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Some Water & Sewer Plants May Not Be Y2K Compliant
Thabenksta writes "According to a Reuters News Article, over half of the United States' water treatment plants may not be y2k ready. This may result in backed up sewers, and undertreated water."
if you dont like me or my little sig, then dont read any of my posts. i come here to try to be intelligent, not an ass like you. i dont know why you think you are special enough to start posting messages like that, but if you have nothing remotely constructive or humorous to say...i suggest you go back to the sorry looking rock you climbed out from under.
:)
have a nice day.
oh, and by the way:
icq:=22921393;
there was a trick to seeing all the articles before it came up on the main page, but it doesnt seem to work anymore
Muhahahaha!!!!
What planet are you from? Small towns don't have pubic water and sewer? Each house has its own private water and waste facilities!!?? What kind of crack have you been smoking the last, oh say 50 years or so?
Um, where do you think I'm getting the well water from? I have a load of 4L bottles that I send to a friend's place, which is about a 15 minute drive from where I live, in the capital city of Newfoundland. Many of my relatives in Ontario chose to dig wells, too. Basically, the water doesn't have so much Cl in it, which is a good thing.
Those "rural water coops" are awful. The water quality is much worse than even city water. I'd rather *not* have to boil my water after it comes out to avoid "beaver fever," thank you very much.
Out of curiousity, what kind of engineer works on sewage lines? Is that a Civ E thing?
-Chris
Lets just hope its cold enough for snow and it isn't raining. With that wonderful milwaukee dual storm/sewer system, that could only add to the problem. Although rain would delute it.
:)
Besides, all the sewage we pump into lake michigan just ends up in chicago anyways.
Now, finally, /. joins the chorus.
I was already afraid that you /. editors might not have noticed, that the world is coming to an end, since not every second story is about Y2K.
Thanks for finally figuring that the end is near, and pleeeze, keep us well-informed.
Thanks. -ms
In USA the Y2K-awareness is very high, and has been so for quita a long time. And still, such a key part of the infrastructure has been overlooked. Isn't it *a bit late* to realize that now, less than a month away from the shift? Someone's in big trouble now...
I used to program control systems in the UK. We where asked to develop some PLC software for a water company that will remain nameless to control water treatment. To cut a long story short my boss at the time told me not the make the software Y2K comp (this was 1996) cos in a few years time they would need to pay us again to fix it. This really pissed me off and I wrote the software fully compliant but left it commented out so it could be fixed later on by the poor sod given the job of untangaling my code. I left the company shortly afterwards. So if you are English and are panicing about your water just hope all the bullied coders did what I did back then.
blog and junk
But then I remembered I took the Y2K pledge.
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
Two things here, why start looking at it the first week of Dec? Second is, if the consultants can't fix it, "they'll just exercise Plan B, buy a new system." Oh, yeah? >P> Anybody in Houston out there?
I agree that this probably isn't the right measure, as there's reasonably more to money supply than this.
This is closer to the truth than claims about M0.
But. I prefer another scenario...
There will also be...
These amounts unambiguously increase the money supply regardless of which variation you prefer...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I operate a small (5.3 MGD) water treatment plant. We are Y2K compliant. All the local treatment facilities are Y2K compliant. Valves >3" diameter will not close fast enough to cause a water hammmer signifigant enough to break anything. They use water pressure to open and close. The feed lines for these valves are sized with this in mind. Ours use 1/4" tubing to fill a 10-15 gal chamber. A 20" actuated valve can take almost four minutes to close. As another poster said, if water and wastewater plants experience Y2K failures the public will never know.
i think this is representative of where most of the fear about y2k is coming from: no one really knows what's gonna happen. who woulda thunk that the water coming out of your faucet wouldn't be y2k compliant?
makes me think of Nightfall by Issac Asimov.
Why is the government involved in regulating water, anyways? If we only opened up water service to the free market, then people would buy water from those companies who are prepared and we never would have had a Y2k problem in the first place!...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Well, is the date really that important? Couldn't you just reboot the computer and set them back 10 years, then get one of those boxes that convert that dates for you when producing logs/billing etc (They wont be doing any billing, but it woudl be good for testing). Besides, they still have 20 days
Yes. The news article I saw recently (it was an old article, but I think it was linked to from the Jon Katz article here) didn't indicate, as I remember, whether the problem was that a not-Y2K-ready system got confused and dumped raw sewage, or that, when they shut the power off to simulate a power failure, the system got confused and dumped raw sewage - in which case the system
If that's the case, one hopes they've fixed the problem by now - for reasons having nothing to do with Y2K....
I'm also curious whether part of the problem being reported involved, for example, no testing or contingency plans having been completed by June 1999 (as per the article saying
in which case the systems might not actually be broken, or there might not be a need for the contingency plans.
On the other hand, testing doesn't ipso facto guarantee that the systems won't have a problem, so that particular knife cuts both ways; there may well be systems that passed their testing but fail anyway.
(My personal suspicion is that many optimists will be surprised by problems occurring that they didn't expect to happen, and many pessimists will be surprised by problems not occurring that they did expect to happen. I suspect we've evolved not to like uncertainty, and tend to become sure of things even when the evidence is equivocal....)
instead of running solaris or irix, they should run enterprise ready systems from VA and Redhat. then they would be y2k compliant.
because when you use Solaris and IRIX, your shit just stinks.
What's this stuff? HO2? Hmm...whatever it is it's probably not important. As long as coca-cola can still make caffinated soft-drinks, and as long as Maxwell can keep the oxygen out of the roasting tanks the year 2000 will be ok. *click* *click* oh boy *click* pep *click* pep-pills, ohh boy *click* *click* --Lisa Simpson
That was Los Angeles, CA. They were in their 2nd year of Y2K testing. An outflow gate to the treatment plant closed but failed to signal the main computer, and the effluent flowed out to the closed gate, filled the pipes, and went up and out the manhole. 10,000 gallons of raw sewage was dumped into a city park at midnite. They had a wedding scheduled there the next day. Yuck. A cop on foot spotted it and called the waste water people. I wonder how many cities haven't tested...
Hi all, I would like to point out that this warning that is being cited is not new. There were several press articles in the UK computing arena about 6 months ago concerning Millennium compliance problems with UK water treatment and sewage treatment plants. In particular, I live in a large village (Tilehurst) in Reading (very near London). Both Reading and a large chunk of the London area fall under the control of Thames Water for their water and sewage treatment. The Thames Water computer system apparently had a date problem inside the system which controls the release of raw sewage into the sea. The system operates via a cut-off date/time combo, after which it will stop pouring sewage into the sea. Unfortunately, last I heard, the system date will "overflow" to 1900 (or something similar) and will thus never reach the stop time. A word of advice: don't go swimming in the sea anywhere in Britain (or anywhere) very soon after the Millennium, let them clarify the situation first. Surfers beware! :-) Furthermore though, things like this aren't a major problem as one would expect somebody to notice the potentially "damaging" YK2 side-effects like these, and manually interrupt them - hopefully before long term ecological damage is done. disclaimer: I'm not a YK2 nut, I don't expect to be let down by such fundamental services. Most of these stories are excessively overstated and, whilst I would consider their potential implications, I believe that it's the more subtle things that we should "worry" about. E.G. I'm more concerned that the cash machine will have run out of money from all the party goers than that the bank has lost all my money.
http://www.jonmasters.org/
You're an idiot, I'm sitting here drinking my coffee made from water out of my private well and it will end up in my septic tank (a small private sewerage system). There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of private wells in the US alone. You should get out of the city now and then.
Comman sense, and USEPA regulation (I'm not sure what the Canadian equivalent is?) strictly prohibit cross connections between potable water supplies and potentially hazardous materials (waste water, fuels,etc). Diesel is bad for people and water is just as bad for a diesel generator. Why would a person connect the two? They wouldn't.
I have analyzed the problem with my staff of poo-poo experts and we have come up with a solution. We are proud to present "THE Y2K COMPLIANT PLUNGER" for the low price of $99.99. Order now while supplies last!!! Makes a great X-Mas gift too!!!
Last week I went on a tour of the Mayfair pumping station. They were finishing up their computer upgrades. But even if they lost their computers they could definitely run everything manually. In fact they could even lose power from ComEd. Everything is the pumping station is steam powered and they make their own electricity. As long as they have some type of oil or natural gas to burn they're ok.
Sorry, couldn't resist. I miss parsed the article header to read `plants that grow in water and sewers'.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
The water where I live is usually brownish anyway. People boil it before giving it to their plants.
I think Y2K will be a big boon to watter bottlers.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
What will they think of next. I personally think that y2k is the greatest hoax of the millenium. and personally, non-y2k complient sewer systems is the funniest thing i've heard since i heard about y2k!
Thank the heavens for septic tanks, then.
"Even genius needs a competent technique."--Robert Fripp
Well, that's why I said the crap is broken down.
=)
I don't think many water/sewer systems are totally reliant on computers. This may mean overtime for infrastructure workers, but is not likely to be of interest to the average citizen.
Not that I'm bragging, but I sure am glad that I live in an area where well water is a viable alternative to the public sewage other people drink. We have our waters tested regularly and it's alot more pure than a majority of the bottled water being sold these days. Of course if on January 1, 2000 the power goes out, and Mexico invades I guess I'll still be screwed. Oh well...
Duh. I was mocking signal 11. Stupid Karma wh0r3. What a l00z3r.
... at least if the planes crash, they will have a nice soft layer of sewage to hit. ;-)
==============================
Fran Frisina (franf@hhs.net)
Yes, you can make money on the web!
http://www.zero-productions.com/money
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
For those of you in the City of Toronto, ON, Canada.. Would be interested and happy to know that Toronto Utilities and Toronto Hydro have been sending out flyers saying that their water treatment plants and hydro are all Y2K compliant. The water treatment plants are run by 2 separate power sources incase one of them goes down for any reason..
Just though other Torontonians may be interested.
Errrrr.. Since when did your average piece of fecal matter care what year it was??? OK Maybe the machines governing the sluice gates might, but in fairness, surely (ignoring opulation changes)there cant be much change in output between 1900 and 1999....
Man, talk about a buffer overflow. Gotta go get the plunger now... yeesh....
maybe, but that someone isn't who you think it is.
They do in fact perform operations on the date because the various control systems usually operate on a "do this until" such a date/time combo. Read my main post to this article for details of a real problem that _could_ occur due to this.
Jon.
http://www.jonmasters.org/
And lets face it, are the couple of guys who know how to run the manual backups for an automated plant gonna be available on the day after the biggest party night of the year which also happens to be saterday, ie two days before they have to worry about being back at work?
My very honest advice is to call your city hall and ask if any automated systems in water and sewage treatmant have been tested for Y2K compliance. If they don't give you an answer you're comfortable with, you have a few choices:
1) Don't worry about it until jan 1st and then deal with it however you choose.
2) Put aside several gallons of water for drinking. For toiletries, make sure you have at least two large buckets, a toilet seat that will sit on them without you falling in, some heavy duty trash bags, and about 30 bls of clumping cat litter (preferable the kind with baking soda, or you can get a couple of boxes and mix it in.)
3) If you live in a densely populated area and don't trust your neighbors to take the sanitary percautions just described, and you are getting worrying responses from your local gov, I would think seriously about celebrating with some friends farther into the burbs, or being prepared to get out of town for a few days if things do go wrng. Its not gonna cause the sort of widespread panic that the lights going out might, but the possible long term effects are actually _far_ more severe.
-Glad to be living in one of the better ranked cities for Y2K preparedness,
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I'd like to hear Mae Ling Mak's opinions.
Not to rain on your little rant or anything, but I come from a town of nearly 50,000 people. More than half of us have our own water supply and septic tanks.. (I know I do, along with each and every neighbor around)
There's city water and sewers if you want it, but most prefer to keep their own private setup because it's cheaper to maintain.
Not to mention that well water is just plain *better* than the city water that's available. No need for chlorine or other chemicals that are needed for city water, the well water is about as pure as you can get.
I think it's you who needs to get out of the big cities where everything is automated and look around at the smaller self-sufficent towns.
Interesting point. There are some systems that can suffer from water hammer. If I were the guy running the plant, I'd have all the critical pumps and valves under manual operation that night anyhow, and switch them back to auto after I saw that the control system was behaving. For many systems, as a later post points out, it just doesn't matter -- A valve that takes 5 minutes to close just doesn't cause that much of a problem.
I can think of one possible water-hammer problem, though. I programmed the embedded controllers that control the valves of a 96" (diameter) pipeline that carries water from a reservoir to San Jose, CA. To put that in perspective, I believe an old volkswagen could fit inside that pipe. The pipe is very long... it takes hours to drive from one end of it to the other. One of the engineers on that job told me that if one of the downstream valves were shut suddenly (suddenly means about 5 minutes, for valves this big), the immense inertia of the many tons of fast moving water hitting that valve would rip the pipe out of the ground.
Because of that, my embedded controllers contain a program that sequences the valves, shutting down the most up-stream one first, then moving down-stream in sequence.
So, there's one system where water hammer *could* be a problem. But those valves are only shut during an earthquake anyhow, not routinely. (They've only been shut once like that, during the Northridge quake -- I was happy to hear that the pipeline was shut down perfectly).
Wayne Conrad
The post that the AC was replying to said that small towns *don't* have public water and waste. I think the AC was just pointing out the fact that this was false.
Turning around when caught in such a blatant lie and saying "Ok, they do have public water, but it sucks." isn't any better.
Gives a new meaning to:
"I had a shit time on New Years Eve"
"DNA is God's contribution to the Open Source movement"
I think we'd be better off assuming IE is a part of the operating system, and that installing IE or one of its service packs equals "upgrading" NT.
Of course, this would not happen on a real OS... ;)
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
However, I refer you to the respected 'Risks' archive: volume 20 issue 46. 'Y2K test sends sewage flowing in Los Angeles'.
We all know there is a lot of hype out there, and probably only one in a hundred Y2K stories are true. However, that's an awful lot of genuine problems amongst the chaff.
This is the biggest crockpot story I have ever heard. I worked at a water treatment plant for 6 years, and the plant could care less if it was december 1923 or August 2040, everything is done manually or can be done manually. The plants are staffed 24 hours a day, and everything is monitored closely! every hour measurements are taken on every system and chemical dose, and water quality. unless the operator DIES or is 100% incompetent, there cannot be any problems with the plant. Heck, I've seen new guys completely screw up the system and NOT dose the raw water stream with Alum for 12 hours and we were able to get things back in line quickly. and we NEVER exceeded state regulations...
Whatever mag that published this should stick to what they know instead of making things up just to scare people or sell more issues. dont worry about your water... it's the safest thing you have. (P.S. you greenpeace nuts... Chlorine is the best thing we could use to make water safe.. if you dont believe me, then go drink out of the streams directly for a week.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
NONE- by state and federal law all water plants must have their own power generating systems to back up the never-reliable power grid.
I've ran my plant for 1 month on the generators.
(Back in a evil snowstorm in 1996)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The article says the latest data they have is from June... But the rest of your points are very valid.. I mean, so the plant operators get a bunch of overtime. At least I won't be the only one working thru NewYears.
Can't sleep, clowns will eat me....
A freind of mine works at a sewage plant int he greater Los Angeles. He says that they had a Y2K test a few months ago that caused the gate to misbehave resulting in excess dumping of sewage into the lake/river than they were allowed to that month by a factor of two or three.
This is the kind of Y2K hicup whose effects will only be seen 6 months to a few years down the line as massive sewage dumps seriously fuck up aquatic popultations.
Of course if you ask me LA is realy a good place to do that sort of experiment....
I used to be confident that most Y2K scenarios were far-fetched little stories created to scare viewers and nab ratings during sweeps.
Now I'm not so sure...
The City of Milwaukee, without telling anyone before hand, installed 12 huge emergency generators in strategic locations around the metro area. Their purpose? To provide emergency power to the sewage overflow pumps, thereby reducing the chance that sewage will back up into your basement if we suffer a prolonged outage. They'll pump the sewage into local streams and rivers... streams and rivers that will be frozen by the 1st.
This came just days after their "We're OK for Y2K" press conference.
...drinks from the toilet. he's happy enough.
My brother-in-law runs a municipal water supply, so I can answer some of your issues based on ym conversations with him and his work schedule.
First off, SOMEONE will be available at midnight new years if something goes wrong -- water is too valuable a resource, and the technicians, as well as other staff, have a regular rotating call schedule (24/7) like any hospital.
Flexible hours are what attract some people to the job, so being on a saturday doesn't mean they have two days off (someone is running the station on a saturday and sunday, too!).
Second, everything has a mechanical override -- again, water is too valuable to trust entirely to automated systems. There are plenty of people who know how to run the override systems.
granted, this is all for a municipality of a few hundred thousand (maybe a million, but less than two) so large cities like NYC will have much more automation dependency...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Ok, first off, setting water and food aside is a good idea no matter where or when you are living. I come from a weird family (ok, flat-out dysfunctional, they're all freaks). But the one thing my mother has tons of is common sense. She has always had a deep freezer, and a back room full of cans. We ate this food - you don't want to keep cans for more than a year or so, so we cycled through them. But they always kept that room etc. full. We had enough food back there to keep us for a good three or four months, just in case. We also had a week's worth of water, which she changed frequently so as to keep it fresh. We lived in a rural area.
:P ).
What did this mean, practically? A lot of work for mom - but when hurricane Diana hit and laid waste to our neighbors' places (we were on a hill, and what neighbors were around in that rural area lived in houses like ours, 200 years old), we were ok. We didn't need the ability to get to the garden or the store, we had enough water, etc. When we had a massive blizzard and were stuck in the house for a week and a half, the only problems we had involved keeping four hyper, annoying, ADD-affected monsters from destroying everything.
Keeping stores is always a good idea (but it does take work and space, and I'm lazy and live in an apartment so I'm not ready for _anything_ right now).
Also, this thing about the sewage and water treatment systems: I have been under the impression that the number of backup systems is downright funny for that sort of thing. Human labor did it at first, without computers, and they never removed the ability for human labor to do it still. So maybe our water bills will be a bit higher (ok, the water bills of those of you who own houses
There's going to be a run on bottled water and canned food anyway, due to the mass hysteria that this date-change has caused in the US. I think I'm more afraid of the crowds in the stores than I am of this sort of thing.
Besides, the 'end of the world' is going to happen via diseases anyway. Now that I have nightmares about - Plague Patrols going on witchhunts, killing anyone who has even bad acne in an effort to keep diseases under control, buildings falling down due to lack of maintenance, people fighting over food because they don't know how to hunt - or don't want to eat diseased rats and pigeons... *shudder* (but that's not based on date anyway, it's based on how-long-humans-keep-fighting).
Bleh.
-Elthia
Well not that is some back up plan U have there. I see U have given the matter more thought than I myself would, however it is insightful and informative. I think given the situation U have described your plan would be the most hygenic in any case. Interesting overall.
"java sets my mind in motion"
exactly, most plants have 50 year old systems that dont even have logic chips or electronics.
every plant I seen controlled the systems via pnumatic air systems and 440 volt motors.
dont give us your tirade about new and nice systems.... in your dreams...
Water plants use really old crap... why? because that 60 year old pump still works! but then I worked in a water plant that was the 3rd one in the country.. and the second plant to ever add flouride to the water stream....
(OMG we're poisioning our children.... boo hoo)
Please... all you "health nuts" stop drinking treated water and drink directly from the lakes... we really need to thin out the gene pool a bit more.
Chlorine and flouride has saved more lives and protected us from more illnesses than any medical discovery known to man.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I was gonna say the same thing to you, but then I went down stairs and fell asleep. It is pretty cool though.
Do you ever say anything interesting or funny? No? Didn't think so.
I agree, awareness is something the internet and Y2K has sent to unprecedented proportions. Which I think some of "them" are not entirely happy with.
"java sets my mind in motion"
Actually, most small towns use septic tanks and well water, neither of which relies on computers.
then you're really fuct!!
Well, I guess Mr. Hanky is comin' on New Years this year!
Howdy Ho boys 'n girls!
==============================
Windows NT has crashed,
I am the Blue Screen of Death,
Well in Oz we might be swiming in beurocratic shit by you yanks are going to be swimming in the real stuff huh? :)
meridian at tha.net
Hi. I have been on the internet for almost ten years, and have not left my room. I have had no social interaction with any other people, and have started exhibiting signs of psychosis as a result of my isolation for about 6 years now. As it relates to this story, one of these signs is the act of eating my own feces and drinking my own urine. Therefore, I have completely lost any squeamishness over the matter, and, should the sewers flood and invade my dwelling, more dinner for me!
Industrial systems such as water/sewer systems have two layers:
Accouting, which is the technology that you see when you visit a plant because it is visible -- monitor screens displaying really nifty info on the status of the plant etc.
Control is the layer that actually does all the work. Now these aren't so apparent because usually embedded chips do this sort of work. Totally hardware or at least firmware that has been a fundamental part of the working of the plant since it was built.
That possibly means in the '70s or '80s. Hard to upgrade because of the nature, and to make things worse, most of the people who can fix them are probably not in the business anymore.
Check out http://www.2k-times.com/y2k-a152.htm for more info on embedded chips in general.
Thank you Mr. Gates. You may now put the penis back in your mouth.
As long as I have power I'll be fine. After all, who needs water to run a computer? I do just fine with soda. Of course soda is majorly part water (and sugar woo woo!) so that's something to think about. About sewers, I got a thingie in my yard so that only gets pumped out every 2 years or so. If I don't have power I can't flush, and then my bathrooms get a TAD stinky. As long as I got power, I can tell you all how fresh my toilet smells.
-PovRayMan
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
I really found it frightening that the guy who was defending the plants said that most of them were fully prepared or well on their way. Since this is about 20 days till the date, well on their way isn't very assuring. Oh sure, the watchdog group is wigging out about a report in June, but this guy, I presume, said this rather recently.
However, if you mean regulation in the sense of establishing standards and inspecting for compliance, which is to mean what "regulation" means, then that's simple to answer. It's for the same reason as why the government in clean foods, effective drugs, state-licensed physicians or electricians, and aircraft inspections. It's a matter of public safety. Safe food, safe drugs, safe wiring, safe surgery, safe airplanes. And so on and so forth.
And no, you really can't trust the industries to be responsible. Most will, but sometimes mistakes are made, corners are cut, or people are just too greedy. History has shown that you just can't trust all the people all the time. The cost in terms of human life is deemed too high to just let it all slide. And yes, it happens plenty anyway. But without public health and safety regulations, it would be incredibly worse.
And you don't really want the private sector responsible for creating and enforcing the public safety laws. That would be even worse that having the government do it. Much worse, I fear.
[When I read the headline, I was trying to figure out how water lilies could fail at Y2K compliance. Seriously. "Water plants" just invoked the wrong image for me. :-]
Mental note: don't drink anything green from my faucet :-)
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
Yeah, it's called http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=
the real at&t mix
I am Signal 12. I am cool and/or eccentric because I use three commas in the subject line. I am also a Karma wh0re. Watch me be unfunny and get karma.
"Merry Christmas! Shitter was full"
--Cousin Eddie
Anyone know where I can get some Y2K complaint containers to store water before and sewage after.
Now seriously - if nothing really major happens at Dec 31 midnight I am going to be very letdown by all these coverage.
R
That, through 300 feet of 1 1/4" pipe provides a little less than 20 psi of water pressure provided by gravity. There are no computers controlling any water flow into the house.
As a convenience for the household water-drawing electical appliances, there is a water pump, a shallow-well type, mounted on a Well-X-Trol brand pressure tank of 30 gallons capacity with a rubber bladder in it to boost the pressure to between 45-60 psi.
In case of a power loss, the appliances aren't going to work anyway, but plenty of drinking water will be around.
Oh, yeah, and "graywater" goes into a septic tank in the back yard. No computers in there either. I just don't want to overflow it when the ground is saturated from snow meltoff.
So, see, there are advantages to living in a rural area. My biggest worry every winter is with a weather-induced power faliure lasting several days. With an electric water heater, there may be no hot water available out of there. Wood stoves still provide a way to heat water for basic hygeine and some cooking.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
Hey: didn't any of you take the pledge to stop talking about Y2K? I could go on for days listing things that could potentially be affected by Y2K, this article's a waste of space really...
Devilled Eggs - A disturbing little creation of mine.
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Hey, Bungalow Bill
What did you kill
Bungalow Bill?
He went out tiger hunting with his elephant and gun.
In case of accidents he always took his mom.
He's the all American bullet-headed saxon mother's son.
All the children sing
Hey, Bungalow Bill
What did you kill
Bungalow Bill?
Deep in the jungle where the mighty tiger lies
Bill and his elephants were taken by surprise.
So Captain Marvel zapped in right between the eyes.
All the children sing
Hey, Bungalow Bill
What did you kill
Bungalow Bill?
The children asked him if to kill was not a sin.
Not when he looked so fierce, his mother butted in.
If looks could kill it would have been us
Instead of him.
All the children sing
Hey, Bungalow Bill
What did you kill
Bungalow Bill?
mmmmm, sweet sweet sewage
I was thinking more along the lines of small towns not being aware of the problems/not having the money to deal with them. I guess there's not really any reason to think that, though. Smart people live in small towns, too. :^)
Invicta{HOG}
I've long felt that the modern sewage system is one of humankind's greatest achievements. Just looking back at the pre-sewage European cities during a plague or cholera outbreak reminds you just how many disgusting things live in our waste. While I'm sure that many major cities (at least in the US) won't be totally affected, I could see where this would be a problem in small towns (like my own) and in foreign countries. It's funny when you stop and think about just how much computers affect our lives. Sewer systems!
Invicta{HOG}
Anyone remember a few months ago the story about a town that was doing Y2K tests on their sewage system and raw sewage shot up from the sewers and flooded the streets? Well it happened and if this is true... this is bad!
Strange to see a link to a fear-mongering article on Slashdot so soon after the anti-fear-mongering Y2K pledge.
Since the report did not predict which water suppliers may be disrupted by Y2K, the center recommended households store 10 gallons of water per person for the date change, or enough to last 10 days.
Later that day a few other recommendations were added:
no pun intended. wait, yes there is, nevermind.
...exactly, tons of it. i hope my areas ready i dont want to have to get in ye-ol'-boat...
icq:=22921393;
that just about summs it up.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
It may interest you to know that, in the Detroit area at least, there is a shop which makes controls where I used to work. Its business is about evenly split between automotive applications and wastewater treatment devices. What does this mean? Well, it means for one that new wastewater controls are purchased on a regular basis. We're not talking some 50-year old crap here - they sell millions of dollars worth of brand new wastewater controls every year. Good news - most water treatment places at least in Michigan won't have ancient control equipment, but stuff built locally by skilled people within the last several years. Bad news - each and every one of these setups is computerized. I don't believe that the computers this shop uses care about the date, but I wasn't a programmer - I just put the things together - so I really wouldn't know.
you said 'fermented gasses'. hahahaha
My favorite is the dialog box when you install an NT service pack, "In order to resolve known Y2K issues with NT 4.0 you must install Internet Explorer SP1 with Microsoft Data Access Components". I mean, what the fuck, NT 4.0 came out in like 1996! And what in the sam hill does NT's Y2K compliance have to do with freakin Internet Explorer?
Disclaimer: I would never use NT of my own volition, but it pays the bills.
"backed up sewers, and undertreated water."
And this is different from the status quo? =)
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
I had heard that a town in Ontario did a Y2K check on their water system and it leaked diesel into the water supply.
The joke was that it improved the water.
I have a feeling that *some* small towns are going to have a lot of trouble if they haven't checked by now (morons, what the fsck do they get paid for?).
Meanwhile, I'm in a larger city and I have quite a stockpile of well water and those bubbly drinks containing caffeine (It was on sale). Has nothing to do with y2k, though, our water supply simply has way too much chlorine in it and those Brita things are a PITA. If you run the water, you'll be able to smell the Cl from across the room and it tastes like pool water.
I have a feeling that *some* small towns are going to have a lot of trouble if they haven't checked by now.
Actually, small towns should be fine. Why? Became small towns don't have public water and sewer. Each house has its own, private water and waste facilities. As long as you have power (and a small generator will ensure that), you are all set.
It is the medium-sized towns -- the small cities -- that might have trouble. Big enough to need centralized systems, small enough to not be able to afford proper upkeep.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll just dive in . . .
First of all, the NRDC tends to, when making announcements, to err on the side of extreme alarmism. They mean well, but often make sensationalistic (sp) statements because, well, that's what it takes to get media attention.
Note that "The report said fewer than half of the drinking water utilities had completed all phases of Y2K preparations, including contingency planning and testing, as of June 1999, the date of the last industry survey." Is is possible that in the meantime many of the utilities have made significant progress towards this?
While many of the control systems in water treatement plands do require the use of embedded logic/controller chips (the exact name escapes me) they are NOT buried 30 feet underground. They are also not 20 to 30 years old. The treatment industry statndards are set by the feds (EPA) and get tougher every few years. To meet the tougher regs, plants switch to more advanced processes, which means new equipment. The last treatment plant I visited (Fairfield, CA) used a bank of pc's to control the processes at the entire plant. None of the treatment gear (with the exception of the sedimentation tanks) looked older than 10 years.
The water/wastewater industry is one of the most efficient and vigilant industries that I know of. The American Water Works Association as a professional oganization is honest to a fault. If they dispute the report, they must have a good reason.
Realistically, he most likely problem that MIGHT occur would be some sort of power failure (PGE&E in our parts is not guranteeing power) which would more than likely cause water supply pumps to stop pumping. This can create a loss of pressure and siphoning in the water lines, which can easily lead to contamination if your idiot neighbor decides to fill his dirty swimming pool on New Years Eve.
Does it make sense to have some water on hand just in case? Of course. Am I worried? No.
By the way, Some utilities are more than happy to give tours if you contact them in advance. Most people have no idea how involved the process actually is, and would benefit from a tour.
Most of my comments have been made in reference to water treatment, but can bea applied equally to wastewater treatment.
So... please /. contributors, don't fall into this trap. I'm very willing to put money on civilization surviving the turn to 2000. If it doesn't, I guess it's just paper.
The biggest Y2K problem is that I'll be on call on Dec 31-Jan 1st, just as I suspect many of you readers will be and I'm supposed to stay sober as well as in cell range.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My God, its full of stars
Losing the water system is really much more annoying and hard to prepare for than losing power, in spite of how many systems need power.
It's easy to store enough drinking and cooking water for a week or two, and you can skip showers if you want, and a gasoline-powered camping stove can last a long time. Keeping enough water for toilets is more annoying, and some of us apartment-dwellers don't have shovels around to dig latrines with.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
There are several aspects to this story that make it highly dubious. The first is that the last report was conducted in June. Few industries, ANYWHERE had completed their Y2K preparations as of June. The second is that even if the Y2K preparations are not complete there is no great likelihood of serious failure. Few industrial control systems are particularly date sensitive. Only the supervisory/accounting systems are. Finally these systems always include multiple levels of redundancy right down to manual override in case of primary control element failure.
This is going to be just another Y2K Chicken Little story drummed up by panic mongers.
Computer: "Hmm, my date went from 99 to 00. Time to dump all of the chlorine supply into the water, and remove all my filters to allow the random filth through!"
I somehow don't really see that happening. Your mileage may vary.
This could be bad. Only three weeks left before y2k and they aren't ready yet ? I wonder why the watchdog groups didn't make sure the plants were compliant a little earlier. This would be a major disaster if the plants did fail.
Still, to what level can the plants fail without an operator noticing ? It's not like there is a "dump toxic sewage into drinkable water" valve connected to the main computer. And I'm sure the process isn't so automated the operators will simply miss a gross error like that. Surely they can revert to mostly manual operation. Or just throw the power lever for five minutes, set the clocks back, and set the power back on.
Is there any other essential service that has the potential to fail on y2k which can't simply be paused for a moment while the clock is set back ? I'm not talking about things like telephone and electricity, as it is safe to assume that those companies have already taken measures to make sure nothing unexpected will happen on y2k. I don't think we have to fear y2k so much. Of course, it's not pleasant to hear 3 weeks before y2k that some utilities might not yet be ready...
I wonder how could hardware and software makers decide to ignore the problem for so long, even some systems built a few years ago aren't compliant. I mean, in 1993, some Honeywell central air conditioning systems weren't yet compliant. It's probably a conspiracy to be able to increase sales and support revenue.. They charged an outrageous upgrade fee. And so did a lot of other companies. I wonder how much does the y2k problem really cost us... We must take in account that it probably help the technology business take off, which created a lot of jobs. But did anybody ever lose a job due to the y2k problem, except for their own oversight in designing a system ?
The y2k problem might actually have been a blessing that forced us to raise our level of technology, and helped the industry blossom. I wonder if the industry will slow down as some people predict.
Anyway, it will be interesting to watch..
Why not just drown them in their own sewer
This was done so that the causes of major failures could be determined and the appropriate people could be shot (just kidding).
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
None of this is to say that there might not be inflation between now and February, and it might conceivably be related to Y2K (although a suitable mechanism eludes me), but if that happens, the cause will not have been merely issuing extra currency.
-r
It's a disgusting sidenote, but in the same spirit of landing on sewage.
When I was a kid, my father always refered to sewage treatment plants as "Brown Trout Farms"
Now, doesn't everybody feel > this much stupider for having read this?
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
Well, since you were one of the big shots sitting in the office with the Dells, you probably don't know what us field engineers know.
When you restrict the flow of water (any liquid of similar viscosity) suddently, it causes a compression in the line that is sent down the length of the pipe. The compression wave can echo back, utimately causing a break in the line.
You can observe this effect with a garden hose where you do NOT have a simple taper head valve (as most hoses have these days). The result is a kind of 'kicking' of pressure through the hose.
Now, many valve switches on big lines are computer ized, as you know. If these controls are not Y2k compliant, and cause a sudden shutoff (as opposed to a gradual, slow reduction in pressure), a water hammer can generate.
This probably won't result in mass chaos, but it means us field engineers will have our beepers go off all through January as new leaks spring up in the treatment plants (as opposed to the crumbling infrastructure outside the plant).
Geez, and here I was thinking it was safe to read slashdot! PLEASE! NO MORE Y2K STORIES!!!!!!
CSG_SurferDude
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
how is that possible? He posted almost 3 hrs before the article was posted.
I would like to know why water- or sewer-treatment plants need to do mathematical operations on the year in order to operate correctly. Think about it. It that really is the case, whoever designed that system needs to be shot.
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.