The climate change debate is becoming a fashion show in some media. Cute pictures of vanishing species vie with photos of bronze surfers on disappearing beaches. However, there is a less romantic side to the damage the rising ocean is causing to city infrastructures. CNN revealed one of climates dark secrets when it exposed what is happening to America’s coastal septic tanks.
What is Happening to Climate’s Dark Secrets Underground
Around 20% of America’s households rely on septic tanks to flush their toilets. They push the button and the waste goes to a tank. This captures the solids that bacteria decompose, while the soil filters the water that finds its way downhill. However, if the soil disappears as sea levels rise this effluent could enter drinking water instead.
“No soil means no filter, and no filter means contamination,” Jennifer Cooper wrote in her book Hell and High Water: Diminished Septic System Performance in Coastal Regions Due to Climate Change. If you live anywhere on the U.S. coastline especially Florida, you could be incredibly vulnerable even if you shore your own system up. That’s because climate’s dark secrets affect everyone even the rich, the powerful, and the famous.
Miami-Dade County, Florida is Disproportionately in Trouble
Florida has 2.6 million septic tank systems, or 12% of the U.S. total. Of these, 105,000 are in Miami-Dade Country with an elevation of six feet above sea level on the eastern edge of the Florida Platform. “Sea level rise is not a registered voter. It doesn’t have a party. It’s something that is going to affect everyone,” says Rebeca Sosa.
Rebecca is vice chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission that launched the study on septic tank vulnerability.
“Our job right now is to make sure that we make the state and the federal government understand. We need help, so we can help those who are not going to be able to pay to have sewer lines.”
Meanwhile, the booming tanker-truck industry is far from being one of climates dark secrets. Brightly-colored trucks are pumping away at thousands of homes regardless of residents’ status.
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Upper Ocean Warming is Strengthening Waves
Preview Image: Florida Platform (NASA)
