Tossing Mullet

No Sewer?

There is a raging debate in south Mobile County over the rebuilding of the Bayou La Batre sewer plant ravaged by time, mismanagement, and finally Hurricane Katrina. Treatment of waste by disposing of it in surface waters is a time-tested and much appreciated practice ever since the first cavepersons realized that peeing in the river seemed more acceptable than a warm glow on their feet. SCUBA divers in wet suits have actually discovered the value of coffee before a cold water dive (eeewwww!), but that is another story.

And the “technology” works fairly well as long as there aren’t a whole lot of cavepersons doing it. Even then it didn’t matter a lot as long as the river carried it away from their “pee site.” A very old waste treatment text book reported that “10 miles of river could treat anything” and that was not a terribly inaccurate statement in the 19th Century in rural America. This is one of those ecological or ecosystem services that nature provides at a very low cost – nothing! Unfortunately, there are now some downstream cavepersons inside the required 10 miles, who object to the practice and the issue has become more convoluted.

It is also true that our euphemistically termed “domestic waste” has been supplemented by “industrial waste” associated with manufacturing and economic growth, both eagerly anticipated by the Mobile Bay community, even as we speak. The natural system mentioned above can only deal with so much stuff, and we seem to be making a lot of things now that the system has never seen before – and it takes a while for it to find an antidote.

The combination of newly minted “bad stuff” and an inordinate amount of that plus the relatively innocuous domestic waste can, and has at times, overwhelmed our natural treatment systems – generally resulting in what we simplistically refer to as water pollution.

The engineering “can do” mentality that drives current American growth and development has no problem with this challenge and we have enthusiastically sprouted a whole new industry – waste management! Eureka – I heard someone say – another way to make more money!

Robert Solow, an economist, in an article in Science magazine 30 years ago, pondered on the potential for the creation of just such an industry and the fact that it would thus become a reason to make waste. The second law of thermodynamics dictates the inevitability of waste so why not profit from it?

I guess it’s OK for those making the money and as long as it doesn’t interfere with someone else’s backyard. Unfortunately everybody can’t be in the waste management industry or there wouldn’t be anyone making the essential product – waste. I’m sorry that’s not making sense, but neither does deliberately fostering a waste industry. And the greater problem facing the coastal communities is actually that they don’t live on a river at all! The Gulf of Mexico has an annoying characteristic of heading our way every cotton-picking day and there is damn little that we can do about it. King Canute demonstrated the futility of stopping the tide centuries ago.

And therein lies the challenge, the water doesn’t run through or past Bayou La Batre like the river does in Montgomery. It goes one direction and then the other – sometimes not going much of anywhere, depending on the tide cycle. There is certainly a lot of water and the concept of dilution being the solution to pollution is absolutely valid whether the environmental community likes it or not. But the capacity of the system to provide the aforementioned free treatment is not infinite and we clearly have the ability to overwhelm it and produce some apparently valuable waste.

So the engineering mentality bravely takes the challenge and the proposed “new” system was described and defended recently in an article attributed to Stan Wright (will everybody who believes that Mayor Wright wrote that piece raise their hand?). The facility seems to be well engineered and waste management for the region is undoubtedly a raging necessity – these issues are uncontested. Public health and economic growth are indeed dependent on waste management.

Nothing is more dependent on clean water than the harvesting of oysters that filter and retain almost everything, good and bad, that flows through their little tummies. The diluting, cleansing, or assimilative capacity of the east end of Mississippi Sound or Portersville Bay as it is known locally, has not been accurately assessed in many years, if ever. It certainly has not been looked at since the separation of Riley Boykin Smith Island from Dauphin Island after Hurricane Katrina.

The elevated salinity from more Gulf water coming into Portersville Bay has already been implicated in the plight of the oyster industry because of the improved habitat for the other major oyster predator (besides us), the oyster drill.

The new plant boasts improved treatment technology and a higher elevation above the flood plain on a former dredged material site provided to the Corps of Engineers. But it is still within any proposed horizontal reach of storm surge and the newer models given a more active tropical storm season are intimidating to say the least! The partially treated waste (and that’s what it is – I didn’t hear Mayor Wright offering to drink the effluent) is still going to be discharged into a water body of uncertain assimilative capacity. This does not impress me as being well conceived.

There are other ways to dispose of the liquid waste that better utilize available ecosystem services. You only have to visit the Baldwin County cities to find a better solution. The treated waste is appropriately disposed of on revenue-producing golf courses. Even Mobile is planning to divert some of its partially treated waste to green areas rather than discharge it into the river.

The alternatives to rebuilding the same system with improved technology have not been thoroughly examined and a lot of our money may be on the verge of being flushed!

George Crozier is Lagniappe columnist. Contact him at GCrozier@bellwether-group.com.

Archives