PHLUSH will host World Toilet Organization Founder Jack Sim on Sunday, June 3 and Monday, June 4. Jack is an international media celebrity and inspiring advocate for human dignity. He put the spotlight on the 2.6 billion humans who lack toilets and helped get the UN to include sanitation in Millennium Development Goals. Jack was one of Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment, and his quirky personality and effective advocate abilities come across in this short video, Meet Mr. Toilet, featured at Sundance Film Festival.

Jack will meet with local sanitation entrepreneurs, governmental organizations, schools, and tour Portland Loos during his visit. Jack still has openings to talk with journalists and interested groups. Direct interview and meeting requests to abby@phlush.org. Jack’s public appearances will be posted at www.phlush.org sometime next week. Everyone is encouraged to come out and meet Mr. Toilet.

Lately, we’ve been checking out what other West Coast cities at risk of earthquake-induced water and sewer system failure and non-functioning toilets are recommending to residents. Some cities propose that residents bag, bleach, throw away, or bury human waste in the event of an emergency.  Such proposals could have dangerous consequences.  Portland, however, has proposed safer, ecological alternatives.

Seattle, Washington:  The Public Health Department of Seattle and King County acknowledges that in extreme emergencies sewer systems may not function and offers a page on “How to create an emergency toilet”. The advice to locate “latrines or toilets” away from areas where you are cooking or eating is sound. However, specifying a location 100 feet downhill from “any drinking water source (well or spring), home, apartment, or campsite” is hardly feasible in densely populated vertical neighborhoods. Moreover, “a latrine”, defined as a “hole that is dug in the ground to collect human waste,” is “not appropriate in urban locations.”

So what are the millions who reside in Seattle’s dense urban fabric to do? The Public Health Department recommends using “two heavy-duty plastic garbage bags” to “convert a flush toilet or make an emergency toilet from a pail”. People are to add kitty litter, ashes or sawdust and tie off the bags each day, until “a safe disposal option” appears. This could be removed to “a properly functioning public sewer, or septic system” or residents “may bury the waste on their own property.” A declared emergency may allow bags to “be included with the regular garbage.”

Such recommendations scare us. Garbage bags of urine and feces threaten an outbreak of disease if they are mixed with ordinary household waste. The liquefaction that destroys sewers also may make streets impassable to garbage trucks.

Vancouver, British Columbia: The City of Vancouver offers information that implies that households can safely sanitize pee and poo with a disinfectant and then bury it. This seems ‘iffy’ for a city with an EcoDensity Charter and more apartments and condos than ground oriented housing units. Here are the instructions:

To build a makeshift toilet: If sewage lines are broken but the toilet bowl is usable, place a garbage bag inside the bowl. If the toilet is completely backed up, make your own. Line a medium sized bucket with a garbage bag and make a toilet seat out of two boards placed parallel to each other across the bucket. An old toilet seat will also work.

To sanitize waste: After each use, pour a disinfectant such as bleach into the container. This will help avoid infection and stop the spread of disease. Cover the container tightly when not in use.

To dispose of waste: Bury garbage and human waste to avoid the spread of disease by rats and insects. Dig a pit 2 to 3 feet deep and at least 50 feet downhill or away from any well, spring, or water supply.

Vancouver also offers a special section on Emergency Kits for Condo Dwellers; 72-hours kits include canned gourmet food, organic energy bars, condoms, and playing cards but there is no mention of  sanitation. Likewise, Environment Canada’s otherwise straightforward Earthquake and Tsunami Smart Survival Guide is silent on toilets. Prepare to survive a major Earthquake is a publication from national government with tips for avoiding sewage back ups and safeguarding the fresh water supply in the flush toilet tank.  Yet outside of listing “portable toilet” among supplies, there’s no advice on containing, separating or treating urine and feces produced in the aftermath of a quake.

San Francisco, California: Are you prepared? is the clever, feature-laden the emergency planning website of the City and County of San Francisco. It acknowledges the likelihood of a sewer catastrophe with the jumble of recommendations, including the single bowl or bucket toilet.

If sewer lines are broken, line bowl with double-bagged garbage bags to collect waste. Before discarding, add a small amount of bleach; then seal the bag and place in a tightly covered container, away from people.  

If the toilet is unusable, use a sturdy bucket with a tight fitting lid, and line it with a double-bagged plastic garbage bag.

Like their counterparts in Seattle and Vancouver, San Francisco emergency officials suggest that after an earthquake that destroys sewer infrastructure there will be options for safe “discarding” of toilet contents. Does this make sense?

Portland, Oregon: Portland, in contrast, offers appropriate guidelines for post-earthquake sanitation and simple instructions that allow households to prepare. Moreover, this approach helps to foster household and neighborhood resilience over the months or years that may be required for the restoration of sewer service.

Three practical principles of ecological sanitation apply:

1. Waterless containerization.  2. Urine separation.  3. Long term composting.  

The Portland Bureau of Emergency Management has adopted the twin bucket emergency toilet proposed by PHLUSH. The simple, elegant system that couples a Pee Bucket with a Poo Bucket was developed by the New Zealand Permaculture Guild to serve Christchurch residents following the 2011 earthquakes that have devastated their sewage system. A downloadable leaflet The Twin Bucket Emergency Toilet shows households exactly how to make and use the toilet in the first weeks following a disaster. The technical criteria on which the system is based and instructions for longer term composting and disease control appear in The Sewer Catastrophe Companion, a painstakingly researched, 24-page handbook which is available for $10 from The Cloacina Project.

A mere quarter century ago, scientists doubted there was any earthquake risk posed by the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the meeting place of two tectonic plates 50 to 75 miles off the Oregon coast.  In a few short years, however, Oregonians have become aware that a devastating megaquake is likely to occur in our lifetimes or in the lives of our children.  It was 312 years ago, on January 26, 1700. that our region experienced the last huge earthquake, estimated as a magnitude 9.0 in the Richter Scale.  ”In geologic terms,  says Yumei Wang of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Cascadia’s next quake is “9 months pregnant”,

How is it that geologists now speak with such certainty?  How is it that they’ve suddenly been able to track earthquakes occurring about every 250 years over the past 10,000 years?    After all, the geography of the Pacific Northwest was unknown to outsiders in 1700, as seen in this period map.  It would be another 78 years before Captain Cook, and more than 90 before the arrivals of George Vancouver, Robert Gray and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra.

The Orphan Tsunami of 1700: Japanese Clues to a Parent Earthquake in North America recounts the fascinating story of recent geological and archaeological sleuthing coupled with the fine work of early 18th century Japanese scholars, artists and scribes.  In the mid 1980s a young geologist named Brian Atwater stumbled on dead cedar trees in a marsh and wondered if they’d been downed in an earthquake.  Changes in soil character, layers, and plant remains along the 700 kilometers of coast from Washington State to Northern California was the evidence he  pieced together to narrow the window of the cataclysm to between 1695 and 1720.  Then in the mid 1990s researchers in Japan published a paper on a tsunami which struck there in 1700.   After learning Japanese, Atwater headed to Japan to join fellow authors of the story they called “the orphan tsunami of the Genroku era”.

The profusely illustrated slim volume is an arresting look at impact of earthquakes and tsunamis on both sides of the Pacific.  For North America, the authors provide flood stories of native groups from Cape Flattery to Nootka Sound, ariel photos of Alaskan rivers flowing upstream, the sunken shores of Washington State’s Willapa Bay and the Copalis River, silted up forests of trees whose rings indicate sudden death, buried marsh soils and native fire pits far below the surface.

On the other side of the Pacific, evidence of the orphan tsunami had been building up for centuries.  Maps before and after 1700 show radically altered shorelines.   A delicate drawing of the village of Miho shows waves surrounding the pine trees on the sandspit protecting the harbor and surmounting the coastal road with Mt. Fuji in the background. There were accounts of crops destroyed, warehouses flooded, marine shipments lost, sailors drowned, large quantities of  wood ordered for new houses.  Village headmen, merchants, samurai, fishermen and peasants from towns north and south of present day Tokyo left dozens of documents which by the early 1990s pointed a well-documented tsunami of unknown origin.

An earthquake of magnitude of 9.0 “radiates as much energy as the United States consumes in  a month, or twice the energy a hurricane’s winds would release if they blew nonstop for a month.” (p. 98).   In the past century, only the 1960 Chile and 1964 Alaska quakes surpassed 9.0 but the 1700 Cascadia Quake is thought to have been of comparable magnitude. The rupture along the coast was 1100 km in length and 100 km wide and contemporary GPS measurements have enable simulations of plate movements and sea-floor thrust.  Similarly, simulations based on Japanese data for high-water damage and contours of flooding in 1700 rule out a quake of a lower magnitude.

The 1700 Cascadia Subduction Zone megaquake is now firmly documented by the United States Geologic Survey, as well as by Natural Resources Canada.  The entire, full-color, 144-page book The Orphan Tsunami of 1700, also known as Professional Paper 1707, can be downloaded free from the USGS website.

As an exclusively volunteer run organization, PHLUSH relies solely on the help of dedicated volunteers to conduct outreach, plan activities, and manage online communications. Volunteers are the backbone of the organization, and we want to acknowledge the efforts of friend and committed PHLUSH volunteer – Poonam Sharma.

“As someone who has lived all over the world (including South Asia and East Africa), I’ve seen the sanitation challenges that different regions face. I was inspired by the positive work that PHLUSH was doing to raise awareness about sanitation.” says Poonam. She believes having a safe place to ‘go’ not only promotes the health of all people but also the health of the environment.

PHLUSH is extremely lucky to have someone like Poonam, an expert communications specialist, working with the organization. Poonam brings over a decade of experience in communications to PHLUSH, and she has worked on human health issues in South Asia and Africa. She spearheaded the launch the PHLUSH newsletter, helped the Facebook page become very popular, and – most importantly – forged lasting connections between the organization and entrepreneurs working in the field of sanitation.

Poonam currently volunteers for PHLUSH while maintaining a full-time position as Senior Communications Consultant with a large company. When asked where she thinks the organization might be in the future, she states “I hope the organization continues to raise awareness, work with communities, and becomes a platform for people to share their knowledge and work with those who can benefit from it.”

Poonam’s expertise in communications, understanding of human health issues globally, and passion for ensuring all people have adequate sanitation make her an invaluable member of PHLUSH and the sanitation movement as a whole.

Monika Roy with SOIL writes: Bonswa from Haiti. Monika here, working down in the Caribbean with SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods). SOIL is a U.S. NGO focused on EcoSan systems, incorporating hygiene education and developing sustainable business models through humanure compost sales. We started up north in Cap Haitien in 2006 building public EcoSan toilets (double vault, urine-dividing) for communities that wanted one, but moved operations to Port au Prince when the earthquake hit in 2010. Cap Haitien still holds the majority of those public toilets built by SOIL, which are managed by schools, community groups, clinics, and cooperatives. The few toilets operating on a drum-collection system in Cap Haitien are located in Shada 2 (one of the most impoverished slums here) and the drums are collected twice a week to be taken to our off-site composting facility.

The SOIL/Bochika/SAKALA-Pax Christi Tap Tap Garden in Cite Soleil.

Port au Prince primarily does emergency EcoSan systems in IDP (internally displaced person) camps running on the same drum-collection system. These toilets serve about 20,000 people, and we’ve generated so much compost since the earthquake that now we’re starting to donate compost to community gardens and sell it to other organizations. With the Emergency EcoSan program firmly in place, we’re now working on evaluating the public toilets in the north for usability, cleanliness, and community involvement, as well as developing a new program for private household EcoSan toilets to run on a drum-collection system.

Though we’re a big EcoSan presence here, there are some other great projects happening too. Give Love is also a U.S. NGO consulting and providing technical assistance to EcoSan projects since the earthquake. One of my favorite EcoSan projects here in Haiti is one they’ve got going on at an after-school center and garden. Give Love doesn’t do urine-diving seats here for the fact that children’s anatomy doesn’t allow them to properly use the seat (they are too small!). Thus, both urine and feces fall into the same drum to be mixed after each use with bagasse (the abundant carbon material SOIL uses as well, a by-product of sugarcane production).

If ya’ll are interested in other happening EcoSan projects here in Haiti, here are a few more. VivaRio is a Brazilian organization working on clean water distribution in camps as well as a BioGas project on the side. There are now upwards of 80 biodigestors in place with the first ones built being ready to empty – and VivaRio will experiment composting the bio-sludge. Going back to immediate humanure composting projects, Silent Grace Foundation is a Puerto Rican organization incorporating EcoSan into their community development program. What’s different about their EcoSan project is that they work in a flood zone so all their toilet and composting facilities are needing to be constructed several feet above ground. Last, but not least, Haiti Communitere is an overarching organization with a large compound space for small organizations to meet and execute projects. Particularly fascinating is their aquaponics systems, using fish feces to grow plants. I’m curious to see if human feces could be incorporated into that aquaponics system (as Give Love has a few toilet projects there), but this is a question to explore in the future!

Author’s Biography: Monika Roy grew up in Sacramento, California and graduated from UC Berkeley in 2009 studying Environmental Economics and Sustainable Agriculture, though her growing passion is learning about Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan) systems. She is currently working as a volunteer with SOIL in Haiti for a few months (and maybe longer) while thinking about pursuing graduate work in either Public Health or Sanitation Engineering. If you would like to contact her in regards to EcoSan projects, information, or job possibilities, she can be reached at monikaaroy at gmail dot com.

World Water Day is celebrated worldwide today, March 22 and here in Portland on Saturday.  As advocates of sustainable sanitation we have trouble with the custom of using our drinking water to transport our human excreta, household graywater, industrial chemicals, and storm water runoff to the wastewater treatment plant.  Portland’s Bull Run water is among the best in the world. The best long tall drink a person can ask for. We shouldn’t be pooping and peeing into it.

There are other ways.   It’s time make the shift.  The world’s farmers need our water, our urine and our composted feces.  Just look at the facts:

• There are 7 billion people to feed on the planet today and another 2 billion are expected to join by 2050. This means that 70% more food will be needed, up to 100% in developing countries.
• Statistics say that each of us drinks from 2 to 4 litres of water every day, however most of the water we ‘drink’ is embedded in the food we eat. It takes about 1500 liters of water to produce 1 kg of wheat, but it takes 10 12 times more to produce 1kg of beef!
• Roughly 30% of the food produced worldwide – about 1.3 billion tons – is lost or wasted every year. Diets with excessive food intake are also a source of waste and a cause of growing heath costs.
• By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions.
• During the second half of the 20th century, world population had a twofold increase, agriculture doubled food production and developing countries increased per capita food consumption by 30 percent.

Source:  World Water Day 2012 Advocacy Guide

After taking the PHLUSH emergency sanitation exhibit to Sunnysde Disaster Diner, we’re heading to the Emergency Preparedness Expo 2012 this Friday and Saturday. This large event features 35 displays and workshops with 50 speakers. It will take place at 12300 SE 312 Avenue in Boring from 1 to 7pm on Friday, March 16 and from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, March 17. And this best part is that it’s free!

On Friday afternoon Alice Busch from Sandy Fire Department is giving a half day session on Dealing With Difficult People During Disasters – Emotional First Aid.  Alice is not to be missed. A funny, engaging speaker she introduces penetrating concepts based on her own considerable experience and hands over practical tips on how to communicate more effectively with people in crisis.

PHLUSH emergency sanitation display at Sunnyside.

On Saturday at 2pm,  acclaimed lecturer and earthquake guru James Roddey of the American Red Cross will talk about Preparing for the Big One. Other Expo sessions include Could Contagion Really Happen? Will Your House Hold Up? Wilderness Survival Like a Pro, Updating Your Emergency Plan with Social Media Tools, and All About Freeze Dried Foods.

PHLUSHers Susan Mund, along with Erich Grundner and Helen Goché, will be tabling for PHLUSH, talking to folks about the Christchurch Twin No-Mix Toilet, which has been endorsed by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management.

Portlanders will join folks from around the globe on Saturday, March 24 to commemorate World Water Day with a convivial morning of exercise on the waterfront and learning activities at OMSI. Portland’s Fourth Annual Walk for Water  features a non-competitive 5k fun run as well as the simulation of a typical water-gathering experience for women and children in sub-Saharan Africa where walkers haul water throughout their 3.1 mile route. At OMSI, local organizations involved with water and sanitation will feature demonstrations and exhibits of their work locally and world wide. PHLUSH has been invited by organizer   Portland Global Initiatives and sponsor Portland Roasting Company to demonstrate how to make emergency toilets for use following a severe earthquake that destroys water and sewer pipes. A dozen or so PHLUSH folks had so much fun at last year’s event, that we are eager to do it again and see friends from Engineers Without Borders  and other kindred groups.

Registration for walkers and runners is at 8:30 am at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, 1945 SE Water Avenue south of the Hawthorne Bridge. Or you can register online to be sure of getting a spot. The run starts at 9 am and the walk at 10 and a free celebration continues inside the OMSI lobby until noon.

Sunnyside Environmental School plays host to the First Annual Sunnyside Disaster Dinner on Saturday, Mach 10.  This neighborhood event to promote community emergency preparedness takes place at the school at 3421 SE Salmon St.

From 3 to 4:30pm the public is invited to visit free Information Booths and Activities. Jeff Holiman and the PHLUSH team will demonstrate how to make safe effective household and neighborhood toilets that don’t require water or sewers. Other booths feature water harvesting and filtration, creating home emergency kit, family emergency plans, block preparedness organizing and emergency preparedness in the schools.

From 4:30 to 6 pm , Disaster Dinner ticket holders will enjoy a simple dinner cooked by neighborhood volunteers in an outdoor “emergency kitchen.” There will be few short presentations on school and neighborhood emergency readiness, a fun drill, a raffle of a home emergency kit (worth $225), a rain barrel, “Luggable Loo” and other useful prizes. Get your Disaster Dinner tickets for $5 -$15 sliding scale on-line or in person at the event. And pick up a raffle ticket for $5 (or 5 for $20).  Please bring your own bowl, spoon and cup. Proceeds support the emergency preparedness work of Sunnyside Environmental School PTSA.

The cost-cutting recommendations of Portland Parks and Recreation’s Budget Advisory Committee call for 189 toilet closures    The proposal is for Parks to replace half the number of closed stalls with plastic portables while laying off the Parks Technicians who understand the social environment and perform many other duties besides cleaning restrooms and hauling away trash. (UPDATE: PP&R’s official budget reduction package of Jan 30 calls for same.)

Public hygiene lets us stay human.  Toilet availability is fundamental and closing public restrooms an affront.  Without access to basic hygiene many people are reluctant to use parks and will drive rather than walk or use transit.  Active living, healthy aging, childhood fitness and basic health are compromised.  And people without houses cannot even wash their faces before going to work or about their daily activities.

At the January 9 meeting with Commissioner Nick Fish and PP&R Director Mike Abbaté, PHLUSH offered to help in two areas.  First, in redesigning existing toilets so they are safe and manageable.  Second, in introducing composting toilets by drawing on the expertise of our members and partners in the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance.  How is it possible that in Portland’s 11,000 acres of parkland there is not a single composting toilet?

As Commissioner Fish submits PP&R’s budget request to the Mayor and Council on Monday, January 30, one hopes that suggestions proffered by community members (see more below) have been acknowledged.  Later the same day, Laborers 483, which represents the employees facing layoffs, has organized a 3 pm Rally followed by a Forum to Protect Portland’s Future at 4 pm at the Matt Dishman Community Center where impacts of the budget cuts will be discussed.

Meanwhile, the Water Bureau continues to get national and international recognition for the Portland Loo and prepares to open Loo #5.  Water gets it.  Parks doesn’t.  Toilet users need to come out and say so.  An opportunity is the First Flush of the new Loo - with its spectacularly colorful door designed by young artists from the nearby Emerson School – at 1 pm Tuesday, January 31st  on the corner of NW Couch at 8th Avenue.

NOTE:  Below is a sampling of comments about toilet availability left on OPB’s Think Out Loud blog following Dave Miller’s January 11th interview with Mike Abbaté.

• replacing bathrooms by portapotties is a blow to the heart of how Portland lives, and what Portland is to its citizens and its visitors. 
• I expect that of all annual park users the vast majority are passive users, i.e., people who use the playgrounds, picnic, enjoy the gardens, go for a walk as opposed to participating in a structured recreation program, use pools or other community center activities. By closing restrooms, reducing trash pick up, reducing landscape maintenance you will degrade the parks experience for the largest portion of park users.
• The Park’s service math is wrong. If the equation is number served… and they are taking that number from those registering for classes or services, the math is wrong. I use the facility and don’t register for services. It is our only walking route in the area that has a public facility
• Surely keeping the parks clean and sanitary is an essential service that should be fully funded before less essential services. Also before new parks are developed we ought to be sure we can adequately maintain what we have.
• Cut management. There is no need to cut services. You can also cut some of the 3200 part-time and seasonal employees.
• ..Parks Maintenance Techs only spend a small amount of time removing trash and cleaning restrooms. There is a list of 100 other things that a Parks Maintenance Tech is responsible for…irrigation, turf, play structures, safety issues and on and on.
• convert many of the restrooms to run on solar power and use filtered rainwater for the sink, toilets and urinals. 
• When I use a public bathroom, I am grateful that we have organized ourselves as a culture to take care of this basic need. Portapotties are temporary. They are never pleasant.