Dealing with Pollution

[Steelwolf]

I understand that eco is about balancing pollution and progression and seeks to be fairly realistic.

With that said I am having some major issues with the pollution mainly that of post treated water. Blast furnace and oil refinery sewage is sent through a single waste filter then pumped down deep into the earth about 40 blocks straight down then 6 to the side so that there is over 40 blocks above the output. This is still causing more ground pollution than my tailing dump which is 30 blocks down in a large lumber yard. There has to be a better way to deal with the waste water, right?

I'm looking for current solutions for 9.4 while hoping the dev/devs will add a better way to deal with the water. (Also naming the water to waste water would help people avoid pumping it directly back into the water table. A mistake I barely avoided)

My suggestion to the devs would be to allow us to make tanks to store this water and then a larger waste water process plant or some other added type of filter. I like the idea of charcoal, crushed stone and sand filters that turn to garbage after X amount of pollution filtered through them.)

Speaking of other pollution and filters, I understand air pollution will settle in this game and become ground pollution. Is there anyway to mitigated this conversion? I'm doing a peer to peer server connection so we can't really let the server run while we aren't on. The only plan we had was to set up in the desert where pollution isn't going to be that big of an issue but we still want things as clean as we can get them.

A future suggestion would be adding in air filter or a sequester, would use lots of energy, to pump it into the lithosphere like we do tailings. (Real life example of this is the NETPOWER natural gas power plant.)

One thing I will say that has helped out is leaving the rain and redwood forests alone, preferring to dig underground and build in only select areas. Even with our current industrial level running full bore we are still carbon negative due to global plant life.

[SLG-Dennis]

Water from a waste filter has negligible pollution that should barely be noticeable, so that's likely not the cause for the pollution you are seeing. The impact of air pollution for ground pollution in biomes with high rain is much, much higher.

It's too early to say anything about air pollution filters or sewage tanks, so I'm going to take these as suggestions :)

[Steelwolf]

That is still odd as the rainfall where my ground pollution is about .2 which appears low. The area itself has some salt water but not really any freshwater even underground yet I am already at 20% ground pollution in this area. There are no tailings near by. Does the pumpjack produce pollution?

Sorry for all the questions the wiki pretty barren with detailed information.

[Rathelm]

It doesn't matter Steelwolf. The air pollution always comes to the ground. There's no wind currents so it always settles where its created. Always.

[engraveriii]

My water supply forms a loop. Water source > Water Pump > Water need > Filter > back connected to the pipe just before the pump. Seems to work fine and forms a closed loop. Haven't noticed any pollution from this.

[SLG-Dennis]

Originally posted by engraveriii:

My water supply forms a loop. Water source > Water Pump > Water need > Filter > back connected to the pipe just before the pump. Seems to work fine and forms a closed loop. Haven't noticed any pollution from this.

That actually shouldn't work. Interesting. Will note it down for fixing.

Originally posted by Steelwolf:

That is still odd as the rainfall where my ground pollution is about .2 which appears low. The area itself has some salt water but not really any freshwater even underground yet I am already at 20% ground pollution in this area. There are no tailings near by. Does the pumpjack produce pollution?

Sorry for all the questions the wiki pretty barren with detailed information.

Even a low value will create a notable amount of pollution for downfall.

[Steelwolf]

So is there just not a way to deal with pollution? No clean up ability like removing soil and bringing in new soil, crop rotation or fungal treatment? Washing the ground or something?

I mean I do run my industrial sector in hour settings. Run for an hour two hours down time. Even then the ground pollution within 2 cycles is already at 40% Just 10 minutes of smog and the area is bright white.

[Rathelm]

Time is the only way to deal with ground pollution. It'll clear up over time, but why are you so concerned about it? If there's a polluted area it doesn't really matter. Not like you're going to get cancer or something.

[Cl0udKiD]

It does effect your house value though

[Other]

Originally posted by Steelwolf:

So is there just not a way to deal with pollution? No clean up ability like removing soil and bringing in new soil, crop rotation or fungal treatment? Washing the ground or something?

I mean I do run my industrial sector in hour settings. Run for an hour two hours down time. Even then the ground pollution within 2 cycles is already at 40% Just 10 minutes of smog and the area is bright white.

Ground pollution fades with time, but it is slow. Just to give you an idea, 40% isn't that much - there are a few plants that can survive that. My last single-player run, the highest ground pollution I saw was 160%, all of it from air pollution washing down (tailings were buried down at bedrock, and treated water was dumped back into a holding pool that was also the water source for my pump). Since in single player the server only runs while you are playing, that was effectively from my blast furnace, combustion generator, and oil refinery running for 72 hours straight.

In fact once you go over about 120% or 130%, the appearance goes back to (almost) normal, except for the lack of real plants - brilliant green grass, for instance. I suspect that the table of masks for pollution appearance runs out, and defaults to "this is fine". The highest pollution I think I have seen in game was over 300%, but that was the soil next to a 10-level deep tailings dump exposed at the surface, plus air pollution and untreated sewage.

On a regular server, where you log off for 8+ hours a day, you should see some pollution fading when you log in, and as long as you have separated your farms & industry, it won't make a huge amount of difference.

[SLG-Dennis]

Originally posted by Cl0udKiD:

It does effect your house value though

At least on vanilla, it does not (yet).