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One of the benefits of EU regulations is that they have brought some order to the dumping of raw sewage into rivers and seas. But there is still a lot of work t
by nextos 1y ago
One of the benefits of EU regulations is that they have brought some order to the dumping of raw sewage into rivers and seas. But there is still a lot of work to do.
Local authorities from lots of EU regions generally avoid measuring water quality after rainy days because raw sewage is still often dumped under those conditions.
Even in Basel, where the Rheine is really clean, authorities sometimes advise not to swim.
- noughtme 1y agoThe source of the Seine is in Burgundy. Not a European, so wondering what the relationship between the Seine and EU regulations is.
- vasco 1y agoThe seine, burgundy and paris are all part of EU.
- maeln 1y agoAn important part of the pollution in the Seine is from Paris itself. Due to being an old city, the sewer system and the flood water system (i.e rain) goes through mostly the same tubes and are dump directly in the Seine. This leads to the river being full of biological contaminent, a.k.a, shit. A lot of effort was done to remediate this very old issue, with a very big push before the Olympics games (but improvement to the sewage system has been going on for years).
- p1necone 1y agoTurns out you can dump raw sewage in rivers at any point along them, not just the source. Also Burgundy is just another part of France which is in the EU, so not really sure what you mean.
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoAre there other options when it rains? I imagine they're not dumping sewage into rivers for fun.
- joskvw 1y agoDedicated stormwater infrastructure separate from sewage pipes solves the problem. You can also build tanks to hold overflow.
- ericvsmith 1y agoIn DC, they're storing the combined runoff+sewage until it can be treated: https://dcist.com/story/23/09/18/new-anacostia-river-tunnel-online-sewage-overflows/ https://dcist.com/story/23/09/18/new-anacostia-river-tunnel-... As expensive as this project is, separating the storm drains from the sewage lines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_sewer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_sewer) in an existing system is much more costly.
- zrail 1y agoPortland, Oregon completed a project in 2011 that successfully eliminated almost all of the combined sewer overflows into the Willamette river and Columbia Slough (a swampy area on the south side of the Columbia river near the airport). There was a ton of work done to reduce the amount of water ending up in the sewer during storms followed by some large infrastructure improvements to improve the carrying capacity of the sewer itself. https://www.portland.gov/bes/about-big-pipe https://www.portland.gov/bes/about-big-pipe
- alexey-salmin 1y agoNot mixing sewers and rainwater drains is the usual choice.
- lsllc 1y agoIn London the Thames Tideway Tunnel is designed to intercept and divert sewage overflows from the River Thames, particularly during heavy rainfall: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68464798 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68464798 I think there's a B1M episode on Youtube that has a good overview.
- ashoeafoot 1y agoThe uk escaped this madness, here a entrepeneur can still take a free market bath as god intended. https://www.sewagemap.co.uk/ https://www.sewagemap.co.uk/
- ourmandave 1y agoPfft, raw sewage? Amateur hour. Back in my day we'd have river fires that burned 50' high and burn bridges. https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cuyahoga-river-fire https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cuyahoga-river-fire