Yellow water overboard?

[NotCook]

To those of you who see local sewage plants as the real problem, not overboard discharge of marine toilets: I agree with you that the sewage plants have a greater overall impact on water quality, but should be careful what you wish for. The grand majority of treatment plant issues relate to the fact that (at least here in the northeast) are hooked up to what are known as "Combined Sewer Overflow" (CSO) systems. This means that the street sewers are hooke up to the sanitary sewers, and they all go to the treatment plant before discharge to the local water body. However, when it rains, the treatment plant capacity cannot handle the extra flow from the street sewers; this leads to the system automatically letting the street sewers dump into the water body without treatment.

While NOT an expert, I suspect that all of us using our boats for whatever periods we do, if we flushed directly into the waters of Lake Erie (for example) for the entire season would not touch a fraction of the MILLIONS of gallons of raw sewage dumped into the lake by the sewage plants after one large rain.

The issue is not, IMHO, that we want to be careful what we wish for, but that our duly elected representatives enact laws to fix the wrong problem. They think they have to do something (who is influencing them that something has to be done, I don't know), and the enact laws that require all of us to install MSDs. I suspect that has no appreciable impact on the real problem, other than within the bounds of marinas or anchorages, and maybe in the vicinity of cruise and commercial ships. I also suspect that the seagulls deposit more fecal matter in our marina that all the boats combined could possibly produce, yet the freakin nuisance birds that dump all over our boats, docks, and walkways are protected. Protecting these flying rats makes as much sense as prohibiting the boat owners in San Francisco from shooing the seals of their boats - they have to let them sink their boat instead.

We would be better off paying our legislators to stay home so they won't make more laws... and spending more money...

[Don't get me started on enforcement of wearing seatbelts or PFDs... Some things we should do anyway (I believe in wearing both), but actually having a law that says I have to is infringing on our freedoms. Stop legislating to prevent me from doing myself harm!]

 

[Auspicious]

If you sail in a NDZ like the Great Lakes, LI Sound, Chesapeake and other places your marine plumbing should be in compliance *snip*

"No Discharge Zone" is a very specific term of art. Check here http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/regulatory/vessel_sewage/vsdnozone.html . There is a small NDZ in Herring Bay on the Chesapeake, but none that I see on LIS or the Lakes.

You can't discharge untreated waste anywhere in US territorial waters. You may discharge the product of Type I and Type II MSDs outside of NDZs.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

The only NDZ in the Chesapeake Bay is Herring Bay, but while LIS itself is not an NDZ, most of the harbors on it are...which you'll see if you click on New York in the EPA list of NDZs.

All the Great Lakes have been NDZs under an agreement with Canada since long before the US enacted any marine sanitation laws and most states bordering the lakes have enacted legislation to enforce it. So you also have to check under each state that borders one of Great Lakes on the EPA list of NDZ to find 'em.

 

[Auspicious]

Thanks for the clarification Peggie. I looked up the CT and NY NDZs. This is why I kept my holding tank when I installed my Electroscan.

Just didn't want to let the broad sweeping statement about NDZs go unchallenged. They are where they are, but aren't everywhere, and NDZ isn't the same as the raw sewage proscription.

 

[txtowman]

The waste treatment plants around here treat with bleach and send it down the river. Does anyone know the definition of "treated" sewage. Can it be done manually in a small boat? would a composting or incinerating toilet be legal since no dumping would occur?

 

[Icetug]

Sorry, but you can not manually "treat" your own sewage with bleach or another sterilizing agent. Even if logic says that it is just as sterile as the discharge from a Type I or II MSD. Incinerating and composting toilets are considered Type III MSDs because they hold the waste just like a flush toilet with a holding tank.