Burning River is back, baby!
Ohio EPA weighs allowing data centers to dump wastewater into rivers
Submitted 2 days ago by inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.wowktv.com/news/ohio-epa-weighs-allowing-data-centers-to-dump-wastewater-into-rivers/
Comments
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 day ago
THEY FUCKING BETTER NOT! All those rivers are Source rivers. They ALL run off into the Mississippi, or The Great Lakes, and St. Lawrence.
devolution@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Conservatives. Ruin. Everything.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 day ago
“Environment Poisoning Agency”
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Ohio missing the “good old days” when their rivers were flamable.
grapefruittrouble@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Why can’t these data centers just recirculate most of this water? Obviously there is some loss which requires more water over time but why do they require constant fresh water?
Pika@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I feel like it’s mostly temperature. I expect that they want to continue using untreated water to be able to have cooler temperature. That way they’re not having to spend money and time cooling their coolant down.
That’s my expectation anyway.
Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Run radiant pipes through the rivers, then recirculate your repurposed water. Less waste and probably some pretty good cooling
SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Wait, they have to weigh the option of having their rivers poisoned? How about just rejecting it out right?
I forget what state this was in but they allowed pork farmers to dump pig effluent into the local rivers. This killed many fish and local wildlife. Why a state’s local EPA chapter would allow such blatant environmental hazards to happen is beyond me.
bluegreenpurplepink@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ay, oh, wait to go Ohio
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Thoughtful evil is the best kind of evil.
buttmasterflex@piefed.social 2 days ago
I have worked in environmental consulting for the past decade and have routinely dealt with Ohio EPA on both hazardous waste investigation/remediation and NPDES permitted discharges. I have been part of teams preparing and submitting antidegradation and NPDES permit renewals, as well as maintaining compliance with existing permits. After reading through the news article and then the actual draft permit, the news article is very sensationalized. I am in no way defending the data centers or operators. The news article correctly states the discharges are untreated but fails to mention the strict monitoring requirements that would in place to maintain antidegradation and conform with Ohio Water Quality Standards and public water supply standards. There is also a Notice of Intent that requires the applicant to meet a list of requirements to even be considered for discharging under the general permit. NPDES permitting is a federal program that is also administered by the states. Ohio EPA is setting some pretty stringent limits under their authority in their draft permit, and the public and news organizations are cherry picking and/or don’t have the background to understand the permit requirements.
Draft permit and fact sheets here.
chaogomu@lemmy.world 2 days ago
What it sounds like is the data centers are using untreated river water, and then are wanting to put that untreated (and now hot) water back.
This is better than using municipal water, which goes through expensive treatment to make it safe to drink.
RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I would hope they would have a reservoir to cool the hot water before dumping it back into a river. I can’t imagine hot water being healthy for life in the river.
buttmasterflex@piefed.social 2 days ago
Yes. there are stipulations in the draft water about maximum withdrawal from surface water sources and required continuous monitoring of water temperature of the discharges.
hector@lemmy.today 2 days ago
It was fucked before this though. The clean ups of the 70’s onwards to 2000 is over, it’s been on a decline since, factory farms dumping shit water, dumping waste on fields, sewage waste, combined with chemical bullshit, on farm fields. There is so much less thought to our health and safety than we think, than used to be the case.
buttmasterflex@piefed.social 2 days ago
TL;DR Yes, but reality is nuanced, as always.
The recent federal bullshit is a definitely the culmination of decades of industry trying to undo environmental regulations. Moving forward, it’s going to take serious efforts and funds to repair and rebuild how much the US EPA and federal sciences were gutted. Some states are actually doing far better. On the environmental side of things, Ohio is actually pretty good. The programs are based on the federal ones and also have more protective limits to some things. Unfortunately, not all states have the resources or programs in place.
To your specific points, treated sewage solids have been spread on ag land for decades. Concentrates animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been polluting waterways through permit exemptions for decades. A huge issue with land applied sewage solids is PFAS, which is just now publicly coming to light. There are vast deficiencies in the way things have been happening all along that still happened in the “golden era”.
Negligent or intentional releases of hazardous waste onto the surface or into waterways has been greatly curtailed across the board. There are going to to be ups and downs in speed due to the reality of investigation and cleanup work, regulatory review time frames, and the thorough nature of the programs. The “fast” version of a facility cleanup that I’ve been part of, where problems were addressed as they were discovered, still took from 2009 to 2018, then massive reporting efforts that took US EPA 5 years to come back with a final decision.
XLE@piefed.social 2 days ago
I was going to say, especially in this era, “lawful” does not necessarily mean “good,” and can often be far from it.
spacesatan@leminal.space 1 day ago
I don’t know what ‘wastewater’ people were imagining. It’s a datacenter, it’s not like it’s some crazy industrial process with chemical waste. They’re not grinding servers up in a blender and dumping it down the drain.
JustAnotherPodunk@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think it’s the overall consensus that no normal person wants the data centers in the first place, and we want any justification possible to stop them. It’s not the actua reality that’s the issue. Cool water goes through pipes. Warmer water goes out back into the river. Sure. There’s a whole list of potential issues depending on the execution, but they can be properly and legally mitigated. It’s public sentiment that is the real issue. And I agree with that sentiment.