ashe

Fins, they are, but nothing will come of it.

Looks like the town is in violation of several statutes

http://toxics.usgs.gov/high...index.html

This is a good site for beginning to study the issue of phytoestrogens and other chemical compounds in surface and groundwater. My Wiley subscription has expired and I don't want to buy another just for this topic, but suffice to say unless you plan to do away with soybeans and similar legumes, antibiotics, birth control pills you aren't going to stop the process of these things leaching into the environment and since they also migrate from septic tanks.

Septic tank ground water gets no photodegredation and less biodegradation than in surface waters so what are you going to do, tie people on to mechanical treatment and pull up everyone's septic tank and hook them up to sanitary sewer?

WWTP are easy targets when it's people creating the chemicals through what they consume, and what they feed to animals, and what they use in industry for their daily lives.

I suppose the bottom line is that the New River, especially the South Fork and the rest of it to West Virginia is not a pristine mountain stream as some seem to think.

Point - More water dilutes everything.

Concentrating your effluent, reduces oxygen in the waste water, concentrates those things you don't take out, and helps to raise toxicity both in the oxidation ditch or in the UV treatment line. When you write "dilution is not the answer to pollution" that makes me think you misunderstand the plain meaning of what I wrote which was "more water flow into the sewer plant would tend to reduce those chemicals". I was not talking about Boone's NPDES limits nor was I trying to present an observation as if I was wearing a level IV treatment hat or an MS in Biology or Chemistry. Concentration of things in the effluent other than water is a byproduct of reducing overall usage and reducing inflow an filtration as Boone has done. But the point is that Boone's discharge and it's proposed new water withdrawal site are not a situation where preventing Boone's intake will improve Boone's quality on in its discharge from the WWTP.

Much of what is reported downriver as pharma is in reality not from people and their toilets but cows, chickens, goats, etc, via soy bean estrogen, etc., etc.. I didn't think I needed to bring up phytoestrogen and talk about it in order to say that what Boone withdraws as raw water, doesn't have a downstream effect on those chemicals especially those that are loading overland and not from the WWTP, but without doubt the WWTP is always the easiest target because addressing anything done via agriculture is often impossible.

Anyway, those chemicals will be present in their current concentrations if Boone does nothing regarding water. Some people have been suggesting that the two are linked and in fact are making an argument that Boone's intake at Brownwood will concentrate pharma in the river due to cycling through intake and discharge. Only an illegal inter-basin transfer from the Watauga to the New would totally eliminate cycling.

I think perhaps you are overreacting to my use of commonly used words instead of specifically precise scientific terms.

Have you ever tried to explain UV process treatment to elementary school kids touring your plant?

"Cook" might not be a term used up here but it is in the flatlands, because it's simple. It's a term used to explain UV's effect items from volatile organics in the land farming of contaminated dirt to the process of what happens to a cow pies drying in the sun, etc. That's an easier word to use than to go into a chemistry and biology lesson regarding disinfection via UV. However I readily agree that the term "cook" is not appropriate for the describing the process at the publishing level of discussion.

I apologize if I sound like a typical city manager, but since I have personally run a small WWTP in the past, I think I know a few things.

This is why it is so hard to get or make copies of public records. A bunch of BS.

http://watchdogwire.com/nor...ords-laws/

dog we can only hope that starts to happen I also think they should have to personally pay the lawyers fees and all other cost incurred by their not following the law.

Were the judges to start locking up city managers and county managers for not following the law when a citizen comes before them for public records, I bet they will suddenly start following the law.

No we don't need more like him he already admitted to denying people something they are entitled for the protection of others. That is not the type of people we need to run any government office. We need people who are fair and honest and will follow the law not make up some BS reason to deny someone and make them go to court to get what they are legally entitled to.

OCM - I usually agree with you, but not this time. I would like to address some of your points if I may.

4. Fins, regarding pharmaceuticals, more water flow into the sewer plant would tend to dilute those chemicals, but the area's livestock is fed a huge dose of that stuff all year long and when the cows and goats crap near the river it gets into the river. UV radiation (sunlight) will cook a lot of things out of the manure but not complex pharma products. The discharge of pharmaceuticals is overblown in my opinion and the Town's of WJ and Jefferson WWTPs don't remove much of that either.

-Dilution is not the answer to pollution. In fact, it's downright illegal to do so. It violates the Town of Boone's NPDES permit to even attempt it. There would be no reason to dilute the effluent stream in an attempt to dilute the pharmacuticals because those pharms are not regulated in the NPDES permit to start with. Boone's wastewater treament plant is an activated sludge type plant and designed to remove BOD, TSS, and convert ammonia nitrogen into nitrate nitrogen. They might possibly have a phosphorus limit which can be treated biologlically or by addtition of chemicals. But, this far upstream I doubt they have a limit. They also have a bacterial limit, and that is addressed by UV radiation. UV radiation does not "cook" anything out of the water. In fact, it doesn't even kill the existing pathogenic bacteria. What it really does is inactivate the existing bacteria to a state where the bacteria cannot multiply. Even if you drink the bacteria, they are unable to reproduce and are thus harmless.

The discharge of pharmacuticals is becoming a problem of major proportion. Considerable research must be done in order to treat for these.

You sound like a typical city manager. You know just enough about the process to carry on an intelligent conversation about wastewater treatment, but have no real knowledge of the actually process. I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion, we need many more like you, but this time you blew it.

I see a couple of people need to be reeducated on the public records law. We are speaking of a hydrolic report not personnel records. These reports may contain property owners names which are still public record. I know of a county now that is about to be sued for not making public closed session commissioner meetings since 2002. Speaking of which how long has it been since our closed session minutes were released. I would love to see some about gates as they should have been released.

That's not the case. There is really very little information that a local government can keep as confidential

Agree with OCM, there may be information there that is not public domain and will have to be redacted before the public is given access to it. Just because it is in the office it is not necessarily accessible to the public, contrary to common opinion.

He sounds just like another mouth breather screw following the law and doing what's right instead lets make up some BS reason to refuse and make them sue to get what they are entitled to.

Actually, the town can't restrict access to this information or stop someone from making copies. They were even going to have her a copy made, but the printer was going to charge $400. So she was just making her own copies

OCM, you are wrong on about all points.

I'll pass on all this, what will be will be.....

n the Manager's defense, no one is coming into my office and taking pictures of anything unless they are the FBI or SBI, you can't turn that turf over to the "public" as the Manager even if it is a form of Public Records violation.
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He let them look at it so in their defense they were breaking no laws by taking pictures. A public is what the name implies. Public.

In the Manager's defense, no one is coming into my office and taking pictures of anything unless they are the FBI or SBI, you can't turn that turf over to the "public" as the Manager even if it is a form of Public Records violation.

The Manager does not work for the public, he or she works for the Board, and Boards often have desires that are count to what the public wants.

It's akin to the KKK or the Nazi party coming to the Manager's office and asking for a parade permit. The answer is not yes, but **** No. Do they have the right to march, yes, but they will have get a judge make me write the permit, that way I have insulated the Board from the controversy and the negative fall out will fall on a judicial person.

I will speculate.

1. What Boone wanted to do was control all the public water in the region and thereby control all the commercial development that would need commercial levels of water.

2. The missing pages of text may contain a political and strategic analysis of the plans with an eye toward Watauga and Ashe County. It could contain blunt statements that are not politically correct. It may also name names from the standpoint of negotiations which the Town has the right to redact according to State law until the negotiations are over and a motion is made to actual acquire something.

3. The maps probably show proposed land acquisition or right's of way to be purchased for the project.

4. Fins, regarding pharmaceuticals, more water flow into the sewer plant would tend to dilute those chemicals, but the area's livestock is fed a huge dose of that stuff all year long and when the cows and goats crap near the river it gets into the river. UV radiation (sunlight) will cook a lot of things out of the manure but not complex pharma products. The discharge of pharmaceuticals is overblown in my opinion and the Town's of WJ and Jefferson WWTPs don't remove much of that either.

Boone could improve the quality of its discharge if it had more water moving through the system and the WWTP plant. A number of plants in the flatlands will pull water into their WWTP to save money on chemicals, but it all depends on the mix of chemicals. What Boone has done but cutting water usage is to make waste water treatment more problematic as chemicals in the sewage go up as a percentage of the effluent into the plant. I know of an expensive case where three plants were doing expensive sewer pretreatment but once their internally treated effluent mixed in a huge lift station it created so much hydrogen sulfide that the station's concrete top and all three million gallon per day pumps fell into the bottom. The cure was to stop pretreatment at two of the three plants and add City water to the effluent about 5K feet below the 2nd plant.

5. At the end of the day, Boone never really had a water crisis, it was manufactured for political reasons and moving the intake allows Boone to suppress development outside Boone to Boone's north and east as you have pointed out. Such a reveal in a document might cost the town some money if a certain someone had a reason to sue the town for not really following it's own rules. Hmm, who would that be?

I didn't figure you could comprehend it