The subject, again today, is technology.
While I was growing up, my family never owned a 500 Series wall phone, preferring the standard desktop model. In black.
But when I got married, our first phone was a wall phone, in the kitchen. Also in black. I installed an extra long cord so you could talk while stirring something on the stove. The cord was forever getting tangled.
We could have purchased a colorful wall phone, for a few dollars more, but we preferred the standard black model.
Now I own an iPhone, and normally carry it with me wherever I go. You can’t really compare an iPhone to a 500 Series wall phone. Thanks to some amazing advancements in technology, they are two completely different animals. It’s a bit mindboggling, in fact, to consider the myriad ways that they are different.
But what I really wanted to talk about was outhouses.
And governments.
Also two very different animals.
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District board meeting on Monday, January 30, lasted over three hours, thanks in part to a eminently informative, but lengthy, discussion by Mark Maxwell, Senior Project Manager at Tetra Tech, concerning some expensive upgrades that PAWSD might be making to the Vista Wastewater Treatment Plant on Lyn Avenue.
According to Mr. Maxwell’s presentation, some revised limits on the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus allowed in municipal wastewater effluent will like cost the PAWSD customers somewhat in the neighborhood of $50 million over the next 10 years, beginning with upgrades costing possibly $15 million over the next two years. The revised limits are the result of policies handed down by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) — the same folks who made themselves somewhat unpopular, in certain communities, during the COVID crisis.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the PAWSD Board of Directors, but this editorial series reflects only my personal opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of the PAWSD Board as a whole.
PAWSD currently handles sanitation services for perhaps 8,750 full-time residents here in Archuleta County, plus who knows how many tourists. (We actually don’t know how many tourists visit Pagosa each year.) That amounts to about 1 million gallons of sewage per day. But the amount can go as high as 4 million gallons per day during spring runoff, due to troublesome groundwater seeping into the sewer lines.
This problematic leakage is referred to as “I&I”. Infiltration & Inflow. You can see the pattern of spring “I&I” in this chart from Tetra Tech.
2019 was an especially wet year.
Our wastewater treatment plant on Lyn Avenue was built to handle human waste, not excessive groundwater. The amount of human waste is referred to, in the sanitation industry, as Biological Oxygen Demand, or more affectionately, as “BOD”. The treatment of human solids requires oxygen in order to feed the bacteria who are doing the heavy lifting. The Vista Treatment Plant, and its hardworking bacterial crew, process about one-and-a-half tons of BOD per day, during the summer tourist season.
But once the bacteria are done, and the water is run through additional purifying steps, the water is not pure enough for CDPHE. In particular, the PAWSD effluent still contains a certain amount of nitrogen and a certain amount of phosphorus, and CDPHE wants those amounts reduced. Or else!
So PAWSD has hired the consultants at Tetra Tech to design some treatment upgrades. The drawing shown to the Board on Monday looked like this:
The yellow shapes and purple labels indicate the upgrades that will cost perhaps $15 million. Considering that $15 million could easily pay for 30 comfortable 3-bedroom housing units for our community, this seems like a slightly outrageous expense… to an amateur like myself.
But what about the good old alternative?
The outhouse?
As I mentioned in Part Three, outhouses were the most common ‘sanitation system’ in Pagosa Springs prior to about 1950. But as Archuleta County grew, and as the state of Colorado grew, and as the state bureaucracy grew, outhouses were judged to be a problem. An odor problem, for one thing. But perhaps more seriously, a threat to the quality of groundwater, in a state where many people used wells for their drinking water.
We will briefly mention the unpleasant experience of waking up in the morning, to find the path to the outhouse, and the outhouse door, obstructed by three feet of fresh snow.
But how about technology?
While the outhouse is definitely a primitive form of sanitation, the flush toilet is actually not that much more advanced. The flush toilet of 2023 is remarkably similar to the flush toilet sold by Thomas Crapper in 1866.
Yes, it’s true that you can have some high tech features, for a price.
Kohler’s Numi intelligent toilet retails for $7,500 and features a heated seat, foot warmer, music streaming through Bluetooth speakers, a motion-activated seat and lid, and a connection to Alexa.
But it still uses water for flushing, and it still connects to a municipal sanitation system that — depending on where you live in Colorado — might need $50 million in state-specified upgrades.
Who will pay for those $50 million in upgrades?
Well, I guess you and I will. Because PAWSD will be going deeply into debt to fund these upgrades, and we know who pays for government debt.
But that’s crazy, when you think about it.
Why are we still using technology that hasn’t changed very much since 1866? (Except to become much more expensive.)
Where, oh where, is the iPhone-style high tech solution for the bathroom?