Icy Mountain
Sachem
Several years ago, I spent a year battling my local health department. Instead of permitting me to replace a broken septic tank, they wanted me to connect to a sanitary sewer system 320 linear feet and about 8 feet uphill from my home's foundation. As the local regulations only required connection if the foundation-to-tap distance was 200 feet or less, and $h!t only runs downhill, I won the (acknowledgement of my) right to replace my two 30 year-old, 1,000 gallon septic tanks with two new 1,500 gallon tanks. Finally, on topic, sort of, I spent about 20 hours researching whether filtering my wastewater (other than bleach and detergent, it is all stuff I either ate, drank or used for bathing) through the local earth was more environmentally friendly that condensing all the waste from my township into a point source before "treating" it and dumping it in the closest river. There were certainly good points and arguments on both sides. However, there was a scarcity of hard data, science or consensus. What little, non-anecdotal, data I found tended to support the conclusion that the downstream impacts of municipal wastewater treatment can be quite appalling. Therefore, due to an inability to determine the environmental impact of my actions, my decision was based on my 30 year cost of $3k for septic vs. $45k for sanitary sewer.
I wondered how the total mass of wild animal feces "stacks up"(1) against the total mass of domesticated animal (nb, this, of course, includes human) feces. Other than arriving at the conclusion that wild animal feces would tend to have a smaller per square foot impact over a much wider area(2) vs. the larger per square foot quantity in concentrated areas from domesticated animals, I couldn't find any logical way to even estimate total mass for comparison. Nothing concrete turned up in my research: mostly it was just a bunch of crap.
(1)Me: How tall are you?
Them: About 5' 8".
Me: I didn't know you could stack $h!t that high!
(2) Q: Does a bear $h!t in the woods?
A: Yes, but also pretty much wherever they go.
I wondered how the total mass of wild animal feces "stacks up"(1) against the total mass of domesticated animal (nb, this, of course, includes human) feces. Other than arriving at the conclusion that wild animal feces would tend to have a smaller per square foot impact over a much wider area(2) vs. the larger per square foot quantity in concentrated areas from domesticated animals, I couldn't find any logical way to even estimate total mass for comparison. Nothing concrete turned up in my research: mostly it was just a bunch of crap.
(1)Me: How tall are you?
Them: About 5' 8".
Me: I didn't know you could stack $h!t that high!
(2) Q: Does a bear $h!t in the woods?
A: Yes, but also pretty much wherever they go.