The following is a transcript of the WaterWorld Weekly Newscast for March 19, 2018.
Hi, I'm Angela Godwin for WaterWorld magazine, bringing you water and wastewater news headlines for the week of March 19. Coming up...
N.Y. stops poo shipments to Alabama
Thieves access East Memphis neighborhood through storm ditch
Transit facility employees told to dump wastewater in storm drain
There's no place like…pipe?
New York will stop sending its partially treated biosolids to Alabama after numerous complaints from Birmingham-area residents about the "horrific" odor and fly infestations.
Six wastewater plants from New York City and one from New Jersey had been sending their partially treated sewage by train to the Big Sky Environmental landfill in Adamson, Alabama, since early 2017.
It's not clear whether the change is permanent or just temporary.
But the Town of West Jefferson, Alabama, filed a lawsuit against Big Sky in January to prevent the company from using rail to transport out-of-state sewage.
Residents of an East Memphis, Tennessee, neighborhood plagued by a series of break-ins believe burglars are gaining access to their homes and cars by way of a stormwater ditch.
Police have responded to six burglary calls in the neighborhood in just the past few months.
The ditch is part of a roughly 3-mile long conveyance system designed to alleviate flooding in the area of the University of Memphis.
But residents also suspect it's providing an easy access -- and escape -- route for thieves.
A supervisor at the Daytona Transit Facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is in hot water after the city discovered he instructed employees to dump dirty wash water into a storm drain.
For nearly two years, more than 300,000 gallons of water used to clean city buses of grime and oil that should have been stored and decontaminated before disposal was instead sent directly to the stormwater system and ultimately to a retention pond.
Reportedly, it only happened on weekends so management wouldn't notice.
The supervisor said the reason was because the hose to the storage tanks wasn't long enough.
An architect in Hong Kong believes he may have found an economical -- and ecological -- response to the city's exorbitantly expensive housing crisis: pipe homes.
James Law, OPod Architect: "One day, I happened to see some of these large concrete water tubes left, and I thought, wow, why are they being wasted, whilst at the same time, here in Hong Kong, we are facing a lot of the affordable housing issues that are making young people having difficulty to afford their own housing."
Law had the idea to buy the concrete pipes and convert them into micro-living spaces -- called OPods -- that young people could afford.
James Law, OPod Architect: "We are really aiming to rent this out at almost one-fifth of the cost of what they cost to live in in Hong Kong for the equivalent sized apartment."
The 100-square-foot OPod has a bench that converts into a bed, shelving, a small refrigerator, a microwave, a sink, and even a tiled bathroom at one end that includes a combined shower and toilet.
It costs about $15,000 to build one, and Law envisions renting them out to recent graduates for less than $400 a month -- a fraction of the market rate.
Law’s OPod Tube Housing is still just at the conceptual stage, but it’s attracted a lot of attention as an innovative way to deal with housing shortages.
For WaterWorld magazine, I'm Angela Godwin. Thanks for watching.
