In the fight against circuitboard manufacturers that illegally dump toxic wastes down the sewer, investigators in Orange County, California, are sending computerized wastewater samplers down manholes. Workers lower the wastebasket-sized samplers into pipes, where the devices can scan flowing sewage. Samples are sucked into storage bottles at regular intervals, or whenever the probe detects high levels of the hydrochloric or sulfuric acids that are typically used in circuitboard fabrication.
Inspectors download data from their samplers into handheld devices for transfer to desktop computers. But the Orange County Sanitation Districts soon hope to use cell-phone-equipped samplers that can call investigators when a dump is in progress.
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Sewer Snoops
