Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Folks whats your thoughts on this?

Montreal big sewage dump. I a few years ago before I got into the pond management thing I would have been dead set against this. Now I do think some waste can help.

Not sure if 8 billion liters with help. I do hope they are screening it at least. I have seen so much garbage in sewage its not funny.

Cheers Don.

8 Billion liters??? How can that be ok?? I guess they think it will just disperse in the river and on down the river?? I would not drink any water anymore of any type of faucet without a good filter on it!! There is just to much stuff going on that everyone says is ok until 5 years later they come back and say oh well we were wrong about that were so sorry our calculations were off and had no idea it would do what it did.... we have no idea why your dog has 3 eyes and your kids have cancer.... Ugghhh

I don't know man, sorry but it sounds suspect to me....

The phosphates are one thing but the heavy metals from cleaning supply's is what can't be good.

Yes 8 billion liters or about 2 billion gallons.

The drinking water question- Too many people are too trusting and do not have their tin-foil hat on tight enough.

I used to live in S. IL with a private Rural water district.
My landlord was on the Water District Board.
He told stories of them getting a heads up on the inspectors coming for a visit and then they would add the correct amount of chemicals.

As he said- 'Those things cost money, we can't waste them'.

Scary.

In this area I got in the habit of drinking only bottles/filtered water as all municipal water supplies were surface water, and in the 3 water districts that I lived in down there you could always well when the algae bloom hit during the summer as the water turned blue/green and smelled/tasted funny.

Fill a white tub up and it had this beautiful blue/green translucent color to it.

Surprisingly the water district that supposedly was skimping on water treatment chemicals had the least of these issues.

And the locals said that things were much better than in the old days of getting water from the Mississippi and other local rivers.
Supposedly water quality issues were a big reason that the lakes in the area were built.

Yeesh! I grew up on the shoreline of Lake Superior at the western end of the Great Lakes.

Most of the cities and towns used the rivers, and the Lake itself, to dump raw sewage and lots of other nasty stuff directly into the water.

There was about a 10 foot sewage culvert about a quarter mile behind our house. As kids we'd go to the culvert to pull out condoms. In the winter it was fun to go there because there would be a 20-30 foot ice free area that was filled with big carp and redhorse suckers that we got by spearing or with bows and arrows.

We couldn't swim anywhere near the area and we couldn't eat any of the plentiful northern pike, walleye, and jumbo perch.

And our area population wasn't even about 10% of Montreal's population.

Eventually they built sewage facilities and they banned dumping from the refineries, Pittsburgh Paint and Glass, US Steel, Diamond Match, etc.

It turned the area into a great recreation and tourist area. I believe similar changes were made from there all the way to the St. Lawrence Seaway. To step backward from there seems very sad and disasterous.

I am all for recycling but that is a little too extreme for me!

Naw! Nothing like that. As 10-12 year old kids it was more exciting to see who could catch the shortest and longest of the lot floating through.

It was what we would do if the fish weren't biting.

I know man, but I just could not resist the temptation to razz you a little on a stormy November night!

Worked with a woman that said the wash machine repair man approached her and said, "Mam I don't know how to tell you this but your kids are filling up condoms with water."

Apparently her kids found them and had no idea what they were. She said they were having a great time throwing what they thought were water balloons at each other.

Not on topic, but we aren't on topic anyway.
Here at the house, we are on a septic tank system with an aerator motor that runs non-stop.
We've been here for 31 years, so I've replaced a few of the motors.
After my college aged boys had been home for the summer, and then left.. The motor in the septic shut off. I figured it had just worn out. Well, you know where I'm going with this. When I pulled the motor it had a few condoms wrapped around the pipe that goes down into the liquid/solid. That's what had shut down the motor.
My problem was, if I should tell the wife. She was still convinced we had precious little boys.. (Luckily she won't read this..)

I think this would be one where silence would be golden.

Best advice - let sleeping condoms alone (like sleeping dogs ). No matter whether they are floating by in a pipe or in the tank from your kids.

I wonder if the folks in Montreal have considered using some temporary lagoons to at least contain some of the sewage while doing renovations. Or perhaps they could use tanker ships and impose mandatory water restrictions while the work is being done.

Concerning septic systems: Once, while I was having the septic tank pumped out, the technician/bus driver told me that the pumps in aerobic septic systems often become clogged with the little stickers that they put on the fruit in the supermarkets.

All I can say is little fruit stickers are less embarrassing than used rubbers. Please quickly clean up this post after the water is clear.

My next door neighbor works in Michigan City in the waste water facility. The stories he has about finding things.......

If it fits it ships.

I've done a few projects at waste water (sewage) facilities, and my recommendation is to stick with the task at hand and do not satisfy your curiosity by too much investigation. Some of this can be rough!

Pretty much guarantee, once the experience, you will really want to know where your water is coming from.

Dono -- I've noticed a lot of recent articles, from both sides of the border,about the Montreal issue. At least you should be well upstream from the dumping.

It is certainly something that most of us would prefer not to happen. But, probably the only city that would be somewhat affected would be Quebec City. I guess that after that it will hit the gulf stream, pass by Greenland, Iceland, the Ireland's, and make its way to Africa before making the return trip up the US east coast.

Just think, if the stuff hits about the right time for a tropical storm or hurricane next season, the Carribean and US east coast could be raining condoms!

Ken,

They use to have huge issues with the sewage plant in GR overflowing and dumping raw sewage into the Grand River, and this happened all the time.

The joke was if it it rains in GR, S... Happens!

They use to bring in heavy equipment just to scrape the beaches to get rid of all the nasty stuff flowing from the river that ended up on the beach shore.

I'm sure over the years, that sand has buried a lot of stuff from the past, but sure as hell, I don't want to step on a Syringe!