Reading this gives me the creeps and a whole lot of 'no shit, sherlock'. This is third-world kind of stuff. How can this not be solved over there by now? Privately hosted rooftop water tanks? Really? Does health and personal excellence mean so little?
At this point, in my area it's required by law to have a hydrofoor when your building is 13 meters tall (or taller). No water tower allowed, and skipping the entire thing isn't allowed either. In the USA that would probably be regarded as 'nanny state', but this is a typical case where you cannot trust a company or installer or building owner to do this right by default, hurting basically everyone else. I'm not sure what hydrofoor translates to, but it's basically a pressuriser, pump, buffer tank in one, that you have in the technical room of your building, that is inspected by the water company which is inspected by the 'watershap' (not sure what that translates to), which is inspected by the government. It takes a whole lot of people doing it wrong on purpose before that chain fails and you get bad water.
> In the USA that would probably be regarded as 'nanny state'
Maybe, but... building codes and regulations != nanny state in my opinion. Nanny state is more like banning soda, supersize meals at restaurants, etc. to protect people from themselves.
"Sorry, but you can't be trusted to make good choices about what you put in your body, so we will make laws that force you to make better choices"
I actually see both of your examples as instances of the same technique, and I wouldn't call either nanny state, but sensible policy.
I'm more concerned with corporate control, especially re health care. I know people who have to walk in circles during meetings because their step count is too low for their weight, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
It's only "sensible" because you happened to agree with the policies I chose. Nanny state (again, in my opinion) is infringing on the individual's right to choose.
Why should I, a skinny fit person with self control, not be allowed to buy a supersized meal after running a half marathon? I'm being punished because of the choices of the obese.
You might not like nanny state regulations as much if it impacted something important to you - like limiting internet usage for example.
"People have no self control when it comes to internet and especially social media usage, new ISP regulations will disconnect your internet temporarily if it detects you have been using social media for too many consecutive hours"
You can't avoid the choices of others. Pay now, pay later (for instance, in higher health insurance or tax payments), but it's naive to complain about having being impacted at all.
Government exists to infringe on individual rights. You're basically arguing for abolishing the whole thing. Consequently, "They're infringing on my rights" is a circular, pointless argument, unless you really want to just talk about how all government is bad.
You can buy two meals if you like. The policy applies a cost disincentive to unhealthy eating, an approach which has proven success as a disincentive for nicotine addiction and alcohol consumption. Since society pays a steep price for the pandemic level of obesity it is justified to apply a modest price signal. And while the effect on each individual is small, the benefit for some individuals is enormous -- they will avoid the effects of obesity, like type II diabetes, and live longer lives. Your tiny soda sacrifice will save lives.
In contrast, obesity penalties at the level of some insurance companies is really extreme, to the extent of controlling their daily actions, and leading them to seriously consider use of dangerous weight loss drugs (amphetamines basically) and major gastric surgery.
There is no need to construct an enormous and improbable straw man if you want 'nanny state' regulations, there are plenty of examples. For example, alcohol sales policy. Why can you buy lite beer in many places in the US, but not full strength beer or wine or spirits? It isn't because of cheap drunks -- they are cheap and buying in bulk, a $40 bottle of wine isn't going to interest them. It is a hodge podge of local and state govt regulation with little tangible benefit.
The difference between good and bad regulations is often whether they are based on evidence and statistical re-evaluation, or knee-jerk politics. Well considered policy will identify groups that suffer detriment. I can't identify a group that will be harmed by discouraging discounted soda.
I am in favor of legalizing drugs. I should be able to buy chemically pure substances, for example I might want to study the chemical properties of the drug.
I'm in favor of (what I consider to be) non-nanny regulation around drugs though - ban advertising (I actually think alcohol ads should be banned as well) and certain drugs should only have generic labels listing chemical information, should be age-restricted, and behind-the-counter (by request only).
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Time and time again, people have demonstrated that they don't act rationally. So if there is a way to reduce the space of people making unsound decisions, that should be an overall benefit to society. Not drinking soda is not going to lower one's quality of life in any meaningful way. Of course the issue people are concerned about here is where does the power to lay down such restrictions stop. It's not a mutually exclusive issue though, you can have rules that protect the population without going overboard.
> Collective rational thought and research to establish a scientific consensus that sugary drinks make you fat and ill knows best.
Collective rational thought also brought us such wonders as eugenics, phrenology...
I'm no fan of sugared beverages, nor do I consume them with any regularity, but it isn't my right to tell people they can't enjoy them because some people abuse them. Ordinary people have every option not to buy or keep soda in their house or near them at work; ordinary professional and personal interventions are sufficient to stop people from drinking them.
I have met a lot of obese people who avoid soda for its health risks, it is not a sufficient intervention on its own to change most people's dietary issues.
Now, if you want to talk about making soda, candy, sweet pastries, and low-value juice from SNAP, that's a different matter. It should not be criminal for me to put sugar in seltzer water and sell it to willing people.
> ordinary professional and personal interventions are sufficient to stop people from drinking them.
Ostensibly not. Even more evident for people who smoke. Absolutely zero reason to do that, only negative effects. It's wreckless and careless behavior on anyone who allows it.
I agree some of the HOA covenants can be onerous, but I am in favor of the ones that prevent individual homeowners from infringing on the rights of neighboring homeowners - like banning smoking indoors in shared housing.
Hmmm. I only have experience with a well run HOA then, in a townhouse community. During my ownership, the HOA maintained the streets, fences, paint, and common areas. The value of the property improved over time. I can’t say that my life was a “living hell” due to the HOA.
The problem is "protecting property values" can mean cracking down on things like insufficient lawn trimming, or not having a lawn, even in climates where lawns make zero sense, like Arizona, or simply the presence of non-white people who might "decrease property values".
What if you don't want a fence? What if the HOA gets slowly subverted by a bunch of nosy types that just want to make sure everything is perfect and nobody steps out of line? The legal authority of an HOA is surprising in some parts of the US. Don't pay your dues and they can seize your property.
Your property values are going to increase if the area is desirable and the economy is doing well. You don't need a fascist HOA to take care of that.
North America has this unreasonable fixation on property values because of how over-invested most people are in their homes.
Their main purpose is to reduce costs to local governments by replacing trained staff with volunteers. HOAs are the Wikipedia of local administration. You ask how towns and counties managed before HOAs were foisted on the people during the Reagan years, and you find out that they managed just fine.
> Incidentally, it's quite common that people can't be trusted to make good choices about such things.
How much of that is being constantly bombarded with marketing (psychological priming) that brainwashes us into making poor decisions? Totally agree though, we as humans are our own worst enemies.
Marketing is not just psychological priming - it's also, first and foremost, dishonest communication. Given its prevalence today, it's getting difficult to expect adults to always make right decisions if most of their information sources are garbage.
I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make. You are expressing shock at "[p]rivately hosted rooftop water tanks", then talking about privately-hosted hydrofoors instead. The rooftop tanks are supposed to be inspected annually by the city as well, but the inspections aren't happening. I don't see how the situation would be any better with this hydrofoor.
Just as note as well, in US cities the government generally is the water company, so we don't have the multiple layers you describe. There is some oversight of lower levels of government by higher levels, but that tends to be more auditory than inspectitory.
I don't foresee much happening. Local politics in New York has very little to do with helping your constituents and appears to be some jumping off point for greater things. De Blasio wants to be President. Cuomo wants to be President. You don't become President by being tough on water towers. Therefore, I predict nothing will happen.
(Cuomo might do something if he can figure out how to name it after his dad, though.)
I'm not up on NYC code, since I don't live in the city, but I wonder if it was a rebuild of an existing wooden tank under a "repair in kind" exemption. I have seen shit like that before, such as codes that allow knocking down all but one wall of a building and still calling it a "remodel" (and thus preserving grandfathered code exemptions).
I interpreted "using" in the context of construction methods, since it was attached to the material, not the object like your statement is here. To me, your statement implied that new towers are still being built with wood. It sounds like you meant to ask why wooden towers are still in use.
See my other comment above[1]. That company is rebuilding existing tanks on existing buildings, not building new tanks. That might sound like hair-splitting, but it is significant in the context of building codes.
I'm not defending the code as written. However, there are a lot of complexities involved in retrofitting newer things to older buildings that are difficult to encapsulate in codes, hence the reason grandfathering provisions tend to be more generous than some people would like.
Cost effective and comes with a few benefits such as: natural material which won't taint water, and it has good insulating effects in winter.
There was a Dirty Jobs episode which featured Mike accompanying a water tank crew doing a roof top replacement. They shape the boards of wood at the shop, truck it in, and use manual labor to schlep the boards up to the roof. Old boards come back down the same way. No extremely expensive crane service or metal working necessary. So it is quite cost effective.
> Another city agency, which is responsible for the tank, has certified year after year that the entire structure, including the roof, is sound and that the tank has no sanitary defects, dismissing its own 2015 report of E. coli in the water as a “clerical error.”
Would this be considered a criminal offence? Even if so, unlikely that they would be charged I'm guessing.
The tank with the missing roof means people in that building are drinking what amounts to surface water.
Why on earth are they still using wood? By now I would have expected them to have steel tanks with a steel roof on them, you know something a rodent can't just gnaw its way into.
I'm glad I read this. Now whenever I go to NY, I won't drink any water without having boiled it for three minutes first.
I had a water-borne illness from drinking (unbeknownst) surface water. It was utterly horrid. Cramping every morning. Always having to run for the toilet. Turns out I had not one but two parasitic infections. There is a reason water is treated and that water systems are inspected. I will never take water for granted again.
It sucks so bad. My brother and I got parasites from water at some restaurant in GA.
Down there they were able to help him, but up in the north, the Drs have no clue on how to deal with parasites. The most help I got was the Dr calling the pharmacy for me.
So my brother got meds from his Dr, sent them up here to get rid of the parasites. Now I'm dealing with some bacterial infections that no one can figure out.
I asked to have the same test done that my brother had that found all his issues relating to this. They replied with "Yes, we can do that test." Then they sent me to CT and for a colonoscopy which took 2 months before I could get in... all the while they couldn't "give advice" because they "don't know what my system is like."
I'm seeing the 4th opinion next week. It's been 4 1/2 months now, so maybe this one will care.
This is with the "good insurance" I keep hearing about.
Depending on when I call them during the month, I might owe money or I might not....
Before the colonoscopy, they said I would owe $500 for my deductible, which is correct.
Then I got there, they said I didn't need to pay anything, and I just got a bill yesterday for $2700. The insurance line items say they covered about $1300 of it. Now I get to fight insurance again because I shouldn't be paying anything over $500. I have 30 days before collections too.
I love paying for the privilege of fighting for insurance coverage.
Wood is a better insulator than steel or the other materials that you might use. This is important to keep the water from freezing in the winter or becoming a microbial breeding ground in the summer. Historically, wooden water tanks have also been a lot cheaper than those made of steel or other materials.
Of course, the question answers itself: It's cheaper.[1]
I guess there's no price you can put on health! (It certainly doesn't seem to count for much in this case.)
[1] The Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work [...] it is slightly cheaper
I'm pretty sure that in the game "Prototype", the water tanks were breeding grounds for the weirdy alien looking creatures. It was fun to fly around in a helicopter spotting them (by heat signature) and blowing them up.
I had no idea they were real features in New York.
Oh, they’re real features all right, I live right underneath one... but I had no idea they were functional! I thought they were just odd holdovers from a hundred years ago that landlords were too cheap or lazy to tear down...
Every time I hit a severe bump on the road that is supposed to be a repaired pothole, I think of the workers who were assigned to that particular pothole. I think of all the times I've heard workers say "That's good enough, I'm ready to go to lunch early." Because of a few people's low standard of perfection, now tens and thousands of people must experience a slight turmoil in that spot over the next decade, slightly increasing wear/tear on their car.
Apply this attitude to storage of a fundamental resource: safe drinking water. There is negligence because people are in a hurry, or because things become so routine that the sanitation workers don't even pay attention anymore.
Personally, I drink all my water exclusively from a well. Untouched by human "sanitation" efforts. A few weeks ago I forgot to drive out to the country to refill my container with this well water, and had to drink from a city tap for about a week. I started getting ulcers all over my mouth. Perhaps this was coincidental, but it is the only time in the past few years that I have consistently drank city water over a sustained period. Chlorine, fluoride, who knows what else.
I will say that NYC is supposed to have some of the best water in the nation because their reservoir is fresh snow melt. But any water kept in one place too long will be contaminated.
“The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.” -Bruce Lee
I don't. It comes from the ground and I keep it in a container for a couple of weeks. I keep my sourdough starter open in the same area for a similar reason: I want to come in contact with local bacteria. Over time it builds up my immune resistance to things in that area.
I don't go different places often (to minimize fossil fuel output), but I imagine when I do reloacte I'll have to start with sterilizing water for 90m as you recommend, then slowly start adding local water to introduce my immune system to the region.
Good point, I shouldn't have said "any". I'm sure over long stretches of time there could be bacterial growth, but extremely limited especially if no sunlight (besides, a little bacteria is a good thing). I suppose my opinion is that as a matter of principle I wouldn't want to drink any water stored in one place for so long, regardless of the quality of the seal.
I drink out of a 7-gallon non-BPA container that I keep out of direct sunlight. Refill about every two weeks.
I am trying to avoid complete sterilization after reading a quote from a study:
"... a lack of exposure of children (as well as adults) to dirt, commensal bacteria, and 'minor' pathogenic insults results in an immune system that does not function normally. This lack of antibodies to true pathogens in the immune system has resulted in the dramatic increase in allergies and asthma in developed countries over the past twenty years."
To my mind at least there's a significant difference between commensal bacteria and sucking down one of the bacterial 'spurts' from a rotting pigeon or rodent in the drinking water.
I'd like to start harvesting rainwater instead of relying on a well, but these 'spurts' you're talking about will the primary issue with a catching system. I'll probably just make a quick gravel->sand->activated charcoal filter in order to capture the bulk droppings, bugs, or whatever runs down the collection surface.
Haven't done it. There is farmland nearby so I suppose I'm getting some of that eventually. But I believe the well taps onto a different aquifer (100' down) that receives water from a different runoff than the immediate land.
I'll have to keep an eye out for ants. I look at the water the entire time I fill, and everything always looks clear.
Agricultural or industrial runoff is not the only concern. The well equipment itself can become contaminated with beasties and the water can contain natural contaminants such as arsenic.
The ideal method that I'll set up eventually would be rainwater catching. That should prevent heavy metal infiltration. Although in this particular area there are airborne pesticide applications in the summer, so I'll have to keep a close eye out for that...
> Because of a few people's low standard of perfection
I'm sure they'd love to pursue perfection if they were paid decent wage and not pressured to be as fast / cheap as possible.
It's easy to talk about perfection while sitting in a air conditioned office and slightly pressing on buttons while looking at a screen and getting paid 4-10 times the minimum wage these guys are getting while busting their asses outside no matter the weather.
> Personally, I drink all my water exclusively from a well. Untouched by human "sanitation" efforts.
Many things can be off with water coming from a well. Pollution, bacterias, &c. I hope you test / treat it often, otherwise it's not much safer than drinking tap water.
>> I'm sure they'd love to pursue perfection if they were paid decent wage and not pressured to be as fast / cheap as possible.
That and depending where you live, there's next to no money for road work.
At the local county govt I worked at, the first department that would get gutted was the highway department. It can easily cost millions to redo a few miles of road, and you need to fix a bridge that doesn't get used much (but it is becoming a hazard because it's been neglected for so long), magically most of the road budget is already gone for that year. Now add in the unknowns like salt prices, the equipment to do anything, maintenance, and everything else that comes with it.
Things here become "just good enough" because no one wants an increase in taxes to pay for it.
I want to believe that isn't the case for every local govt, but it is for the few smaller ones I've worked with around here.
I felt that I was paid well during my time in road work (entire family still works there). Then again, I don't need useless things like most people in society, so I'm naturally satisfied with any quantity of federal reserve notes that I'm allocated.
I agree with you that it's all being neglected.
We had to steadily taper off the traffic into one lane before night time work began in the summer. I remember specifically one time I was slowing down traffic on the interstate by setting out the warning barrels - someone from out of state passing through was just so angry from having to slow down to 55mph for 10 minutes of their life. Flipped me off, along with the most rotten glare I've ever seen.
I guess nothing else matters except for everyone getting out of THEIR way so THEY can get to THEIR destination. I'm sorry that I'm taking the gas tax we've all been paying in order to renew a 10 mile stretch of the interstate so you can do just that - travel INTER state (bump free).
I used to work for road construction, albeit not pothole repair (interstate paving). Because of my lifestyle, money is not an object (grow food, buy bulk, only drink free water, no insurance of any kind). There is this thing in my mind where I want to make sure the world is better for people when I'm dead, in whatever small way I can.
That means bending over to pick trash even if no one is watching. Doing a good job and not waste any employers time, regardless of "wage". Technically I make more than the people that hire me because I know how to spend it more efficiently than them.
We're talking about reputation here: Do we want to be remembered as someone who wants to be paid more? Or who was productive at all times without any complaints?
You're probably getting flack for saying "low standards of perfection" instead of just "low standards"... To me having higher standards and wanting to do (and actually doing) a good job, not just a good enough job, is primarily an attitude problem, not a wage/job pressure problem. Indeed there's a whole cottage industry of grumpy programmers to complain about other highly paid programmers not even suffering under crunch mode who aren't doing good work. Yes, you get what you incentivize on the large scale, but at the individual level you still have choices and opportunities to leave things better than you found them. Activity in scouting or similar when young probably correlates with the attitude.
I see now, "low standards of perfection" is almost an ironic statement since "standard" describes a minimum requirement and perfection can never be achieved, only pursued.
I agree that only wanting to do "good-enough" is an attitude problem. My own motivation comes from the assumption that someone is always watching. The idea is to never put a memory into someones mind of you wasting time and resources. Regardless of your own reputation, it is far more risky for someone to see this attitude and find it acceptable to replicate it. Then the attitude can spread like wildfire (until it hits a group of people with solid principles).
That is absolutely disgusting, but given the horrible state the system is in, why have we not heard of larger, more widespread disease outbreaks? You would think it would be happening all the time with the system in such horrible shape.
Ya know, I never understood why so many people today overlook the conditions that the human body had to endure before the last 100 years or so. I have a family member that washes avocados before eating them and doesn't want to sleep at a KOA campground for fear of being eaten by bears. Baffling.
Yeah, I wouldn't overestimate how good our immune systems is at protecting us from contaminated water.[1]
Where I grew up, at the start of the 20th century many children died in infancy from contaminated water and milk.
Also the gut is an 'immune privileged' part of the body, meaning that the immune system does not attempt to keep it sterile like the rest of the body.[2]
We need a healthy micro-biome for digestion and to synthesize vitamins etc, but this means that it's also relatively easy to get sick from contaminated water and food.
[1] The World Health Organization says that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world.
New York had a big scandal related to "swill milk" in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Distillery waste was fed to sick and dying cows kept in overcrowded, filthy lots. The milk and whatever dirty, contaminated water that got mixed in was adulterated with various substances to help mask the low quality. Many children died from consuming it. A very dark chapter of human history.
There’s a happy medium in there somewhere. People do get sick from unwashed produce - the recent Romaine lettuce recall, for example, or the periodic issues with produce like grapes or cilantro. On the other hand, strict cleanliness seems to contribute to development of immune problems like allergies or even celiac disease.
New York City is expensive, insolvent, and corrupt; it boggles the mind to hear that people still bother to live and do business there.
If you have the income to live in a New York City high rise, you should have the pride not to pay some scumbag to live in one with an unmitigated biohazard on the roof.
And of course, you and I both know that you'll be the first and only person in New York City who cared whether you were drinking clean water or not.
> it boggles the mind to hear that people still bother to live and do business there
It's actually the largest city in the country, so clearly there's a demand for it. Which might have to do with it being the most important and vibrant city in the history of global civilization.
When reality is inconsistent with logic, it's time to check your assumptions.
I've been all over the US, NYC is a dump of colossal proportions, a train wreck happening in (maybe not so) slow motion. I live in Europe and parts of Manhattan reminded me of the third world. Hype / reality distortion have a lot to do with NYC being perceived as "vibrant" or "most important".
Everything is anchored by the financial district. Take that economic engine away and you have a shit-hole city that would very quickly fall into disarray.
Around 2004 I was exposed to an opportunity to become an EPA Lobbyist for a company in the fuel and water storage tank construction and maintenance portion of the construction industry. The ease of the job, meaning the complete corporate capture of that portion of the EPA, was so comprehensive the Lobbyist position was eliminated during my exposure to the opportunity. Industry dictates any regulation, and don't really bother with any enforcement. This was during a portion of my career when I considered leaving tech, and the intentional disregard of any ethics or public safety is one of the factors behind my return to tech. Needless to say, I get all household water from a private source, and I do not trust the crops in any areas with underground fuel storage sharing the water table with nearby farms.
Fortunately, the free market will correct those problems. Consumers who find water quality important will not consume it, possibly by moving elsewhere, and force the company to fix it or go out of business.
Also fortunately, the tech industry is supremely concerned with ethics and public safety.
Would filtering and/or boiling the water be enough against that kind of contamination?
(We learn from childhood that you should only drink filtered or boiled water; I wouldn't feel comfortable drinking water directly from the plumbing, precisely because you never know how clean the water tank and the pipes are.)
I'm from the southeast of Brazil. Nearly every place has a water filter, separate from the normal faucet, for the drinking water. The water tank on buildings and houses is normally made of plastic, not wood (though in some buildings, it's made of concrete and part of the building's structure), but you never know if it has been left uncovered, or how recently it has been cleaned (and the plumbing, as far as I know, is never directly cleaned).
Can someone explain why water towers on each building are required in a first-world city? I genuinely don't understand. Is the public water supply so unreliable that you need to have a buffer?
112 comments
[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 191 ms ] threadAt this point, in my area it's required by law to have a hydrofoor when your building is 13 meters tall (or taller). No water tower allowed, and skipping the entire thing isn't allowed either. In the USA that would probably be regarded as 'nanny state', but this is a typical case where you cannot trust a company or installer or building owner to do this right by default, hurting basically everyone else. I'm not sure what hydrofoor translates to, but it's basically a pressuriser, pump, buffer tank in one, that you have in the technical room of your building, that is inspected by the water company which is inspected by the 'watershap' (not sure what that translates to), which is inspected by the government. It takes a whole lot of people doing it wrong on purpose before that chain fails and you get bad water.
Maybe, but... building codes and regulations != nanny state in my opinion. Nanny state is more like banning soda, supersize meals at restaurants, etc. to protect people from themselves.
"Sorry, but you can't be trusted to make good choices about what you put in your body, so we will make laws that force you to make better choices"
I'm more concerned with corporate control, especially re health care. I know people who have to walk in circles during meetings because their step count is too low for their weight, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Why should I, a skinny fit person with self control, not be allowed to buy a supersized meal after running a half marathon? I'm being punished because of the choices of the obese.
You might not like nanny state regulations as much if it impacted something important to you - like limiting internet usage for example.
"People have no self control when it comes to internet and especially social media usage, new ISP regulations will disconnect your internet temporarily if it detects you have been using social media for too many consecutive hours"
In contrast, obesity penalties at the level of some insurance companies is really extreme, to the extent of controlling their daily actions, and leading them to seriously consider use of dangerous weight loss drugs (amphetamines basically) and major gastric surgery.
There is no need to construct an enormous and improbable straw man if you want 'nanny state' regulations, there are plenty of examples. For example, alcohol sales policy. Why can you buy lite beer in many places in the US, but not full strength beer or wine or spirits? It isn't because of cheap drunks -- they are cheap and buying in bulk, a $40 bottle of wine isn't going to interest them. It is a hodge podge of local and state govt regulation with little tangible benefit.
The difference between good and bad regulations is often whether they are based on evidence and statistical re-evaluation, or knee-jerk politics. Well considered policy will identify groups that suffer detriment. I can't identify a group that will be harmed by discouraging discounted soda.
Flint, MI government intentionally exposed its people to lead poisoned water.
How about extending this to ending the war on drugs?
I'm in favor of (what I consider to be) non-nanny regulation around drugs though - ban advertising (I actually think alcohol ads should be banned as well) and certain drugs should only have generic labels listing chemical information, should be age-restricted, and behind-the-counter (by request only).
Collective rational thought also brought us such wonders as eugenics, phrenology...
I'm no fan of sugared beverages, nor do I consume them with any regularity, but it isn't my right to tell people they can't enjoy them because some people abuse them. Ordinary people have every option not to buy or keep soda in their house or near them at work; ordinary professional and personal interventions are sufficient to stop people from drinking them.
I have met a lot of obese people who avoid soda for its health risks, it is not a sufficient intervention on its own to change most people's dietary issues.
Now, if you want to talk about making soda, candy, sweet pastries, and low-value juice from SNAP, that's a different matter. It should not be criminal for me to put sugar in seltzer water and sell it to willing people.
Ostensibly not. Even more evident for people who smoke. Absolutely zero reason to do that, only negative effects. It's wreckless and careless behavior on anyone who allows it.
What if you don't want a fence? What if the HOA gets slowly subverted by a bunch of nosy types that just want to make sure everything is perfect and nobody steps out of line? The legal authority of an HOA is surprising in some parts of the US. Don't pay your dues and they can seize your property.
Your property values are going to increase if the area is desirable and the economy is doing well. You don't need a fascist HOA to take care of that.
North America has this unreasonable fixation on property values because of how over-invested most people are in their homes.
Incidentally, it's quite common that people can't be trusted to make good choices about such things.
Forcing people to make good choices isn't a priori absurd. See: seatbelts.
How much of that is being constantly bombarded with marketing (psychological priming) that brainwashes us into making poor decisions? Totally agree though, we as humans are our own worst enemies.
Just as note as well, in US cities the government generally is the water company, so we don't have the multiple layers you describe. There is some oversight of lower levels of government by higher levels, but that tends to be more auditory than inspectitory.
https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Health/Rooftop-Drinking-Water-...
I found this article and data set on Data is Plural:
https://tinyletter.com/data-is-plural
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9RLbRZJr0
It's crazy that this is allowed to continue.
(Cuomo might do something if he can figure out how to name it after his dad, though.)
I'm not defending the code as written. However, there are a lot of complexities involved in retrofitting newer things to older buildings that are difficult to encapsulate in codes, hence the reason grandfathering provisions tend to be more generous than some people would like.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19442493
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2007/09/wooden-water-ta...
(again 2007, but NYT instead of a blog)
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/nyregion/thecity/03wate.h...
There was a Dirty Jobs episode which featured Mike accompanying a water tank crew doing a roof top replacement. They shape the boards of wood at the shop, truck it in, and use manual labor to schlep the boards up to the roof. Old boards come back down the same way. No extremely expensive crane service or metal working necessary. So it is quite cost effective.
This is not a new story.
Would this be considered a criminal offence? Even if so, unlikely that they would be charged I'm guessing.
Why on earth are they still using wood? By now I would have expected them to have steel tanks with a steel roof on them, you know something a rodent can't just gnaw its way into.
I'm glad I read this. Now whenever I go to NY, I won't drink any water without having boiled it for three minutes first.
It sucks so bad. My brother and I got parasites from water at some restaurant in GA.
Down there they were able to help him, but up in the north, the Drs have no clue on how to deal with parasites. The most help I got was the Dr calling the pharmacy for me.
So my brother got meds from his Dr, sent them up here to get rid of the parasites. Now I'm dealing with some bacterial infections that no one can figure out.
I asked to have the same test done that my brother had that found all his issues relating to this. They replied with "Yes, we can do that test." Then they sent me to CT and for a colonoscopy which took 2 months before I could get in... all the while they couldn't "give advice" because they "don't know what my system is like."
I'm seeing the 4th opinion next week. It's been 4 1/2 months now, so maybe this one will care.
This is with the "good insurance" I keep hearing about.
Depending on when I call them during the month, I might owe money or I might not....
Before the colonoscopy, they said I would owe $500 for my deductible, which is correct.
Then I got there, they said I didn't need to pay anything, and I just got a bill yesterday for $2700. The insurance line items say they covered about $1300 of it. Now I get to fight insurance again because I shouldn't be paying anything over $500. I have 30 days before collections too.
I love paying for the privilege of fighting for insurance coverage.
I guess there's no price you can put on health! (It certainly doesn't seem to count for much in this case.)
[1] The Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work [...] it is slightly cheaper
I had no idea they were real features in New York.
Apply this attitude to storage of a fundamental resource: safe drinking water. There is negligence because people are in a hurry, or because things become so routine that the sanitation workers don't even pay attention anymore.
Personally, I drink all my water exclusively from a well. Untouched by human "sanitation" efforts. A few weeks ago I forgot to drive out to the country to refill my container with this well water, and had to drink from a city tap for about a week. I started getting ulcers all over my mouth. Perhaps this was coincidental, but it is the only time in the past few years that I have consistently drank city water over a sustained period. Chlorine, fluoride, who knows what else.
I will say that NYC is supposed to have some of the best water in the nation because their reservoir is fresh snow melt. But any water kept in one place too long will be contaminated.
“The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.” -Bruce Lee
Clean water stored in clean, sealed containers will not spontaneously become contaminated.
I don't go different places often (to minimize fossil fuel output), but I imagine when I do reloacte I'll have to start with sterilizing water for 90m as you recommend, then slowly start adding local water to introduce my immune system to the region.
I drink out of a 7-gallon non-BPA container that I keep out of direct sunlight. Refill about every two weeks.
Temperature plays a role too.
A little bit of bleach would go a long way in preservation, but maybe that’s what you’re trying to avoid.
"... a lack of exposure of children (as well as adults) to dirt, commensal bacteria, and 'minor' pathogenic insults results in an immune system that does not function normally. This lack of antibodies to true pathogens in the immune system has resulted in the dramatic increase in allergies and asthma in developed countries over the past twenty years."
-Callaway, Harvey, Nisbet
Then there was the time the ant colony intersected the well column and we had red ants coming out of the faucet for a few days.
I'll have to keep an eye out for ants. I look at the water the entire time I fill, and everything always looks clear.
Agricultural or industrial runoff is not the only concern. The well equipment itself can become contaminated with beasties and the water can contain natural contaminants such as arsenic.
https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/rainwater-...
I'm sure they'd love to pursue perfection if they were paid decent wage and not pressured to be as fast / cheap as possible.
It's easy to talk about perfection while sitting in a air conditioned office and slightly pressing on buttons while looking at a screen and getting paid 4-10 times the minimum wage these guys are getting while busting their asses outside no matter the weather.
> Personally, I drink all my water exclusively from a well. Untouched by human "sanitation" efforts.
Many things can be off with water coming from a well. Pollution, bacterias, &c. I hope you test / treat it often, otherwise it's not much safer than drinking tap water.
That and depending where you live, there's next to no money for road work.
At the local county govt I worked at, the first department that would get gutted was the highway department. It can easily cost millions to redo a few miles of road, and you need to fix a bridge that doesn't get used much (but it is becoming a hazard because it's been neglected for so long), magically most of the road budget is already gone for that year. Now add in the unknowns like salt prices, the equipment to do anything, maintenance, and everything else that comes with it.
Things here become "just good enough" because no one wants an increase in taxes to pay for it.
I want to believe that isn't the case for every local govt, but it is for the few smaller ones I've worked with around here.
I agree with you that it's all being neglected.
We had to steadily taper off the traffic into one lane before night time work began in the summer. I remember specifically one time I was slowing down traffic on the interstate by setting out the warning barrels - someone from out of state passing through was just so angry from having to slow down to 55mph for 10 minutes of their life. Flipped me off, along with the most rotten glare I've ever seen.
I guess nothing else matters except for everyone getting out of THEIR way so THEY can get to THEIR destination. I'm sorry that I'm taking the gas tax we've all been paying in order to renew a 10 mile stretch of the interstate so you can do just that - travel INTER state (bump free).
Peak capitalism
That means bending over to pick trash even if no one is watching. Doing a good job and not waste any employers time, regardless of "wage". Technically I make more than the people that hire me because I know how to spend it more efficiently than them.
We're talking about reputation here: Do we want to be remembered as someone who wants to be paid more? Or who was productive at all times without any complaints?
I agree that only wanting to do "good-enough" is an attitude problem. My own motivation comes from the assumption that someone is always watching. The idea is to never put a memory into someones mind of you wasting time and resources. Regardless of your own reputation, it is far more risky for someone to see this attitude and find it acceptable to replicate it. Then the attitude can spread like wildfire (until it hits a group of people with solid principles).
Where I grew up, at the start of the 20th century many children died in infancy from contaminated water and milk.
Also the gut is an 'immune privileged' part of the body, meaning that the immune system does not attempt to keep it sterile like the rest of the body.[2]
We need a healthy micro-biome for digestion and to synthesize vitamins etc, but this means that it's also relatively easy to get sick from contaminated water and food.
[1] The World Health Organization says that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world.
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16972898
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swill_milk_scandal
If you have the income to live in a New York City high rise, you should have the pride not to pay some scumbag to live in one with an unmitigated biohazard on the roof.
And of course, you and I both know that you'll be the first and only person in New York City who cared whether you were drinking clean water or not.
It's actually the largest city in the country, so clearly there's a demand for it. Which might have to do with it being the most important and vibrant city in the history of global civilization.
When reality is inconsistent with logic, it's time to check your assumptions.
Also fortunately, the tech industry is supremely concerned with ethics and public safety.
(We learn from childhood that you should only drink filtered or boiled water; I wouldn't feel comfortable drinking water directly from the plumbing, precisely because you never know how clean the water tank and the pipes are.)
The main issue with water tanks is the water is stagnant and in warm/hot climates ideal for life.
Nowadays it's very easy to add a UV light to the interior of your water tanks to keep the interior sterile.
They say it’s something in the water that makes the bagels better, maybe it’s the water tanks.