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Engineering
Studies and
Environmental Assessments
We believe the public cannot be asked to
consider alternatives to poor environmental
practices unless presented with both scientific
evidence and sound economic and ecological
assessments of the available alternatives.
For example, if we are proposing that a
area in our community abandon their septic
systems in favor of sewers, the residents
must be fully aware of the economic costs
and environmental benefits of doing so.
Consequently, we
have become a well-known client, directly
or indirectly, of several prominent civil
engineering firms in Southern California.
We insist that work being undertaken on
our behalf, or at our instigation, be professional
and unbiased in every respect.
Although there have been numerous engineering
studies accomplished in the past few years,
a few examples perhaps will serve as an
illustration of our work in this area:
Tertiary
Sewage Upgrade Costs for Santa Barbara
To find out
what it would cost ratepayers to upgrade
sewage treatment to full tertiary levels
- that's irrigation water quality - before
dumping it in the ocean, HTO commissioned
the engineering firm of Metcalf & Eddy,
San Diego, to do a cost/feasibility study
on all five wastewater treatment plants
on the Santa Barbara south coast. Read what
those costs are!
Water
Reclamation Research
During the spring
of 2000, Heal the Ocean retained graduate
students from the Bren School of Environmental
Science and Management at UCSB to conduct
a research project on the use of reclaimed
water in Santa Barbara County. The purpose
of the research was to study the feasibility
of upgrading all secondary treatment of
wastewater to tertiary treatment while expanding
the uses of reclaimed water within the County
(file is 33 megabytes).
Ocean
Wastewater Discharge Inventory for the State
of California
From the Oregon
border to San Diego/Baja, the state of California
is putting an immense amount of sewage into
the ocean - some of it in very shallow water,
even the surf zone. Read HTO's preliminary
tally of how the ocean is being used to
dilute human waste, a practice we're committed
to eliminating.
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