Tt post aug 1 2015

From the Aug 1, 2015 Toledo Blade story that justread referenced above:

Councilman Lindsay Webb, chairman of council’s public utilities committee, said urban sewage overflows need to be controlled better.

“The city cannot point fingers at the farming community unless we clean up our side of the street.”

Nearly 12 years ago, a September 2003 Toledo Talk post that pointed to a Blade story:

The western basin [of Lake Erie], near Toledo, has seen a resurgence of a toxic form of algae. The algae likely is caused by an abundance of phosphorus, the common farm fertilizer and component of human waste. Phosphorus has been on the rise since 1997.

The disturbing and irresponsible part of that Aug 1, 2015 Blade story is that the story failed to get a comment from Ed Moore. The story failed to mention Ed Moore's late June comment.

I know that this is repetitive, but ...

Jun 30, 2015 Blade story about the Jun 27, 2015 flooding rainfall:

The mayor and Public Utilities Director Edward Moore said the sewer system was overloaded by an unusually heavy 3.5 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period.

However, Mr. Moore said the system worked well because no untreated sewage bypassed the city’s wastewater treatment plant into the Ottawa and Maumee rivers.

Data proved Moore horribly wrong.
CSO = Combined sewer overflows
http://www.toledowaterwaysinitiative.com/tech-data

In a Jul 2, 2015 blog post, Blade writer Tom Henry summarized the severity of the sewage overflows into our waterways:

South Toledo had one outlet that spilled untreated toilet waste into Swan Creek, a Maumee River tributary, for 24 consecutive hours on Sunday after spilling sewage more than 10 consecutive hours into the creek on Saturday.

• June 27: Twenty-six sites spilled sewage for at least five hours, 18 spilled sewage for at least 10 hours, 10 spilled sewage for at least 15 hours, and one spilled sewage for at least 20 hours.

• June 28: Ten sites spilled sewage for at least five hours, nine spilled sewage for at least 10 hours, six spilled sewage for at least 15 hours, and one spilled sewage for nearly 22 hours. Another one spilled sewage for 24 hours.

How does the local media give Ed Moore and the mayor a pass on this?

Technically, PH2 was correct in ordering the testing on raw lake water to occur once a week, according to Ohio EPA guidelines.

PH2's mistake was forgetting that she was the mayor of Toledo.

It's fine for Bowling Green, Oregon, Port Clinton, and even Carroll Township to follow the EPA guidelines and only test the raw water once or twice a week.

But Toledo should be in an EPA penalty box and be required to test more often because of incompetence.

It's been over a month now, but I still cannot grasp how Toledo's public utilities director can stand next to Toledo's mayor at a press conference and tell the Toledo media that no raw sewage entered our waterways on the Jun 27-28 weekend, and from what I can tell, the Toledo media think nothing of this.

At that late June press conference, I would have thought that an intelligent reporter would have choked with laughter and asked Moore for clarification because just about any ordinary moderate to heavy rainfall will cause some sewage overflow.

And now we have Toledo's mayor being somewhat offensive by calling consumers of Toledo's treated water "hypersensitive." Whatever their reasons, area residents should be hypersensitive toward Toledo officials.

#toledo #politics #media #moronism #lakeerie #water