Mt Washington Summit Capacity

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peakbagger

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Note I avoided the scatological reference in the thread title ;)

https://www.nhpr.org/post/nh-budget-writers-tackle-toilet-upgrades-mt-washington#stream/0

Looks like the waste disposal issue on the summit is now officially an issue that I expect all parties knew was coming especially since the big increase in Cog ridership.

The Cog has in the last six months stated they are planning to build a restroom car. They also had suggested during the Cog hotel discussion that a new wastewater line could be run down from the summit via the cog right of way with a wastewater disposal system mounted at the base station. I wonder if that option is still on the table?. Technically it would be interesting as the elevation would yield around 1600 psi of static pressure at the base station, not sure what the dynamic pressure until the pipe material and velocity is known. Size the pipe right and it would be quite an interesting power source using a hydroelectric turbine. Technically its possible as long as there are macerators installed on the head works. Definitely not something I would ever want to maintain but an interesting technical exercise. It would offset the carbon used to move people to the summit.

My guess is its hydraulic limitations are what is overwhelming the current wastewater disposal system rather than biological oxygen demand. There are ultra low water options that were not available when the "new" summit building was built so it may mean retrofitting the facilities rather than the disposal system.

No matter what, the state is going to be looking for a source of funding for the upgrade and expect the commercial operations are going to try to get other parties to fund part of the cost. Its easy to surcharge paying passengers of the autoroad and cog, would hikers be willing to kick in on pay toilets with paying guests of the road and cog getting tokens (which would become a souvenir) ?. I personally would have no objections since its the fairest method. If a hiker objects the West Side trail makes a nice bypass.

When I used to work in the Berlin mill, the resident industrial cleaning firm also had septic trucks. They also had the contract for the top of Mt Washington. One of the other engineers one time got to take a late afternoon drive up the autoroad to pump out a tank (I think it was prior to the current system). He got to see sunset from the summit before they headed down The truck had a "This Car Climbed Mt Washington" bumper sticker proudly stuck to the rear bumper. They traveled up frequently.
 
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And when the tourism peristalsis slows, it will make "the rock pile" a more appropriate name...:D
 
I can sense some CHP opportunities in the state budget for replacing Concord Steam Plant and those other upgrades someone with initials PB:) Oops - I just read Concord newspaper report on closing of and now tear-down of Concord Steam Plant. never mind.......
 
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Technically it would be interesting as the elevation would yield around 1600 psi of static pressure at the base station, not sure what the dynamic pressure until the pipe material and velocity is known. Size the pipe right and it would be quite an interesting power source using a hydroelectric turbine. Technically its possible as long as there are macerators installed on the head works. Definitely not something I would ever want to maintain but an interesting technical exercise. It would offset the carbon used to move people to the summit.

How about a settling tank with a filter(s) on the overflow? The excess water is then run to the turbines. Just figure out how much water you can safely skim off and still get a good flow on the main line.
 
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