Teaching and researching disaster sanitation — and designing & building equipment for it — came out of my enduring interests as a family doctor in patient empowerment, and infectious disease.
Disaster Sanitation Class Handout NET Camp 8/26/23
PowerPoint slides for Disaster Sanitation class, NET Camp 2023, 8/26/23
The NET Fair class asked good questions:
“Where in Portland are people too close to the water table to safely dig a latrine?”
Answer: Here’s the map. Land next to bodies of water (rivers, lakes) may have a water table within reach of a shovel, including Hayden Island, the Smith & Bybee Wetlands, and the airport. And obviously, the higher the hill one lives on, the farther down the water table. The vast majority of Portland is at least 20 feet above the water table, too far to reach with a latrine.
My sanitation presentation makes assumptions about gender, as someone pointed out. Gendered anatomy does make a difference for sanitation equipment choices, but obviously not everyone equipped with either gender’s anatomy identifies with that gender.
“What’s a ‘rat-proof enclosure’?”
(Context: for storing bagged poop, to keep rats away.)
I listed roll carts, in a shed or garage reinforced with quarter-inch hardware cloth.
More ideas:
Dumpsters. Make sure the drain in the bottom is capped, and that there are no overhanging trees or nearby buildings that a rat can climb to jump onto the dumpster.
Shipping Containers.