Way back late in the last century a scandal erupted in the Pacific Northwest, with that scandal being an issue between Washington and British Columbia over some extremely disgusting, bad behavior by the British Columbia provincial capital of Victoria.
Until the scandal erupted most Washingtonians were not aware of the fact that the city of Victoria pumped its raw sewage, untreated, into the Straits of Juan de Fuca, that being the body of water which separates Washington from Canada.
British Columbia officials claimed that the tidal action of fast moving currents treated the raw sewage, naturally.
However, Washingtonians, who had witnessed the large plume of discolored water that frequently appeared from the area of Victoria's sewer pipes, thought differently.
Starting back in the 1960s Washington sewage treatment had elevated to what is known as tertiary treatment. Which basically means the treated sewage is restored to a safe water state before winding up back in Puget Sound. The waters of Washington, both the rivers and the Sound, soon were no longer polluted. This had multiple benefits, such as salmon returning to Lake Washington.
So, you can see why it grated on the nerves of the people of Washington to learn that the capital of British Columbia was shooting raw sewage into the straits through which salmon swam on their way to Washington rivers.
All these years later I believe Victoria, despite promises to modernize, still releases sewage into the straits which has not been cleaned up to American standards.
Meanwhile in Texas.
I was vaguely aware that there was an issue in Dallas regarding the south part of town not having full access to the town's sewer lines.
A recent article in the Dallas Observer titled
COUNCIL GIVES MONEY TO A MALL, BUT WON'T SPEND ON SEWERS. THAT'S SO DALLAS sort of shocked me with the realization that Dallas is pretty much almost as bad as the Canadian town of Victoria.
Two blurbs from the article...
Pitre (pronounced PEEtree) owns 120-plus acres of land near the new University of North Texas' southeast Dallas campus. He is one of several black land-owners in that area who have been campaigning for years — unsuccessfully so far — to get the city to extend sewer service to their part of the city.
But the DART station at UNT will be on a septic tank, because Dallas still has not extended a sewer main close enough to that location for DART or any other developer to be able to afford to connect to it. Recently, when the city rebuilt a major thoroughfare next to the campus — an ideal time to put in sewer cheaply because the road was torn up anyway — the city declined to do so.
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I had no idea that a large American city existed without modern sewage treatment covering a large part of the town.
South Dallas is sewer line free?
Does this mean Fair Park is not connected to a sewer line?
Are parts of Fort Worth similarly backward?
Is that why the majority of Fort Worth parks are serviced by outhouses rather than modern restroom facilities?
Is the South Dallas zone, which is not connected to a sewer line, solely dependent on septic tanks? Or do a lot of people have outhouses in their backyards?
What does it do to the ground water to have so many septic tanks in a concentrated area?
Why would Dallas spend money on extremely cool futuristic looking bridges when a large portion of the town does not have modern plumbing?
Victoria, British Columbia took a big hit, tourist-wise, after the Sewagegate Scandal erupted. Would Dallas take a similar hit, tourist-wise, if it became known, nationally, and internationally, that a large part of the town is cut off from the type amenity one expects in a modern city?
Very perplexing.....
