan and Island villages far from treatment plants.
- Orange County is the largest Publicly
Owned Treatment Works still using a "waiver" to evade full
secondary treatment of all sewage. Over 16,000
dischargers, including Los Angeles, complied, and are now committed to full
secondary treatment.
- Secondary treatment
is letting bacteria digest the carbon compounds, then skimming off the
"biosolids" and processing them for fertilizer or disposing in a
land fill. Secondary treatment must remove at least 70% of fecal bacteria to
follow the law, and can remove 90 to 95% of all bacteria, virus, and other
"dissolved solids".
- Even after secondary treatment,
the sewage outfall is pretty
nasty stuff! Yet Orange County, which in the
meantime has grown to 2,200,000 people and untold business and industry
waste water "contributors", still does not even perform secondary
treatment on all its sewage!
- CURRENTLY, ORANGE COUNTY DUMPS ITS HUGE
LOAD OF PARTIALLY TREATED SEWAGE 4.2 to 5 MILES OFF HUNTINGTON BEACH, AT A
DEPTH OF 202 FEET.
- The resultant "plume" of bacteria-laced
diffused sewage spreads out over the Ocean floor 6
miles long, 3 miles wide, and 100 feet thick. OC admits they already knew
the plume is washed at least 80% of the way back to shore!
- According to Orange County, in the summer there is a
THERMOCLINE
that keeps all this safely away from the shore. The Beach closures, they
claim, have "nothing to do" with this massive under sea
"lake" of filth below the feet of swimmers. In the winter, they
claim, things are even safer because the THERMOCLINE
disappears!
- According to Dr. Irwin Haydock, the upswellings and
other Ocean currents often breach this "thermocline" even in the
hottest Summer--often in the Winter, and (not Dr. Haydock's words, but)
- Tendrils of Turds Reach the Beach, it's not even
reported if below catastrophic levels!
- This is not fantasy, this is fact.
Tell our elected officials that we don't need this, treat the doggone
sewage as much as possible before dumping in the Ocean! It's only common sense!
Find out more and take action!! Click here...
http://www.stopthewaiver.com/
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