What ARE you REALLY drinking? Yellow River Sweat Equity. Urban Development Zones. Five Acre Urban Lot Realty
The 9 March Post TREATING SEWERAGE RIGHT generated several very useful comments. Separating the wheat from the chaff:
What ARE you REALLY drinking? and what ARE you REALLY flushing into the ground water, the streams and the Bay?
Most of those who comment on this Blog are 12.5 Percenters. It is pretty clear from the comments that they made that those who drink well water have no idea WHAT they are drinking. Some know there are not dangerous levels of the most common pathogens like e coli – at least when they last sent a sample to VA Tech. But beyond that?
To find out what is really in that water will cost a lot more money than they are currently paying to tap into the Natural Capital that happens that flows under their property.
In contrast, those who live inside the Clear Edge of Greater Warrenton get a six page analysis every year of everything known to exist in the water after multiple state-of-the-art testings. The report also notes what the best science says about the impact of the trace contents.
That report is a good reason to evolve Agency structures and jurisdictions so that there is a Water and Sewer Agency for every Alpha Community. Those who get water from Fairfax County Water Authority have to rely on “professionals.” One of those “professionals” testified at a hearing on Occoquan water quality some years ago that he did not care what was in the run off into the water supply. The Authority would put chemicals in the treated water to “kill everything.”
The water tastes like it. Who knows the impact of these Agency added chemicals? Who has a say about what they are? The only beneficiaries are the Agency bureaucrats (they extended their pipes) and the bottlers of “spring” water. What ever “spring water” is. The residents of Menlough Cluster bought the DPW staff a buffet lunch in January to thank them for all the work they do on behalf of the citizens. That never happened in Fairfax County.
What is even more important than what comes out of 12.5 Percenters pumps is to make sure that all up-flow neighbors (the ones Groveton calls “certified wing nuts”) do not put REALLY bad stuff in the water (surface or ground) that impacts all their down-flow neighbors. The cost of effective systems for licences, inspections and testing is not being paid by anyone.
There is no assurance that those who live INSIDE the Clear Edge are protected from ALL potential harm but we are a whole lot safer than those who have no idea what they are drinking or what impact they have on those who drink what comes out of their clogged cesspool and saturated drain field. There are no bacteria to eliminate most pollutants and there are few on site systems that perform to spec without regular inspections.
Sure, the persistent chemicals may be measured in parts per million, or perhaps parts per billion (like the concentrations one tastes coming from a black hose or of BPAs) but do they accumulate in the human body? If they do, it may not impact adults until they are too old to care but what about young folks thinking about raising child? Have you carefully read the warnings on prescription drugs? There are a number of common drugs widely used by men that are known to induce birth defects at very low concentrations if ingested by women. And NMM thinks it is smart to have a big yard so one can raise kids, right?
What is the next microbe to jump to humans from cows, chickens, horses, crows or monkeys? Who would have predicted the spread of avian conjunctivitis when it jumped from chickens to the Eastern race of House Finches? You may have noticed an American Goldfinch that is blind in one eye last week. Next week it will be blind in both eyes. How about white nose among bats?
In the Santa Inez Valley, the Watkins man used to lick DDT from the end of his pencil to prove to his farmer-clients that it was safe to put on tomatoes. Humans live in an ever changing environment an it is not getting safer. Public systems with Community scale control and Community Laboratories at every Community College with in a Regional system subject to national oversight is the best bet at this time.
Those who say humans can never REALLY clean up the ground and surface water are afraid that they will have to pay their fair share of the cost of the clean-up. The same folks believe that creation of dysfunctional human settlement patterns INSIDE the Clear Edge over the past 80 years has created a property right (property value) OUTSIDE the Clear Edge to which they have an inalienable right protected by the Constitution.
Yellow River “Sweat” Equity
Larry Gross makes a very good point about coming to grips with the human waste issue: Buy an RV. This is the point EMR made in the original post. With extensive ‘participation’ the cost of treating sewerage – and other waste – can be lowered. However, not many relish carrying buckets of night soil. Most are queezy about taking stool samples to protect from colon cancer.
UDAs (Urban Development Areas)
Larry Gross asked about UDAs:
This is a simple question to address:
Until there is a state-wide Wright Plan then all the UDAs in the world will just be moving the deck chairs.
What will a Wright Plan do? It will identify the future need for Urban land and quantify that need. It will then analyze the amount of vacant and underutilized land and allocate – on a Regional basis – the amount of land NEEDED for future Urban needs. It will then authorize a Regional process to locate the areas for ‘growth.’ It would be prudent to designate twice the NEED on a rolling 20 year basis. Most of the NEED can be most efficiently met through REDEVELOPMENT and that will SHRINK the area within the logical location of the Clear Edge.
When this is done, there would be a basis for designating UDAs. Until then they are just a political fan dancing as Larry likes to call it.
Five Acre Lot Realty
Most important of all is a comment by Larry Gross on 9 March at 4:22 PM:
“also.. you’re gonna to have to reconcile the fact that most 5 acre lots do not have significant runoff problems – MUCH LESS have that runoff go into their sewage treatment facility – the septic tank/field.”
Nice try Larry but this statement is reflects belief in a Myth that supports dysfunctional human settlement patterns.
Consider the 83,000 acres in the Occquan drainage that was “down zoned” by Fairfax County to support the Five Acre Lifestyle:
Check out the pollution levels and flow levels at the monitoring stations before and after the massive explosion of five acre “estates” and “horse farms.”
Check out the before and after air photos of the cleared land for redundant septic fields and the two acre horse pastures where horses stand up to their fetlocks in mud.
Check out the pesticides, fertilizer and other components of Mown Grass Pollution.
Check out the flooded roads after every storm event and the eroded stream banks due to far higher rates of run off.
On the other hand if half the 83,000 acres were in permanent Open Land and the other half developed for Balanced Communities (J / H / S / R / A) – with 40 percent Open Space WITHIN the Communities – there would be capacity for a minimum of 415,000 citizens ALL within R – 20. That means not just Jobs in the Community but they are in the Core and closer to jobs in the Zentrum and with patterns that will support shared-vehicle systems.
415,000 plus is more than the total that have moved to Loudoun and Prince William since the 80s and they are scattered in the
R = 20 to R = 30 Radius Band.
Bottom line: There would be better water quality, better air quality, less driving, the land owners would have made far more money and the citizens would be living in the patterns that the market demonstrates have the highest value.
It would all have happened if there was a fair allocation of the location variable costs. More on that in response to Groveton.
EMR