Stealth grey water emptying?

[DannyB1954]

I can't speak to your conspiracy theory. I do know that water treatment plants do not just treat for bacteria---they have a whole host of processes which filter water, remove solids and allow contaminants to settle out, ozone treatments, and a battery of other processes to remove other stuff. "Soap" is one of the things they remove.

PS--if you think soap in the water has no effect, I hope one day you are camping downstream from some clod who dumps all his soapy waste into the water you are drinking......

I can assure you that the waste treatment plant where I live does not remove anything that is dissolved in the water. It is not so much a conspiracy as it is the fact that very very few treatment plants use reverse osmosis to clean waste water. Anyplace near flowing water, (such as a river) rely on partially treated waste being diluted to such a degree that it is not considered a health hazard. Ever hear of parts per million? Add more millions and the parts magically go way down. Go figure. In a number of locations there is a growing amount of estrogen in the public water supplies. Waste treatment does not remove pharmaceuticals, The birth control pills women take). Drugs passing through a body do not go away. Thinking that a waste treatment plant removes removes most everything is delusional. Our water supply in general is in serious danger.

As far as me drinking water downstream from someone taking a bath, how about you drink water straight out of a waste treatment plant.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Park over a storm drain? The ones around here are clearly labeled as such and you find one about every block or so

Sorry, that's the reason it is now illegal to park overnight in our neighborhood.  Plus it is illegal in Minnesota. 

I also believe that it is illegal to dump grey water on BLM land and in National Parks;  National Forests each have different rules.

If you have enough room in your vehicle for a shower, you have enough room to store the water until legal, ecologically safe, and inoffensive to empty.

Water with any kind of soap is classified as grey water.

 -- Spiff

 

[LMTLMT]

is there such a thing of a "remote switch" that can be installed or make for the grey tank to release and close control by the driver? If yes, why not release while driving on gravel or dirt road, I don't see the big harm if its bio soap and water

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

 . . . If yes, why not release while driving on gravel or dirt road, I don't see the big harm if its bio soap and water

There might not be a big harm but there is a perceived one: if I see someone in a camper dumping on a roadway I don't know what they are dumping, just that they are dumping and my impression is not going to be positive.

If you can save it for a dirt road you can save it for a legal dump station.

Sorry if I am coming across as dogmatic on this but I want to continue to be able to boondock without permits, fees, and draconian regulations.  The more people do the expedient thing rather than the right thing will get the hammer dropped faster.

 -- Spiff

 

[bullfrog]

The solution to pollution is dilution according to most environmental experts. Barth motor homes used to pump it through a drilled port in the exhaust manifold and evaporate it while driving down the road. You think salting roads made by pouring oil on crushed rock will be harmed by soapy water? If you have ever walked across truck stop parking lot made sticky by urine you will wish someone had dumped soapy water. I just today heard a promoter of the Arizona Trail make the statement that all of the outdoors is a bathroom. Filter out waste, put that in the trash, the rest if you really are concerned can be evaporated on a tarp or dumped in a drain. Eventually the tarp gets put in the trash. Be sure to do this away from your camp as insects are attracted to water. To me soapy water is just fertilizer and in desert lands helps more than it hurts. Anything that keeps the dust down on a dirt road without making it muddy is a good thing in my opinion. You used to be able to buy a cable controlled drain plug for engine oil pans so you could pull over on a gravel road dump the oil and refill while traveling. A little soapy water might help clean up some of the damage already done.

 

[John61CT]

I built a home in the countryside with an outside shower and Japanese style hot tub right in the middle of a large Permaculture designed kitchen garden, every single plant of which was part of the house food supply ecosystem.

Yes we used natural products for soap and shampoo. The water runoff from bathing went directly onto the groundcover and garden plants for many years, we cared for and closely monitored these and never saw any ill effects.

So yes, the appearances and PR aspect is valid, but in reality we as conscientious citizens take care of our environment much better than arbitrary regs.

I wish the regs were written and enforced by more caring and conscientious citizens, but that's up to us as voters to make happen.

 

[DannyB1954]

We all pollute, it just depends to what degree. The products that we buy, (batteries, solar panels, electronics, vehicles, etc.), all create pollution during manufacture or use. Cotton clothing is one of the biggest polluters. More chemicals are dumped on those crops than any other. Synthetic fibers pollute. So you going to run around naked? Buy anything in a package, you are a polluter. Even if you sold your vehicle and bought a horse you are a polluter. It is estimated that the levels of methane gas would be much higher if we drove horses instead of vehicles.

Most of the remote waste sites rely on septic systems. Where do you think your soapy water goes when you use a dump station? I don't advocate dumping engine oil down a storm drain, but I don't believe that the sky is falling if shower water goes to water a bush. All kinds of idiot laws are on the books because all kinds of idiots make the laws.

I once seen a cartoon about a man in a high dollar limo smoking a fat stogie with smoke pouring out of the cigar and car exhaust. He was yelling at a man that was chopping down a tree. Yo my man, you are ruining my air! OK drive around burning up fossil fuels, use your gps to find waste stations. Never mind about the pollution that your electronics caused, nor the manufacture of the satellites that give them the signals, and decry the evils of someone who showers outside.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

This is one of those things that I don't have a set opinion on. Being totally honest with yourself, dumping some grey water is most likely going to have zero effect on anything. I know there are some sensitive ecological zones that could be affected, but for the most part I don't think one person's grey water is going to hurt anything other than another person's opinion if they happen to see them doing it.

So so so soooo much shit goes down a storm drain, 5 gallons of grey water isn't going to change anything, heck even 100 gallons wouldnt. Growing up my Dad owned a carpet cleaning business and back then all the dirty water from the jobs got dumped right down the nearest manhole. It's still common practice if your basement floods. You call a restoration company and they pump that dirty water right out into the street and away it goes, hell even some fire departments will do it for you and they do the same thing, dump it right out into the street. Then you have motor oil, gas, anti freeze all leaking from cars and everything else people toss our their windows. Towns used to coat dirt roads in used motor oil to keep the dust down.

Most every rural area in the world is serviced by septic systems, even large businesses and hotels/motels that have hundreds of bathrooms. All goes to some large central septic and into the ground it goes.

Millions of gallons of urines and millions of pounds of shit are absorbed by the earth every year from wild animals dropping it. Then someone sees a person taking a leak in the woods and they want to call in Hazmat. You think animal feces never ended up in a river you were drinking out of?

But like I said, I don't have a set opinion about it, I can see if from both sides. Bottom line, we humans are horrible for this planet is a few gallons of our grey water going to kill it? Nope

 

[highdesertranger]

first off I have a degree in Environmental Technology and Hazardous Waste. dilution is NOT the solution to pollution. if that was the case we could just continue what they used to do and just dump bad stuff into the ocean. it is illegal to dilute a hazardous substance an then dump it.

second in some areas it is legal to dump grey water in some areas it is not legal. better know where you are. frankly this goes with "pack it in pack it out". if you packed the potable water in you can pack the grey water out.

third everything is biodegradable just depends how long it takes to break down into harmless substances.

thinking you are helping the desert by watering and fertilizing the plants is naïve at best. this always gets mankind in trouble, thinking he can improve Mother Nature by "helping out". what's so hard about dumping at a approved location. highdesertranger

 

[lenny flank]

I can assure you that the waste treatment plant where I live does not remove anything that is dissolved in the water.

I can assure you that it does. It's part of the Federal standards.

As for your "parts per million", and "oil from the road", you are now playing word games. By your definition, then, not even rainwater is "safe" or "pure"

It always amuses me when seemingly intelligent people have such trouble grasping the relatively simple concept of "dosage".

 

[Van-Tramp]

To the best of my understanding it is NEVER legal to dump gray water within city limits. Go to a dump station

On SOME public lands it is legal

 

[slynne]

Sorry, that's the reason it is now illegal to park overnight in our neighborhood.  Plus it is illegal in Minnesota. 

I also believe that it is illegal to dump grey water on BLM land and in National Parks;  National Forests each have different rules.

If you have enough room in your vehicle for a shower, you have enough room to store the water until legal, ecologically safe, and inoffensive to empty.

Water with any kind of soap is classified as grey water.

 -- Spiff

I am sorry, I wasn't clear. Around here, there are two different types of storm drains. Those which flow to the waste water treatment plant where it is fine to dump grey water into and those which flow directly into the river where you are not allowed to dump anything into. The ones which flow directly to the river are very clearly marked and also have signage alerting people that only fresh water is allowed to be dumped. Since the water dumped into a storm drain that goes to the waste treatment plant goes to the same place as all of the grey and black water from people’s houses, there is no real environmental concern which results from dumping grey water into those storm drains.

As for grey water in general. Yes, do not dump into a drain that goes directly to a water source if you can help it although if you use the right kind of soap, it probably would be less harmful. For those who say that soap is just a fertilizer, that is actually the problem with soap in the water. Some soaps contain nitrates and phosphates which are also used in fertilizers and when those things get into the water, they cause the aquatic plants and algae to grow too much. However, a lot of soaps have changed their formulas because of this since these nutrients from soap are not removed at the waste water treatment plants and currently the greater damage to water sources (at least around here) is caused from agricultural run off.

 

[SoulRaven]

Here, at least some of the storm sewers go to water reservoirs. Shower water can contain "fecal" matter along with soap/chemicals. The "lake", fed by the storm sewers that we just moved away from had fish in it that seemed to do well. Actually, one of my thoughts about having a shower in a unit is the hassle, since even if you have a grey water tank, it fills up super fast, not very useful for boondocking in my mind anyway.

 

[Wabbit]

...Shower water can contain "fecal" matter along with soap/chemicals...

Reminds me of the time I was in a shower and had to "go". No this is not a story about peeing in a shower. So anyways, in the shower, decent buzz, and didn't feel liked drying the floor around the toilet from getting out and back in. Mind you, I was just a young'n at this time, mid 30's maybe. So I made the "decision". I'm not going to get dramatic and say it was the worst decision of my life, but it was certainly the worst decision of the day. Why? My shower had a grate that was more than just the four bars. Think thick chicken wire. I did the only thing I could think of, stomp and rinse. Wasn't just like one stomp either. Ever stepped in dog sh1t barefoot? Yeah. Bright side is I was in a shower, so easy but time consuming to clean up, also nobody knows it happened. True story.

 

[Svenn]

I find it odd that rubber residue from wearing tires, leaking oil, transmission fluid, and antifreeze, can go down storm drains, but the sweat and dead skin cells of my body are considered toxic.

Not to mention the amount of pollution generated by driving grey water to dumpsite, burdening the city's sewer system, or utilizing a less-efficient conventional shower at fixed locations.   I use eco-friendly soap and I highly doubt any trace fecal matter is going to bring down the local ecosystem; heck some of these eco-champions with dogs leave more trace fecal matter in the ecosystem than I will my whole life.  People need to have a sense of scope and scale with this stuff; vandwellers aren't the enemy.

 

[Weight]

I am proud of all my CheapRV Living friends. You mostly show the rest of us why we can no longer park in most places. What creative justifying you practice. By the way, Sewer treatment plants are designed to remove dissolved solids as well as suspended. They do it with bio-activity. And yes, the rules governing treated discharge are different if it is an ocean, or a local stream, or even a ground water recharge system. It is not a conspiracy. I have witnessed the Atlantic Ocean clean up during my lifetime and my career as a Water Treatment Professional.

 

[djkeev]

Eh! Do want you want with the stuff, the EPA is being disassembled, soon we will have the smelly rivers that you can literally set on fire back again!

"We" no longer seem to care....... if there's money to be made!

Dave

 

[DannyB1954]

I can assure you that it does. It's part of the Federal standards.

As for your "parts per million", and "oil from the road", you are now playing word games. By your definition, then, not even rainwater is "safe" or "pure"

It always amuses me when seemingly intelligent people have such trouble grasping the relatively simple concept of "dosage".

If you think the Government has your back, you should have lived in Flint Michigan. Water treatment plants that do not meet Federal Standards get waivers and exemptions. Last I heard San Francisco was still not meeting standards, (used to live near there) 

Guess who tests the output?  The utilities themselves do the testing. It is like having the wolves guard the hen house. Guess when they take the sample.  The slowest flow of the day. How many things do they test for? only a couple.

The only way to have waste water cleaned  to a high degree is through reverse osmosis or distilling. Very expensive. There is no other magic way of removing toxins and contaminants. Add salt to water.  Then see if you can take it back out. The waste treatment facility has no magic way of removing any dissolved substance from the water. In some cases we are talking about processing hundreds of thousands of gallons a day. 

Dilution is the solution that utilities use. Sometimes even with communities that use wells, they mix the output of one well with others to keep the lead or  arsenic levels below standards.

 

[John61CT]

18 million Americans currently get their water from systems that violate the federal regs.

And yes, will be getting worse for sure.

Nestle's happy!

 

[lenny flank]

If you think the Government has your back

Like I said, I can't speak to your conspiracy theory.