Does anyone know why the fat doesn't get broken down by bacteria; why doesn't it just rot away?
It's made of something meant to be stored for very long periods in water without losing cohesion.
In anaerobic conditions, you get hydrolysis of fat, in which the water content is removed and the fats end up saturated and indigestible further by anaerobic processes. Cf. Corpse Wax.
In aerobic conditions, they'll be broken down into aldehydes and ketones.
I'm guessing that the interior of a monstrous fatberg is rather anaerobic, so you just end up with a great big blob of saturated fatty acids.
Here's a great example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKzWQOVET4
The reality is that if you have people equipped to poison the water supply, they will be able to. Most water systems have multiple interconnects with neighboring systems to allow exchange of treated water. Security is typically nonexistent.
The good news is that that type of attack isn’t particularly useful as a terrorist event and is likely low risk.
Texas is putting it back into the municipal system.
https://www.texastribune.org/2012/06/11/texas-gets-creative-...
Basically, water treatment plants have to make human-safe water, but then they dump it into rivers or the aquifer, where it mixes with other water and is pulled out again downstream for purification. The logic is that we may as well skip the "mix it with untreated water" stage.
Google "toilet to tap" for more examples.
Bill Gates drank some:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/10/3761823...
Yeast and bacteria are not the same thing. Practically, bleach doesn't kill yeast - if you try to kill fungus in your shower or on a wall with bleach, what that does is make it white. Which to us is a strong indication that it's dead, but it probably isn't.
To clean fungus from your shower, for example, you need to mix vinegar and fresh bleach with cold water (of which the fumes can actually kill you as well) and use the solution properly, or use an industrial cleaning agent.
Of course, someone who bleaches their shower will probably also wash it after (you should wash it _first_ before applying bleach), which might simply _physically remove_ most of the fungus from the surface. But depending on the solution you use, the fungus won't actually die.
Note that the above is mostly true in household use of bleach, and not in correct use. Bleach _does_ kill most fungus if used correctly, but essentially noone does. Hot water significantly reduces the effectiveness of bleach, and so does using _more_ than you should, and also it loses effectiveness rapidly when it comes in contact with unclean surfaces, fat/organic material (which there is plenty of on your wall), etc, and also doesn't have a long shelf-life (20% effectiveness lost yearly if stored properly). It also needs 10-30 minutes of contact time, compared to some prepared solutions that are 90% effective in a few seconds, and 95% effective after 10 seconds.
you need to mix vinegar and fresh bleach
with cold water (of which the fumes can
actually kill you as well)
Essentially, you use the vinegar to adjust the pH of the water to the correct level - 8.0 - to get the right effect from the bleach (chlorine). Again, I have to stress what I said in my first post, that this _can be deadly for you_ if you don't use it correctly.
http://podbay.fm/show/75092679/e/1175200200 might be a better link, I'm not sure. Interview starts around 9:30.
Charlie is the inventor of Star San, a sanitizing solution used in breweries and by homebrewers. Which should make you skeptical, but don't be. He's essentially an expert who made a fantastic product, and only wants to help. In the podcast he outlines how to use normal household products as replacements for his products.
I haven't listened to it since 2012 or so, so if I am mistaken about the source, please let me know and I'll find the correct source of the information in my original post.
That's interesting. I haven't made real sourdough for a long time, but I do bake bagels, bread, and pizza dough pretty regularly. While London tap water does work, I've noticed on many occasions that the dough rises a lot faster and requires much less yeast when using filtered or bottled water (I usually use the cheap Tesco Ashbeck water that you buy in big 5L bottles) compared to using straight tap water.
But whether this is due to chlorination or other factors (London water is notoriously "hard", too) I'm not sure.
I suspect because it's been cooked and lost all its emulsifiers, resulting in a hydrophobic blob. Water-based bacteria just slide off. I've seen cooked fat sit around in a kitchen for ages with no visible decay effects (but I wouldn't use it for cooking!)