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Wastewater management in specialized, sensitive areas

hillandrock

I'm finishing a little concept I'm doing for my portfolio. I'm trying to minimize the amount of objects down to very basic components (roads/paths/parking, crude buildings, other important infrastructure [retention ponds, silt barriers, flood control].

The basic premise is a hotel situated in a river valley in a mountainous area. I've been all over the west and have seen other thing similar to this. But I'm starting to wonder how a 50-150 bed hotel in a remote area handles sewage.

I think for the impact, it wouldn't be out of the question to run pipes-- it'd be expensive but not improbable (since I'm planning for 150 units of hotel, 36 units of time shares and 48 units of onsite housing)-- or there's a possibility of an on site treatment.

Has anyone ever encountered this when building high-impact but remote projects? Is this something I should ask a consultant (if I had money)?

It got me thinking about all the casinos, ski lodges and camps... and what they do with their sewage. I know smaller installations use septic tanks but those are tricky in alpine environments.

 
Jun 28, 09 5:21 pm
n400
incineration?
Jun 29, 09 3:48 am  · 
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24-7tecture

what about a leach field

Jun 29, 09 10:12 am  · 
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vado retro

call some facility managers at some of these places. i'm sure they'd love to tell ya about it.

Jun 29, 09 10:20 am  · 
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treekiller

Mountainous areas typically have bedrock right at the surface - leach fields won't work - you need to have a water table, not rock.

either design a treatment wetland, or install composting toilets in each room ;-) both are better then a big sewage lagoon...

Jun 29, 09 10:34 am  · 
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hillandrock

I'm already using a treatment wetland for silting, runoff and nitrogen control. And composting toilets are too icky for a hotel.

Incineration isn't a bad idea but it is too expensive here.

Jun 29, 09 12:44 pm  · 
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n400

Is there any possibility that more hotels will be built and the population will grow? There's this nice ski town in South America with population growth past the capacity of the sewage system. I've heard that you can see floaters rolling down the road and into the river. This nine-home project at least treats the sewage before they dump it into the drinking water. This pdf outlines a much larger sewage treatment project (for a population of ~7,500) than what you're asking about, but it has lots of nice pictures. It sends the sewage through two aerated lagoons, chlorinates it, and then dumps it in a river.

Jun 29, 09 2:16 pm  · 
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hillandrock

Well, the idea is to coincide development with deforestation in the area between development and preserve (state park, national forest and national park)-- this is typically where most of the log cutting takes place.

Ideally, the location would be somewhere in the Southwest or California where the location could be run year around.

The reason why this is a destruction centric project is mostly due to the fact that problems produced environmentally by deforestation will mask the problems created by development. So, no one is going to be complaining about a lot of debris, silting and runoff from a construction project along a river if there's active logging going on.

I suppose this could also be done for mining but some mining practices strip the topsoil leaving behind an irreversibly damaged environment.

So, yes, I think there could be a possibility for more development as long as it runs along the damaged area.

Aside from being a hotel and a mix of housing, I'm planning on including a few other things... equipment rental, retail/dining, single unit homes and a botanical garden.

Ideally, I'd like the botanical garden to be a working greenhouse used as a attempt to clone and propagate wild plants endemic to the area.

The whole project would be in a flash flood zone (actual flooding would not be an issue in an area with such step grades) and I've planned on that.

But my main concern is to use the project to combat the problems associated with resource extraction-- removing silt by changing water flow, slowing the erosion of humus, restoring the forest and maximizing land use in disturbed areas versus new development in pristine areas.

Jun 29, 09 3:44 pm  · 
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