@mem_somerville@mastodon.social
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mem_somerville

@mem_somerville@mastodon.social

Scientist. Lacemaker. Special fan of Ipswich Lace.

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mem_somerville, to climate
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Had a fabulous #FieldTrip today with Long Now Boston folks. We toured the #DeerIsland wastewater treatment plant. Yes, Long Now Boston is a nerd club.

But it gives me hope: some really smart, thoughtful, and capable people are keeping our infrastructure going and planning for #ClimateChange--no matter what the other noise around is.

Great tour, take one if you get the chance. #BostonMA

The tour starts in this lovely old brick building that retains some of the 1890s pumping machinery around. Now it's set up as a sort of classroom or visitors center. There's an MWRA podium up front and a bunch of state and national flags behind where a speaker would be, but in front of the massive iron pumping equipment. A large American flag hangs down from the high ceiling at the second floor height.
In the visitor center near the pumping equipment, there is a large topological map of Boston. It was reportedly displayed at the World's Fair in 1900. It's about 2 feet off the floor, larger than a typical kid's pool, and the class covered surface holds a real 3 dimensional rendering of Boston and the harbor.
Near the place where they disinfect the water, there's this open gravel covered area. To the right of the disinfection long cement pools there's an odd object that looks like an early space capsule shape, but it's made in cement. It is one of the diffusers that matches the ones sitting 9 miles out in the harbor where the cleaned water comes out from the tunnels. It has a series of small sort of portholes around the cement where the water would come out if it was at the end of a tunnel. This one was defective though, and so it just sits up here for discussion purposes. Off to the background there is some greenery on a nearby hill with a water tank. That water is the stuff that come from the MWRA clean water reservoir system to serve the island.

mem_somerville,
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Of course, the highlight of the tour was seeing the actual egg digesters up close. You can't take photos inside, but we were right underneath one of them.

These use bacteria from human waste to chew up stuff that remains in the water at this point. On average, a piece of stuff that comes in spends 20 days in this breaking down.

If you fly into you see this dozen eggs and always wonder what they are about.... Now I know.

Bucket list item ✅

Overview from out the window at the top of one set of digesters looking to another pod of 4 of them. A couple look more like acorns with a different roof structure. To the back you can see a bit of Boston Harbor on a half cloudy day.

mem_somerville,
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Also: they BEG everyone to stop using the "flushable" wipes, which are not flushable.

They are like the worst thing ever and damage their equipment more than anything else in the system.

mem_somerville,
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@Craigp Before we understood it, my housemate and I spent $800 on plumbing...

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