Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996
This is the first submission of a Mailing List dealing with Backcountry
Waste Management for the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Forest
Service (USFS), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It will also be
circulated on the Internet. It's purpose is to share technology, ideas,
and practices of treating, handling, and disposing of human waste in remote
locations such as backcountry camps, alpine huts, mountaineering routes,
and river camps.
My name is Roger Drake and I am a Backcountry Utilities Operator at Mount Rainier National Park. My background is water and wastewater treatment, but my love for the outdoors has gotten me involved with some unusual toilets at Mount Rainier. Although this Mailing List will probably be concerned almost entirely with human waste management, Mount Rainier and Yosemite National Parks also operate drinking water systems in the backcountry, and would be interested in hearing from others who do similar work. My phone number is 360-569-2211 ext. 3351, fax is 360-569-2180, Internet address is Roger_Drake@nps.gov, and I'm near the phone about half the time in the winter, much less in the summer.
Electronic communication seems to be the best option we have at the moment to keep in touch about new technology and innovations. The potential for conferences like the ones we've had in the last five years seem to be drying up due to budget crunches, but we need to know what solutions are working or not working in other areas. This Mailing List is envisioned as very participatory; if only a few people make the effort to contribute it will soon fizzle out. Everyone on the List is strongly encouraged to submit at least an annual summary or some type of feedback. Responses can be either to the group or to an individual. If you don't know how to set up a Mailing List on cc:mail and no computer literate help is available, I could probably show you how. I intend to act as a gateway by forwarding messages addressed to everyone to USFS, BLM, and the Internet, and vice versa. Be aware I'm no computer whiz so we might find ourselves experiencing a sort of wilderness here!
Mount Rainier - Recent History
-Solar dehydrating toilet at Camp Muir, 10,000' elevation. Operated
since 1984, about 10,000 uses per year. Reduces mass to 1/3 that of pit
toilet waste. Operates yearround.
-Two pit toilets at Camp Muir and Camp Schurman, waste manually
removed and flown out annually.
-"Blue bag" carryout program used since 1984 for climbers to use when
conventional toilets not available. Five collection points on mountain,
serviced by helicopter.
-Chemical toilet flown in and out annually on a heavily used trail
outside wilderness. Composting toilet planned for site in future.
-Large scale "Phoenix" composting toilet at one backcountry camp,
operated since 1993 at about 4000 uses per season.
-Pit toilet survey completed in 1995, about 50 backcountry toilets
evaluated. Unhoused "Wallowa" style toilet is used most often but many
buildings remain as well.
- Forty total drums are flown out from six locations annually, waste
in four different forms.
Mount Rainier - 1995
- Research program found no evidence of fecal pollution in surface
waters below Camp Muir.
- Half-inch steel pipe used as barrel supports on glaciers for blue
bag barrels.
- Fifth collection point added for blue bag barrels, so the three
most used descent routes are covered.
- One of the North Cascades style Romtec black box composters was
deployed at a backcountry camp, others considered for other camps.
- A simplified dehydrating toilet is being designed for Camp Schurman
to replace a pit toilet. Dehydration is preferred to pits and composters
mainly because of decreased helicopter needs.
- Vestibule added to solar toilet to improve winter access.
- Climbers now paying $15 apiece "cost recovery", money used for
waste management and preventative search and rescue.
- Tested some "biodegradable" plastics for compatibility with
composting toilets.
- Have information available about a simple dehydrating toilet used
by an expedition at Everest Base Camp in Tibet.
Other News
Most of us focus mainly on the western U.S. and Canada, but the small scale composters developed at North Cascades and now manufactured by Romtec had their origins in New England backcountry huts in the 70's. Mountain clubs in New England have continued to refine the bin composting approach. Considerable data is available, contact me or the gentleman below.
Paul Lachapelle, an almost-graduate of the University of Vermont, has created a home page on the Internet for backcountry toilets. The address is http://www.uvm.edu/~plachape/toilets.html . This Mailing List info will be routed there, but most of us aren't techies enough yet to handle anything harder than E-Mail very well. Paul has access to a variety of research info, some of it his own work in New England and Nepal.
Kathleen Myer has a second edition of How to Shit in the Woods out with much new material, especially regarding new river-running equipment. From Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA.
Mount Hood, Mount Olympus, and Mount Shasta have adopted carryout systems recently. At Mount Rainier we have hopes that its use on more big mountains in the Northwest will aid in its acceptance by climbers throughout the region.
In a May 1995 article the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) indicates that smearing "may not be the best practice" due to pathogen transmission potential.
Brenda Land of the USFS, in Briar Cook's old position, has produced manuals on Remote Waste Management and Composting Toilet Systems, Planning, Design, & Maintenance.
Other Areas
This section is intended to introduce some of the other participants with
just a tad of information about their activities. Hopefully they will
submit more info soon.
- Olympic NP has mostly pit toilets, but has been flying vaults out
of backcountry areas for several years.
- North Cascades NP, as mentioned above, is the champion of small
direct-deposit composters in many backcountry camps.
- Yosemite NP has many years of experience with a variety of
composters and recently begun designing and constructing their own. Have
drinking water and septic systems in backcountry and considerable flyout
experience. Recently began carryout program.
- Rocky Mountain NP has twelve years experience with several
dehydrating toilets at elevation, uses llamas to pack waste out.
- Zion NP is looking at carryout with trailhead collection.
- Grand Teton NP has a direct deposit barrel and flyout from a
climber's camp.
- Crater Lake NP retrofitted it's large composter on the lake's only
access trail to include an innovative dehydration system.
I want to thank you all for your interest and help in getting this List started. As you go about your normal work, keep thinking about what you're doing that would be of interest to the others. The consequences of the wrong design decisions can be serious, as we know, so information sharing is essential. It makes little difference to many of us whether we end up talking mostly about hardware or about philosophy ("leave no trace", etc.), as long as we're talking. The forum is open to whatever topics are of interest to you.