(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Baby Steps pt. 2, Blackwater Recycling -- Strike for the Planet week 140 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-24 You can make a difference to the hurt being caused by climate chaos and the great extinction event in your town or your city! How? Reuse, repurpose, and recycle this information. You can push your local politicians to act. It will make a difference! This is the letter for week 140 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents of the topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile… STRIKE FOR THE PLANET At last, at looooooong last, you’ve started taking action! Don’t stop now. This week’s topic: Baby Steps pt. 2, Blackwater Recycling Hooray! You’ve started on electrification, blackwater recycling, and divestment from organizations actively destroying the planet — finally. Let’s look at your route, because you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Blackwater Recycling in SF 101 In which we consider where SF’s blackwater recycling push works and where it comes up short. GOOD ISSUES TO SOLVE WAYS TO SOLVE THEM scope A few big buildings have blackwater systems, and city govt uses greywater for many functions since 2015 ordinance. In the face of a megadrought, SF still wastes enormous amounts of water. All water used in SF needs to be recycled. Many places around the world have been doing this for decades with a wide variety of technologies. The expertise is out there, and CA laws allow it. recycling Salesforce uses recycled blackwater for irrigation and toilet flushing. Recycling means continual reuse. Irrigation is one time use. Salesforce is not all SF. Blackwater must be recycled to potable as well as non-potable standards citywide. biosolids SF has gotten slightly better at treating biosolids. We are flushing away not only water but valuable nutrients, as any local surfer or beachside regular can tell you from gross personal experience. Treated biosolids from blackwater recycling must be used to pump nutrients back into the food system and depleted ecosystems. pipes SF has acknowledged that the sewage pipe system is a big problem. SF’s underground sewage system is a leaky nightmare, decades behind on maintenance, and one good earthquake away from catastrophic failure. Reimagine the sewage treatment system. Blackwater recycling systems can be set up at the neighborhood level, are cheaper, less likely to fail, and easier to repair. sewage treatment plants The Sewer System Improvement Program is working on fixing some of the problems of the North Point, Southeast, and Oceanside plants. All 3 of these facilities are on coasts, 2 of them are in areas already doomed by sea level rise, and the 3rd is in an area of likely sea level rise (see last week’s Strike letter for the map of built-in sea level rise). Split up and localize SF’s blackwater treatment system, and move the needed infrastructure uphill while we still can. local We have a sewage treatment system that kind of functions for many in SF most of the time and is trying to be less wasteful. Flushing away water and shipping away biosolids is an unacceptable waste of valuable and limited resources. Local blackwater recycling, composting toilets, local use of treated biosolids and potable and non-potable recycled water make SF more resilient in the face of the megadrought and climate change. SF can do a lot better, and must — fast Out of sight can’t be out of mind because flushing things away doesn’t work. In a closed system (which, save sunlight, is what the earth is), there is no “away.” We waste this water and these nutrients at our actual peril. We are drier and more nutrient-poor than we were even a few years ago, and getting drier and more nutrient-poor all the time. Will doing the needed work to fix this be expensive? Yes, but it’s not nearly as expensive as not doing the work would be. Dear Editor Only 2 things matter if San Francisco is to survive climate change: energy and water. SF is ridiculously wealthy in energy potential. We have wind, wave, solar, tide, and geothermal sources right here that can be harnessed with minimal damage to the environment. But not water. The west is in a megadrought and climate change is forecast to end the Sierra snowpack. We need to be recycling water here and now, both greywater and blackwater. Blackwater recycling isn’t a new technology; Namibia has been doing it since 1968. It isn’t an impractical pipedream; Orange County, CA and Austin, TX both have functioning blackwater systems. It is cheaper than desalination and environmentally beneficial, unlike desalination. We need to safeguard our water and change our sewage system now because, with all 3 of our sewage treatment plants on the shoreline and sea levels rising, very soon we won’t have a choice. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/24/2206921/-Baby-Steps-pt-2-Blackwater-Recycling-Strike-for-the-Planet-week-140?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/