Interesting statute

[grampachet]

http://law.onecle.com/oregon/446-man...s/446.345.html
No person shall:

(1) Use kitchen or toilet facilities in a camping vehicle being operated on a highway or parked overnight at a place where sanitary facilities are not provided unless the person makes provision whereby sewage and other waste materials can be held in watertight and sanitary containers of a type approved by the Department of Human Services.

(2) Empty a container described in subsection (1) of this section except into a public sewerage system, septic tank or cesspool of a type approved by the department. However, in isolated areas where space is not available in a recreation park or organizational camp and such facilities are not available, these containers may be emptied into the ground if all sewage and other waste materials are buried at least one foot below the surface of the ground.

(3) When using a recreation park or organizational camp, create an insanitary condition or deposit putrescible or nonputrescible waste any place other than in appropriate containers designated for such purposes. [

[KTManiac]

Translation:

1.) We don't want to find you dumping your grey water, (or black water ) in the street or some parking lot. (Some P/U campers and tent trailers do not have built in grey water holding tanks.)

2.) If you do have holding tanks, only dump them at a facility designed for taking sewage. For instance, an RV dump station. If you have to go potty in the woods, bury it! (I seriously doubt that they are talking about dumping a 50 gallon black tank into a 1 foot deep hole!)

Just another poorly worded bit of legislation from the people that think they know everything, and what is best for the rest of us. Right up there with Nebraska's unwanted baby law that went amiss. Meant to save babies from being left in dumpsters, it had a giant loophole which allowed people to leave kids under 18 years old for the state to take care of. People came from all over to dump off their problem teens!

3.) Don't dump your crap in our park/campground.


Q: Do you know why we have so many idiotic laws?
A: Because the world has an over-abundance of idiots!


I have heard reports of morons dumping black water in Wal-Mart parking lots. It only takes a few idiots to make this kind of BS legislation a reality/necessity.

[Bill-N-Donna]

That is interesting but I suspect when it was written there probably wasn’t as many self contained units like we have now. It may have been written primarily aimed at those types of campers or tents. Some of the first campers we’ve had just dumped the grey water straight out onto the ground. The good thing is that most of us don’t really need to worry about statutes like that. Hopefully if we use common sense we won’t encounter being caught in a violation of some strange ordinance somewhere. Some statutes can be quite interesting to say the least and a lot of them probably should be revised.

[Tom S.]

Well, you have to remember that 1/2 the population are 'below average intelligence' and many are downright morons. Unfortunately, that's the cause for many of our laws: morons who don't know better and morons who make laws thinking that will fix the problem.

[Delaine and Lindy]

It is very interesting to watch some when they are getting ready to depart and how they handle the sewer pipes etc. And I have seen many use the fresh water hose to flush the back tank??? There are many who think nothing of dumping the gray tank wate any place they like. We have never though about of dumping any of our tanks except at a RV park. We always dump prior to departing the RV park and have no need to dump at any of the dump stations. We do no boondocking so we always are connected to full hookups and have no need to use the dump stations. GBY....

[Waynem]

Ah! The good ol' days. Time 1974. State parks and federal parks. Gray water went directly to the ground - no holding tank. You may ask me how I know.

I did learn a new word from that article, "insanitary." Even Google wanted to make it unsanitary.

Edited: And I agree that there needs to be a written regulation regarding such activity. Some of the diseases that can be spread by "unsanitary" conditions will kill a person. Even dog mess is now known to carry disease, where years ago it was thought that humans could not catch anything from animals.

[ols1932]

There are two things that I've observed RVers doing that I abhor.
1, Holding their sewer hose underneath the fresh water spigot to rinse it out. All of the back splatter splashes up against the fresh water spigot!
2. Dumping grey water in a parking lot. It should only be dumped in proper facilities. Years ago, you could dump the grey water on the ground in RV parks, but most states have ordinances against that now. Claim that it spoils the fresh water table. Reminds me of our 30-foot fresh-water dug well on the farm right next to the barn. We never got sick. Water was always good.

Orv

[exav8tr]

Orv, I carry a bottle of Clorox Bleach Spray Cleaner in my convenience center and always spray off the CG water spigot and run it before connecting. Probably not as good as placing it in boiling water but a lot easier.....

[DonandBonnie]

Last year we took our horse trailer to our local sewage treatment plant to see if we could dump there. Would you believe that they told us the EPA would not allow them to accept our sewage because it was unsanitary. I guess they are only allowed to take the sanitary kind of sewage from stick houses.

[ols1932]

quote:Originally posted by exav8tr

Orv, I carry a bottle of Clorox Bleach Spray Cleaner in my convenience center and always spray off the CG water spigot and run it before connecting. Probably not as good as placing it in boiling water but a lot easier.....

Me too!

Orv

[grampachet]

In my past I was a water well driller and taking water samples was part of my job. I used a propane torch to sanitize, de-bug sterilize or what-ever-you want to call it, the spigot before obtaining the sample. The well itself was sterilized with a solution of industrial strength bleach, the test pump was inserted into the well and sprayed with a solution of bleach. Then we would pump the well for a minimum of 1 hour before taking the sample. Very few samples ever failed the bacteria purity test.
In using the torch to "clean" the spigot care was taken to not heat the faucet and destroy the gaskets. Just a few passes of the flame to remove any bacteria that may have been present.

The original post about the statute, the statute was modified August 2008!

[simonsrf]

quote:Originally posted by Tom S.

Well, you have to remember that 1/2 the population are 'below average intelligence' and many are downright morons. Unfortunately, that's the cause for many of our laws: morons who don't know better and morons who make laws thinking that will fix the problem.

My thoughts, exactly!

[timdenchanter]

This topic brings two recent events to mind.

We camped last week in a VERY nice resort north of Houston. The fellow in the space next door came out to dump prior to departure. He failed to securely connect the hose and when he opened the black tank valve, the hose fell on the ground. He lacked the presence of mind to close the valve and the tank emptied right out on the concrete parking space.

We were at the same resort for Labor Day weekend and watched a family with a fifth wheel pull into a space directly behind ours. They barely got the TV stopped before the lady on the passenger side jumped out with a little lap dog on a long leash. The dog headed straight for the water spigot for the camper next door where he proceeded to relieve himself all over their drinking water hose connection. The lady on the other end of the leash never made a move to stop the dog.

We always wash down the water connection with liquid bleach prior to hooking up.

Tim in Katy.