It’s not particulates - you’re smelling volatile organic compounds, usually from the indole family. The most notorious is skatole which has also been used as a non-lethal weapon.
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IKD how their local politics work, but I think an emergency session of something would be in order.
Lest the locals take the (fecal) matters into their own hands and get the torches and gasoline out.
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There was the radioactive milk train in Germany.
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Allegedly
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Wow! That was quite a mess. I guess it’s a good thing this shit’s not also radioactive.
Although, if it were, maybe Lloyd Kaufman would take it off their hands. That milk article even gives me an idea for the film title: NUCLEAR TAINT! The Musical
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I’m told that the industry-approved euphemism is ‘biosolids’. (and that the technical, for-regulatory-purposes term is ‘Class A Biosolids’ rather than ‘Grade A biowaste’; can’t trust the lying media).
Just look at this green and attractive website with its appealing stock photos, adherence to contemporary design language, and wealth of, um, ‘messaging resources’ about the benefits of these invaluable resources. Let the warm trust wash over you; people with an interest in fertilizer definitely wouldn’t stoop to astroturf!
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I’m sure the free market will sort all of this out. /s
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I think that this is the free market sorting all of this out:
Back in the grim darkness of the before times we had to rely on shit literally flowing downhill; leading to a wasteful need for nearby local minima and their attendant populations of poors. Now, with sophisticated logistics and a commitment to cost optimal regulatory arbitrage shit can end up as far down the metaphorical hill as possible, even if doing so means using a route beyond the capabilities of naive optimization.
Truly, ours is an age of progress.
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To be fair, I’m pretty sure my town doesn’t have any zoning laws that explicitly prohibit the storing of many railcars of human shit. I’d be surprised if many of them do - it isn’t something you might anticipate generally.
You beat me to it… I was going to point out that if this load were to start turning a shade of orange and demonstrating signs of low-level sentience, the local citizenry should make the utmost effort to terminate it with prejudice, lest it run as a certain someone’s vice presidential running mate in the 2020 election.
That’s the exact same plot line as Netflix’s fabulous “Babylon Berlin”. Except instead of railroad cars filled with human shit, it’s phosgene gas. And there are proto-Nazis who live there who are trying to steal the contents. Same as in Alabama.
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Here in Canada, local authorities have no jurisdiction over railroads. They are under federal jurisdiction. Our clueless town council found this out, to their great chagrin, when the railroad closed a crossing to lengthen a siding.
I’m not sure a burning pile of shit would smell any better… Then again, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236116306809
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Nope. Adamsville and West Jefferson are both predominantly white.
However, your wild guess is spot-on in another Alabama waste disposal mess.
how could this not be your first thought?
also among the best mashups ever
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I think it may be a question of pure quantity. 252 box cars. Assume they’re standard 50’ cars, so each one holds about 5200 cubic feet. An acre is 43560 square feet. The boxcars have 1,300,000 cubic feet, and per my great-grandfather’s farm records, you’re only supposed to put about 2 inches of manure on the ground per season, at most. And that’s cow shit, well composted over the winter and mixed with straw bedding.
So the good news is that human manure is composting nicely right now. It should be safe to spread on cotton fields (and other non-row crop fields). It’s just getting it to where it can be safely used.
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The Pixies should write the new Bible.
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Some of the Alabama code re: land application of “waste”:
http://www.adem.state.al.us/programs/water/waterforms/CAFORule12-1-00.pdf
Interesting (I say this unironically); was looking for current specs on application rates, but moving on to…
… yeah, the composting process. Sounds here like we’re talking Class B biosolids.
I know a little something about this from my work with environmental engineers. Ok you nerds, geek out a little, this is all I can scrounge outside a paywall in the few minutes of searching I allowed myself:
Fate of Physico-Chemical Parameters During Decomposition of Human Feces
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1fb6/b706f8c1ed9cb1f1ff78964dde2a41dad921.pdf
Conclusion: The ordinary decomposition rate of human feces is very slow with only 15% reduction in volatile solids and 40% reduction in oxygen uptake rate after a year. Aerobic characteristics of water–extractable organic matter conditions are required to enhance the degradation during composting [emphasis mine] and their influences on process and suppress the odor.
Much depends on whether those box cars are aerobic-y enough to adequately compost the poop. Of course, if the composting process is done correctly, the pathogens at least will be rendered nonviable (p.29 of http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Chapter_8.pdf ) from:
Joseph Jenkins’ Humanure Handbook ( http://humanurehandbook.com/ ) 3rd edition.
However, composting poop will not make it perfectly safe. In those 10 million pounds (4,535,923.7 kilos) of humanure, certain constituents like prescription medications (e.g. Prozac, Lipitor, birth control pills etc.); chemo- and radiation components from cancer patients undergoing treatment; and other constituents do not break down easily.
So frustrating!
The Austin, Texas “Dillo Dirt” composting program is not without its own problems re recycling composted biosolids (aka processed sewage solids):
So… a good option, properly done:
but … so is biogas, dangit!
https://glwenergy.com/what-is-a-biogas-digester/
I haven’t as much data re when humanure is biodigested into biogas, if the breakdown of objectionable constituents is more complete. I need to do more digging.
Engineers, if you’re reading this, please chime in. Thanks in advance!
ETA: link to City of Austin Biosolids program; 2nd ETA to add commas in kilogram total
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Thanks for posting, esp. since this isn’t paywalled.
Sounds pretty energy intensive. Much of the study is given over to the ignition and oxidation processes, with mentions of ash and char leftover.
I wonder what kinds of stuff (heavy metals, etc.) get released into the air upon burning though. My skim of the study yields no information about air pollution by-products from these processes. Maybe if one makes the fire hot enough, pollution is minimized. What’s the cost-benefit based on energy required to incinerate that in a safe, ecological way?
Various kinds of incineration with incredibly controlled, highly technical processes is standard in Germany, I know, because I visited a brand new incinerator (on a tour!) in Augsburg my last trip to Deutschland. They even had electrolysis air scrubbers on the stacks. Very cool. But as far as I can tell, the Germans aren’t burning humanure per se. I really should write that plant a thank you note for the tour, perhaps I should ask them…
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