The Outfall Podcast

On this episode:

• We talk to artist Mary Edna Fraser, an internationally renowned artist. She has done some largest batik works to date by one artist.

Sometimes, in looking so closely at what we do, we can miss the beauty and power that water has.

Read more in the show notes.

The wonderful Christina Rae Butler, author of the recently published book titled Lowcountry at High Tide: A History of Flooding, Drainage, and Reclamation in Charleston, South Carolina joins us. She spent close to a decade writing this first-ever book about the topographic evolution of Charleston.

In this episode of The Outfall, Christina explains how compacted material or fill physically transformed the peninsula. Wild stories and history hide under the streets and buildings of Charleston.

For more information see the show notes here.

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It’s that time of year again. We have been working hard and next week we’re bringing you a brand new season of The Outfall. Season 3. We will explore more and laugh more. Thank you for your continued support. The first episode drops next Friday, April 9th.

Aquaponics is the union of hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aquaculture (farming fish or other aquatic organisms). This combination produces both plant and fish crops from a minimal footprint. This is a perfect solution. Right?

In this five-minute water short, we try to answer why we don’t see more of these aquaponic systems.

Learn more and see some pictures from our visit here.

Who better to talk about the birth of Phosphorus than Phosphorus himself. Right? We gave this show over to Phosphorus to tell this crazy tale.

The story begins on a cold night in Hamburg; a German physician Hennig Brandt is attempting to create gold by boiling down thousands of gallons of urine.

Learn more here in the show notes.

We go underground on this show to hear first hand from the people who help design tunnels and the equipment that make it possible. We hear some stories from an underground profession ruled by geology, massive machines, and above all, passion.

See all our pictures here.

David brings us a 5-minute water short about a wastewater treatment plant that smelled like turkey. Was it for real or was it a myth?

Let us know what you think and drop us a note.

Listen to more of our bite-size water shorts here.

In the spring, we published an episode where we talked to two researchers where they described how wastewater testing can act as a coronavirus early warning system. Since this show, this research has rocketed from a handful of labs at an unprecedented speed to many college campuses around the country as a frontline public health tool. Yes, wastewater was coming to the rescue.

However, there was a problem. There was no official guidebook for implementing, using, or even communicating wastewater epidemiology on this scale. We talk to Clemson University, the University of South Carolina, and Susquehanna University about this remarkable effort.

Learn more in the show notes.

The City of Charleston in South Carolina has a long relationship with water which is always being tested. They have experienced more than a foot of sea-level rise in the past 100 years, but half of this rise occurred in the last twenty years. We talk to Mark Wilbert, Chief Resilience Officer at the City of Charleston, about the problems and opportunities with flooding and sea-level rise in this five-minute water short. 

Learn more about this and the City's efforts in our show notes here.

In this episode, we talk to three people who made discoveries while simply looking down. We talk to an engineer, an artist, and a local historian from around the world.

All of them shared a common trait. They discovered manhole covers not far from their homes. These discoveries impacted their lives. After you listen to this episode, you may look down and see the world a bit differently. I know we did.

• Learn more from our show notes here.