My point in the original post was that the government allows large
sewage discharges into our waterways with apparently little or no long
term impact in many areas. The posts here and in previous threads
verify that it is not just an isolated example. Most boats stay on
trailers or at the peer most of the time. I do not believe there are
that many pleasure boats cruising around the east coast, yet they seem
to have zeroed in on pleasure craft as a major contributor. Writing to
my congress men didn't seem to have any impact. How did this happen to
us and how can we get out of it?

Ron


heres the irony: we are supposed to dump our holding tanks into marina
holding tanks ,which in turn dump their holding tanks into the municipal sewage
treatment facility, which in turn dumps it back in the creek

Vito,

I think that we hear sewage is the problem so we believe it. I don't
disagree that specific areas like the Florida Keys have a problem but I
don't believe the general no discharge rule for boats is based in
science.

I dive with several of the Virginia environmental agents. These guys
are well educated and very experienced. They say that the big problem
is the polluted runoff from our roadways and parking lots (gas, oil,
transmission and brake fluid, etc.). Second is the nutrient runoff from
thousands of miles of river front farms and the lawns of homes from
fertilizer. All of this goes into our waterways either directly or thru
storm drains. There opinions come from long term real studies not just
hearsay. They don't say it point blank, but they insinuate that sewage
is very manageable by comparison. I would expect that it is probably
the same in the rest of the country.

This leaves me to conclude that the regulators either never get the true
scientific picture or are ignoring it, most probably for political
reasons.

I for one am tired of having to look hard to find pump out stations.
Remember how they told us there was going to be a one at almost every
marina. About the only time I go offshore is to dive, not frequent
enough to keep my holding tank empty. Boaters believed these hollow
promises and allowed this to happen. I don't know of any boating
organization who lobbies long and hard against this which is a shame
because collectively we are a large voting block.

So Back to the question. What can we do about this?

"Vito" wrote in message
...
RaBi wrote:

You should have a look at the facts. The birthrate is just OK and US
growth
rate is just 0.9%

That don't compute. The LA basin was largely empty 50 years ago. All
those seperate towns were really seperate.

A) The LA basin isn't representative of the country as a whole, and

B) Nobody said there was no population growth going on 50 years ago -- 50
years ago the country was in the middle of the post WWII baby boom.

Mark

"Ron Thornton" wrote in message news:21565-3F3A57AE-

I dive with several of the Virginia environmental agents. These guys
are well educated and very experienced. They say that the big problem
is the polluted runoff from our roadways and parking lots (gas, oil,
transmission and brake fluid, etc.). Second is the nutrient runoff from
thousands of miles of river front farms and the lawns of homes from
fertilizer. All of this goes into our waterways either directly or thru
storm drains. There opinions come from long term real studies not just
hearsay. They don't say it point blank, but they insinuate that sewage
is very manageable by comparison.

That's true--chemical and fertilizer runoff is a bigger problem. Sewage is
more a problem for human health (in using beaches and eating shellfish) than
a problem that damages the environment (except that combined sewer overflows
also contain a lot lawn and parking lot runoff). But the fact that these
are bigger (and different) problems doesn't mean that we shouldn't do
anything about sewage.

Mark

Mark Weaver wrote:

Sigh--it has nothing really to do with more people. It has to do with
outdated sewer systems ....

There is a need to upgrade sewer systems but that is treating just one
symptom of the primary problem which is "too many people". We can put a
band aid on acid rain with scrubbers to, etc etc. but none of these
"solutions" address the real source of the trouble. Those old sewers
were adequate just 50 years ago. They leaked raw sewage then too, but
the amounts were small enough for the streams and lakes to recover.
That's no longer true because we have so many people making too much
sewage for both the "antiquated" plants and for the rivers they dump
into.

As a teen we used to dive in a beautiful kelp forest. It's an underwater
desert now, thanks to LA sewage. We used to chase jackrabbite across the
Mojave too. Damage was inconsequental because there were so few of us.
Now it'd be criminal to do the same - not for 2 or 3 bikes but for 20 or
30,000! There's just as much desert but now there's too many people to
permit riding in it. There's just as much air and water too but .... )c:

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 06:34:35 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

What the heck is a "moon eye"?

A flat little silver fish with big eyes that die by the billions after
breeding and wash up on Lake Ontario beaches by the millions, making
"going to the beach" sort of like "going to the dumpster at the boat
ramp after the fishermen have been there". PU!

Not sure what their real name is....


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

On 13 Aug 2003 14:03:28 GMT, (Wwj2110) wrote:



heres the irony: we are supposed to dump our holding tanks into marina
holding tanks ,which in turn dump their holding tanks into the municipal sewage
treatment facility, which in turn dumps it back in the creek

.......after they store it until it's indigestible to marine life and
make sewage out of it.


Larry

Extremely intelligent life must exist in the universe.
You can tell because they never tried to contact us.

Mark,

I'm not suggesting we do nothing about sewage, just get the focus off us
and onto the real problems. I believe boaters are regulated on this
issue because we are an easy target and not because we have a big
impact on the environment.

Ron

Still in the Lazyboy.

"Vito" wrote in message
...
Mark Weaver wrote:

A) The LA basin isn't representative of the country as a whole, and

Agreed, but Fredricksburg, Va is now as crowded as Alexandria was just
20 years ago and the farms between Rockville and Fredrick Md have been
buried under houses and apartments, and ....

Maybe that is not caused by growth in terms of people but in terms of
comfort level? I guess many people now live in larger houses and nobody
wants to live in small flats anymore? Malls get bigger and bigger, airports
continue to grow, ...

If you don't want kids who the heck should pay your pension? If a country's
people start aging you will run into problems as only few young people work
and many older people need help / medical care.

Mark Weaver wrote:

A) The LA basin isn't representative of the country as a whole, and

Agreed, but Fredricksburg, Va is now as crowded as Alexandria was just
20 years ago and the farms between Rockville and Fredrick Md have been
buried under houses and apartments, and ....

B) Nobody said there was no population growth going on 50 years ago -- 50
years ago the country was in the middle of the post WWII baby boom.

Thank you. I hear there's another boom starting.