A Minneapolis city worker is worried about blood in the sewer system because he said, while he was cleaning the system, blood sprayed out of a hole and got all over him. "We could tell it was blood, I mean large amount of blood," said Minneapolis Sewer Maintenance Worker Ron Huebner.
It happened about two weeks ago in Northeast Minneapolis near a lab that does medical testing and dumps blood into the sewer. It is allowed but the city is now making changes to help protect workers in the future. "Blood just all over my face, in my mouth, I could taste it. It was terrible. I had it in my mouth and I kept spitting and I couldn't get rid of it," said Huebner. Huebner said he hasn't been sleeping much. He's worried about the blood that he swallowed when he was operating a jet machine to clean out the sewer.
The Met Council said it was a mix of human and animal blood used in medical testing at this nearby lab. In fact, the company, R & D Systems, does have a permit to dump blood in the sewer system. However, Huebner wasn't protected or warned about the blood because his immediate bosses didn't know about. "We did not specifically know that this particular facility was discharging blood into the sewer system," said Minneapolis Public Works Deputy Director Heidi Hamilton.
There have been some changes, including more coordination among city departments so key information in permits gets to the right people and there's more required safety gear. "We have changed the procedure to ensure they're wearing goggles or a face mask while they are above that manhole," said Hamilton.
The Met Council is changing the permit to say that the city has to warn the lab it's coming to clean the sewer, and the lab has to stop discharging blood until they're done. R & D told the city the blood shouldn't present any risk, but Huebner's still worried. "I'm going to hope that nothing's wrong with me, but I don't want to see this happen to anyone else in my department," said Huebner. The Met Council issued the permit. When asked if it's safe to have blood in the sewers, the Met Council said it is no more harmful than most other wastes in the sewer. The sanitary sewer system is the appropriate place for this type of liquid wastes. There are other companies that have permits to discharge blood in the sewer system.
According to the Met Council, there are about four slaughterhouses, about 20 hospitals, and about a dozen medical and pharmaceutical companies that have permits. R & D Systems did not return calls made to their business.
#5
Discharging wastes, like blood, dairy, ground up fish waste, etc. is usually covered by permit. Wastes like these have high BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), which means that they put a higher demand on sewage treatment plants, or require bigger plants. In order to maintain the required treated wastewater quality, as stated in their operating permits, wastewater operators have to know what they are getting, and if they have the ability to treat it. Treated wastewater, depending on where you discharge it, has to be between 15 and 45 parts per million BOD, with total suspended solids down to about the same level, in addition, it must be disinfected with UV or chlorine to kill any remaining pathogens.
BOD in normal wastewater is 350 ppm or 350 milligrams oxygen per liter of wastewater.
Breweries 550 ppm
Slaughterhouses: 2500 ppm
Pulpmills 25000ppm
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/30/2007 17:13 Comments ||
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#6
"Blood just all over my face, in my mouth, I could taste it. It was terrible. I had it in my mouth and I kept spitting and I couldn't get rid of it,"
#9
Ship, pulpmills take ground-up trees, soak the chips in water and put this with several other chemicals (called black liquor and white liquor)into a vessel called a digester that is then put under pressure and heat. The smell from pulp mills is mainly sulfur dioxide. The water is drained off and in most cases is not cooled. This warm water coupled with the residual vegetable matter and sulfur compounds is hard to treat. It takes a lot of water to run a pulp mill and that's why they are located next to rivers. The waste water has to be cooled and treated in order to retyrn it to the river.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/30/2007 20:12 Comments ||
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His serious aviation habit means he is hardly the best person to lecture others on the environment. But John Travolta went ahead and did it anyway. The 53-year-old actor, a passionate pilot, encouraged his fans to "do their bit" to tackle global warming. But although he readily admitted: "I fly jets", he failed to mention he actually owns five, along with his own private runway. Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally.
Travolta made his comments this week at the British premiere of his movie, Wild Hogs. He spoke of the importance of helping the environment by using "alternative methods of fuel" after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson.
Travolta, a Scientologist, claimed the solution to global warming could be found in outer space and blamed his hefty flying mileage on the nature of the movie business. But his appointment as a "serving ambassador" for the Australian airline Qantas doesn't seem to have much to do with the movies. Nor does a recent, two-month round-the-world flying trip. "It [global warming] is a very valid issue," Travolta declared. "I'm wondering if we need to think about other planets and dome cities.
"Everyone can do their bit. But I don't know if it's not too late already. We have to think about alternative methods of fuel. "I'm probably not the best candidate to ask about global warming because I fly jets. "I use them as a business tool though, as others do. I think it's part of this industry otherwise I couldn't be here doing this and I wouldn't be here now."
Travolta's five private planes a customised £2million Boeing 707, three Gulfstream jets and a Lear jet are kept at the bottom of his garden in the US next to a private runway.
There is a picture of the house and his jets parked outside at the link. Just make sure to keep the drool off your keyboards
Posted by: Steve ||
03/30/2007 07:53 ||
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#2
But, but... I'm SURE he only uses them one at a time.
/sarcasm
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/30/2007 9:03 Comments ||
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#3
I gave up my five jets for global warming. Next I'm going to give up my mansion. Got to get my carbon credits in line. Going to follow the penguin leader--Al Gore.
#7
Well, let's talk about planes, one of his planes, say the Learjet. Now a Lear at cruise burns about 1119 lb per hour of Jet-A or about 167 gallons per hour. This does not include Taxi and runup, or takeoff running. So let's say our great Greenie-man puts on 200 hours per year, or 33,400 gallons per year. Now say an average trip is about 4 hours, so we have about 50 takeoffs and landings. At 50 gallons per runup, taxi, and takeoff, we are talking another 2500 gallons. So we are talking about 36,000 gallons of fuel for this one alone.
Now take my little Chickenhawk, the Cessna 172, to wit:
Now she burns 8 gallons per hour, block to block. When I lived up north, I would put on 200 hours a year, easy. Total fuel consumption was 1600 gallons per year. If I had 36,000 gallons of fuel, I could fly for 22 years.
These Global Warming clowns just knock me out. I do not have a problem with Mr. Travolta buying his toys to excess and setting up his little private Walter Mitty airline. This is still a free country---for now. I have a real problem with him lecturing us about global warming⢠and telling us to change our lifestyles while he does the conspicuous consumption thing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/30/2007 14:03 Comments ||
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#10
A little slack y'all; i bet he doesn't sit in traffic and let any of the jets idle........
i agree w/ AP: if you want to have a lot of toys that's ok, but then don't tell me I can't have my toys or how to use them...
Killer frogs have taken over Golden Gate Park's otherwise peaceful Lily Pond in San Francisco, causing a big problem. According to KPIX-TV contributor and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Mattier, the city is preparing to do something to stop the African clawed frogs. While they are just 5 inches in length, the frogs are eating everything in sight -- including turtles, fish and other frogs.
"They've eaten everything they can get their mouths around, and now they're eating each other," Eric Mills of the animal rights group Action for Animals, told Matier for his column. Fighting back the obvious San Fran jokes
No one knows for sure when this frog species got into the pond or who put them there, but now city officials fear the killer frogs will spread throughout the Bay Area. "The fear is they will get out," Richard Schulke, president of the city's Animal Control and Welfare Commission, told Matier.
Park workers have used nets and traps baited with chicken to yank about 2,500 adult frogs out of the pond. The frogs are then sent up to Fish and Game in Yountville, where they are euthanized by a special nerve poison. But the Terminator toads just keep coming back.
"They are cute, but tough," Mills said. "I saw a heron swoop down and grab one. He had it in his bill for a while, tried to eat it, then just gave up and spit it out." In fact, about the only thing known to eat the frogs are crocodiles -- but that solution is probably out.
So what do you do when a whole pond is infested with killer frogs? Animal Control has asked the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for the money to drain the pond and eliminate these frogs.
Don't pass up the video. The news staff gets a good laugh out of some of the moonbat ideas on handling the situation. One of which is having the locals adopt the frogs and take them into their homes. Heh, it is San Francisco.
Posted by: Gaza City Mayor ||
03/30/2007 12:48 Comments ||
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#6
to stop the African clawed frogs.
This is racist profiling against homosexual frogs! Clearly the non-violent frogs were acting out against the oppressive and homophobic tendencies of the non-violent frogs. We must understand. All non-violent frogs must be exterminated so that the violent frogs can live in peace and harmony.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/30/2007 22:45 Comments ||
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#14
Killer Frogs Threatening Pond at San Francisco park; 'They're Eating Each Other'
true story, that pond in the vid is in back of the par 3 golf course in Golden Gate Park.
Ironically there are dozens of homeless always 'camping out' within a concentric circle of about 2 or 3 hundred yards surrounding the Golf Course.
More Irony, Just to the West of that pond area there is a notorious homo-hang out section of the Park where the George Michael types "do homo" to each other in the bushes.
They are a dangerous group of fags btw, and even in San Francisco [SF gubmint is Homo Happy] the cops bust them in big round ups for accosting straights in bathrooms and the kids soccer field etc.
Ok now see the Irony, SF is so fu*ked up it can't even get rid of the Homeless or the Homos so we can all predict with some certainty that the killer frogs will be living happily ever after in that pond in GG Park.
If we could only get the killer frogs to attack the other problems! LOL!
A wristwatch buried in the ice at the North Pole three years ago was found by a boy more than 1,800 miles away after it floated ashore on the Faeroe Islands. I know, I know, you're thinking this is due to Global Warming.........
Niels Jakup Mortensen, 11, spotted a black box near his home on Suduroy, the Faeroes' southernmost island, his mother Anna Jacobsen said. Inside, she said, was a watch that had been buried at the North Pole by Joergen Amundsen, a descendant of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. Jacobsen said the watch discovered by her son earlier this month was still working, and was accompanied by a letter from Joergen Amundsen. "It was so unbelievable," she said. "It had been buried in the North Pole."
Hjalmar Hatun, an oceanographer with the Faeroese Fisheries Laboratory, said the watch likely drifted south with one of the chunks of ice that frequently break away at the North Pole and are carried off by ocean currents. The Faeroes, an 18-island Danish territory, are located halfway between Scotland and Iceland.
Hatun said the ice breaking off is not related to global warming, as the phenomenon was first observed more than 100 years ago. "So in that sense, the fact that objects from the North Pole can drift south is old news," he said.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/30/2007 05:57 ||
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Hatun said the ice breaking off is not related to global warming
So, in other words, this was more a case of go with the floe.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
