"Do not poo" special message on the #BurningMan radio station. Porta potty conditions "can't be mentioned on the air". #mud #disaster
Clip from the Burning Man radio station about not going poo, and porta potties being "backed up". And also "finding a container and peeing in it instead" ๐Ÿ˜Ÿ
if you don't mind music mixed in with updates on the #poomudcalpyse you can listen to their radio station here: https://bmir.org/
BMIR 94.5 FM The Voice of the Man

@ai6yr They just said if you try to leave by walking across the playa to the blacktop road, state troopers are waiting there...to arrest you for trespassing.
@cat_static Sounds bad. though, in a warm jail for trepassing seems better than dying of cholera in the mud. ๐Ÿค”
@cat_static @ai6yr as they should. If drivers abandon their vehicle on the playa that just increases the remediation burden.
@laprice @ai6yr Total agreement. It was said in between cheerful informational messages and noise music with no further details, which struck me with surprise giggles.
@ai6yr You know, โ€œnot going pooโ€ is not really a viable option for some folks and is likely to lead to other public health risks. ๐Ÿ˜ฑ
@larand ๐Ÿ˜ฌ
@ai6yr All Iโ€™m sayinโ€™ is that if the playa floods, Iโ€™d want to be wearing rubber boots. ๐Ÿ’ฉ
@larand @ai6yr
Memories of Nambassa and Sweetwaters festivals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tAWwqKNI7g
New Zealand Gumboots Song

YouTube
@larand @ai6yr It's sticky mud, too. I saw it described as "like wearing a mud boot over your boot."
@cat_static @larand Yeah, it looks like "making pottery" sticky.
@ai6yr They talk a lot about having no environmental impact on the location...sure won't be the case this year. I guess it will be an opportunity to study e. coli survival in desert lake pans.
@W6KME They just broadcast a radio message saying to "not call 911 unless it's a real emergency" lest they "negatively affect our ability to get through this event" ๐Ÿค”
@ai6yr I did not know burning man was a nonprofit. I checked their last 990 (2021). Quite a few staffers are 6 figures. ED was north of 325K. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/452638273
Burning Man Project - Nonprofit Explorer

Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax filings going back as far as 2001.

ProPublica
@kellyromanych Unfortunately, as I have learned, "nonprofit" doesn't mean you're not paying the executives a huge amount of money. See that a lot. In this case, probably less crazy than the nonprofit that states it is collecting "cars for poor orphans and windows" paying their execs a king's ransom and giving the orphans and widows $2.50.
@ai6yr @kellyromanych Wonโ€™t somebody think of the windows? ๐Ÿ˜
@__josh @ai6yr I was thinking more along the line of wonโ€™t someone earning 6 figs be thinking about public welfare at the event? I thought civic responsibility was one of their pillars.
@kellyromanych @__josh They should have some professional event experience, although your mileage varies on how good folks are at contingency planning... I don't know this crew. There's the "let's run this really cool event, keep expenses down and make some dough" people, and there is "our job is to make sure this event goes off without a hitch.. make sure we have the contingency plans in place". Not idea how these folks are.
@ai6yr @__josh I wonder how their board discussed risk, insurance, and crisis comms.
@kellyromanych @__josh Well, looks like it has exposed their oversight on the reliance on porta potties being emptied by large trucks for human sanitation. Sometimes the most basic of things breaks well laid emergency plans.
@ai6yr @kellyromanych yeah there's Children International which is always collecting in the mall by me. I just yell at them "Your CEO makes $4 million a year!" anytime they try to harass me.

@kellyromanych @ai6yr I went in 1997, and that was a financial disaster. The Washoe County Sheriff took the entire "gate". I suspect they were under considerable pressure after that to be more professional with their finances. It's basically unrecognizable these days compared to then. (1998 was the last year I went.)

https://burningman.org/about/history/brc-history/event-archives/1997-2/

1997 Event Archive

1997 was the year that almost wasn't for Burning Man. The event moved from the Black Rock Desert to Hualapai flat and the Fly Ranch. To find more about this move read the Spring Newsletter article

Burning Man
@stacey_campbell @ai6yr wow, that must have been an experience for sure. Nonprofit 990s do add more transparency.
@kellyromanych @ai6yr Non-profits are, by and large, profit for some, just not the people who do all the work.
@xenotrope @ai6yr thankfully there are still many grassroots nonprofits doing amazing work with communities. Their leadership , if paid, are not in excessive multiples of salary compared to staff and other industries. Instead, they move their support to increase pay and benefits to keep staff at living /competitive wages. These orgs are often overshadowed by the few large ones whose excess is staggering.
@kellyromanych @xenotrope Absolutely. I am so happy to run into those grassroots nonprofits (that are truly built to serve their communities, NOT built to enrich their executives).
@cat_static Yeah, Home Depot or Lowes bucket with a large garbage bag (and sawdust) gets you a long way.
@ai6yr I commented somewhere else that I doubted very few brought a bucket and litter but then remembered my porto-bucket is Reliance brand, which is now unavailable for purchase ๐Ÿ˜‚
@cat_static @ai6yr A friend suggested that a "large" number of attendees simply urinate out on the playa and this an issue. Add to that people who throw up after getting drunk and you've got a really "ewwww" kind of vibe. Biffy Bags (tm) are great for an "emergencies" kit in your car for similar reasons.
@ChuckMcManis @ai6yr Yeah, sticky gloppy bacteria mud that burns once dry sounds like my definition of living nightmare tbh. Aside from that, there are microscopic shrimp that only hatch once the lakebed's been saturated for a while. These one-with-the-landers are destroying migratory bird food but hey, they're having an authentic experienceโ„ข๏ธ
@ai6yr I wouldn't go there without a compost toilet