Gogarty wrote:
Most of the time I am a tree hugger, or close to it. But on this issue I am a
libertarian. I mean, I watch six boats in a huge lagoon, wetlands stretchin
beyond for miles, filled with fish and sea birds and shellfish -- guys over
there on the beach with their rakes -- and an eight-foot tide twice a day, and
those boats are going to cause a problem?

Probably not.
Absent the 8 foot tide... which occurs relatively few places and for
damn sure not on the Chesapeake or LIS... and then what?



At this place up to about five years ago you could get bushels of oysters by
just picking them off the beach at low tide. They have disappeared at about the
same time lobsters disappeared from Long Island Sound.

???

Now you're going into pure fantasy. Oyster (and other commercial
fishing) on LIS took a steep downturn about 1900, and has never come
back up.

If you like analogies, here's one for you... The only water supply you
have is a pond. It has a certain amount of things already living in it.
It also has a group of people dumping their toilet into it. How large do
you want that pond to be? How much of it's shoreline should be wetlands
or marsh?

You could hypothesize an 8 foot tide if you like, but that will just
move the crap around within the pond.

OK, you've got the ecological balance to your liking, and you're happy
with your drinking water. Now have somebody come and dump their toilet
right over your water intake. Does that change things?

Regards
Doug King


And this over a time
when park people made boaters ever more unwelcome. Many fewer boats these days
than ten years ago. But clams are still plentiful. Something done 'em in. But
somehow, I don't think it was sewage discharge from recreational boats. (It's
those 22-footers with a girl sticking her bottom out over the stern you have to
look out for anyway. Pretty picture.)

"DSK" wrote
If you like analogies, here's one for you... The only water supply you
have is a pond. It has a certain amount of things already living in it.
It also has a group of people dumping their toilet into it. How large do
you want that pond to be? How much of it's shoreline should be wetlands
or marsh?

You could hypothesize an 8 foot tide if you like, but that will just
move the crap around within the pond.

OK, you've got the ecological balance to your liking, and you're happy
with your drinking water. Now have somebody come and dump their toilet
right over your water intake. Does that change things?

Unfortunately, that describes most the world. The Potomac starts above
Cumberland, Md and every town along the way dumps its sewage into it. Ditto
all the other rivers feeding the bay. By the time it reaches tidal Va the
once-sandy bottom is mud - except it isn't mud it's fecal material. The
Rappahannoc is better cuz Fredricksburg bought up the shore above town back
in the 1800s to preserve their drinking water so it don't become a sewer til
downstream.

We pass expensive laws that cut pollution but then in a few years the
population gets bigger and we're right back where we started.

The "enviro" that gets me is the one that wants to save the environment for
his four kids. I don't mind dumping near his intake - I gotta dump
somewhere - but I do use a lectrosan.

Someone one in this thread or another similar said that you might as well
empty you holdingtank at sea.
If you pump out in a marina it gets dumped in the sea anyway. Is that
really the case in the U.S.?
Does not it not get treated first to remove both bacteria and nutrients?

/Lars J

Lars Johansson wrote:
Someone one in this thread or another similar said that you might as well
empty you holdingtank at sea.

Only well away from shore...in the US, that means only in open ocean at
least 3 miles from the nearest point on the whole US coastline.

If you pump out in a marina it gets dumped in the sea anyway. Is that
really the case in the U.S.?
Does not it not get treated first to remove both bacteria and nutrients?

Yes...it goes to a sewage treatment plant. All sewage treatment plants
everywhere empty into some body of water--lake, river, ocean. However,
unfortunately in many cases heavy rains do result in overflow spills of
untreated sewage into the waters.

--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/store/custo...0&cat=6&page=1

Peggie Hall wrote:

Only well away from shore...in the US, that means only in open ocean
at
least 3 miles from the nearest point on the whole US coastline.

Peggie: why not explain about the sections of US coastline w/nine mile
limit?

thanks, CKW

BTW:

http://www.cs-bb.com/forums/CSBB/index.cgi/read/11888

captkeywest wrote:
Peggie Hall wrote:


Only well away from shore...in the US, that means only in open ocean

at

least 3 miles from the nearest point on the whole US coastline.


Peggie: why not explain about the sections of US coastline w/nine mile
limit?

Only one place in the whole country: the Gulf coast side of FL south of
Tampa Bay...and the legal distances there actually vary from 6 to 9 to
12 miles. Which makes a Lectra/San even more attractive in those waters
'cuz it can be used inside any limit (except in the Keys and Destin
Harbor, which are the only two "no discharge" zones in FL on either
side--in fact, the only ones in the whole Gulf).

Have you started your pumpout boat service yet?
--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/store/custo...0&cat=6&page=1

Peggie Hall wrote:


Have you started your pumpout boat service yet?

LOL, -- thought I was being nice !

Didn't mean to prompt you into tossing out your integrity with that
type of response,

How does it feel to lower yourself to Jax's caliber of fabricated
innuendo?

This discussion has set me thinking about what is the final products
of the LectraSan. If it does electrolysis of sodium chloride, there is
bound to be production of sodium hypochlorite which creates
environmental problems of it own (when used for bleacing paper, for
example). When sodium hypchlorite reacts with organic matter, some toxic
organochlorines are formed. Does anyone know if this potential problem
has been investigated?

--
C++: The power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade.

Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen wrote:
This discussion has set me thinking about what is the final products
of the LectraSan. If it does electrolysis of sodium chloride...

It does not. The Lectra/San creates hypochlorous acid by charging the
ions in salt water with electrical current. It's a very unstable
solution...it's hypochlorous acid as long as current is being
applied...but when the stimulus (electrical current) is removed it
reverts to salt water, leaving no free chlorines in the discharge.

Does anyone know if this potential problem
has been investigated?

Extensively...your concerns are unfounded.

--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/store/custo...0&cat=6&page=1

Strange. By their own words, they definitely do elctrolysis of sodium
chloride (snipped from raritan web site):


The process starts with salt water in the treatment tank. NaCl --
Na+ + Cl- Sodium Chloride is a strong electrolyte so it exists in
water as sodium and chloride ions.

H2O -- H+ + OH- Through hydrolysis, water breaks into hydrogen ions
and hydroxyl ions.

The electrode pack is energized during the treatment cycle and
electricity passes through the conductive salt water. Hypochlorous
acid, a powerful bactericide and oxidizing agent, is produced on the
surface of the plates.

At the Anode: 2Cl- + OH- + H+ -- HCl + HOCl + 2e- Hydrochloric acid
and hypochlorous acid are produced, liberating two electrons.

At the Cathode: 2e- + 2 H+ + 2Na+ + 2OH- -- 2 NaOH + H2 The two
electrons, hydrogen ions, sodium ions and hydroxyl ions combine to
produce sodium hydroxide and some hydrogen.

The Net Reaction is: 2Cl- + 3OH- + 3H+ + 2Na+ -- HCl + HOCl + 2NaOH +
H2 With constant mixing from both motors, the products are mixed
together for continued reactions.

NaOCl + H2O -- NaOH + HOCl Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is formed when
sodium hypochlorite reacts with water.

HOCl + XXXX -- HCl + XXXXOx Hypochlorous acid reacts with soil, dirt,
and bacteria giving up its oxygen; leaving hydrochloric acid.

HCl + NaOH -- H2O + NaCl The hydrochloric acid reacts with the sodium
hydroxide to form salt and water.

The usual explanation of reactions in a sodium chloride cell is this,
and I wonder how they make the reactions above happen instead of the
ones below.

Sodium hypochlorite/chlorate manufacturing process:

Electrochemical and chemical reactions occurring in cells
[1] 2Cl- == Cl2 + 2e- (anodic reaction)
[7] 2H2O + 2e- == 2OH- + H2 (cathodic reaction)
[8] Cl2 + 2OH- == OCl- + Cl- + H2O (hypochlorite formation)
[9] 3OCl- == ClO3- + 2Cl- (chlorate formation)
[12] NaCl + H2O == NaOCl + H2 (overall hypochlorite reaction)
[13] NaCl + 3H2O == NaClO3 + 3H2 (overall chlorate reaction)
[14] 3Cl2 + 6NaOH == NaClO3 + 5NaCl + 3H2O (chemical chlorate
formation)

--
C++: The power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade.