Saturday, April 11, 2009

SHIT IN THE STREETS

I was listening to Big John go through his litany of events he has forecast for the coming year and it was pretty grim. Nothing I could not handle emotionally. It was not going to freak me out. The freak-out came later as I was watching Les Miserables off of a video. It was very well done and I enjoyed Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush very much. But the background scenery was pretty gross. Unless a paved street could be afforded and maintained the streets were basically slop. I, of course, projected into the future and saw the streets of America after a sociological breakdown. And what a sickening mess I saw. Foul, disease-ridden swamp, created in our cities. You can turn off the electricity. You can turn off the gas. But you cannot shut down the bladders and buttholes of America. They are going to continue to produce at the rate of 24 X 7. Nuclear bombs, a freakish EMP, a vicious pandemic, a horrible revolution, all these things can occur and they will not stop the sewage. You might shut down a section of a sewer line but it will come out somewhere down the line, never fear. Can you imagine the filth and disease that will accumulate in a very short period of time? 99% of all Americans have no idea as to what to do about sewage. I could handle maybe 500 people with what I know to do but for a city of 100,000 souls? Forget it. I'm a septic tank and outhouse kind of guy with maybe a little gray water running out to a cornfield. Forget all those flush and forget types we now have in the cities. You may as well forget them because they will be dying of Dysentery and Typhus and various plagues and what not, very quickly. Hepatitis won't be a strange exotic malady any more but rather it will be your first cousin. Ever go down to Costa Rica to Port Limon and explore south of Limon on the black sand beaches that make up the coastline down there. For those of you who do not know it, the black sand is a sign of Platinum. Germany came into Costa Rica and hauled a boat load of black sand off during WWII. If you go exploring down thataway you might get to know the natives and talk with them a bit. And you might notice the peculiar yellow color in their eyes. They are walking case of Hepatitis. The water table is very shallow down there and so is the depth of their outhouse holes. They have learned to live with Hepatitis. It has taken many generations to develop that ability. I have no idea what keeps them alive, but alive they are. The point I make is the reward that awaits us if we don't handle our sewage properly.

Our sewage treatment plants are very nice things as long as the technology and the infrastructure are in place and functioning properly. But you let that infrastructure break down or the technology get wiped out and this country and it's people are in a world of trouble. If something breaks down it is entirely possible that we will have no way of getting a replacement part for it. And I have merely been pointing out a weakness in our sewage system. I'm not even going to mention the electrical problems we have facing us. I got a map put this morning and looked at the cities in America that are on a coastal plain. It is astounding. Start around New York and New Jersey and go South and West, all the way to the Tex-Mex border. It is a bit unsettling to come up on Houston from the East side and see a big ocean liner parked right down town. Sorta like a ship out in the desert. But I am not here to brag about Houston's ability to carve themselves a ditch linking their city with the Bay of Galveston. I am here to talk about disease and handling sewage. Until the law of gravity is repealed, water will flow down hill. And if there ain't no hill then it don't flow. How's that for simplicity? So I see every ditch, every drainage, turning into a breeding ground for disease. And what are you and I going to do about it? The answer is "Not a damn thing!" If you live in Denver at 5000 feet elevation, then you should be able to get the sewage to run downhill sooner or later. Miami will take a little extra work Am I getting it through to you that you need to get your place up on some hills? You need to get someplace where you can get your sewage to get away from you and go somewhere else.

We save up our food and bullets and band-aids but we don't say much about getting rid of our sewage. We need to have plans for building outhouses. We nee to remember to purify our water in the future. I can take you to graves where the dead people had their well below their outhouse. You better get hip to this kind of stuff or you are wasting your time prepping.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net

6 comments:

Sanjac said...

What a shitty post. Sorry, I hate people who go for the easiest joke but I couldn't help myself. The whole subject makes me rethink my current options, especially where fresh water is concerned. I don't relish the thought of going down to the local creek and getting a brown sewer trout in my bucket of drinking water. One more reason to stock up on beer. I gotta laugh out of "Bladders and buttholes of America". Sounds like a description of our current crop of politicos in DC. Thank you for making me remember one of the often forgotten basic needs of our existence. It may not be as glamorous as guns but oh so necessary.

HermitJim said...

Made some very good points indeed. Luckily, I am planning on using composting toilets when I move...and the placement of the well is indeed important!

Good post!

Mayberry said...

Very good points Michael. And unfortunately for all of us coastal dwellers, all sewers eventually lead to the sea. When all the technology breaks down, rivers are gonna become nothing more than large sewer pipes, and coastal areas will become uninhabital real quick. Worse than that, the ocean it's self will die from the overloading of nutrients that will feed toxic algea blooms, which will kill fish by the billions as the water's dissolved oxygen level falls to zero, due to decaying shit, algea, and fish. The deep ocean, far offshore might be ok, but coastal areas are toast.....

Michael French said...

This is a good example of why I read your blog every day. I truthfully had not thought about this issue at all. I will be now!

I hope you and yours have an enjoyable day and the company of family and good friends.

Michael

vlad said...

Before you need it, learn to build a rain catchment system.
http://tinyurl.com/dyzuw7

Watchful said...

Glad that I have a lagoon and greywater system at my place.