Winter 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

There’s shi* in them thar hills
by Lynn Martel
A
life goal of his, says University
of British Columbia PhD
candidate Geoff Hill, is turning
waste streams into valuable commodities.
Toward that end, Hill’s PhD project
focuses on designing improved systems
for managing human waste in alpine and
arctic regions.
“It’s my life’s work to try to integrate
humans into the ecosystems that support
us,” Hill stated. “If you look at any
ecosystem, its health and richness can
be characterized by its degree of waste
integration.”
Currently, flying 200-litre drums filled
with human waste, 80 or 90 per cent of
which is urine, by helicopter long-line
is the most common method of waste
removal from backcountry sites throughout
Alberta and BC’s mountains.
But, Hill points out, unsustainable
methods are not restricted to backcountry
cabins.
“We’re very accustomed to flushing
a .2-kilogram poop or a .3-litre piss with
20 litres of potable water,” Hill explained.
“Somehow we’ve tricked ourselves into
thinking this isn’t crazy. But it’s clearly
outrageous to long-line drums of excrement
by helicopter from provincial and
national parks all across North America.
The helicopter is one of the most inefficient
vehicles ever made, and one of the
most dangerous and most expensive
vehicles to operate.”
So, Hill is studying the benefits, costs
and performance capabilities of potential
alternate methods. An avid climber, last
summer Hill conducted research in BC’s
Bugaboo Provincial Park.
“With the line of work I’m in, the
least I can do for myself is choose a
beautiful place,” Hill said. “Bugaboo
Park is very popular and it has numerous
backcountry toilets, including forest-level
pit toilets, Kain Hut barrels, Applebee
Camp barrels and high alpine thrones at
the Bugaboo Snowpatch Col and Pigeon
Howser Col.”
At this point in his research, the most
promising alternatives are urine diversion—preventing
urine, which is sterile,
from coming into contact with feces,
which are pathogen rich—combined with
dehydration. He is also collecting data on
composting toilets in Kananaskis Country,
Little Yoho Campground
and in the US.
In the Bugaboos, a
urine diversion seat, combined
with dehydration,
has yielded an 84 to 95 per
cent mass reduction of the
total waste. Hill is also
testing a hydro-powered
ash incinerator, using the
mini-hydro system which
provides clean electricity
to the Alpine Club of
Canada’s (ACC) Conrad
Kain Hut.
One key element of
his research is to develop
a system that can be retrofit into existing
toilets, keeping costs low. Fortunately,
urine diversion seats and urinals retrofit
easily into most backcountry toilets. Once
his data is complete, it will be available to
park operators and policy makers.
Hill’s research is of particular value to
the ACC, which operates 27 backcountry
huts, ranging from 30-person log cabins
in sub-alpine locations to four-person
shelters perched high in the alpine.
Most of these huts rely on fly-out barrel
systems, piggy-backing helicopter flights
to deliver empty barrels and propane pigs
for lights and cooking while removing
full barrels.
In July, Karen Rollins, project director
for BEES, the ACC’s Backcountry
Energy and Environmental Solutions
committee, and three other ACC representatives
attended the Exit Strategies—
Managing Human Waste in the Wild
conference in Golden, Colorado.
Attendees included land managers, scientists,
entrepreneurs and wilderness operators
from as far as Alaska, New Zealand,
Japan, Nepal and Argentina.
“One of the main points that came
out of the conference was that for every
region, although we all experience difficulties
in waste management, the solution
is always going to be a bit different,”
Rollins said. “BEES is trying to get away
from fossil fuels. For the ACC, there’s
still room for research, and that’s why
BEES exists.”
In western Canada, where temperatures
regularly dip below freezing in
the alpine nine or 10 months of the year,
This "green throne", perched at the frequently visited Pigeon/Howser
Col, is one of several backcountry toilets in BC's Bugaboo Provincial Park.
photo by Lynn Martel.
a barrel of waste created in January or
February will still have a chunk of ice in
it in July. While some southern US parks
are successfully employing composting
toilets, they rely on warmth to work
properly.
“In the alpine, it’s very—extremely—
challenging, because of the temperature
requirements,” Rollins said. Pit toilets,
she added, require soil and bedrock for
micro-organisms to break down the
waste—elements not readily available, or
penetrable, in the alpine.
“The key for all off-grid waste management
solutions is urine separation,”
Rollins said.
In northern Europe, she added, urine
separation is already being carried out,
with the urine being used as fertilizer.
“Urine diversion is cheap, easy and
reliable,” Hill said. “But the impacts
of urine diversion on alpine and arctic
soils and plant communities are little
known. If diverted correctly, my hypothesis
is that local plant communities will
thrive. There is clear evidence showing
that urine can be used as fertilizer on a
wide range of crops with high productivity,
including tomatoes, cucumbers and
bananas.”
Employing expertise gained from his
Masters thesis that examined climate
change impacts on arctic sedge meadow
communities, Hill has initiated a project
that utilizes urine from a remote arctic
field camp in the production of leafy
greens in a semi-permanent greenhouse.
He also hopes to use waste cooking oil as
fuel for the camp’s diesel power generator.
12 Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Winter 2010