Open Thread For May 7, 2017

Filed in Delaware, National by on May 7, 2017

Will Rehoboth Dump Wastewater Into the Ocean? Maybe Yes, Maybe No.  Check out how Park Slope Kathy plants herself firmly on both side of the fence. ‘I voted for it, but…’.

Trump’s Solution to Opioid Crisis: Gut the Drug Czar’s Office.  Some things I just cannot make up.

At What Point Will Someone Do Something About the Blatant Conflicts-of-Interest?  Pay $500K, come to America courtesy of the Kushners.

White House Hires Alleged Serial Sexual Predator.  Who’s doing the vetting? Roger Ailes?

Could It Be…Satan?:  Memorial park to get Satanic monument. Find out why.

 

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  1. Anon says:

    She voted for it because ‘it’s not like she had another choice.’ What a joke!

    Talk down state that she’s looking to be our next Auditor.

  2. Blackflyer says:

    Ending the post of drug czar? Like the czar has a clue about any drug, and the office has pursued prohibition far too long to be allowed to continue…

  3. bamboozer says:

    And on a lighter note Go Satanic Temple! Best finger in the eye of the holy rollers ever!

  4. Except…the drug czar’s office has been coordinating efforts to address issues dealing with opioids that are plaguing a lot of areas, including in Trump Country. Especially in Trump Country.

    Gives me a chance to once again plug this brilliant piece of reporting that tells the story of how we got to here:

    http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dreamland-9781620402511/

    Hey, if you don’t want to buy it, ask to borrow my copy. For a few shekels, I’ll consider it.

  5. Jason330 says:

    Kudos to Molly Murray at the The News Journal for that great reporting on the outfall.

  6. Yeah, that was quite a comprehensive summation of the issue and all the players.

  7. Blackflyer says:

    As I saw in the headline a couple of days ago, opioid addiction is a public health crisis. The institutions to bolster are public health organizations. Taking money from the DEA and the Czar to do this is both right minded and level headed. What’s that? Trump isn’t bolstering public health? Well yes, but that doesn’t make what I said above untrue. Law enforcement will NOT get us the relief we need. Never would.

  8. puck says:

    Isn’t it “Park City” Kathy? Although Park Slope has been gentrified, so she may be on the voter rolls there too.

  9. Gymrat says:

    ONDCP is totally an integral part of the Opiod epidemic battle. Its elimination and the stripping of Addiction and Mental Health benefits along with the firing of the Surgeon General make it clear where Trump is on this. And before you tell me about Chris Christie let me point out he is largely a self serving fraud on the issue. if you think not, Google CEC (Community Education Centers) and see how the Large One has lined his pockets on the backs of the addicted in NJ.

  10. fightingbluehen says:

    Much rather have the outfall a couple miles out in the ocean than right in the canal where it ends up in Rehoboth Bay and Lewes.

    So, if they change their minds, I guess the whole process starts again, and they just keep dumping it in the bay from the already failing treatment plant for another decade, right?

    Spray irrigation and rapid infiltration basins is not the route you want to go when the water table is sometimes right at ground level.

  11. mouse says:

    Land application is cleaner and safer not to mention the aesthetics. The standards for treatment is higher when the waste water has to go through the soil. Beds aren’t placed where the water table is high. There are places with over 6 ft water tables in sand in Sussex. It’s a about money. People in a town where the cheapest 40 year old 900 sq ft rancher on a 50 ft lot a mile out from the ocean cost over 500K and rents for 3K a week don’t want to have to pay for proper sewage treatment. It’s 1 mile out, not a couple miles.

  12. fightingbluehen says:

    It’s totally about money, and companies like Tidewater Utilities who are already fleecing Delaware residents, and who will forcibly pump waste water, via “rapid infiltration basins”, into shallow aquifers using a technique that is meant to be used in places like the mid west where the water is hundreds of feet lower than coastal of Delaware.

    They’ve already waited so long to start the work on ocean outfall that they fear the cost of the project will be higher than originally planned. My guess is that maybe they are using a little gamesmanship in the hope that the costs don’t go over the estimate too much.

  13. fightingbluehen says:

    From a 2008 U of D study submitted to DNREC:

    “In Delaware, discharge of poorly treated effluent to RIBS creates a risk for nutrient and pathogen contamination of ground water. The shallow Columbia aquifer is the receiving water body for the effluent at risk for contamination. The risk of serious ground-water contamination is most significant in areas where the water table is shallow, as is the case over much of Sussex and Kent Counties. In these areas, effluent discharged into RIBS will undergo much less additional renovation before reaching the water table. The risk of serious ground-water contamination in areas with a deep water table is not yet certain. Because the Columbia aquifer serves as a major source of potable water and streamflow, site selection should be done in full consideration of the risk of damage to all users of this resource.”

  14. Dirt-y Girl says:

    Land application and rapid infiltration basins were developed for areas were the aquifer is 50 – 100 feet down in order for filtration to occur before the effluent reaches the aquifer.

    A spray irrigation field has a 20-25 year life in the best of circumstances and after that it’s no longer effective.

    If you think 6 feet of filtration is sufficient, you’ve lost your mind, and that was not what spray irrigation systems were designed for. Remember, that field with 6 feet of land between the surface and the aquifer won’t absorb much after a good rain or two, and that means the effluent will run off directly into the inland bays, which are in much more dire condition than the ocean.

    We’ve already seen a spray irrigation field in Lewes fail, dumping effluent into in the marsh, how much of a disaster do we need before we realize that Sussex’s water table is too high and the land is too wet to use waste water management that was designed for states like Nevada and Arizona?

    http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2016/03/29/sussex-sewage-plant-runs-afoul-law/82251508/

  15. mouse says:

    They don’t spray or use ribs until certain conditions are met

  16. SussexAnon says:

    -The city didnt’ “wait long enough”, they fought to keep it going into the bay in court and lost. So any claim that Rehoboth is doing what’s best is invalid.
    – The hired engineer was asked at a public meeting which has less of an negative environmental impact, outfall or land application. He said land application.
    – The hearing as not a 50-50 split. More like 80-20 against.
    – Kathy McG voted for it for political expediency. She could have voted no but said afterward she voted because its how her constituents wanted it.
    – The land application “exploration” was sending out letters to land owners asking if they would like to sell and waiting for a response. No follow up. No exploration.
    – The City of Rehoboth and ZERO interest in partnering with a company to handle their wastewater needs because they will no longer have control over cost of their wastewater bills. Tidewater and Artesian have repeatedly approached the City and the City has always rebuffed them.
    – The original meeting where Tidewater made a brief presentation was a great sandbagging effort by the city. Tidewater came in and gave an overview of how it would happen. When asked the cost, it was in the high range due to lack of detail. Detail that wasn’t supplied by the City. Then an outfall guy stood up and said, pipe goes here, for 35-45 million (I think that was the number). Lower than land application. Thus the stage was set for outfall being the cheapest option. And that is all the really mattered.
    – The article fails to mention, or I missed it, that an outfall pipe to that location is a violation of both the Coastal Zone Act and the Clean Water Act. As the pipe location is right to the shoals, a sturgeon habitat and shark pupping grounds.
    – Despite it being “clean” the effluent will contain metals and pharmeceuticals. Which would be potentially damaging to the living creatures at the outfall location.
    – Last year Rehoboths Canal pipe was pumping untreated sewage for days into the canal due to a failure in their treatment system. Nobody knows how long it was going on. The same thing could happen to the outfall pipe into the ocean. Which is one of the conerns of the enviro community.
    – The project cost as already been increasing over time. The cheapest option is no longer cheap. As costs rose, nobody showed any concern whatsoever.
    – The people who live on the street where the pipe is to be run just found out last year their street was going to be ripped up all summer long. And we have yet to see the change orders involved in running a pipe up a street that who knows what is buried there.

  17. Dirt-y Girl says:

    Despite it being “clean” the effluent will contain metals and pharmeceuticals. Which would be potentially damaging to the living creatures at the outfall location.

    So the answer is to pump that effluent directly into the aquifer through rapid infiltration basins and spray it on farm land for feed crops that we eat?

    Where the Hell do you think those pharmaceuticals go when you use the water for feed corn and soy for chickens and livestock?

    So it’s bad to dilute it in the ocean, but it’s OK to pump it into the aquifer (vast numbers of Sussex residents are on wells) and for feed crops?

    Stick the God damn pipe a mile into the ocean and be done with it. Sussex finally got rid of the mercury and lead in the air from the coal burning plant, let’s give the people in Sussex a chance to have a few generations of healthy children before we fuck them up again with the shit and pharmaceuticals from a bunch of tourists in Rehoboth.

  18. fightingbluehen says:

    Heard a couple of loose reports that the guy who killed the state trooper on 4/26/17 was shouting Islamic religious stuff when he did it, and also when he himself was shot…. There were also reports that he “chased the officer”.

    The revelations of what the killer did ,and said, have been kept relatively quiet, but if the killer targeted and chased down the trooper while shouting religious things at him, then I think we may be looking at the first domestic style terror attack of the Trump presidency.

    Coincidentally, there was a Delaware Muslim unity rally on that same day of 4/26….. I doubt the two are connected in any way, but I would imagine that the FBI and Homeland Security don’t have the luxury of shrugging off coincidences like we in the general public do.

  19. mouse says:

    Cleaning up poop is complicated. Tertiary treatment with carbon can remove trace metals and organics. Not clear on what is proposed for cleaning up the effluent

  20. SussexAnon says:

    There is no treatment in the Rehoboth plan to remove trace metals and organics.

    Dirty Girl: This isn’t a question of bad vs. good. This is a question of bad vs. less bad. Outfall is the bad option.

  21. Dirt-y Girl says:

    This isn’t a question of bad vs. good. This is a question of bad vs. less bad. Outfall is the bad option.

    Outfall is the “bad option” for our delicate tourist class and our hysterical coastal retirees but it’s the best option for all of the people around the back bays who are on wells, which is the vast majority of the residents.

    You want millions of gallons of treated effluent containing metals and pharmaceuticals flushed into the aquifer by rapid infiltration basins – the same aquifer that tens of thousands of residents tap in to for their drinking water?

    It’s time that our over zealous tourist industry takes a back seat to the health and welfare of the residents of Sussex and their children. The year round residents of Sussex should not have their health compromised to ease the senseless fears of people who visit for a week.

  22. I don’t know which option is best, but I just wanted to give props to those of you weighing in on this issue. All too often, sizzle replaces steak in these debates.

    I’m learning a lot by reading your responses. And I STILL don’t know where I’d come down. A complex issue being argued admirably.

  23. Dirt-y Girl says:

    I don’t see how this would even be a discussion if it wasn’t for the fact that tourism is one of the few industries left in Delaware.

    The bottom line debate is this: do you want treated wastewater a mile out in the ocean, or in the aquifer that tens of thousands of Sussex residents use every day for drinking, cooking and bathing and sprayed onto crops that feed the livestock that we eat every day?

    Incidentally, the facility in Angola that Tidewater wants to use for Rehoboth was built to handle the wastewater of 10,000 dwellings per day. It’s located at the head of Love Creek, which is part of the Inland Bay system and a major crabbing and fishing resource.

    In order to take Rehoboth’s wastewater, the facility will have to more than double in size or handle significantly more than twice the flow it was designed to process.

    If there is an accident at this facility, it will take decades to flush the contaminants out of this section of the Inland Bays, and the contaminants will flush out, eventually, into the ocean anyway. An accident will damage fishing and crabbing for years, it will create huge algae blooms and fish kills in the bay area, and it will contaminate the drinking water for tens of thousands of people.

    But sure, bend over thousands of locals in Sussex and endanger their health and the health of their children so we can make sure some asshole from Washington, DC doesn’t have to suffer 30 seconds of concern for their vacation.

    I think the choice is pretty fucking clear.

  24. Except…tourism is one of the few industries, one of the few growing industries, left in Delaware.

    So it is an issue. It’s one thing to make your point with people engaged on the issue. It’s quite another to make it to prospective visitors.

  25. fightingbluehen says:

    Ask someone from Ocean City MD, if ocean outfall hurts tourism. They have been doing ocean outfall for decades, and it doesn’t seem to impact their tourism at all, and as a personal side note; I’ve consistently, over many years, experienced cleaner looking, and cleaner feeling water in Ocean City than in Rehoboth….just saying.

  26. PatriciaA says:

    El Som — agree, discussion about Outfall is being addressed well here. I’m glad to see some people understand the issues, and are not taken in either by the Surfriders hype or by the utilities shenanigans. Ok, so you’re on the fence and concerned about the tourism issue. Here’s something to consider to put your mind at ease. As others have said, OC (and Bethany too!) have had wastewater outfalls for years with no adverse affect on tourism. The NJ’s article on Sunday quotes Collin O’Mara saying it’s different now with a 24/7 news cycle. It sure is, but guess what? Over the past 2 years, the RB outfall and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) have already had negative press.

    The breach at the WWTP was very unfortunate last summer. Its repair is part of the whole outfall project package, delayed by lawsuits, and is being repaired now, but the point here is that it was big news for a few days and spread all over social media. Did it stop people from coming here? NO! Last summer was probably busiest year yet and so far this year, RB has had more visitors in the off season than ever before.

    Secondly, many uninformed people think the outfall is already here! Last summer when the beach was closed for a day because of high bacteria, which is related to stormwater and has nothing to do with wastewater, there was an outcry on social media that it was due to the outfall! And my favorite example is just last week, when people attributed the dead whale to the outfall!

    Misinformation about the outfall exists in lots of places, and some of it — ie photos of a toilet on the beach — is intentional and shameful. But the fact is, none of that has affected tourism! Isn’t that enough evidence to quell those fears?

  27. mouse says:

    I have both issues. The Tidewater well that provides my water is in the capture area of the proposed ribs in Angola. I also swim in the ocean nearly every day. There’s a lot of complex issues associated with this. What is the level of treatment, how much capacity will the new plant have and when will they be dumping effluent are all very important pieces of information. Some plants can hold waste water for a long time and not dump in the swimming season. If they dump on the out going tide, it’s better than the incoming tide. If they dump on east winds it’s a concern. Last year the sludge bed was dumped into the canal. This can’t happen again.

  28. SussexAnon says:

    I know this is hard to grasp for Delawareans, given the history of not giving a rats ass about the environment, but pumping it into the ocean is worse for the environment than land application. Don’t take my word for it, take the word of the engineer who is designing this fucking project.

    And probably illegal. But nobody cares about that, either. I don’t care about its effect on tourism. Tourists will always find a way to park their fat ass on dead beaches as long as there is sand. They will sit in traffic for hours and pay $25 for a shrimp basket from Sysco’s finest. They sit on the beach and swim in Tower Road bayside and that is a cesspool. The replenishments have already killed the natural life of beaches and nobody cared. There’s a reason why you don’t see alot of shorebirds feeding on replenished beaches.

    Even after DNREC approves the project (and it probably will), it still has to be approved by the ACoE and NOAA. NOAA requires a study for the discharge area. No study has been submitted.

    And the study the city paid for last year bore drilling the sea bed in preparation for the outfall pipe was done without notifying ACoE or NOAA. No permit was applied for. Again, illegal and nobody cares.

    Fun Fact for those freaking about water table seepage: The “biosolids” will be trucked from Rehoboth to farms around Delaware to be spread as fertilizer. Land application or outfall, you are getting that. But I hope you run into you all at the next “we’re worried about all the chicken shit seeping into our water table” meeting.

    The Bethany and OCMD pipes have completely different dynamics. Longer pipes into deeper water. No long term studies have been done on those pipes. They have been there for decades. Laws have changed as to what you allowed to discharge now, compared to then.

  29. mouse says:

    Yeah. The Rehoboth boardwalk walk is a mile long. I would want treated sewage effluent pumped out a lot further than that to swim there

  30. Dirt-y Girl says:

    This project isn’t just about land application, which, by the way, a spray irrigation field’s usefulness tops out at 20 – 25 years, it’s also about the rapid infiltration basins that do exactly what their name implies: they allow wastewater to RAPIDLY INFILTRATE the aquifer. That would be the aquifer that supplies drinking water to tens of thousands of people just in the Angola area.

    And correct me if I’m wrong, but the engineer who’s designing this fucking project is also making money off of the fucking project, whereas the people living in Angola who are going to fight Rehoboth sending their shit to the Inland Bays are just trying to keep their families healthy.

    Rapid infiltration basins and spray irrigation were not developed for areas like Angola where the water table is high, and you can hit groundwater at a few feet. The Wanandale Waste Treatment Facility sits at the head of Love Creek, part of the inland bays, and was only designed to handle the wastewater from 10,000 households, it is not designed to handle what would come out of Rehoboth Beach.

    Just the fact that environmentalists are freaked out by treated effluent going a mile out in the ocean, should let you know that the same treated effluent is not safe for the aquifer that people use for drinking water or the inland bays where people fish and crab.

  31. SussexAnon says:

    There are more land application options than just rapid infiltration. There were (at least) two land application proposals/concepts for Rehoboth.

    Why does it matter, really, if it gets pumped into the ground? The mayor said it’s practically drinking water so lets not worry about putting it in the ocean. Let’s believe him. After all, he’s the one that sued to keep the pipe going into the inland bay.

    P.S. Millsboro is removing their outfall pipe from the inland bay and going to…..wait for it…..land application! Which was chosen as the best option. Imagine that!

    And, yes, the engineer is getting paid to design this project. He was told do design out fall. He could have gotten paid to do other designs if the City directed him to do so. He has designed other projects all over the country.

  32. Dirt-y Girl says:

    The treatment facility in Angola uses spray irrigation (which failed in Lewes because the ground was saturated) and rapid infiltration basins which are a fast conduit into the aquifer. RIBs are part of the Angola proposal.

    And again, if everyone is so concerned about putting Rehoboth’s effluent into the ocean, why should the people in Angola allow Rehoboth to ship their effluent to Angola to get flushed into their drinking water.

    What a bunch of assholes, worried about diluting effluent into an ocean because of the fish, but fine with pumping effluent into people’s drinking water.

  33. SussexAnon says:

    The Angola proposal was only one of several.

    I don’t know how much simpler I can put that.

    I don’t know about the Lewes failure you are referring to but Rehoboth’s spray irrigation failed. It happened 3 times in 5 years. Under very specific conditions when big rainfall was followed by freezing temps causing run off into the bays. Sussex County is fixing the problem by no longer using that location. The land was reaching its designed lifespan.

    But thanks for proving my point about Delawareans not giving a rats ass about the Law. Or the environment. As long as it doesn’t affect you, just do it, right? That is exactly want the power plant did for decades. They did what was best for them and allowed coal ash to run off into the bay. Rehoboth (and other cities) pumped their effluent into the bay and destroyed it.

    Millsboro is going with land application. No comment on that? I suppose since that won’t affect you, you don’t care.

    I get your concern but there is more than one land application system.

  34. fightingbluehen says:

    Millsboro is too far away from the ocean to make ocean outfall economically feasible , and I don’t think any beach town or the State would allow Millsboro to discharge it’s waste water through their jurisdiction anyway.

    If the waste water was as “potable” as they usually claim, I wouldn’t have a problem with discharging it into the bay, but you also have to realize that the bay doesn’t defuse the waste water as well as the ocean does….I guess they have to go with the best practice for their situation.

  35. Dirt-y Girl says:

    Millsboro is going with land application. No comment on that? I suppose since that won’t affect you, you don’t care.

    I think I covered that nicely in the several times I pointed out that RIBS and spray irrigation were not designed for areas with high water tables.

    I posted a link to the Lewes spray field failure.

    And I have bad news for you, the Indian River Power Plant is still leeching mercury and other toxins into the bay. The Burton Island ash pile had to be wrapped with porous materials when it started eroding a few years ago. If they didn’t use a porous wrap that continually allows toxins to seep out they would risk a possible major release.

    Not only does the Burton Island ash pile still leech into the bay, the second ash pile placed farther away from the water doesn’t have any type of a barrier between it and the bare ground, so the toxins from that ash pile continually leech into the ground. When people like me and Citizens for Clean Power demanded that NRG move the second ash pile, NRG put a third ash pile with a liner up against the second one so the second one could never be moved.

    Now, what the fuck do you have to say to me about the environment in Sussex? Because I will take your ass to school every fucking day on this topic.

  36. SussexAnon says:

    Yeah, you’re right. Going all ghetto on me has me totally convinced.

    Agree to disagree. Hugs. Byeeeee

  37. mouse says:

    I wonder if DNREC has ever sampled the sediment or fish near the Indian River power plant for trace metals