Opinion

Sewage controversy spirals downward

Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.27.2007

Reading the recent news about squabbles between Tucson and Marana, we are forced to confess that not once did we think that what we politely call effluent would ever become a source of affluence. But there it was, not buried in the bowels of the paper but right at the top of the Star's front page on Thursday — a fight over who owns the stuff Marana flushes into a sewage treatment plant that the town wants to own.

The dispute among Marana, Pima County and Tucson is complicated and draining, though at the moment politics has created a bottleneck that will take time to unplug. Do not expect miracles. The resolution will probably involve lawyers. We are not privy to all the legal ramifications of this particular dispute, but we know, after plumbing the depths of the Internet, that waste disposal and pollution have been a major preoccupation even before humans learned the value of fiber in the diet.

If you doubt it, take the plunge: Start your computer and navigate to www.sewerhistory.org. There you will find the accumulated research of Jon Schladweiler, historian of the Arizona Water and Pollution Control Association. Schladweiler has put together an exhibit that documents "sanitary sewage conveyance activities that took place from the 1870s through the 1950s."

But the Web site contains not only photos of the exhibit but links to sewer information that goes back thousands of years. For example, here's an ordinance from Sextus Julian Frontinus, water commissioner of the city of Rome, 97 CE: "No one shall with malice pollute the waters where they issue publicly. Should anyone pollute them, his fine shall be ten thousand sesterti." That, we are told, is around $600.We don't know what the fine would have been had someone polluted the water without malice.

The Web site proves that people the world over started making a big stink over waste disposal long before anyone stumbled on the singularly lyrical expression "sanitary sewage conveyance."

Lyricism, in fact, was used by some well-known poets and writers — Ben Johnson and Robert Frost, for instance — to chronicle the evolution of the privy chamber. For example, in "The Passing of the Backhouse," a poem attributed to both James Whitcomb Riley and Charles T. Rankin, the nostalgic poet wrote of "that dear old country landmark" where "in the lap of luxury my lot has been to sit."

But in today's news, such comfort has been voided, replaced by two adversaries facing off where the effluent flows into the affluent, north of town.

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