Hearst Castle replacing public restrooms with port-a-potties

June 26, 2014

hearst_castle_poolIn San Luis Obispo County’s latest drought relief measure, California state parks has opted to close the public restrooms at the Hearst Castle Visitor Center and replace them with portable toilets. [KSBY]

State parks will close the restrooms on July 7. Hearst Castle visitors will then have choices of 38 port-a-potties flanked by at least six hand sanitizer stations.

Officials say the closure of the restrooms will reduce water use by 40 to 50 percent. State parks has also closed the restrooms at the Santa Rosa Creek, Leffingwell Landing and Washburn day use areas.

Additionally, showers are no longer available for use at the San Simeon campground.

Hearst Castle is also eliminating annual plantings of new plants, and workers are doing most irrigation by hand.


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All government business should be conducted in a Honey Hut. It could be on a flatbed truck and moved where needed.


They shoulda got rid of the flushies long ago and put in composters. They work great in this sort of place, need no water, and provide fertilizer for the gardens. Portapotties may save water, but they ain’t green.


You can’t use human waste for fertilizer because people can carry parasitic worms with eggs and bacterial spores with hard outer shells that can survive composting. Have you ever seen the mess when a compost toilet fails or people dump baby diapers or medical waste or other non biodegradable stuff down the hole?


The waste pumped out of the portable toilets is taken to a sewage facility where it undergoes biodegradation.