US and World Bank Are Shoving an Unwanted Coal-Fired Power Plant Down Kosovo’s Throat

Posted January 30th, 2013
Environmental, Politics of Water

World Bank-backed Coal Plant Threatens Water Crisis in Kosovo

 by Justin Guay

The World Bank, along with the U.S. Government, is pushing a $58 million Partial Risk Guarantee for a highly controversial coal-fired power plant in Kosovo. The Bank has pushed for the project to move forward over the objections of local Kosovars who demand that it’s their land and their choice. But before it can fast-track this project the Bank’s Board of Directors must give final approval based in large part on an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA). Already the Bank and the U.S. government are risking the local air quality and Kosovar’s health to fast track the ESIA. Now it appears they may be glossing over potentially devastating water impacts as well.

The proposed coal-fired power plant and expanded mining operations will draw water from a local canal, which is already considered “severely stressed.” The canal, the economic heart of Kosovo, supports households and agricultural activities in this young nation. Negative impacts on this critical water source would threaten the very fabric of life in Kosovo.

Nezir Sinani, a member of the Kosovo Civil Society Consortium for Sustainable Development, is acutely aware of what a new coal plant means. “Kosovo’s citizens already face regular water supply cuts, while many fertile fields are left un-utilized due to lack of sufficient water to grow anything. Despite these significant problems, it is very disheartening to see the World Bank support plans that will deepen the water supply crisis in the country, which will hit directly every citizen of the country and it’s much needed economic development.”

Nezir, along with Heike Mainhardt of the Bank Information Center, conducted a review of the World Bank’s study on Ibër-Lepenc, and the results confirmed their worst fears. The Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Bank’s ESIA stipulate that the Bank’s assessment will rely on existing studies, which are based on incomplete and outdated data, masking the project’s true effects on Kosovo’s water supply. Heike Mainhardt explains that “the World Bank has based its water supply study on limited and low quality data and only low-growth modeling results. Furthermore, the Bank is supporting the coal project despite not knowing the technical details for the new plant, which will play a core role in water usage.”

And if endangering Kosovo’s water supply isn’t enough, the project threatens the country’s entry into the EU.

Mara Silina of the European Environmental Bureau elaborates: “It will be nearly impossible for Kosovo to implement EU energy and environmental legislation if the coal based plant is built. The water, soil and air will continue to be heavily polluted, preventing Kosovo from being integrated in the EU.”

Not of course to mention the pesky fact that Kosovo already gets nearly 97 percent of its electricity from coal. Adding yet more coal to the mix precludes its ability to meet the EU’s increasingly stringent renewable energy standards.

Given the wide range of concerns with the projects, and the incredibly substandard level of data and information upon which the Bank’s decision will be made, civil society groups from Kosovo and abroad have ramped up a calls for the World Bank to drop plans for more coal in Kosovo. After all, its own former chief clean energy specialist Dan Kammen has been telling them for a year now that low carbon options will create more jobs at a lower cost. If the institution, and its leader Dr. Kim, is really concerned about climate change and public health, this should be an easy decision. But with other coal projects already in the pipeline, we’ll need to see real leadership to assuage our deep doubts.

The full review is available here.

Reprinted from Huffington Post.

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E. Coli, the Most Popular Bacterium

Posted January 29th, 2013
Bacteria

E. Coli.  You Hear About It In the News, but Do You Really Know What It Is?

Escherichia coli,  usually known simply as E. coli, was named after its discoverer Theodor Escherich,  a German doctor in the 19th century. It is part of a family of fecal bacteria called coliform.  It is found in the intestines of animals and humans and will grow in a wide range of intestinal environments.  A typical E. coli measures about 2 microns by 0.5 microns and is rod shaped.

When water tests are done, a test is usually first performed for coliform, and if coliform is detected, E. coli, specifically, is looked for.  Water can test positive for coliform bacteria without E. coli being present. Although finding E. coli is an immediate cause for concern, most strains of E. coli are harmless.  A few strains, like O157:H7, O121 and O104:H21, cause serious disease.

Rod-shaped E. coli  are often about 2 microns long and half a micron across. This makes them big enough to be caught by a tight water filter.

E. coli can infect humans not only through contaminated water but also through foods like insufficiently cooked beef, contaminated, unwashed fresh vegetables, as well as milk or juice.

Presence of E. coli in water is a strong indication that water is contaminated by human or animal feces.

Health effects of E. coli range from no symptoms to death, although in most cases infected individuals recover without medical treatment.  Serious outbreaks, though not frequent in this country, are  impressive.   In 1999 at a county fair in New York, a well at the fair used for drinking and food preparation was contaminated by manure from a nearby animal barn. The result was two deaths, 65 people hospitalized and more than 1,000 sickened.

The EPA considers detection of E. coli a “direct health risk,” and has set an MCL for total coliforms of zero.

Treatment of E. coli is varied.  It includes  ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, distillation, ultraviolet, chlorination, ozone, boiling.

Reference: Water Technology.

More Information:  Pure Water Products.

 

 

In Some Water Systems As Much as 20% of Treated Water Is Lost to Leaks

Posted January 29th, 2013
Shortage

Priority Detection: Accounting for water resources and applying efficient leak detection tops water utility “to-do” lists.

 by Dan Rafter

Editor’s Note:  We’ re reprinting this important article in its entirety because it underlines one of the most obvious but soundly ignored facts about water management–the fact that leaks are a significant contributor to water shortages. –Hardly Waite.

Reinhard Sturm knows that water utilities across the country are losing water through leaks in their system. And he knows that many are losing a significant amount of water.

An Acoustic Leak Monitoring Device

Sturm is vice president of operations with Water Systems Optimization Inc. (WSO), an international engineering group with US offices in San Francisco, CA, and Nashville, TN. His company specializes in helping utilities determine how much water they are losing and identify the steps they can take to reduce this loss.

WSO engineers do this partly through water audits and leak detection. The results are often surprising, with some utilities losing 20% or more of the treated water they pump through their systems.

Sturm knows, too, that not every water utility will invest in the money it takes to either detect leaks or repair them. That’s because of a simple fact: For some utilities, leak detections and water audits simply aren’t cost-effective. “Look at a city like Philadelphia. There, water is quite cheap; it is plentiful,” he says. “Even though the amount of water losses can be high for utilities in the Philadelphia area, they are not high enough to justify making expensive repairs. That might be different on the West Coast where water is not as plentiful or cheap. But at a utility where that is not the case? They have no

justification to go further than identifying their water loss and making sure that it doesn’t get to be too high.”

That sums up the attitude today of water utilities, according to the companies that provide water audits and leak detection technology. Many are embracing new technology that lets them better monitor the amount of water that they pump into the ground, what is known as non-revenue water.

But others, in areas where water is plentiful and cheap, are not. They live with the water loss in their system until it no longer makes economic sense to do so.

The motivator for utilities? Money. Those who won’t suffer financially from water loss will invest little in leak detection and audits. Those who will suffer will do the opposite.

A small leak in an underground pipe can if neglected turn into a big leak.

“Those utilities who are interested in getting their hands around the amount of water they are losing are doing it because of financial reasons. The primary drive is the savings that they will see,” says Cliff Wilson, president of Buffalo Grove, IL-based Wachs Water Services, a provider of asset-management services for water-distribution systems. “The goal is to make sure that utilities are getting paid for this valuable resource that they are processing, to insure that utilities are getting paid for this product that they are delivering to their customers.”

Count Chris Leauber, executive director of the Water & Wastewater Authority of Wilson County in Lebanon, TN, as one of those water officials who is an advocate of water audits and leak detection.

The Wilson County utility runs its own water-loss control program in-house. This isn’t surprising—Leauber for about 20 years worked in the water loss consultancy side of the business before he came to the utility side. “We put a tremendous amount of emphasis on controlling our water loss,” says Leauber. “We purchase 100% of our water. Identifying and fixing leaks, then, is very valuable to us. When you produce your own water, the dollars you save in identifying and fixing leaks come in the form of the power you use to produce it and the chemicals you use to treat it. When you purchase your water, though, the savings are far greater.”

The Wilson County water system is divided into 16 district metered areas, or DMAs. The utility meters all the water that flows into these areas. System officials are able to compare the water coming into an area with the water that is actually billed to customers.

Using leak detection technology, the utility is able to isolate areas where leaks might be occurring. This is important: Nearly 100% of the pipe distributing potable water to customers in the Wilson County system is PVC. It can be hard to listen for leaks with this kind of pipe.

But by isolating specific areas, crews can target sections of pipe that might be losing water. It’s far easier to hear the sounds of leaking when utility crews already know where to look, Leauber says. “If you didn’t go through the district metered process, you’d have to go through the whole distribution system looking for leaks,” he says. “You can spend hours looking for leaks where there aren’t any if you take that approach. This breaks the leaks down to a specific area. We can now find our leaks 100% of the time. They are then repaired, saving us money in the long run.”

Discovering the Leaks
Mark Patience, product manager for water loss management line at Itron, says that he’s seeing a growing number—though not all—of municipalities investing more dollars into detecting leaks in their water delivery systems.

Patience says that many municipalities are even asking for leak detection capabilities to be included in the automatic meter reading/advanced metering infrastructure systems to which they are now upgrading.

This varies by state, though, with municipalities in some states particularly aggressive in tracking down and eliminating what the American Water Works Association refers to as non-revenue water.

Patience points to Tennessee, a state that he cites as enforcing especially stringent rules on how utilities can report non-revenue water numbers. “If officials in Tennessee see something that doesn’t make sense, they’ll perform an audit themselves,” he says. “That is kind of historic.”

Much of the increased attention to leaks and water management can be traced to the hot weather that has blanketed sizable portions of the United States in recent years. Many states in the southern portion of the country are struggling with drought conditions, Patience says. Some states, such as California, are trucking in water to their municipalities because they don’t have enough.

“Many utilities are not able to meet the demand of their users,” says Patience. “These utilities have to put more effort into preventing water from escaping from their systems.”

Other municipalities want to prevent the future, often more costly, problems that can result when leaks are not identified and repaired, says Wilson.

Leaks can be devastating if left untreated, he says. They could steadily increase the amount of water that flows into a municipality’s wastewater treatment plant, eventually overwhelming the facility. They could push chlorinated water into a nearby creek. They could even undermine the stability of an entire street, leading to a costly cave-in.

“Leaks can cause a whole dimension of collateral damage if they are not repaired,” says Wilson. “We’ve all seen pictures of fire trucks falling into holes in the street. We’ve all seen giant sinkholes in busy intersections. Often that was caused by leakage. And it’s not often caused by a big break, but by leakage over time. It builds up.”

The cost of the collateral damage, then, is often much higher than losses utilities experience from non-revenue water, Wilson says. “These are the losses that utilities need to consider when they wonder whether to fix a leak or to invest in leak detection,” he says. “The actual financial losses from water loss might not seem so bad. But when you consider the long-term damage that leaks can cause, that changes the financial situation.”

Even with collateral damage factored in, though, not all municipalities are as careful as others when it comes to detecting leaks and performing water audits.

Again, Patience points to outside factors for an explanation.

While many parts of the country are fighting through drought conditions, many other municipalities sit in parts of the United States where water is not only plentiful but cheap, too. If water is cheap enough, it’s not cost-effective for these utilities to invest in leak detection. Simply put, the technology is too expensive and the cost of water too cheap to make advanced leak detection a worthwhile investment for such utilities.

Today, many utilities are strapped for both cash and manpower. State budgets remain squeezed throughout the country. And municipalities facing budget hurdles aren’t likely to hire the staffers necessary to conduct water audits and monitor leak detection if the cost of water isn’t high enough to justify the extra expenditures, Patience says.

“Some utilities barely have enough staffers to go out and read the meters,” he adds. “They’ll outsource that work to third-party contractors. These utilities aren’t likely to hire the manpower needed to accurately track non-revenue water.”

Utilities face another hurdle when it comes to water audits and leak detection: the knowledge gap.

Doug McCall, director of marketing for Sensus, says that many utility managers have no real idea of how much water that’s escaping from their treatment and delivery systems each month.

Such utilities don’t have the technology they need to tell them how much water they’re pumping into the ground, McCall says. “A lot of utilities will tell you that they think they’re losing about 10% of their water in leaks,” he adds. “That’s actually pretty low. Best-in-class standards are 7%. But when you dig into the utilities’ data, you’ll find that they are just estimating how much water they are losing. There are political and other reasons why utilities want to keep that number low. If you do a real system test, you’ll find that most utilities are losing from 15 to 25% of their water. That is the range that we usually find.”

And once utilities are armed with this knowledge? They’re generally more likely to take steps to address their high percentage of non-revenue water.

The good news is that leak detection technology has improved over the years. Today, it can far more accurately tell utilities exactly how much of their water isn’t being delivered to their customers.

Sensus provides a good example. Sensus engineers can study the entire water infrastructure of a utility to determine how much water a utility is pumping into its distribution network and how much actually comes out of it.

It sounds like simple math. But it’s more complicated. By measuring water flow at meters located throughout the distribution system, and subtracting out the flow through utilities’ service connections, Sensus can calculate how much water these utilities are pumping into the ground instead of delivering to their customers.

There are complications, though. For instance, some utilities don’t meter parks or other public services, McCall says. Still, a macro approach can give utilities a solid feel for how much non-revenue water they are generating.

Sensus also works with partners that provide acoustic technology that lets engineers listen to pipes to find the biggest leaks in a system. Sensus will often deploy these partners after performing a macro analysis of a utility’s water distribution system.

Once Sensus identifies the zones that are plagued by the most leaks, the company’s partners will analyze these sections with acoustic technology to pinpoint specific leaks. Armed with this knowledge, utilities can then dispatch crews to exact locations to fix these potentially costly leaks. “If you own a water utility with a dozen zones, we can do an analysis on each zone,” says McCall. “We can tell you which are the top zones that are leaking the most water on a macro level. This is helpful information. We can then take acoustic technology to find the biggest leaks. This is a powerful combination of two different technologies that can help utilities cut down on their leaks.”

Sensus offers technology that directly benefits property owners, too. The company, for instance, offers meters that can identify continuous flows of water to residences or commercial properties. If the meters detect a continuous flow for more than 24 hours, the utility is notified of a possible leak. Utility crews can then investigate and, hopefully, repair a leak before too much water is lost.

Changing Attitudes
Improved technology, though, hasn’t converted all utilities to fans of water audits and leak detection . . . yet.

Craig Hannah, development manager with Johnson Controls, says that the majority of utilities across the country still don’t view leak detection and water audits as anything close to a priority.

But he also says that this is slowly changing.

Part of the reason? The cost of water.

The cost of water has been relatively inexpensive for decades, Hannah says. But as municipalities look to the future, they realize that this will likely change. Water prices won’t decrease, but they might very well rise, Hannah says.

And because of this, utilities will be encouraged to take more steps to monitor exactly where their water is going. This will include both leak detection and a greater number of utilities ordering regular water audits, he says.

“Attitudes are slowly changing. For the longest time, people have viewed water distribution as a service, just like police and fire protection,” says Hannah. “No one questions the need to provide police and fire protection, just like no one questions the need to provide clean drinking water. But as long as municipalities treat water as a service, and not as a business, they won’t worry as much about the water they are losing from their system.”

McCall from Sensus agrees. “The primary goal in life of a utility is to make sure that clean, potable water comes out of the taps when customers turn them on,” he says. “If utilities pump some of that into the ground, even if it’s 15%, 20%, or 25%, as long as the utility is delivering clean water, no one’s that worried.”

This is changing, though. Many state legislatures—Texas and Tennessee among them—have mandated that utilities must conduct regular water audits as a way to prevent large water losses. Such requirements have become more frequent as water becomes both scarcer and, at least slightly, more expensive.

“The factors are lining up for some changes in the way utilities treat non-revenue water,” says Hannah. “The cost of water has been so low for so long, I really can’t imagine that cost decreasing any time in the future. If anything, it will rise. At the same time, the technology for monitoring water is improving. That’s a combination that is making an impact.”

In addition to price and legislation, another factor is motivating utilities to focus more heavily on leak detection and water monitoring: customer service.

Utilities that want to provide the best customer service need to invest in leak detection. Customers will appreciate it when their utility proactively takes step to stop leaks at their homes and businesses before they develop into more costly problems.

Sensus software, for instance, can alert utilities to potential leaks in the system. Sensus also provides software that notifies the end users of water that there is a potential problem. These notices can come in a number of different ways, including e-mail messages and text alerts.

“We can send a sudden-flow alert,” says McCall. “We can tell end users that something is broken.”

Other utilities are relying on out-of-town notification systems to provide better service to their customers. Such systems allow homeowners or business owners to notify their utilities by e-mail that they will be out of town for a certain number of days. If the utility sees water use at these properties, it can alert their owners that there might be a potential leak. If the water use meets or exceeds certain thresholds, the utility can send crews to investigate.

Detecting Leaks in Clayton County
The Clayton County Water Authority in Morrow, GA, provides water to more than 75,000 customers. The authority has five raw water reservoirs and can produce up to 42 million gallons each day of potable water.

Staffers here also maintain about 1,500 miles of water distribution pipes, 1,400 miles of sewer conveyance pipes, and 500 miles of stormwater infrastructure.

The water authority is also committed to reducing its non-revenue water.

In 2000, the authority began working with Itron to detect its leaks. This decision came after Clayton County at the start of that year found that its non-revenue water losses were nearing an unsustainable 20%.

Like other counties in the south, Clayton County faced a situation in which water supply was limited. County officials knew that Clayton County couldn’t afford to pump so much water into the ground.

The county’s leak detection program has since saved Clayton County a significant amount of money. According to Itron, the county’s non-revenue water losses fell to 12.5% in 2008.

The county relied on a suite of products from Itron to find its leaks. The first, a digital correlator, uses acoustics to localize pipeline leaks. Engineers can analyze the pressure waves caused by leak turbulence inside pressurized pipes to locate sources of leaks.

The county also used digital correlating loggers provided by Itron. These devices pinpoint the exact locations of the county’s leaks in just one overnight surveillance session. Clark County placed the loggers 400 to 4,000 feet apart to investigate several miles of water pipeline.

Clark County today relies on a network of leak-detecting sensors provided by Itron. This technology alerts Clark County officials of possible leaks in their system, allowing them to take action quickly before the leaks increase in size. The county also created a leak detection crew made up of its water utility employees. These employees work with a repair crew that is dedicated to mending the leaks that the leak detection team discovers.

Patience, from Itron, says that the combination of improved leak detection technology along with a growing water shortage in much of the country is making water audits and leak detection more important.

“Will water utilities invest more in leak detection in the future? I think they’ll have to,” says Patience. “In the United States, we generally have a good water source. But more people are living here. That source of water won’t be there forever. We are already seeing in Texas, California, and some other states that there are water shortages. Globally, it’s an even bigger issue. So, yes, we will see leak detection move up the priority list in the future; I can’t see how it couldn’t.”

Reprinted from Water Efficiency.

 Gazette Fair Use Statement

 

The Basics of Water Disinfection

Posted January 27th, 2013
Pure Water Annie, Water Treatment 101

Water Treatment 101: Why UV Is Gaining in Popularity for Microbe Control in Well Water

by Pure Water Annie

By its nature, water provides a an inviting growing place for bacteria.  Bacteria, viruses, protozoa are small creatures, but when ingested over time and in sufficient quantities they can lead to serious health problems. E coli, a member of the coliform family of bacteria, has received enough public attention to be feared and respected, although it is only one of many microorganisms that can be dangerous.

Actually, bacteria are fairly easy to control as compared with cysts like giardia and cryptosporidium, which are bigger, tougher and very difficult to kill with conventional water treatment disinfection chemicals like chlorine.  Cysts have a protective outer shell that protects them from municipal water treatment chemicals.

Essentially, there are three strategies that can be used to control  potential disease-causing microbes in water.

1. Chemical treatment with chlorine, chloramine, hydrogen peroxide and other less frequently used disinfectants. Chemicals are not effective against cysts. Chemicals remain the treatment of choice for municipal water supplies, however,  because chemicals like chlorine provide a residual effect that stays in the water all the way to the home.

2. Straining through very tight filters.  Bacteria, for example, can be removed by very tight sub-micron filters, and cysts, which are much larger, are easily blocked out even by a one or two micron filter. Straining is a popular strategy for emergency filters and small point-of-use drinking water filters.  It can be applied for cysts in larger applications, though flow restriction usually makes it impractical for bacteria control where significant flow rates are required.

3. Ultraviolet treatment which eliminates both bacteria and cysts.  Ultraviolet treatment (UV) involves passing the infected water by an ultraviolet lamp that has enough intensity to alter the DNA of water-borne pests. UV is becoming the favorite technique for well owners because it is easy to install, easy to maintain, and relatively inexpensive. It is also popular because it provides a complete treatment and adds nothing objectionable to the water.

 More About UV

The clean, classic Watts UV unit. A powerful and effective but simple system that makes non-potable water safe to drink. It is rated for 30mJ/cm2 at the specified flow rate.

Disinfection chemicals like chlorine are measured in “parts per million” of the disinfectant.  Straining devices are measured by the micron size of the filter.  UV is a little more complicated.  The standard measure of UV dosage is mJ/cm2,  millijoules per square centimeter.  This number is a measurement of the intensity of the lamp with consideration of how fast the water flows past the lamp. Although NSF standard is 40mJ/cm2, in the water treatment industry it is generally assumed that 30mJ/cm2 is more than enough to treat residential well water.  In fact, a 16mJ/cm2 unit is twice as hot as it needs to be.  6-10mJ/cm2 is sufficient for most pathogens.  6mJ/cm2 will do away with 99.99 percent of E. coli.

 

 

 

Mexico Questions US Policy of Writing Off Deep Aquifers as Useless

Posted January 27th, 2013
Politics of Water

Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

  by Abrahm Lustgarten

Mexico City plans to draw drinking water from a mile-deep aquifer, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The Mexican effort challenges a key tenet of U.S. clean water policy: that water far underground can be intentionally polluted because it will never be used.

U.S. environmental regulators have long assumed that reservoirs located thousands of feet underground will be too expensive to tap. So even as population increases, temperatures rise, and traditional water supplies dry up, American scientists and policy-makers often exempt these deep aquifers from clean water protections and allow energy and mining companies to inject pollutants directly into them. 

Mexico City’s mayor and general director of the country’s National Water Commission watch as a geologist takes a drink of water from an exploratory well into an aquifer underneath Mexico City, on Jan. 23, 2013.

As ProPublica has reported in an ongoing investigation about America’s management of its underground water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued more than 1,500 permits for companies to pollute such aquifers in some of the driest regions. Frequently, the reason was that the water lies too deep to be worth protecting.

But Mexico City’s plans to tap its newly discovered aquifer suggest that America is poisoning wells it might need in the future.

Indeed, by the standard often applied in the U.S., American regulators could have allowed companies to pump pollutants into the aquifer beneath Mexico City.

For example, in eastern Wyoming, an analysis showed that it would cost half a million dollars to construct a water well into deep, but high-quality aquifer reserves. That, plus an untested assumption that all the deep layers below it could only contain poor-quality water, led regulators to allow a uranium mine to inject more than 200,000 gallons of toxic and radioactive waste every day into the underground reservoirs.

But south of the border, worsening water shortages have forced authorities to look ever deeper for drinking water.

Today in Mexico City, the world’s third-largest metropolis, the depletion of shallow reservoirs is causing the ground to sink in, iconic buildings to teeter, and underground infrastructure to crumble. The discovery of the previously unmapped deep reservoir could mean that water won’t have to be rationed or piped into Mexico City from hundreds of miles away.

According to the Times report, Mexican authorities have already drilled an exploratory well into the aquifer and are working to determine the exact size of the reservoir. They are prepared to spend as much as $40 million to pump and treat the deeper water, which they say could supply some of Mexico City’s 20 million people for as long as a century.

Scientists point to what’s happening in Mexico City as a harbinger of a world in which people will pay more and dig deeper to tap reserves of the one natural resource human beings simply cannot survive without.

“Around the world people are increasingly doing things that 50 years ago nobody would have said they’d do,” said Mike Wireman, a hydrogeologist with the EPA who also works with the World Bank on global water supply issues.

Wireman points to new research in Europe finding water reservoirs several miles beneath the surface — far deeper than even the aquifer beneath Mexico City — and says U.S. policy has been slow to adapt to this new understanding.

“Depth in and of itself does not guarantee anything — it does not guarantee you won’t use it in the future, and it does not guarantee that that it is not” a source of drinking water, he said.

If Mexico City’s search for water seems extreme, it is not unusual. In aquifers Denver relies on, drinking water levels have dropped more than 300 feet. Texas rationed some water use last summer in the midst of a record-breaking drought. And Nevada — realizing that the water levels in one of the nation’s largest reservoirs may soon drop below the intake pipes — is building a drain hole to sap every last drop from the bottom.

“Water is limited, so they are really hustling to find other types of water,” said Mark Williams, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “It’s kind of a grim future, there’s no two ways about it.”

In a parched world, Mexico City is sending a message: Deep, unknown potential sources of drinking water matter, and the U.S. pollutes them at its peril.

 Gazette Fair Use Statement

Pro Publica original.

 

Atrazine Maker Settles Class Action Suit for $105 Million

Posted January 27th, 2013
Environmental, Uncategorized

 More Than 1,000 Communities Will Recover Part of the Expense Incurred Removing Agricultural Chemical from Water Supplies

More than 1,000 communities that have spent millions of dollars over many years filtering a common agricultural herbicide, atrazine,  out of their drinking water are welcoming their shares of a $105 million settlement with the weed-killer’s maker.

The lengthy suit has gone on for nine years.  Atrazine’s maker, Swiss-based Syngenta,  said it agreed to the settlement, approved in October by a federal judge in southern Illinois, “to end the business uncertainty” and avoid further legal costs. The company denied any liability or wrongdoing linked to the chemical, which it will continue to sell.

Research has shown runoff after rainstorms can wash the chemical into streams and rivers, where it can enter drinking water supplies. The settlement covers water systems used by 37,000 Americans.  

The settlement money will go to community water systems that serve more than 37 million Americans, mostly in farming states. While some consider it “free money,” others said it’s only a pittance compared with what they’ve spent dealing with atrazine.

Most cities have expressed that the settlement reimburses only a fraction of the actual cost of treating their drinking water for atrazine poisoning.

systems from at least a half-dozen states — Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Ohio — sued Syngenta for reimbursement of the cost of dealing with atrazine. $3.1 million going to Columbus, Ohio appears to be largest sum collected by a single city.  

Atrazine is an herbicide used to control grasses and broadleaf weeds around row crops such as corn, sorghum and sugarcane. Its use has been banned in the European Union since 2003, but it remains the second most pervasive agricultural herbicide in the United States after glyphosate (Roundup®).

More details from ABC News.

More about atrazine from the Pure Water Products Contaminant List.

Family Home Flooded by Fire Hydrant in Southern California

Posted January 27th, 2013
Water Issues

 A Family Had to Be Evacuated When Its Home Was Inundated by a 200 Foot Geyser 

A car sheared off a fire hydrant, caused a huge geyser and forced a family in the Beverly Glen area of Benedict Canyon to evacuate Friday night, authorities said.

The sheared hydrant sent water shooting more than 200 feet into the air, Los Angeles Fire Department officials said.

The water cascaded down on a nearby home, flooding that residence and forcing firefighters to help the family of four escape, officials said.

“They were saturated in water and in shock and frightened,” a neighbor said.

Residents said the curving roadway is known for being the site of crashes.

The water from the hydrant was so strong firefighters weren’t able to it shut off until 1:15 a.m., witnesses recounted.

“The driver involved in the crash remained at the scene,” said Sgt. C. Barlow of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Traffic Division. “He was questioned to try to find out how this happened.”

Police are trying to detemine if drugs or alcohol was a factor.

The house was completely flooded by the geyser, and insurance agents will have to determine just how much damage it sustained.

No one was hurt in the incident. 

Details, and a video of the great waterspout.

Testing Is Essential as a Protection Against Fracking

Posted January 24th, 2013
Water Wells

A Good Test Should  Be Done Before Fracking Begins As Legal Protection

In order to establish legal footing for a future claim for damage to a well caused by fracking, it is essential to establish the condition of the water before fracking occurred.   There is no way to do this except with a high-quality test, prepared especially for fracking damage verification, which is administered correctly.  This usually means that a third party must collect and submit the sample.   Making a claim against an oil company by saying “the water used to be good but now it’s awful” isn’t likely to get you anywhere.  A comprehensive before and after test carries much weight as a bargaining tool and as a basis for legal action.

The following advice is from Water Quality Magazine:

With all the controversy surrounding the gas drilling business that utilizes hydrofracturing, also known as fracking, it is important to get the correct test performed by a certified laboratory. National Testing Laboratories is certified in the states in which fracking is occurring and has formed partnerships with other certified laboratories to meet the needs of its customers. The company has several packages, some geared toward state recommendations and others based on collaboration with geologists at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania.

It is important to document which problems, if any, exist in the water, such as iron, hardness or manganese, because these levels may be affected by the drilling process. It is also important to document the lack of problems. For example, documenting that no volatile organics exist prior to drilling activities will be helpful should they show up after drilling has occurred. Most importantly, the sample should be collected by a third party that is trained in proper sample collection. This establishes a chain of custody, which will be important if litigation arises. The chain of custody documents who is in possession of the samples at all times, maintaining that the samples have not been tampered with. For more information about testing packages and sampler training,call 800.458.3330.

Green Water Management Techniques Are Gaining in Popularity

Posted January 23rd, 2013
Environmental

 ‘Green’ Approaches to Water Gaining Ground Around World

By Stephen Leahy

 Editor’s Note:  This excellent article from Nation of Change contains countless examples of the wisdom of cooperating with natural systems rather than attempting to dominate them.–Hardly Waite.

After Hurricane Sandy swept through the northeast of the United States late October 2012, millions of New Yorkers were left for days without electricity.  But they still had access to drinking water, thanks to New York City’s reliance on protected watershed areas for potable water. 

Instead of using electric-powered water treatment plans, New York City brings its high-quality drinking water through aqueducts connected to protected areas in the nearby Catskill/Delaware forests and wetlands – just one example of how protecting watersheds can provide residential areas with drinking water and flood and pollution protection at bargain basement prices.  (more…)

Reverse Osmosis Tanks Cannot Live Without Air

Posted January 22nd, 2013
Gene Franks, Reverse Osmosis, Uncategorized, Water Treatment 101

To Keep Water Coming Out of the Spout, You Must Keep Air in the Storage Tank

by Gene Franks,  Pure Water Products

The undersink reverse osmosis tank stores water then pushes it out of the faucet upon demand.  What pushes the water out is air.  For the tank to deliver water, you have to keep air in it. If air pressure in the tank gets low, only part of the water will come out of the tank.  Like auto tires, RO tanks lose air over time.  When the air pressure in the tank gets really low, no water at all will come out of the faucet.

An airless tank is easy to recognize:  You open the faucet to fill  your teapot and what comes out is about half a cupful of water, then nothing but a tiny stream or a drip.

If this happens, try to pick up the tank. If it is very heavy, that means that the tank is full of water but there is no air charge to push it out.  (If the tank is very light, it means that the tank isn’t the problem and you’ll have to look elsewhere to fix it.)

 

If the tank needs air–and this is the most common cause of low water output–here’s how you fix it.

With this tank, the air valve is covered by the blue cap below the label.

The tools you’ll need are two:  A standard bicycle pump and a low pressure air  gauge. The gauge isn’t essential, but it will help you do the job right.  The gauge needs to read accurately at pressure levels under 10 psi.  The gauge you use on your automobile tires is not accurate enough at low pressures.

To start,  turn off the inlet valve to the unit.  Then, open the RO unit’s faucet and leave it open during the entire procedure. Let all the water run out of the tank.

When no water is coming out of the faucet,  pick up the storage tank. If it is empty, very light, the faucet isn’t the issue.

With this tank, the air valve is covered by a plastic cap at the very bottom. You may have to use a “valve stem extender” to air this tank. Auto parts stores have them.

If the tank still has water in it — and this is usually the case — attach a bicycle pump to the air valve on the tank. (It’s on top of some tanks, on the bottom of others, and sometimes on the side.. You’ll have look for it. It usually has a cap on the valve stem that you’ll have to remove.)

With the faucet still open, pump air slowly into the tank. Water will start to leave the tank through the open ledge faucet. Continue to pump air into the tank slowly and steadily until all water is out of it.  When the tank is empty and no more water is coming out of the tank, you’re finished except for adjusting the air pressure in the tank.

Try to leave about 7 pounds of pressure in the empty tank. It doesn’t have to be exact, but resist the impulse to leave lots of pressure.  If you leave over 10 psi or so in the tank,  you don’t gain pressure, you just lose water capacity.

After you’ve aired the tank, close the faucet, open the inlet valve, and let the RO unit begin filling the tank.  Since the tank is empty, it will take a couple of hours to get a full tank of water, but you can get a glassful in ten minutes.  It’s OK to start using the tank at any time.

For more information about reverse osmosis maintenance, go to Pure Water Products website.

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