GRtak
Forum Addict
We got it, most of us did not find it funny.
RdKetchup;n3549803 said:Now I feel stupid, 'cause I didn't get it
Long time no awesome here, so let me tell you about some awesome political and engineering feat.
Background: Here in the Ruhr Area in Germany, former industrial powerhouse (coal mines, steel works, etc.) and metropolitan area with 10 million inhabitants, we have a relatively small river called Emscher crossing it from east to west. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution here, it has been canalized and used as an open waste-water canal. Which is obviously not the awesome thing.
Well, about 30 years ago, the renaturalization project started. And while the river has not been completely returned to its former natural river bed ( or well, one that's similar, natural-looking and more resilient against floods), as of this week the Emscher is, over its whole length, free from uncleaned waste-water for the first time since the 19th century, as now there is sewage treatments and a separate underground waste-water canal system everywhere. The last bit went operational just as 2021 ended.
It took 30 years and over € 5 billion, but that really was worth it. Looking at old pictures and then new ones, this project is an awesome display of engineering done right to create a better environment for the benefit of both the humans living there as well as for nature itself. The part about the river being biologically dead in the Wikipedia article I linked is luckily outdated.
This is all well and good, but at some point, isn't sewage just soil at this point?
I can't imagine you're digging turds out of a riverbed from 19th century humans.
That river had been used as an open sewer since the start of the industrialisation of the Ruhr area. Its mouth was relocated twice, its bed made of concrete, its banks dammed so it wouldn’t overflow quite so easily and, since the 1990s, all of its water sent through a treatment plant before it reached the Rhine.
One main reason was the sinking of the terrain due to the old underground coal mines, up to 40 metres in some spots AFAIK. That made it impossible to put an underground sewer next to the river. But now that the mines have been closed for a while, the terrain has “calmed down“ enough for a massive sewage system to be built and maintained.
Chicago’s bubbly creek would beg to differ.
"If you didn't crash, it wasn't dangerous"
One of my absolute favourite passes in the Alps (that I can't ride anymore, as my bike is too loud, even when stock). Also, comments on that video would suggest the former. Latter gets my vote
(that I can't ride anymore, as my bike is too loud, even when stock).
NIMBY games and an Italian bike.Wat?
NIMBY games and an Italian bike.