The most idiotic thing the DEP/DNR/Congress has ever done!

[PlaystationFan]

I work in water treatment. I work in both a sewage plant and a water treatment plant. We recently just got done building a new plant. The total came to around 3.5 million dollars. As if that wasn't enough.

Now they just passed a bill to make the testing restrictions even tougher. The only problem is, small towns like the one I am living in make this tough to handle. Our plant, even though it is brand new, is going to require a 2 million dollar upgrade. This comes six months after we got done building. And the rule will be in effect at the end of 2007.

Things like this sicken me. Its becoming harder and harder to get funding for these things. Yet they continue to make rules that are sending small towns like the one I live in to their graves.

And the reason for all this is because the goverment wants to take over these plants. There are already a few multi million dollar corporations buying small town plants. And its all because the goverment continues to make restrictions all while making it extremely hard to get funding.

[svosen]

I didn't realize that's what you do for a living.

My first two year out of college (and a year during college) I worked as a water treatment plant operator in a small town in north-central montana (Chinook - population 1200 or so). We ran a little 2 MGD plant (although we only cleaned about 0.3 MGD during the winter).

We were able to get it done alright, but I can see where you're coming from. Ridiculous regs. are the death of most small entities.

We went through a .75 million dollar upgrade while I was there. It sounds like a lot, but the differences could hardly been seen (they mostly came in the form of extra storage capacity underground). As far as the quality of our final product, there was really no change. It would be easy to drop several million in a retrofit for a treatment plant. With a small tax base, like you say, I can see the temptation for little communities to hire the work out.

Montana's state capitol even hires out its waste water treatment...

It'll turn out just like everything else in America: Kraft will end up owning all the treatment plants.

Now that'll be cause for concern - the same company that makes your cheese singles also handles the byproducts...


(I also did a 3 month internship at the waste water plant in Havre - about 20 minutes down the road from Chinook).

[PlaystationFan]

Yeah I started straight out of high school as a favor for my father. He is the mayor of the town I live in and they needed someone to pass the tests and run the plants in our town. So I figured what the hell.

It is a damn shame that there going to regulate everyone to the extreme. I think when the next set of regulations goes into effect, only 15% of the plants in the state of west virginia are evne within the 1 million dollar range for a plant that can handle what their wanting.