[Leica] Human waste

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

John writes:"This goes back a few years, but I used to live on West 110th
Street in NYC and we'd take walks down Riverside Park, which ran along the
Hudson River.? At approximately 96th Street and 72nd Street there were
huge-diameter discharge pipes from which untreated, unscreened waste flowed
into the river.? It was obvious from the human and other products in the
outflow that this was straight from the buildings nearby.? I understand that
this has since changed, but the pictures in the blog (which are very
striking) don't IMO point so much at China as at industrial society.? (No, I
am not a card-carrying Green Party member...)"
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It does go back quite a few years, at least 20. Since the time of your
observations NYC has closed the Great Kills landfill and spent mega millions
on sewage treatment plants. The NY State Clean Waters act has prohibited
sewage release into the Hudson (and incidentally has caused many companies
to leave NYS for less restricted areas along the Mississippi River). The
Westchester landfill at Croton Point has been closed and capped with earth
to form a lovely green burial mound in the middle of one of the nicest
county parks in the area. I can only wonder at the amazement of
archeologists 1000 years from now digging into what they think to be a trove
of Indian artifacts to discover rusting Buicks, moulding copies of
the Sunday Times, and Leica M3s discarded in favor of digital P&S cameras.
Now sewage is burned at a large plant run by Standard Resco in Buchanan
(next to the Indian Point atomic energy facility). The heat turns turbines,
generates electricity, frustrates Arab oil sheiks, and is sold to Con Edison
at a nice profit. Trust to capitalism to solve the garbage problem.
Larry Z