#reblogging for utility

[bumblingbabooshka]

Vulcan Fashion/Hair Insp

[themirokai]

now I wanna know- why isn't drinking water free in the US?

Hi there friend! Thanks very much for taking the bait from this post. Buckle up, this is a long one.

If you want to put out a cistern and collect rainwater and use that, congratulations! Your water is free! Plus the cost of maintaining your cistern and keeping it clean. If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere with a high enough water table to have a well, then your water is also free + the cost of the well and well maintenance.

But if you want water to come out of your tap on demand and you can’t or don’t want to maintain a cistern and you can’t or don’t want to have a well… you need public water!

How do we get public water? Well, a government entity (usually. there are some private utilities, but that’s a different post. I have strong feelings) has rights to take water out of a river or a lake, or they have a reservoir, or they have access to an aquifer. Then they have to transport the water out of the source. This generally requires aqueducts or massive pipes, which are expensive and need to be maintained, which is also expensive. The pipe leading out of one of my utility’s reservoirs is 12 feet in diameter.

Does the water go directly from the source to your home? Nope! It gets piped to a water filtration plant! The process of modern water filtration is complicated but it involves both physical and chemical treatment to make sure the water isn’t carrying any parasites, harmful bacteria, or pollutants and it has the right pH. Not only are these filtration plants extremely expensive to build and maintain but the process of operating them is extremely expensive, both in terms of hiring skilled staff and having appropriate materials for the filters and chemical treatment.

After the treated water (called “finished water” in the biz) is ready it does get piped to your house.

If you use public water, do you know where your local water filtration plant is? No? That probably means it’s not in your immediate neighborhood, which probably means it’s several miles or more away. To get to your house, the water needs to travel through an extensive pipe network. These pipes are smaller but they have to remain pressurized so that no contaminants can get into the water on its way to your house. But pipes break! Especially if you live somewhere with a freeze/thaw cycle. Maintaining this pipe network is, you guessed it, expensive! It requires materials and extremely skilled workers who perform in very very difficult conditions. Plus lots of engineering to keep the whole system pressurized even when one part of it breaks. Oh, and you know what lots of pipes were made out of in the early 20th century? Lead! So all around the country utilities need to make extensive and costly infrastructure upgrades because now we know lead pipes are really freaking bad.

Okay, so you get the basic picture. And I haven’t even gotten into Safe Drinking Water Act compliance, but most of that happens at the filtration plant. Oo! Or desalinization because some utilities pull their water from the sea and need to take the salt out. I know basically nothing about this except that it is likely complicated and expensive to do at scale.

This is essentially why I get frustrated by people who argue “why should we pay for something that falls out of the sky?” Because finished water doesn’t fall from the sky and it sure as hell doesn’t fall from the sky into your faucet. (Side note: as a public utility official I have been screamed at by the “it falls from the sky” people. A thing I like about the private sector is that people scream at me a lot less.)

Now, there is a very strong argument to be made that because water is necessary for human life, it should be provided by the government for free to everyone. And just like the costs of roads or public education, this should be part of the public budget and paid for by taxes and no one should have a water bill. I don’t disagree with this. I’m sure that’s how it’s done in some countries.

I don’t have a well-researched answer on the history of water utilities but I do have some facts and some (very) educated conjectures. Water rights in the US are complicated (another separate post!) but they’re based on private ownership. Ever since white people came to this country people have been claiming ownership over water and charging each other money for taking water out of rivers or lakes or the ground. You can measure how much of it someone uses and charge them for it. Water is treated like a commodity because unlike other public goods, it *can* be treated like a commodity and then, you know, capitalism. Again, I’m not saying that’s right.

But as a society, if we believe that no one should have a water bill, then we need to figure out how to pay for all the very expensive steps in the process I outlined at the top. Could that just be taxes? Sure, if you have a system that supports taxes at that level. Do I believe that public funding of water infrastructure would be a fuckton better than a lot of things we use taxes for now? Absolutely! But that requires massive institutional change and this isn’t generally an issue that people know enough about to demand change.

If you read this far, congratulations! You now know more stuff about drinking water!

[brofightiscancelled]

the choromatsu incident is 1. a perfect bit 2. has my favorite line reads ever in both dub and sub and they happen to be two parts of the same exchange so i have edited them together for your viewing pleasure

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

genuinely my ONLY quibble is that Fall Out Boy is credited as the feature on Electric Touch but only Patrick was involved. if you look at the credits none of the other guys played on it at all, which first of all is a bummer bc they're all great musicians, but my main issue is that like, Hayley got a solo artist feature. which makes sense, because she has a solo career as an artist. but Patrick Stump has also done solo music, so how come even though he's the only member of FOB that had any involvement with Electric Touch, he didn't get a solo credit too??

[writingforfishes]

https://www.tumblr.com/ctrl-alt-deleting-yr-face/762804652183027712?source=share

average response when i get too silly in these asks (warning that the images in that post are bright god wtf is with me and bright images i have fuckin light sensitivity how the hell,,)

-🪱

@worm-writes-hicfics, this is the other ask you followed up with after the one you doodled about.

[deprimid0]

[dawnthread]

five gil for a flower? :3

[skywarpie]

Ghost Twitter is so fucking wild. They'll be like "lore is very losely canon :)" then kill someone when they ship something different than them.

I'm so glad yall are normal here bc holy hell

[ssruis]

As a general reminder this blog is not a place for terfs and you will find no allyship or support in me. I do not respect you. Trans women are women. Do not taint my discussions of this fanbase’s misogyny with your backwards and abhorrent world view.

[tabbynekowafer]

Hello! I am still in neeed of funds for rent and utlities please dinate andd share since my landlord is begining to hound me for being behind payments....

[thedisablednaturalist]

Unfortunately all chatgpt is good for is interview/job application stuff which I think says a lot about the hiring process as a whole

[sxldierselfship]

Hey, I'm sxldier! I'm 25, white, fem. This is my selfship blog lovingly dedicated to my sweetheart, Tavish/The Demoman of Team Fortress 2. We've been together since February 7th, 2024. This blog is a companion account that is not tied to my main account, this way I can keep track of tags and what not. I am Tumblr and minor friendly! If you are under 18, please do not cause any drama/bring any problems here. If you are under 16, please don't follow or interact. I have a DNI, a BYF, and tags that you should check out first! Not following these boundaries will result in blocking. This place will be neat, friendly and clean. It's going to be a place for me to write, gush, post photos and other such things about or related to my dearest. I consider this a serious relationship so if you're someone also selfshipping with him, please just be mindful of that! Tav and I hope you enjoy your stay here!

[plushri]

You know what? I just have to believe it will be good and I will be able to make it good. I can make it good. I can make the most out of it. I have so much to be grateful for and I will be happy

[werewolfoffeverswamp]

i still havent forgotten last labor day when no one posted todaybor day is labor day until like 2 pm so i drove an hour to my school’s campus and realized after i got there that there was no class. i havent forgotten

[sometimesraven]

I'm a disabled queer author. My only sources of income are my benefits package once per month (usually about £1 which covers rent and local tax) and my partner, who is both employed full time and studying remotely at a performing arts school and working on set to try and bring more money in. Both of us also livestream and market online.

This month we've been shorter on money than usual and, because we'd missed the internet bill once before and never been able to pay it back, they've cut us off.

This, as you can imagine, will have catastrophic effects. Fortunately we have a friend who graciously let us borrow their 4G router until we get our internet back but it's only the bare minimum as the 4G signal in our home sits constantly at 1-2 bars. We will have to shut off everything just for my partner to make a business zoom call tonight. This isn't sustainable.

We've been relatively steady with our income, able to pay off the most important bills on time, but our excess income is extremely minimal so paying back debts is near impossible with the late fees they keep throwing at us. If we can pay this back we'll be safe from this particular danger for the forseeable future, but we can't do it alone.

If you can spare anything, please donate to my ko-fi. The amount on there is a little more than the debt you see to account for things like my paypal overdraft and food we might need to buy over the next few of days (yeah that's how tight we are rn) but you'll be saving our asses. 

I don't have much to offer, but anyone who donates even once gets access to all the snippets and sneak peeks of writing I've posted there. Thank you.

[theinkchild]

turning this blog into a snail blog