💩 Nano-Poop 💩 Multi-Cache

So we were on a family trip and I was trying to find a decent pair of shoes at Walmart when my two youngest kids noticed the plush “Poop Emoji” slippers that were on sale. They were super excited to see this somewhat dubious emoji in the flesh… er, plush. They asked a few times if we would buy them, and our first answer was a resolute “No.” But eventually, they worked out an agreement: If we would buy them one pair, they would share the slippers with each other. The named one “poop” and the other “poopie.” It seemed they wanted to use them more as stuffed animals than as slippers. We must have been impressed by their cooperation and their bargaining skills because eventually they convinced us and we walked out of the store with “Poop” and “Poopie“ in a bag. 

The relatives were visiting at the time weren’t terribly impressed with our parenting choices, but eventually we sort of made peace with the whole idea and figured that it would be better to have them make slightly crude jokes about “Poop” and “Poopie” than for them to be crude about something worse behind our back. After this, somehow we acquired a poop emoji pillow, a wind-up poop emoji that deposited brown jelly beans when it walked, a poop emoji pencil sharpener, poop emoji erasers, and who knows what else. Now, several years later, the whole poop joke has sort of run its course and they don’t talk about it much anymore, but when we were looking for what to call our next nano-cache, this theme seemed like a way to tie it all together.

Which brings us to this Wyoming Wastewater Treatment Facility; In reality, getting rid of the poop a community produces is a big deal! Back before modern sewage treatment plants, many cities had open sewer ditches or it just ran down the streets, as many of us know, this is still the only solution available to many communities still today. This plan of inaction, other unhelpful practices, not only made cities unpleasant places to live, but also took a huge toll on public health. Here is a brief history of the development of our modern methods and thinking. This is of course mostly from a Western Cultural perspective, but since that’s where we live, let’s just go with it 😃.

Miasma Theory

The first Western theory to connect unsanitary conditions to the manifestations of various diseases was Miasma Theory. This theory proposed the idea that “Bad Air” is somehow responsible for the spread of disease. From Wikipedia: Miasma was considered to be a poisonous vapor or mist filled with particles from decomposed matter (miasmata) that caused illnesses. In this line of thinking, diseases were the product of environmental factors such as contaminated water, foul air, and poor hygienic conditions. Such infection was not passed between individuals but would affect individuals within the locale that gave rise to such vapors. It was identifiable by its foul smell.” This belief dictated much of how people, at least in Europe, tried to avoid getting sick and also how they tried to get better. The full article is worth reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory

As we now know, germs (and later viruses) were eventually proven to be the responsible for causing disease and we gradually learned how to do a better job of keeping people and the germs separated at a safe distance from each other. Interestingly, when germ theory was first introduced it was soundly ridiculed for over a century. Eventually, with the advent of microscopes, it was proven to be true and then widely accepted in the mid-1800’s. Again, this is a worthwhile article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germtheory_of_disease

Municipal Sewer System

Various cultures around the world have been trying to get rid of their sewage as effectively as possible for centuries because it’s just not super pleasant. Basic sewer systems were used for waste removal in ancient Mesopotamia, where vertical shafts carried the waste away into cesspools. Similar systems existed in the Indus Valley civilization in modern-day India and in Ancient Crete and Greece. In the Middle Ages the sewer systems built by the Romans fell into disuse and waste was collected into cesspools that were periodically emptied by workers known as 'rakers' who would often sell it as fertilizer to farmers outside the city (that does not sound pleasant!)

However, once western culture began understanding what the root cause of disease, efforts began in earnest, not only because of this new understanding, but also as a reaction to the sanitary problems brought on by heavy industrialization and urbanization. Due to a contaminated water supply, cholera outbreaks occurred in London and killed tens of thousands of people. This, combined with the Great Stink of 1858, caused by the overwhelming smell of untreated human waste in the River Thames in that year, meant something had to change. Joseph Bazalgette was appointed to construct a vast underground sewage system for the safe removal of waste. Although the initial recommendation was to pump the human waste to farmlands for use as fertilizer, Bazalgette wisely decided to simply route the waste away from the city where it would gradually break down.

Biological Treatment

Fast forward to a few decades later in the late 19th century. This is when it became possible to treat the sewage biologically by decomposing the organic components through the use of microorganisms thus eliminating potential pathogens (Germ Theory for the eventual win).

Edward Frankland conducted experiments at the sewage farm in Croydon, England and during the 1870s and was able to demonstrate that filtration of sewage through porous gravel produced a nitrified effluent (meaning the ammonia in the sewage was converted into nitrate) and that the filter remained unclogged over long periods of time. This established the then revolutionary practice of using a “contact bed” to oxidize the waste. This concept was taken up by the chief chemist for the London Metropolitan Board of Works, William Libdin, in 1887 and describes thusly:

“...in all probability, the true way of purifying sewage...will be first to separate the sludge, and then turn it into neutral effluent... retain it for a sufficient period, during which time it should be fully aerated, and finally discharge it into the stream in a purified condition. This is indeed what is aimed at and imperfectly accomplished on a sewage farm.”

From 1885 to 1891, filters based on this principle were constructed throughout the UK. This method was also put into practice in the United States at the Lawrence Experiment Station (LES) in Massachusetts, where Frankland's work was confirmed. In 1890, the LES developed a 'trickling filter' that delivered an even more reliable performance.

Contact beds were also developed in Salford, Lancashire and by scientists working for the London City Council in the early 1890s. According to Christopher Hamlin, this was part of a conceptual revolution that replaced the philosophy of believing "sewage purification as the prevention of decomposition” with one that tried to facilitate the “biological process which destroys sewage naturally.”

Wyoming Wastewater Treatment Plant

These developments form the basis of the Modern Wastewater Treatment Facility that you see before you. Wastewater comes in one side, is broken down on aerated on contact beds, and after it goes through few additional steps (such as UV treatment that was recently added, reasonably clean water comes out the other side (Some of it, by the way, is used the sprinkle the grass on the other side of the fence). In the meantime, solids have been decomposed and filtered, bacteria has been neutralized, toxins have been removed and the Grand River watershed is kept safely separated from disease-causing organisms. It does still stink once in a while, but we now know that this smell, although it might be unpleasant, doesn’t actually do us any harm.

The Geocache Instructions

This Geocache is disease free, but it may, however, cause significant mental discomfort. We’ve been working on it for about five months, and what started as an idea for a simple geocache has evolved into a somewhat “evil” hide. The good news is that it is a two-stage multi-cache completely contained inside the fences along the path. The bad news is that it is hidden a little too well. We made a huge effort to make sure the coordinates are very close to each stage which should help. Like most tricky geocaches, the best hint is to look for something, anything, that doesn’t belong.

To keep the difficulty rating accurate please don’t post pictures of either stage and naturally, you must sign the log to claim the find (logs without signatures that seem to be armchair logs will be deleted without notice). Also, the title of the cache lends itself to a few jokes, but please keep it decent overall for the sake of my son who will read all the logs and any other kids who stop by. Thanks! We do hope you enjoy searching for this multi-cache!