Talk:Sewage farm

Conversation copied from the talk pages of the users involved:

Hello Thewellman,

thanks again for your recent improvments on the Sewage farm article.

I wanted to inform you that I just did some re-wording of the article. Some sentences I initially found a little hard to comprehend as a non-engineer and non-native speaker of English. I tried to rewrite some of them to make it easier for a person with a similar background to grasp the meaning.

I would be grateful, though, if you would look at my changes and see that my comprehension was correct and I did not adulterate the content.

In particular it wasn't really clear to me, why the sewage farms are particulary suited to arid climate (other than the need for irrigation there). So I went ahead and changed some of the wording according to my understanding but I left this sentence intact: "Arid climates may allow temporary storage of sewage in holding ponds while the soils dry out during non-growing seasons, but such storage may cause odor and aquatic insect problems, including mosquitoes."

Maybe you could explain why temporary storage (and sewage farming in general) is a feasable option in arid climates rather than in colder regions where I would expect pathogens to be less likely to thrive.

I appreciate your effort, --KaiKemmann (talk) 10:42, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

In response to your recent question on my talk page about the preference for arid climates: Agricultural application of an engineering mass balance is called a water balance. The system is defined as the land growing crops. Water inputs to the system are sewage plus precipitation. Water outputs from the system are evaporation into the atmosphere, percolation into the soil, conversion to plant mass, transpiration from the plants to the atmosphere, and surface runoff. From a sanitary engineering perspective, optimum system performance is obtained when surface runoff is minimized, because runoff will carry sewage pathogens and pollutants into natural waterways. Residential sewage production (and input into the system) is expected to be relatively constant and percolation capacity is similarly constant unless the ground freezes; but plant growth, transpiration, and evaporation will vary with temperature and humidity. Arid climates are preferred because precipitation of sufficient intensity to cause runoff will cause pollution of the natural watercourses receiving that runoff. Arid climates seldom receive enough precipitation to cause runoff, so an engineer can measure evaporation, percolation, and plant uptake to determine the amount of land required to use the expected rate of sewage production. Thewellman (talk) 15:53, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah, of course, that is the explanation. I really should have been able to guess it.

I will transfer our conversation to the article talk page as a reference and maybe add your reasoning to the article itself. Best regards, KaiKemmann (talk) 00:12, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I have a few comments about the changes you made and those you have proposed for subject article:

• I question the change from The practice is best adapted to warm, arid climates... to The practice is common in warm, arid climates... The former meant of all places it might be used, it would be most satisfactory in warm, arid places. The latter means sewage farming is used in a significant number of warm, arid places. I have no data to support the latter meaning.
• I question the linking of utilization of nutrients to conversion of solids to humus. I believe these processes may operate independently.
• It is important to keep reference citations associated with appropriate text. There are several ways to do this. Some editors place a reference citation at the conclusion of each sentence. I prefer to place a reference citation at the end of each paragraph unless the paragraph includes information from more than one reference, in which case I would place additional reference citations within the paragraph to clarify the sources. By breaking up my paragraph structure into separate paragraphs, you have detached some information from its reference citation creating ambiguity about the source of the stated information. It has been my experience future editors may add citation needed templates and/or delete information without clear linkage to reference citations.
• Wikipedia requires reference citations to secondary sources. Your suggestion to incorporate our talk page discussions into article text is inconsistent with that requirement, unless you can find secondary sources supporting the points discussed. As other editors have mentioned, sewage farming is presently regarded as an obsolete technology in most of the developed world, and such sources are difficult to find. As you search for such sources, be careful to avoid implications from locations retaining the name sewage farm where land previously used for that practice has been converted to a modern sewage treatment facility. Thewellman (talk) 14:26, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Thewellman. Again I will transfer our conversation to the sewage farm talk page and answer there to keep everything at one place for further reference. --KaiKemmann (talk) 10:38, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

To answer your thoughful comments:

• I replaced common by best adapted again. I apologize for this. My motivation was the lack of arguments supporting the adaption to arid climates in the article which you have since provided.

I believe it acceptable to add obvious and uncontested contend to an article which does not have much content yet and still seems to be lacking some basic information even when there is no reference available yet.

So I will take the liberty and add your comment about the polluted runoff in wetter climates to support the "best adapted" argument. This is an apparent fact that can probably go without being sourced for now.