# Toxic wastewater reservoir in Manatee County, FL on the verge of catastrophic failure **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 5, 2021, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414 "2021-04-05T03:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414/21 "2021-04-06T18:08:36Z")
This waste is high in nitrogen and phosphorus. That’s going to cause algal blooms in whatever water is ends up in. You’d think someone could have figured out how to reprocess it into fertilizer. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2021, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414/22 "2021-04-06T18:13:39Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Really big cities have sewage treatment these days, even a lot of not-so-big cities, where the sewage including human waste is put into tanks and through a variety of techniques (bacterial digestion, UV light, chemicals, etc.) rendered much less harmful before being discharged back into the environment. The leftover sludge may wind up in a landfill, or, if you live in Boston, even be turned into [fertilizer](https://www.baystatefertilizer.com/) although they use terms like “biosolids” rather than “bacteria digested human shit”. > [@smilingbandit](#): > > The biggest difficulty is that there’s really not much to be done about it. You can pump the material out, but you ultimately have to put it _somewhere_ and it’s a very large amount to deal with. Which leads one to wonder: What stops the pig farmers from doing the same with their pig shit as the big cities do with their people shit? Is there that much more of it? (Especially compared to BIG cities like NY, LA, Chicago, etc.?) How much extra expense is there to doing this? (Again, compared to the expense to cities?) And how much can be recovered, e.g., by turning it into fertilizer that can be sold? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414/23 "2021-04-07T13:14:11Z")
There are around 330 million humans in the US in a given year. Around 9.5 billion animals are slaughtered for food in the US in a given year. Yep, there probably is “_that_ much more of it”. Part of rendering poop into fertilizer is removing the liquid portion after treating it to reduce the volume. That water has to be rendered less than toxic before being released into the environment for even the most minimal level of ecological responsibility. The rest of it needs to be “digested” and processed by various means, just as human poop requires. That all takes time and space. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2021, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414/24 "2021-04-07T13:29:07Z")
The evacuation order [has been lifted](https://www.mymanatee.org/news___events/what_s_new/piney_point_update) and people are coming home > Hours after local and state officials reopened U.S. 41 to traffic, a local evacuation order was lifted this afternoon giving local residents and businesses permission to return home safely tonight. The news comes as new data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows a diminished risk for an uncontrolled breach of water from the Piney Point gyp stacks located at 13300 U.S. Highway 41 in north Manatee County. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414/25 "2021-04-08T01:19:30Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Part of rendering poop into fertilizer is removing the liquid portion after treating it to reduce the volume. That water has to be rendered less than toxic before being released into the environment for even the most minimal level of ecological responsibility. The rest of it needs to be “digested” and processed by various means, just as human poop requires. That all takes time and space And in the case of the human populations of cities, the operation is a public utility that is to a greater or lesser extent paid for by every user connected to the sewers. In the case of a livestock farm, that becomes a production cost. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-wastewater-reservoir-in-manatee-county-fl-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure/939414.md?page=1)