- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Big Brother Is Watching Your Waste
The two small legal notices that appeared in the December 30 issue of the Southeast Missourian were unusual.
They were regarding Southeast Missouri Hospital and the downtown business Ervin's Metalsmiths. The notice for the hospital said:
It has been noticed that Southeast Missouri Hospital, located at 1701 Lacy, Cape Girardeau, Missouri 63701, was in significant noncompliance with their Industrial Pretreatment Permit. The noncompliance consists of exceeding, on one occasion, daily and monthly permit limits for total oil and grease average limits between the dates of January 1, 2009 and June 30, 2009. The source is believed to be from the cooking operation of the kitchen. Southeast Missouri Hospital has returned to total compliance.
The notice for Ervin's Metalsmiths was similar except that that business exceeded the total amount of cyanide it may legally dump down the drain between July 1 and December 31, 2009. Its notice also did not indicate if the business was yet in total compliance.
Besides the rather creepy fact that cyanide of any amount may legally be poured down the drain, these legal notices made me realize two things:
First of all, Big Brother is watching your wastewater.
In this case, I'm guessing that Big Brother is the EPA although no specific government agency was credited for placing this ad. What agency exactly noticed the extra grease and cyanide is a bit of a mystery. However, for the sake of this blog, we will assume it was the EPA.
The second thing these legal notices made me realize is that whosever responsible for noticing things like too much grease or cyanide going into the sewer system has one very, very suckie job.
I'd like to know who aspires to be a wastewater testing collection agent? Is that an entry-level job for getting your foot in the door for collecting the much more exciting sewer solids?
I have visions of Junior Field Agent Bob of the EPA being assigned the important field agent task of descending into our city sewers in his three-piece suit where he is supposed to hold a mason jar beneath the drain pipe exiting either of these businesses until it contains a sample that the EPA labs can analyze for things like too much grease or too much cyanide.
Considering that the legal notice indicated that these businesses exceeded the amount of grease and cyanide which they could legally dump down the drain over a period of 6 months, I suppose Junior Field Agent Bob had to clamor down into our city's sewers every day for the last year to fill up his mason jar. That's definitely what I would consider a suckie job.
Or perhaps collecting the questionable effluence in a mason jar is the old way of monitoring business's wastewater. Maybe the EPA now uses a high-tech collection device that is mounted to a business's sewer drain and monitors the discharge in real-time rather than sending people like Junior Field Agent Bob down a manhole on a daily basis.
And when the high-tech monitoring device discovers a violation like too much grease or too much cyanide, it triggers a nearby manhole cover to pop out of the street like one of those pop-up turkey timers signaling the EPA that a violation is close at hand.
For Junior Field Agent Bob's sake, I hope that is how the EPA now monitors these wicked wastewater wrongdoers.
Grease and cyanide can be murder on ties and wingtips.
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