Sewer Treatment in Beijing, Taiwan and Massachusetts

choi

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All data in my reply are official.

(A) Beijing

All sewage in Beijing to be reused within three years. People's Daily, Dec. 15, 2010.
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6553763.html
(Beijing's nine sewage treatment plants; "An official from the association said Beijing's sewage treatment rate has reached 93% this year * * * 50% of which can be reused")

Incredible, you say?

You forgot the Beijing Olympics. China spent a fortune in and around it (Games and city).

(1) Blanca Jiménez and Takashi Asano (ed.), Water Reuse: An International Survey of Current Practice, Issues and needs. IWA Publishing (London), 2008, p. 149/628.
http://books.google.com/books?id=zYcTnBmZeIcC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=beijing+sewage+reuse&source=bl&ots=XvfO2ahjUd&sig=G_F20phEG8wkQIc0DfzChbBMEL4&hl=en&ei=LMLqTPGeJcK88gbovNC3CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAzge#v=onepage&q=beijing%20sewage%20reuse&f=false
("For the Beijing Olympiad in 2008, 15 wastewater reclamatin plants will be constructed and the total reclamation capacity  will reach over 600,000 m3/d. Onsite water recycling is another characteristic in the city. Beijing Municipality promulgated a regulation for wasterwater reclamation.")  

(2) 3.4 Reuse (Topic d) in
International Source Book On Environmentally Sound Technologies
for Wastewater and Stormwater Management.
Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, United Nations Environment Programme.
http://www.unep.or.jp/ietc/Publications/TechPublications/TechPub-15/3-3AsiaPacific/3-4.asp
("In Beijing the main purpose for reuse of treated wastewater is in agricultural production during the irrigation season and to improve river amenity.")

There is no need to read the rest in (1) and (2) above.


(B) Shanghai--allegedly bests Beijing.

Shanghai ranks first in sewage treatment capacity in China. People's Daily, Nov. 21, 2008.

Link no longer works. Here is a portion of the cache.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2Ha-QvDHzsoJ:virtualreview.org/china/zoom/826057/shanghai-ranks-first-in-sewage-treatment-capacity-in-china+beijing+sewage+reuse&cd=58&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


(C) Taiwan

(1) Sewage treatment rate. Construction and Planning Agency, Ministry of Interiors 內政部營建署, May 7, 2010.
http://www.cpami.gov.tw/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10763:2010-05-07-16-17-39&catid=3:statistics&Itemid=17

Column three is "The installation rate of building's sewage facilities"--large commercial buildings there are supposed to have their own water treatment system, as in Beijing.

(2) City of Kaohsiung

Born and raised at City of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, residents there were ashamed of our Love River 愛河. In my childhood, older people recalled a time when one can see the bottom of the River, with fish. (I do not know how deep the River is, because by the time I came into exisitence, the River was stinky, filled with solid waste (like shit and dog corpses--custom in Taiwna was to throw a dead dog into any stream and hang dead cats on the trees, to exorcise dead spirits of those animals). Color of the River varied and companies pumped poisonous waste water into the River with impunity. Our joke was that to commit suicide, you did not want to jump into the River.

Kaohsiung Harbor, to which the River drains, was better (thanks to seas washing away trash)--but cover with a layer of oil (which presumably fishing boats dumped illegally).

While mayor (1998-2005), Mr. Frank Hsieh 謝 長廷 changed the River forever. It is clean again, but I always wonder how he did it, which we had deemed an impossible task. See
愛河資訊網. from 高雄市政府.
http://pwbgis.kcg.gov.tw/pwb/Love/index.htm
河川整治

For those who are really interested in improvement of Love River:
(a) Vito Lee, A New Tale of Two Cities. Taiwan Paranoma,   2007.
http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=200739603006E.TXT&table=2&cur_page=6&distype=text

Quote:

"'Bad water' was once the bane of Kaohsiungites' existence. Only 6% of wastewater was treated via a modern system, and large numbers of pig farms were packed in along the upstream sections of the Love (Ai) and Chienchen Rivers, not to mention the astonishing density of chemical and petrochemical plants in Kaohsiung. It was impossible for anyone in the city to drink the water with peace of mind, and the Love River was literally lifeless.

"Frank Hsieh, who took office near the end of 1997, not only rechanneled and cleaned up the Love River, but also made the 'invisible' task of increasing the amount of wastewater undergoing treatment a major goal. By the time he left office to become premier in late 2004, that 6% figure had reached 35%.

* Chienchen River 前鎮河

(b) David Oakley, The River Running Through It: Kaohsiung's Love River. Taiwan Fun, May 2003.
http://www.taiwanfun.com/south/chianan/articles/0305/0305CoverStory.htm
("Wastewater held back by the floodgate is pumped off to a sewage treatment center on ChiJin Island, then discharged into the Taiwan Strait. However, during the summer when it rains heavily, the barriers and pumping stations are sometimes overwhelmed. City officials are forced to open the gate and release polluted water into the lower Love River.")

* ChiJin Island: 1975年6月，高雄港第二港口完成開闢，旗津半島成為孤島.


(D) Boston
(1) Sewer History. Boston Water and Sewer Commisson (BWSC), undated.
http://www.bwsc.org/ABOUT_BWSC/systems/sewer/Sewer_history.asp

* Do not forget to click the button at the bottom of the text: "Present Day Sewer System," which states, "The system serves approximately 20,500 acres, 70 percent of the total land area of Boston. The remaining 30% is comprised of parks, cemeteries and undeveloped land."

In other words, BWSC cover almost all Boston landmass where humans live or work.
* BWSC is an independent city agency.
* Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth in 1620. Another group, Puritans, arrived at Boston in 1630.

(2)
(a) How the Sewer System Works. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), undated.
http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/03sewer/html/sewhow.htm

(b) The Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant. MWRA, undated.
http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/03sewer/html/sewditp.htm

* Deer Island (Massachusetts)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Island_%28Massachusetts%29
(a peninsula in Boston Harbor; Although still an island by name, Deer Island has been connected to the mainland since the former Shirley Gut channel, which once separated the island from the town of Winthrop, was filled in by the New England Hurricane of 1938./ Deer Island Prison (ca.1880-1991))  
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