Eau Gallie - FWC Busts 15

[TJ D]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Having some background in water treatment plants...

Intermittent with hundreds of thousands of gallons can cause huge environmental impacts and heath concerns for those who contact the water in a wide area.

Continuous with negligible quantity will never have an environmental impact and is unlikely to have a health concern.

Also, these plants are designed to overflow during storm events so hardly can call it an accident.

Pursuing boaters is a feel good policy that costs far less than correcting the real issues. It's also sometimes used to chase off undesirable boaters.

Thanks for the common-sense perspective, and pointing out that these systems do overflow on purpose.

[erika sailor]

In Europe the few pump out facilities there are are purely symbolic, almost nobody uses them. I believe that holding tanks in boats are the exception rather than the rule, (that may not be the case for new boats). My point is that although almost everyone discharges over board there are no noticeable health issues. Insisting on pump out is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by Delancey

"FWC caught the captains on the nights of May 9 and May 10, by putting dye tabs in the boat toilets, flushing them, then watching the dye flow out the bottom of the boat."

FWC sting nets 15 citations for boaters' raw sewage

I'm just curious how this type of thing goes down. FWC shows up and boards boats that are occupied? Unoccupied? Two nights in a row and word doesn't get around? You would think as soon as the FWC shows up that offenders would be scurrying about.

I'm guessing that putting dye in the bowl and pumping is the easiest way to check if someone has removed a through hull valve handle with the valve in the open position with the intention they would lie and say it was closed?

Even three miles offshore I never leave the valve open, only open it when in use. Removing the handle never seemed like a good idea to me. Electrical wire ties locking the handle off seem like a better way to be in complicance.

I wasn't on my boat the night it happened but the word I got is that 4 car loads of FWC officers showed up at the Marina and boarded occupied boats. They apparently did one marina each evening. I know people at both marinas and the story was at the marina with only a manual pump out only one person was ticketed for an unsecured y valve at least according to a couple of the live aboards there. They said one additional person got a warning and the person that got the ticket had strenuously objected to the check and had some unkind words with the officers. There was a large retirement party on Saturday for one of the live aboards and they said no one was cited for actually having an open Y valve. I haven't asked anyone at this marina about anyone being busted.

[captain mitch]

Some sadistic lawmakers have decided that we boaters need to carry our poo about with us until our boats stink sufficiently to make us move off thereby eliminating the problem of seeing us enjoying our lives and freedom.
When you consider the numbers of animal life that lives in and around the water and do poo right there in the water our human contribution (boaters) is soooo minor as to be completely insignificant.
KEEP IN MIND -- THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTION ID DILUTION !!

[Dave22q]

If you cannot afford or are too cheap to pay for pump outs, move to some area where your neighbors share your attitudes. It sure will not be near me.

[bvander]

It's better in Bahamas.

[Dulcesuenos]

Originally Posted by bvander

It's better in Bahamas.

Not just there but about 90% of the rest of the world does not have the regulations in place that the US government does (even though they need not abode by their own laws). And if you do that think the US has cities that pump waste out I to the ocean, I've got some swamp land for yah [emoji12]

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Dulcesuenos

Not just there but about 90% of the rest of the world does not have the regulations in place that the US government does (even though they need not abode by their own laws). And if you do that think the US has cities that pump waste out I to the ocean, I've got some swamp land for yah [emoji12]

Ain't that the truth...

"About 280 million gallons of raw sewage flow into New Bedford’s Acushnet River annually, and that’s just one river from one town feeding Buzzards Bay. That’s because New Bedford has antiquated sewage treatment facilities, and it is not alone. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates an annual national discharge of 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage through leaks, broken pipes and other mishaps"

http://blog.soundingsonline.com/loos...ot-the-answer/

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Dave22q

If you cannot afford or are too cheap to pay for pump outs, move to some area where your neighbors share your attitudes. It sure will not be near me.

I notice you live in Florida.

"Meanwhile, in October a quarter-million gallons of sewage flowed into Miami waters after a sewer pipe burst. In the past three years, Broward County’s decrepit sewer lines have ruptured more than 65 times, spilling close to 50 million gallons of raw sewage into its waterways. It’s difficult to get a figure for the entire state of Florida — one of those inconvenient truths — but I wouldn’t be surprised if a billion gallons of crap water flowed into the ICW every year from treatment plants overloaded by rain, including those that dump into the NDZ of the Florida Keys."

[Hudson Force]

Outside of the legal aspects, political views and the sensitivity to the topics of sewage that might be described as the "EW" factor, there are only two objective factors that are concerns related to the presence of human wastes added to the environment.

One is the increased nutrients added to the water that, with concentrations, can result in algae blooms, oxygen depletion and fish kills... a putrid condition.

The second is the transmission of pathogens which depends somewhat less
upon the concentration of wastes, but also upon the presence of these pathogens among the population producing the wastes.

[waterman480]

Good. Nothing worse than having someone drop anchor near you and shortly thereafter seeing macerated TP (if you are lucky and t**ds if not) float by.

Makes me want to skip that swim after sailing all day.

[rpjn59]

FYI, Electosans are not legal any where in florida, the units may solve the bacteria issue but do not kill of the nitrates in waste, so Im told. Its all NDZ now for black water and I suspect gray water is next on the hit list. I live in florida, up the road from said article and usually what creates this event is that a local water front land owner sees some toilet paper in the river and calls FWC and they make their rounds. What I find interesting is that its these same land owners that are directly responsible for destroying the waterways with their lawn fertilizers want the government to pay for the clean up.

[tatomaceda]

Okay, so long as we are discussing poop...
Back in the late 70's, we were in a 104 ft dive boat looking for sites off the island of Mindoro in the Philippines. My buddy and I had to execute a missed decompression procedure (another story) and was hanging off the stern. We were moving from 20 to 10 ft when the captain decides to release the holding tank. What a site to behold...
Anyone who tells me that the visibility was shitty does not really know what that means.
If anyone is curious, we dove deeper to avoid the mess then resumed decompression back at 10 ft.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by rpjn59

FYI, Electosans are not legal any where in florida, the units may solve the bacteria issue but do not kill of the nitrates in waste, so Im told. Its all NDZ now for black water and I suspect gray water is next on the hit list. I live in florida, up the road from said article and usually what creates this event is that a local water front land owner sees some toilet paper in the river and calls FWC and they make their rounds. What I find interesting is that its these same land owners that are directly responsible for destroying the waterways with their lawn fertilizers want the government to pay for the clean up.

Where did you get that information? The state may not unilaterally declare a no discharge zone and must apply to the EPA to request one. The EPA web site lists a couple of NDZ's in Florida but certainly not the whole state. Florida statutes require a type 3 MSD only on public vessels and houseboats.

I also got some information today on why so many of the vessels in the Eau Galle river were discharging overboard. Apparently all of the local pumpouts are broken. including the one at the marina with pumpouts at the slips. The nearest operational ones are apparently 20 miles north or south or nearly a 6 hour round trip in a 6 knot boat.

[FSMike]

Does the FWC have the authority to board a vessel solely for the purpose of a sanitation device check?
Without a USCG member present?