Moody Center
The Real Story Here
RECEIVED Tue., June 1, 2010
Dear Editor,
So Stratus is kicking in on the reward for the supposed sewer vandals. Isn't that fresh? The two co-conspirators who created that leaky, failure-prone, vulnerable system – which anyone with a sufficiently anti-social streak can violate at any number of unsecured access points, as was so clearly demonstrated – are joining forces to "get" the people who exposed their poor choices. Why doesn't society instead offer that reward to those vandals for the service of highlighting the lunacy of having chosen to organize the system with this sort of vulnerability? Especially when you add on that by doing so, all this water – which they can conceive of only as a nuisance, rather than the resource we really need it to be – is piped "away,” over the recharge zone, and then they treat and pump a whole lot of potable water out there to water lawns and such. More to the point, why isn't the story reported on that level? Just because everyone says, "Hey, ain't that the way you do wastewater systems?" Let's hope that Bill Spelman finally gets it together to put that integrated water management plan out there so those who are making those choices might finally figure out that, no, in the 21st century, that ain't the way you do wastewater systems. Rather, we'll use decentralized treatment units with local-area nonpotable reuse, eliminating the cost and liabilities of all the infrastructure that takes the water "away” and greatly decreasing the overall water demands in the developments so served. Systems that can be planned and designed on a "just in time" basis to serve only imminent development, and largely installed with developers' funds, so minimizing the city's debt load for this function and freeing up those resources for other community priorities. That's the story here.
So Stratus is kicking in on the reward for the supposed sewer vandals. Isn't that fresh? The two co-conspirators who created that leaky, failure-prone, vulnerable system – which anyone with a sufficiently anti-social streak can violate at any number of unsecured access points, as was so clearly demonstrated – are joining forces to "get" the people who exposed their poor choices. Why doesn't society instead offer that reward to those vandals for the service of highlighting the lunacy of having chosen to organize the system with this sort of vulnerability? Especially when you add on that by doing so, all this water – which they can conceive of only as a nuisance, rather than the resource we really need it to be – is piped "away,” over the recharge zone, and then they treat and pump a whole lot of potable water out there to water lawns and such. More to the point, why isn't the story reported on that level? Just because everyone says, "Hey, ain't that the way you do wastewater systems?" Let's hope that Bill Spelman finally gets it together to put that integrated water management plan out there so those who are making those choices might finally figure out that, no, in the 21st century, that ain't the way you do wastewater systems. Rather, we'll use decentralized treatment units with local-area nonpotable reuse, eliminating the cost and liabilities of all the infrastructure that takes the water "away” and greatly decreasing the overall water demands in the developments so served. Systems that can be planned and designed on a "just in time" basis to serve only imminent development, and largely installed with developers' funds, so minimizing the city's debt load for this function and freeing up those resources for other community priorities. That's the story here.
David Venhuizen