K4309
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Posts posted by K4309
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Question, what do people do on the prevention front?
I'm on a mooring so don't have direct access to fresh water to flush the whole system every time I leave the boat. I do put 4 cups of fresh water in so that the pump and seals are in fresh water and don't get calcified (which stuffs seals and makes the pump fail).
White vinegar sounds very easy, and is cheaper than water fairly much.
I do see a heat exchanger clean in my future, meaning I need to get some Rydelyme or Barnacle Buster, I wonder if a pre-emptive flush with one of those will prevent any future risk of blockages?
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43 minutes ago, Addem said:
Another poo pipe question unrelated to Parnell.
I have a head where the outlet pipe is built in under the floor. It's a fixed floor as is also the shower.
The pipe is nearly level and over decades (2005 construction) poo et al has been sitting and doing something to the pipe. It is now seriously blocked through some sort of scale/plaque/calcification (I know it is not calcium but you get the idea). The plaque is like a plaster lining and is now blocked solid. Can't get a wire etc through.
We've tried unblocking with all sorts of machinery but think we have compacted it.
Last roll of the dice before saws are called to action is whether some chemical can be used to break it down.
Any ideas? Experience?
I don't recall the chemistry of your stuff in the waste pipe, but if you are desperate for a solution you could try a heat exchanger cleaner. They get the same sea-salt encrustations of heat exchangers in seconds to minutes.
Barnacle Buster works very well. It is moon-beams expensive though. An alternative that is highly recommended by professionals (but I haven't tried) is Rydelime.
I'm fairly sure the basic chemistry of the stuff in your waste pipes is the same as the stuff in heat exchangers. With the HE it forms quicker due to heat and evaporation. It is all marine salts (Chlorides, sulphides). The urine makes a different sort of salt which I can't remember the name of, but I would think something like barnacle buster (phosphoric acid) would have a better than even chance of nuking it.
Barnacle Buster, Ovlov and a few other places stock it:
Drew Marine Trac Ecological | Marine Maintenance Products (trac-online.com)
I know Auckland Engineering Services use Rydlime, it is probably widely available. The Beta Engine people use it for HE maintenance.
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Anyone know any good Facebook pages to follow the race on?
With a total of 10 posts on here under the Coastal thread, it's like the party is happening somewhere else...
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7 minutes ago, Sailor Jerry said:
Is there a tracker to follow race?
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This SeaBnB has short and long term rentals. Could be a handy start
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1 hour ago, CarpeDiem said:
It's obviously the modeling and testing coming in to play at these sites.
Cause a week ago everything was black all day long. Right now Mission Bay is safe. And Kohi/St Helliers are getting safer. With Kohi and St Helliers marked as Safe from 5pm today.
Just to clarify, you can swim at Mission Bay, and will be able to swim at Kohi and St Helliers in 40 mins (5pm), but is yacht racing (where you don't put your head underwater) still cancelled?
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13 minutes ago, Psyche said:
Considering that trunk line was built in 1910, youre not too far off. The reality is that a lot if NZ's water and wastewater infrastructure is in a pretty poor state bar a few exceptions. Its not like a shiny new road, you cant see it so its not important and no one wants to pay for it. Enter 3 waters or something similar but no one wants central planning either.
Central planning isn't needed for water reform. The main issue is access to finance. In general, the bigger the organisation the easier the access to finance (in the context of a butt-f*ck-nowhere Council and a large organisation like Wellington Water or Watercare. At the same time there are economies of scale, especially in technical knowledge and competence in large organisations. The best example of that is the roading manager looking after the water supplies in Havelock North. That Council wasn't big enough to have a technical specialist in charge of their well-heads.
On the Orakei Trunk sewer collapse, this is basically unfortunate. Watercare had identified the risk a long time ago, and put in place a project to reduce that risk and eventually decommission that trunk sewer. The only issue is that project is $1billion, and with a construction programme of about 10 years, give or take. It's about half way through now. So in 5 years this wouldn't have happened. Given its been in service for 112 years or something, that is well within the margins of error for the planners.
Personally I think the basic issue is that as a community we need to spend more on infrastructure. Our 3 year election cycles and short term political outlooks just don't accommodate that. Hence moving 3 waters out of the political realm and into CCO type stuff. (if only it could be moved without all the baggage of co-governance and what not).
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16 hours ago, aardvarkash10 said:
Bear in mind, the current thinking is that the most likely cause of Queenstown's recent infection outbreak is one infected person pooing in Lake Whakatipu.
That is the best piece of PR spin to ever come out of a Council.
QLDC have a policy NOT to have constructed overflows on their wastewater network. Every other Council in the Country have constructed overflows. A constructed overflow is a point where, when there is a problem with the network, you know exactly where your wastewater will spill. Once you know where your network will spill, you can monitor it so you know WHEN it is spilling. if you are really flash you can even work out how much it is spilling, and put inplace other mitigations to reduce the impact of a spill (normally gross solids screens, keeps the lumpy bits out of the lake).
In short, QLDC have no way of knowing if and when their network is spilling. Something as simple and common as a fat-berg could cause a spill from the Queenstown wastewater network into Lake Wakatipu and QLDC wouldn't know about it.
The main issue is that all streams lead into Lake Wakatipu, including from all the urban areas, along with livestock and farming areas. What then happens, is QLDC take effectively untreated drinking water straight out of the same lake. That is about as logical as taking drinking water from one side of your boat, while discharging the heads out the other side, without a holding tank (assuming you were on a fresh water lake).
Due to the extent of the outbreak, it is not possible that this was caused by one person taking a poo in the lake. This was clearly an extensive and long discharge of wastewater into the lake. I'd bet a good bottle of whisky, given the time infections started becoming apparent, that this all started in a winter storm with heavy rain and flooding in July or August. It's wastewater 101. Heavy rain inundates the wastewater network and causes overflows and spills. That all flushes into the lake, along with all the general detritus from land. QLDC suck that same water out of the lake, chuck some pool chlorine into it on the way past and pump it up to your house for drinking. Without actually treating it for known waterborne pathogens (crypto).
This notion they are putting around that one single person took a dump in the lake and that caused the outbreak is blameshifting 101. It is also implausible.
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1 minute ago, Black Panther said:
All this makes wonder why we bother with holding tanks
I can answer that.
Boys trip when we first got the boat, maybe 1999, well before holding tanks were a thing.
Gorgeous crystal clear water, eastern Barrier. One of the boys wakes up and goes for a refreshing morning swim in the amazing water. One of the other boys wakes up and goes for his morning bowel movement. Screams of disgust and yelling as morning swimmer sees a plume of last nights curry emanating into the crystal clear water he is swimming in.
Basically boats anchor in nice bays where people enjoy in-water activities. You need some separation between waste and in-water activities. Noting we are discussing banning yacht racing here, not harbour swims.
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18 minutes ago, Psyche said:
Maybe so but you have to take human nature into account, i.e if you take one tiny dump in the local pool no matter how you try and explain that its ok, it's going to empty out pretty quick!
People dont like swimming in it no matter how diluted if they know its still pouring in.
There is an assumption there isn't normally wastewater and other pollution entering the harbour. That isn't the case. The only difference with this one is it's being publicised.
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Anyway, enough of the complicated maths and actual facts and stuff.
There is a theory going around that the ban on racing is nothing to do with the blocked Orakei trunk sewer but is actually a ruse by Punuku to demonstrate that there is no need for yacht racing on the Harbour. It is a demonstration that the yachting community are a complaint group think bunch that are easily led and easily manipulated. Case in point the Landing Hardstand.
Once Punuku have demonstrated there is no actual demand for yacht racing, and all the yacht racers have gone and taken up golf (or motor racing in water-rat's case), then Punuku will be free to take all the marina's, and more importantly the marina land, and put large high end apartment blocks on them.
This is all for the greater good of course, in that after years of Socialist Mayor's the city is broke, and we need to pay down debt, and of course enable some really lucrative property development deals.
As its already been demonstrated there is no need for yacht racing, and no one really cares, then it will be an easy and straightforward job for Punuku to get their hands on the marina land and finally do something productive with it.
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I had a go at calculating the volume of tide coming in and out of the Harbour each day.
Width of harbour (North Head to Bastion Point) 0.8nm
Average depth 15m (max depth 25m there but a lot of the channel is deep up to the edges).
Average tidal stream of half a knot. Counting only 12 hrs / day of tidal stream (half in, half out)
The daily volume of tide flushing the harbour in litres is therefore 2.47x10^11
Or, 2.47 times 10 to the power of 11.
Basically it is so much water I can't count the zeros. If I've got my zero's right that is 250 billion litres per day.
So I'll take your 8.6 million litres per day and raise you 250 billion litres.
Another way to look at it is 0.0003% dilution.
I'd be impressed if you could test that accurately. Probably why there are no actual test results anywhere.
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4 hours ago, Zozza said:
I work down near Quay St a few times. per week and get a good waft of the Parnell Poo Pipe throughout the day. The smell is shocking. What the hell have the rich pr#cks in Parnell been eating lately? Whatever it is, it is enough to bring tears to one's eye's let me tell yuh!
It is not Parnell's poo. It is from West Auckland and the Central city. C'mon with the basic details guys.
It is a trunk pipe, i.e. for transferring bulk wastewater from one half of the city to another half. If it were a branch line or a local line, then it would be Parnell's poo.
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I just wanted to say a big Thank You to all of you Westhaven Racers that would normally do the Wednesday night series. I went down to Westhaven tonight and I had a wide choice of carparks. The parking has never been easier.
PS, thought the water looked cleaner than normal. Certainly no visual or olfactory evidence of any issues.
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32 minutes ago, Psyche said:
I read something yesterday that people need to wait 28 days after the overflows are fixed. But I think that was in the context of food gathering / fishing. It was a notable change to the 3 days. My main point on the banning yachting is that the actual risk of coming into contact with the water does not appear to have been assessed anywhere. Obviously this is beyond the ability of a yacht club, or YNZ, but should be happening via Council (what would have been a Regional Council function). Transiting the water is given as safe. Ferries and other boats. It's not clear why yacht racing is out but transiting the harbour is in.
Have you Westhaven racer types thought of taking up golf?
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1 hour ago, alibaba said:
Contradict me if I am wrong, but I remember reading a long time ago, that the survival time of viruses etc in seawater was quite short. By the time it has been diluted by the tidal flow? I certainly would not swim in the area around there, but cancelling yacht races is surely an overreaction.
Yes, the survival time for enteric pathogens outside of the body is rather short. Minutes and hours.
That, and the conditions for growth are completely wrong. E.coli is used as a proxy test because it is very easy to test for and is a reasonable (although not perfect) indicator of the likelihood of enteric pathogens being present. E coli's optimum growth temp is 37 degrees (i.e. body temp). Most enteric pathogens need body temp to grow and or survive.
Currently the water temp is low, but warming. In the main bodies of water probably around 14 deg or 15 deg. At the beaches and in shallow water I've seen it as high as 16 deg recently (end of a sunny day, tide rising over shallow mudflats kind of thing. So it is unlikely there is particularly massive growth of enteric pathogens. The current water temp verse the temp required for enteric pathogens to grow is why I asked previously if there was any actual monitoring results. If the inner harbour was at 25 deg at the height of summer the risk profile would likely be very different to right now with comparatively low water temp.
The main issue is the nutrients from the wastewater. All your kitchen scraps, shower water and soaps and detergents etc. All the nutrients means 'regular' marine bacteria can go nuts. In broad terms you would call this spoilage bacteria (i.e. when you leave left overs in the fridge too long). Examples are the pseudomonas species (green slime on left overs). Not a pathogen and wont make you sick buy itself, but if you ingest loads of it, its going to give you a crook gut. Non pathogenic species of E coli are also likely to thrive with high nutrient loads into the harbour. These are the species that are associated with the breakdown of organic matter (leaves, grass clippings, dead rats etc) but are different to the classic and dangerous pathogenic E coli such as H5N1 and the like.
The associated issue with regular bacteria going nuts on the nutrients is the reduction of dissolved oxygen. If you consume all the dissolved oxygen in water, everything else dies. Like when you turn the aerator off on the kids fish tank. Given the harbour flushing twice a day with tides, you'd need a major organic load to get this to happen. Several factors more than the wastewater overflow. That, and the way to get oxygen back into water is through splashing / wave action. We have fairly consistent SW / W winds, often not far off gales at the moment (spring equinox). That will be re-aerating the water nicely.
Given the harbour is flushed twice a day with tides with volumes several hundreds of times greater than the wastewater overflows, I would have thought banning yacht racing is an over reaction.
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1 hour ago, El Toro said:
The spill, nor the rahui appear to be impacting the dolphins which swam through Okahu Bay for a few hours yesterday
That doesn't fit the narrative.
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As a note, Watercare are about half way through building the infrastructure that would have avoided this / allowed the Orakei Trunk sewer (113 years old I think brick tunnel) to be retired.
That is the Central Interceptor. Cost a tad north of $1billion. One of the single biggest infrastructure undertakings in Auckland, ever. Given the significant price tag, the biggest challenge of delivering the Central Interceptor was getting the budget approved / buy in from all of us to pay for it.
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This is what the Rahui says:
“Due to the contamination of the waters of the Waitematā and surrounding creeks, the rāhui placed by Ngāti Whātua supports that there be no swimming, fishing, paddling, diving or entering water. Transport across the Waitematā is allowed.
Safeswim simply says 'Do not swim', and 'Ongoing wastewater overflows'. I haven't been able to google any specific warnings for the Waitemata from official sources.
The 23 monitoring stations CarpeDiem refers to are not monitoring stations, they are modelling points. The safeswim website is based on computer modelling of wastewater overflows combined with tidal / current modelling of the harbour. They have been manually switched to black / do not swim because of the overflow.
There were media reports of warnings regarding 'recreational activity' on the harbour. I would argue this applies to things like paddle boarding, kayaking and waka ama type stuff, where it is likely you will enter the water or get splashed all over.
Given transport is allowed I would have thought yacht racing could have continued. More so if the courses were set and finished in the outer harbour. But each to their own I guess.
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7 hours ago, CarpeDiem said:
Hmmm lets see...
- E. coli levels in the Waitematā are at record highs
So have you seen or are there publicly available E.coli test results, or are you just doing the misinformation thing to pad out your point of view?
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23 minutes ago, CarpeDiem said:
Hmmm lets see...
- E. coli levels in the Waitematā are at record highs
- all 23 monitoring stations, from Herald Is, down to St Helliers are reporting "very high risk"
- watercare has urged that people refrain from recreational activity on the water
- the water around the overflow outlets is black, it's absolutely wreaking of sh*t and are in the worst condition I have ever seen them - I am surprised that we have not had an algae bloom yet
People can and do fall overboard, gear can and does end up in the water...
If you have never dragged your sail or your sheets through the water, if you have never taken a face full of water over the bow when setting up for a sail change then you aren't trying hard enough.
Committee's have a responsibility to their club members to weigh the available information, assess the risk and make decisions.
I am no water scientist, but given the information, the visible untreated untreated sewerage exiting the overflow pipes and the advice publicly available, I think the decision to cancel is the right one.
Have they got some publicly available water testing results?
Yes, the committees should be carrying out a risk assessment on the available information. Not just blindly following a dictate from an unelected race based group. My understanding is the warnings are around gathering shellfish, swimming, and recreational based activities that bring you into contact with water. A key clew here is the website being called "safeswim", not "safeboating". Kayaking would be marginal. Spear fishing def out. Fishing from a boat? I'm not seeing a major issue with that. Same with yacht racing. Noting I haven't sat down and done a full risk assessment, but that I do understand microbiology and wastewater.
Anyway, its a cracking day so I'm just heading out fishing for the rest of the afternoon.
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Have you guys had your racing cancelled? All of them or just a couple? Will be a cracking evening for a Wed night race.
Your committee must think you are terrible sailors, putting your head underwater while on those big yachts. Its not good for boat speed putting your head underwater, you know...
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Rahui's have no legal basis.
It is your own free choice to go swim in poo. Sailing on it is an entirely different proposition.
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16 minutes ago, Priscilla II said:
Sound track will give you a headache.
Imoca style foils would maybe betterer.
The sail plan looks very cool, but I don't think excavator style hydraulic rams on the outside of the hull is really sailing. You could put a steel bucket on the foil and dredge out the marina channel.
People dont like swimming in it no matter how diluted if they know its still pouring in.
Poo pipe part 2
in TechTalk
Posted
PS, I won a bottle of Salt Away and been wondering what to do with it. I don't actually understand what chemical it is or how it works. How would that go pouring a bit down the loo every time I leave the boat?
I've been told in no uncertain terms not to use it on the outboard for flushing. Apparently it's corrosive to aluminium and leaves a coating(?)