County
Standing Room Only
August 13, 2006 
Sometimes boring press releases contain gems like this excerpt from Ada County announcing a new combat operation center near Meridian for the war on West Nile Skeeters and other pests.
“The new facility will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certified by the US Green Building Council, which is a national rating system used to develop high-performance, sustainable buildings. LEED Certification results in a strong emphasis on state-of-the-art strategies for site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. As a result of those strategies, the new building will include (among other things):
Southern Idaho’s only waterless urinal.”
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Comments & Discussion
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Aug 13, 2006, 9:15 pm
Well, maybe not. Check out the Visitors Center at Craters of the Moon.
EDITOR NOTE–Rod, now we are going to launch a debate on the geographic boundry of “southern Idaho.” Then it will be is it “urninal” or urinals.
Aug 13, 2006, 9:29 pm
Makes perfect sense to me, Guardian.
This is an important strategy in the LEED war against West Nile Virus. No standing water!
Is there an outhouse for the rest of us? Who is the USGBC (US GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL) and how much does this wonder urinal cost?
Aug 14, 2006, 2:44 am
“”Southern Idaho’s only waterless urinal.””
Except, of course, for the hundreds of portapotty types at various events, work sites, etc.
Of course, it remains “waterless” only if no one ever uses it — or have they figured out some way to make us pee dry urine?
Aug 14, 2006, 9:11 am
Maybe they are onto something.
If the county required The Cliffs to use waterless toilettes in their planned unit community, The Cliff wouldn’t need to vent half a million gallons of effluent fromt their treatment plant into the Boise River.
Aug 14, 2006, 11:09 am
West Nile is a new name for an old problem. Yes it is a new variant or something like that, but basicly other parts of the country and world have been killing bugs with bug killer for a long time. Not rocket science here folks…..just hire a spray plane and get-r-done. Is probably cheaper than all the folks trying to do it from the ground too. I am concerned though, if it’s the same bunch that’s responsible for trimming weeds along the roadside.
Aug 14, 2006, 5:31 pm
Ed. Bash green building practices all you want, just proves how ignorant you are on some of the issues. I personally peed in a waterless urnial in Pasadena and it worked just fine. If this country were not as wasteful with everything we might not have to worry about fighting terrorists in our streets or sacrificing our soldiers for democracy in Iraq. It takes 1.6 gallons of taxpayer treated (French owned) drinking water to flush a pint of your pee (wishful thinking) to the tax payer funded sewer treatment plant through a taxpayer funded sewer system, eventually ending up in the Boise River. Why not cut out the middle man. If we only flushed poop we’d cut our water usage by a huge margin. Most people pee three times as much as poop. When they invent a car that doesn’t use gas, your my man to say “I won’t drive it because cars use gas”. Banner Bank building downtown is Boise’s newest “green ” building, go check it out.
Aug 14, 2006, 6:28 pm
So do we drain Lake Lowell?
Aug 15, 2006, 9:32 am
So, where does it go?
Aug 15, 2006, 12:04 pm
Goes into the sewer but you don’t wash it down with French owned drinking water. Or if you were a terrorist, you could use it to make a bomb by mixing it with shampoo or “toilet water” and take down a airliner.
Can we board an airplane with a full bladder under the new security measures or do we need to pee first before boarding? Pee has urea in it. Isn’t that one of the ingredients McVeigh used to blow up the fed building?
Aug 15, 2006, 10:42 pm
I think McVeigh used amonium nitrate and fuel oil.
However, I like your line of thinking. If uric acid can be induced to explode, we could install a bunch of these toilets in the County Court House and City Hall. They would spontaneously detonate every few years, clearing the decks of the political dead wood, and we would get a chance to start over with a fresh bunch of hooligans.
The result might not be much better, but at least we would get a change of scenery.
Aug 17, 2006, 12:36 am
Hey, Thistle’s idea sounds like much more fun that just old-fashioned tar and feathers!
Aug 19, 2006, 5:40 pm
“If the county required The Cliffs to use waterless toilettes in their planned unit community, The Cliff wouldn’t need to vent half a million gallons of effluent fromt their treatment plant into the Boise River.”
Tony, don’t you have a septic tank on your house on the plateau? you’ve pooped on the plateau more than anybody.
pot/kettle/black