Is disposal of H20 + biodegradable soap on playa MOOP?

[missprism]

well, plenty of people take hot showers at BM... i plan to via a battery pump shower and a bottle of water left out in the sun absorbed by a towel with the excess packed out. but that's a plan for just me!

good luck with your project, i'd still happily accept that invitation if it's sincere!

[Savannah]

At what point do you think that a service like that would be considered public if it was made a available to our small camp and perhaps people you meet and nearby campers you interact with? I agree that eventhough I have the scientific know how to test and confirm very clean water, proving it to health officials is not what I want.

If you're really concerned, I would suggest you contact the Earth Guardians as linked and ask what level constitutes public. However, used primarily for your own camp and allowing the neighbors or a few new friends at your discretion is obviously different than offering gifts to the community at large.

(People share food with neighbors and friends too without a health permit, also, but the moment it is offered on a wide scale the health department steps in.)

[unjonharley]

I will be extra careful this year.. The CDC is telling of some bad shit going around..

I'll show you my grumpy side if you are contaminating my play"a" ground..

Filtering playa dust just don't work.. It's like trying to filter mixed concrete..

[mulch]

Sorry for getting off the topic of water waste disposal somewhat and thanks everyone for the advice. Ill look at the guardians site and ask them a few questions.

Im hoping a centrifugal prefilter and then a big dolomitic pool/spa filter will get even the finest sediment, it usually will get unfilterable ash in a swimming pool, and if not the charcoal filter should, but you dont want to have sediment in your charcoal filter. but thats another topic as I engineer this and test it.

Thanks again for all the advice and thoughts, and ill try to give missprism a heads up if/when we know where we will be, y'all can look for this antique RV http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/1801991/sn/1438680924/name/outsidealnearlydone1.jpg (hope link works), the nearby loud shower sining singing and steam rising, will be us.

Ill move along and maybe start another thread as recommended if I need additional thoughts.

[MyDearFriend]

I will be extra careful this year.. The CDC is telling of some bad shit going around..

I'll show you my grumpy side if you are contaminating my play"a" ground..

Filtering playa dust just don't work.. It's like trying to filter mixed concrete..

Yes, yes, and yes.

The health department last year, at Ice sales, made us promise not touch the ice without gloves. BAGGED ice in sleeves. This is why your lovely cashier made you handle it yourself. So no way would they let you recycle water for bathing passers-by, sorry.

And the CDC has been warning of lots of nasty new bugs in circulation; check the MMWR here.

[trilobyte]

Make sure you've got tarps or something that'll catch the water coming off those being showered, and be prepared to take all your waste water home with you. Even if you're not doing a registered theme camp, the theme camp resource guide contains a lot of great information regarding planning a camp. You may also want to take particular care to read the Protecting The Environment section of the site. And in case you haven't already read them (I see a couple 'burning since 2013' in the thread), check out the Survival Guide & First Timer's Guide linked in my signature below.

[mulch]

Once again, thanks for your concerns. I'm a physician with public health experience and a biochemistry background. The water that falls on your head will be of potable quality or greater and tested continually to be of such quality. And my initial plan, as mentioned above, was to have a grey water tank equal to my starting water tank. Just a thinkin' as I consider the design.

And BTW, you San Franciscoans have invaded our "burningman" this week. Its Mardi Gras at the Superbowl. No less planning or preparation is needed to correctly enjoy the Gras, however, MOOP is everywhere here and fully encouraged. cheers

[Shaolinskunk]

Mulch...maybe I can help ya out a little. I actually transport water for a living... I was planning on bringing a trailer with 3 325 gallon tanks. They've never had anything but R.O. In them and are all on individual valves. I have transfer pumps (big and small) so properly planned we could pump water back into tanks as others emptied. I could also help transfer others grey water off the playa if we had room. This IS my first year so I need to research a little more, I've been reading this site nearly non stop since I got tix... Thoughts?

[BurnerBunny]

I have to disagree with the rules here. Disinfected water (especially with chlorine or bleach) is very bad for the environment. I happen to know about a lot of the rules and regulations regarding dumping treated water because my father owns a green business that addresses the needs of water utilities to help conserve water instead of dumping. Most of them are trying to reduce their fines from various agencies in addition to conserving water to avoid dumping treated water (the water you drink from the system).

Maybe the volumes are much less on the playa so the impacts aren't as great, but I can't help but wonder if maybe nobody is aware of these regulations?

[unjonharley]

Anything you think can be dumped on the playa.

Now think 50 000 times..

Haul it in haul it out.. LNT aka Leave no trace..

[Elliot]

My take is that the rules are strict for good reason. And Unjon makes some good points.

I think we can agree that all on this board are interested enough in the event and its principles that we arrive well prepared to do minimal harm. But we are up against several thousand who just happened into a ticket and showed up.

I ran into one last year – he actually bragged that he had never heard of BM until a few days earlier when a friend offered him a spare ticket. So there he was, utterly clueless, throwing candy wrappers on the ground.

So it behooves us to lead by example. And as was mentioned earlier, that means not doing anything that could appear from a distance to be lenient.

There is a ban on public showers, for obvious sanitary reasons, although I observe that this ban is not widely enforced. My personal take is that a highly skilled professional could certainly design and operate a semi-public shower with a high degree of safety. But it would be unwise to allow its existence to be commonly known, lest somebody mimic it – without the necessary skill.

[Shaolinskunk]

:

There is a ban on public showers, for obvious sanitary reasons, although I observe that this ban is not widely enforced. My personal take is that a highly skilled professional could certainly design and operate a semi-public shower with a high degree of safety. But it would be unwise to allow its existence to be commonly known, lest somebody mimic it – without the necessary skill.

^^i hadn't read that yet^^. The ban that is.... I still think bringing my trailer could help someone...somehow. Even if I brought it empty just to help haul off water. Just throwing that out there-

[Elliot]

Commercial waste-water removal does exist in BRC. You can rent a big tank which will be placed in your camp, just like you can rent your own porta-potty. You simply fill the tank and leave. The rental company removes the tank and its contents.

If you provide gray-water removal as a gift, that would no doubt be popular.

In 2006 there was a huge home-made water-slide. Have not seen it since.

In 2010 I saw a highly professional/commercial public shower mounted on 18-wheelers. It was a big walk-thru chamber with soapy water spraying from all sides. I can only guess that it was built for disaster relief or some such.

I keep wanting to build a water slide -- I still have my 18-wheeler tanker license.

[Shaolinskunk]

Rent your own porta pottie!? Where is info about this??

I can most certainly remove grey water as my gift!

Now about this slide ... Did they have to recycle their water somehow?? That sounds fun... I also have big rig water trucks but I guess I didn't think about it on that scale. Plus I live in Texas so that would be a heck of a drive with something so big. Weigh stations aren't my favorite places either.

[Elliot]

I rented a porta-potty (we used to call them JOTS) for my Theme Camp's own residents from United Services -- who provide all the official JOTS. (Used to be Johnny On The Spot.)

The big slide I know nothing about. The commercial grade shower appeared to haul theirs out on the same 18-wheelers -- I noticed a flatbed with a bunch of those plastic cubes in steel-wire cages.

[mytripod]

As a solo camper, I didn't create much greywater, but I accidentally discovered a method for evaporating my greywater even faster than in my little black greywater tubs. One morning when the portapotty truck went by, a roll of tp bounced off the back. I picked it up (MOOP) and instead of tossing it in my garbage or using it for my little personal portapotty, I dipped it into my greywater until it was saturated but not dripping and then I dropped it into one of my hanging mesh bags. The water evaporated really quickly. I ended up repeating my procedure several times more with the same roll of tp. This won't work for big camps, but if you are one of us little camps with minimal greywater, this is a nice way to hasten evaporation. I'm bringing a couple of dense tp rolls this year just for this purpose, and designating one of my mesh bags just for greywater evap.