Golfing Industry Focuses on Water Consumption

Editor’s Introductory Note:  You probably know that golf is one of the world’s biggest water gluttons.  I’ll let the article below, from the Waterless company’s website,   provide the data, but figures like “10,000 gallons per day” water consumption for the average golf course, or “about 50 billion gallons annually,” should tell you that putting water saving urinals in the clubhouse isn’t going to make golfing a friend of the environment. –Hardly Waite,  Gazette Senior Editor.

The grass doesn’t stay green automatically. The average golf course gulps down 10,000 gallons of water per day.

Vista, CA – October 16, 2012 – The International Golf Federation (IGF), which has members in more than 150 countries, has agreed to new policies intended to make the industry more sustainable. In particular, these initiatives focus on finding ways to conserve water and use it more efficiently.

There are more than 16,000 golf courses in the U.S. Current estimates indicate that the average American golf course uses more than 10,000 gallons of water per day, or about 50 billion gallons annually.

World Watch magazine reports that more than 2.5 billion gallons of water are used every day to irrigate golf courses worldwide.

“However, steps are being taken to reduce [golf course] water consumption,” says Klaus Reichardt, CEO and Founder of Waterless Co., Inc., makers of no-water urinal systems. Reichardt writes and lectures frequently regarding water issues.

“For instance, improved irrigation methods are helping golf courses use water more efficiently, reducing consumption by more than 2 million gallons of water annually,” Reichardt continues.

It is estimated that more than 1,000 golf courses in the U.S. now use recycled or reclaimed water for irrigation. This number is likely to grow considerably in years to come.

And many golf and residential communities–especially those located in dry Arizona and Nevada–are now employing new software programs and technologies that help reallocate and reduce water usage. These systems are helping to reduce water consumption by 10 percent and energy consumption by an additional 10 percent.

“The golfing industry is very involved with reducing water consumption off the course as well,” says Reichardt. “Many facilities are leaders in installing low-flow faucets and showers and no-water urinal systems in clubhouse restrooms.”

The IGF also announced that they will be holding a “water summit” November 6–7, 2012, in Dallas, TX, to focus further on water-related issues associated with the game.

Pure Water GazetteFair Use Statement

How Caffeine Is Stripped from Coffee by Use of the Chemical-Free Water Method

Caffeine is in the coffee bean for a reason.  It’s a natural alkaloid that serves the coffee plant as a pesticide.  It paralyzes bugs that invade the plant and also gives off a bitter flavor as a warning of its toxic nature.

Caffeine is water soluble, as are most of the other ingredients of the bean that give coffee its flavor.

The art of decaffeination,  therefore, consists of stripping the caffeine from the coffee bean while leaving behind the desirable ingredients that provide the coffee taste and aroma.

Several methods are used to remove caffeine from coffee.  Many involve chemicals, but others rely almost entirely on water.  The water methods are definitely the more desirable.  The so-called Swiss Method is considered the standard of excellence.  Here’s how the process is described:

The green, or unroasted coffee is fully submerged in filtered water that has been heated, in order to extract all the soluble material from the beans. The water solution is then filtered through carbon to separate the caffeine compounds from any of the aromatics that also came out during the extraction, and the coffee beans are then placed in an immersion tank with the caffeine-free solution, allowing them to reabsorb everything but the jitters.

World standards differ on the definition of “decaffeinated coffee,”  some allowing 97% caffeine reduction, but the highest  standards require elimination of  as much as 99.9% of the alkaloid content of coffee in order to display the decaffeinated label.

Reference:

Serious Eats Website

Pure Water Gazette:  What Kind of Water Makes the Best-Tasting Coffee

Sunlight Can Eliminate Harmful Pathogens from Water Quickly and Easily

One of the simplest ways to purify small amounts of water for emergencies or even for daily use is to expose it to six hours or more of sunlight.  UV-A rays from the

The Sodis Method: The sun, plus a plastic bottle of water, for six hours.

Understand that sunlight will kill pathogens, but it will not remove chemicals.  The water to be purified  must be clean and free of harmful chemicals.  Simple pre-filtering through a small sediment filter can be helpful for cloudy water,  but some form of carbon filtration will be needed it the water is contaminated with chemicals.

The easiest way to treat water with sunlight is to simply put it into a very clean and clear plastic bottle–PET is preferred–and place it where it can get at least 6 hours of direct sunlight.  Temperature doesn’t matter, and the process can work even on cloudy or partly cloudy days–it just takes longer.  If it’s cloudy half of the time, allow at least two days for treatment.

Six hours of good sunlight can achieve a 99.999 percent reduction of such nasty items as E. coli, vibrio cholera, salmonella, shigella flexneri, campylobacter jejuni,  and rotavirus.  Of the cysts common to lake and river water, giardia can be eliminated in the six-hour exposure, but it is recommended to treat for at least 10 hours for cryptosporidium.

The bottle?  First, don’t use glass.  It blocks too much UV.  Also, colored plastic bottles are out. Here’s an expert recommendation for choosing a bottle:

The plastic water bottle should be no bigger than 3 liters. In moderately cloudy water, UV-A will lose 50 percent effectiveness at a depth of 10 mm (about 0.5 inch), whereas UV-A will only lose 25 percent effectiveness at a depth of 10 mm in clear water. Just use a typical size soda bottle or water bottle.

Use PET bottle. The water must be clean and clear. Six hours of direct sunlight is enough. A reflective background increases the UV dose.

Sodis

Modern Survival Blog

More information about water filters for emergencies: “Emergency Water Filters,” from the Pure Water Occasional.

See also on this site.

History of the Clean Water Act

Introductory Note:  The following history of the most significant legislation protecting the nation’s water is taken directly from the EPA website.  Today, October 18,  2012, marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Clean Water Act.

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major U.S. law to address water pollution. Growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution led to sweeping amendments in 1972. As amended in 1972, the law became commonly known as the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The 1972 amendments:

• Established the basic structure for regulating pollutants discharges into the waters of the United States.
• Gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry.
• Maintained existing requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters.
• Made it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained under its provisions.
• Funded the construction of sewage treatment plants under the construction grants program.
• Recognized the need for planning to address the critical problems posed by nonpoint source pollution.

Subsequent amendments modified some of the earlier CWA provisions. Revisions in 1981 streamlined the municipal construction grants process, improving the capabilities of treatment plants built under the program. Changes in 1987 phased out the construction grants program, replacing it with the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund, more commonly known as the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. This new funding strategy addressed water quality needs by building on EPA-state partnerships.

Over the years, many other laws have changed parts of the Clean Water Act. Title I of the Great Lakes Critical Programs Act of 1990, for example, put into place parts of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978, signed by the U.S. and Canada, where the two nations agreed to reduce certain toxic pollutants in the Great Lakes. That law required EPA to establish water quality criteria for the Great Lakes addressing 29 toxic pollutants with maximum levels that are safe for humans, wildlife, and aquatic life. It also required EPA to help the States implement the criteria on a specific schedule.

More information from this site.

IBM Is Expected to Pick Up Most of the Cleanup Cost for East Fishkill  PCE Pollution from the 1970s

The EPA Superfund program operates on the principle that polluters should pay for the cleanups, rather than passing the costs to taxpayers. After sites are placed on the Superfund list of the most contaminated waste sites, the EPA searches for parties responsible for the contamination and holds them accountable for the costs of investigations and cleanups. The cleanup of a Superfund site at East Fishkill NY is expected to be performed by IBM with oversight by the EPA. The estimated cost of the cleanup is $2.7 million.

Between 1965 and 1975, Jack Manne, Inc. rented a property at 7 East Hook Cross Road in East Fishkill and operated a facility there to clean and repair computer chip racks supplied to it under a contract with International Business Machines Corp. As part of this process, solvents, including PCE, were disposed of in a septic tank and an in-ground pit located at the property.

In 2000, well sampling conducted by the New York State Department of Health indicated that residential wells in the vicinity of the facility were contaminated with PCE above the federal and state maximum contaminant levels. Following this discovery, the EPA initiated an emergency response at the site and began the delivery of bottled water to affected residences. The EPA and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation determined that the source of the PCE contamination in these nearby residential wells was the Jack Manne/IBM facility.

Tetrachloroethylene—also known as PCE, perchloroethylene or perc—is a common chemical solvent used in dry cleaning, the cleaning of metal machinery, and in the manufacture of some consumer products and chemicals. It arrives in drinking water through discharge from factories and dry cleaning facilities.

Tetrachloroethylene has toxic effects on the central nervous system. According to the WHO, when once used to treat parasitic worms, it was known to cause “inebriation, perceptual distortion, and exhilaration.” Evidence as to its carcinogenicity remains insufficient, although it is classified by the EPA as a “likely human carcinogen” that can lead to liver problems with long term exposure.

With EPA oversight, IBM completed the removal of the sources of ground water contamination at the facility. Under the same order, IBM proposed to study alternative water supplies. In early November 2003, the EPA presented the public with the alternatives for providing a permanent water supply, and the EPA subsequently selected a connection to the Fishkill municipal water supply. In March 2009, the public water supply system was completed and began to supply drinking water to the Shenandoah Road community. In September 2002, IBM had entered into a second agreement with the EPA to perform a study of the nature and extent of contamination that remained at the site as well as cleanup alternatives.

More details on the EPA website.

More about PCE.

Mountain Island Lake, A Source of Charlotte’s Drinking Water,  Receives Water from Power Plants’ Settling Ponds

Charlotte, NC draws drinking water from the lake, but there is no indication that the city’s drinking water is contaminated.

Expert Opinions on Hydration, Sports Drinks, Caffeine, and More, Followed by an Opinion on Water Experts

Editor’s Note: The Gazette has frequently made the point that the “eight glasses per day” recommendation for drinking water consumption is nonsense.  We believe that some people need large amounts of water and others can probably get by quite well on the water they get from food they eat. The following excerpt from the Las Vegas Review-Journal makes some interesting points on water consumption that we would like to pass on.  The main body of the article reports a very praiseworthy program in Las Vegas which is establishing “hydration stations” to provide filtered water to Las Vegas students as an alternative to soft drinks. –Hardly Waite.

Excerpted from With summer heat gone, proper hydration is still essential from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Dehydration is no laughing matter. Studies have shown that about 75 percent of the U.S. population is in a perpetual state of dehydration and probably doesn’t know it.

“It’s like anything else that builds up, you assume a threshold and people don’t realize how they’re supposed to feel,” said Marjorie Nolan-Cohn, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics.

Heat-related injuries climbed 133 percent between 1997 and 2006, according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Nearly half of those involved youths. In the past five years, the number of heatstroke deaths for overexerted youths is five times higher than in any five-year period during the past 35 years, says Douglas Casa, a professor and heat stroke expert at the University of Connecticut.

It should be no great news that you need more water in hot weather than in cold,  and more when you’re active than when you’re not, and more if you live on potato chips than if you eat raw salads and fruits.

Depending on activity level and other factors, suggestions on the amount of water a person needs can vary widely. Nolan-Cohn tells her clients that drinking half one’s body-weight in ounces is a solid rule of thumb. For example, a 200-pound person should consume 100 ounces of water in a day. The dietitian also says clients are always surprised at how much positive change occurs by simply drinking more water.

“Clients come in all the time and are shocked by how much better they feel. Their skin clears up and they have energy,” she said.

Girourd, whose work primarily involves competitive athletes, uses weigh-ins before and after workouts or competitive events to gauge an athlete’s hydration level. For each pound of weight lost in a workout, an athlete needs about 16 ounces of water to replenish the system. Once someone loses 2 percent of body weight, performance is affected. A 300-pound football lineman, for example, could lose 15 pounds in a strenuous workout, he added.

“You want to drink ahead of the thirst. That’s a difficult message to get across to people. But with athletes when you tell them (dehydration) will directly impact performance, they get it,” he said. “It doesn’t take much to lose 2 percent, especially in this climate.”

SYMPTOMS

Girourd also encourages athletes to take a more personalized approach to assessing their hydration. Charts are hung in athletic facility bathrooms at the school that show the color of healthy urine. A light yellow color usually means proper hydration. A darker, more apple juice-looking urine signals dehydration. Some athletes who are experiencing constant dehydration will have gastrointestinal problems, too, Girourd said.

Nolan-Cohn also said dehydration can bring a strong smell to urine. Other symptoms to watch out for are: not going to the bathroom all day, slow muscle recovery, leg cramps, soreness, headaches, dizziness, water retention (puffy fingers and legs), hunger or sugar cravings not long after eating, and fatigue.

One reason for decreased energy in a dehydrated person is the impact on the heart. Dehydration creates a lower blood volume in the heart, forcing the organ to work harder. The heart may add three to five extra beats per minute for a dehydrated person, Girourd noted. It’s not a huge factor for the everyday person, but, again, when dealing with athletes who feel fatigue, motivation to rehydrate sets in.

And, as Nolan-Cohn explained, even everyday people can feel an energy boost just by being properly hydrated and having their hearts not working as hard.

Girourd also points out the importance of acclimatization. This is an issue particularly for sports teams that visit the valley from more traditional four-season environments. He said it really takes about 14 days for a body’s thermal regulatory system to adjust to the climate shift.

But the information also applies to local students coming back to school for fall sports after being indoors much of the summer avoiding heat. As a result, local high school fall sports teams limit the length of training sessions for the first two weeks of training, Girourd said.

SPORTS DRINKS, ELECTROLYTES

Sports drink sales this year climbed to more than $4.1 billion though April, a State of the Industry analysis from Beverage Industry magazine showed. That may sound a bell for profits, but it’s not all in the good name of hydration.

Marketing teams have brilliantly targeted children with new logos and ever-changing drink colors. And they may be trying to sell children something they don’t need.

Athletes competing at a very high level may need the glucose and electrolyte minerals, such as sodium and potassium, that are in present in sports drinks. But kids and people playing recreational sports may not need the kind of boost, or the calories, sports drinks pack.

Chris Salas, a local personal trainer, asserts that water is the ultimate nourishing agent, not the colorful sports drinks so many kids are enjoying. He said even drinks such as Vitamin Water are not all their marketers claim them to be.

“They’re not squeezing fruit into those bottles. They’re using a chemically engineered fruit-flavored product and it’s nothing like water and fruit,” he said.

Salas said if someone is dehydrated in the middle of a workout, particularly someone with low blood sugar, a small amount of juice with plenty of water is a better cure. In intense athletic training situations, Girourd highly recommends a sports drink. But for the normal person on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet, he uses some common sense.

“I say, ask yourself: ‘Does that (number of calories) play into your normal caloric intake level?’ ” he said.

But while Girourd isn’t against sports drinks as much as Salas, he also believes the industry’s marketing is misrepresenting the drinks. One egregious example is in public schools, where many cafeterias have ditched sodas in vending machines and replaced them with bottled water and sports drinks.

“Schools are thinking Gatorade is a health drink and that’s not accurate,” he said. “It’s absolutely what athletes need, but it’s not what the sedentary person needs.”

But Girourd also said it’s important to address the common knock against water: taste. Diluting a sports drink is one answer. That way a little taste is given to the drink without the heavy calorie and sugar intake. But Girourd has also found through research that water temperature between 50 and 59 degrees is ideal enough to satisfy the taste problem, too.

“Research shows people prefer the cooler temperatures for their drinks, and it works,” he added.

There are also hydrating food options. Fruits and vegetables are made up primarily of water in the first place. And with the many vitamins and minerals naturally contained in them, these foods are a better electrolyte enhancer than any drink on the market, Salas said.

“I highly recommend watermelon to my clients,” he added. “It’s hard to beat.”

COFFEE CONFUSION

For years, health experts counted coffee as a diuretic. More recent research is indicating that it may not be after all.

And now more and more athletes are looking to caffeinated substances before competition to give that extra boost, too. Experts appear to be proceeding with caution on the subject. For Salas, who himself is a coffee lover, he counterbalances water intake with a coffee beverage and encourages clients to do so, too.

Girourd said carbonated beverages are a bigger problem than coffee. They delay gastrointestinal emptying and can bring an uncomfortable feeling of fullness while exercising, he noted.

“Those are the drinks you really need to avoid,” he said.

 Editor’s PS:  I could not resist including a reader’s comment.

I wonder how we made it? Chopping cotton in Arizona’s 120+ heat no shade. The water for the crew was a large barrel in the back of a pickup with one dipper that everyone used. My water was a muddy hot “Desert Water Bag” hung on the hot fender of a dark green Oliver Tractor. You worked 12 hours a day and then after work there were no air conditioned homes to return to. Worse than being uphill both ways we had no super educated Guru to tell us when to drink “water”. The body has a built in thingy called thirst. The auto thirst buzz would come on when you needed water. Amazing. If the thirst buzz was ignored it would keep nagging and drive you to do anything even kill others for water. We could have sure used that Nolan-Cohn and other learned experts as water boys.

 Read the Full Article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Previous Gazette advice on water consumption.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

“Partners of the Year” Awards for 2012 Announced for EPA WaterSense Program

The US EPA announced it 2012 “WaterSense Partners of the Year for 2012” awards in early October.

WaterSense is an ambitious program planned and carried out by the EPA that is aimed at saving water.

Since the launch of WaterSense in 2006, WaterSense labeled products have, according to the EPA, “helped Americans save $4.7 billion in water and energy bills and 287 billion gallons of water.”  That’s due to the efforts of more than 2,600 WaterSense partners who have brought more than 5,000 different models of WaterSense labeled products to market and educated thousands of consumers on the benefits of WaterSense labeled products, new homes and services.

The 2012 Partners of the Year represent the best of WaterSense’s partners.  They are recognized for efforts made to increase water efficiency and awareness of the WaterSense program and its objectives.

And the winners are…

American Standard Brands earned a Manufacturer Partner of the Year Award for developing a WaterSense-labeled toilet model that can be installed without tools. American Standard also toured the country with an educational display that demonstrated how WaterSense-labeled faucets, toilets and showerheads work.

Kohler Co., now a three-time WaterSense Manufacturer Partner of the Year, introduced its most water-efficient dual-flush toilet in 2011. Kohler also more than doubled the number of WaterSense-labeled showerheads it offers and supported and participated in the “Wasting Water Is Weird” consumer education campaign to promote water conservation.

Retailer Partner of the Year:
Lowe’s Companies, Inc. became a three-time WaterSense Retailer Partner of the Year by supporting and participating in the “Wasting Water Is Weird” campaign to promote water conservation and training their sales associates on water savings and usability of WaterSense labeled products. Through their efforts, Lowe’s customers saved about 4 billion gallons of water in 2011 with WaterSense products.

Promotional Partner of the Year:
Colorado Springs Utilities was named the WaterSense Promotional Partner of the Year for helping a local builder create the first WaterSense-labeled home in Colorado. The utility also encouraged commercial kitchens in the area to try pre-rinse spray valves that helped save more than 20 million gallons of water.

Builder Partner of the Year:
KB Home, now a two-time WaterSense Builder Partner of the Year, built nearly 100 WaterSense-labeled homes in 2011 and pushed the limits of sustainable building with a model home designed to achieve net-zero energy use and the highest levels of water and other resource efficiency.

For full details of the accomplishments of the winners above and other businesses and organizations that were also recognized by the EPA, read the EPA’s press release.

Learn more about the WaterSense Awards Program, including information about past winners.

Strange Finds on Beaches in Mexico and South Florida

Giant Oarfish that died shortly after arriving on the Beach at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Oarfish inhabit the world’s oceans but are found in the dark depths between about 600 and 3,000 feet. On the rare occasions one is seen on or near a beach–this happens very rarely and sporadically–it’s either sick or injured, dying or already dead.

Their silver bodies have no scales and the fish swim with undulating motions, serpent-like.

In an unrelated event, a giant eyeball of an unknown creature was found by a beach visitor on Pompano Beach, Florida.  The eyeball is slightly larger than a baseball and presumably belonged to some kind of marine animal.

Softball-Sized Eyeball of an Unknown Creature that Appeared on a Florida Beach

The eyeball is being preserved and will be delivered to a research lab in St. Petersburg, where it’s hoped an official identification can be made.

More details on the eyeball.

More about the oarfish from the Sea of Cortez.