State, Kirtland begin fuel spill cleanup test

By Jeri Clausing

Gazette Note:  If you follow water pollution events in the news, you won’t be surprised at yet another giant piece of negligence from the US military.  “Supporting our Troops” should not include giving the military a free pass to dump fuels and chemicals at will.  Military officials should be held to the same standards and subject to the same disciplinary actions as civilian polluters.  — Hardly Waite.

Great Lakes mayors seek action on ‘microplastics’

By John Flesher

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — An organization representing more than 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada asked federal and industry officials Tuesday for action on the recently discovered problem of “microplastic” pollution in the Great Lakes.

Over the past two years, scientists have reported finding thousands of plastic bits — some visible only under a microscope — in the lakes that make up nearly one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. Large masses of floating plastics also have been detected in the world’s oceans.

Scientists believe some are abrasive “microbeads” used in personal care products such as facial and body washes, deodorants and toothpaste. They’re so minuscule that they flow through screens at waste treatment plants and wind up in the lakes, where fish and aquatic birds might eat them, mistaking them for fish eggs. They also could absorb toxins.

“Even though you cannot see them, they pose a very real threat to human and wildlife health,” said John Dickert, mayor of Racine, Wis., and secretary-treasurer of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative.

The group sent letters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its counterpart, Environment Canada, asking what they plan to do about the problem. David Ullrich, the organization’s executive director, acknowledged it could take years to develop a regulatory crackdown on microplastics.

In the meantime, his group is sending letters to 11 companies that use microplastics, asking them to switch to biodegradable alternatives. Some are doing so. Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson have said they’ll phase out microbeads, and L’Oreal says it won’t develop new products that include them.

“We think it makes more sense to appeal directly to the people involved and say, ‘Let’s work together and try to solve the problem; let’s do the right thing,'” Ullrich said.

Additionally, the group is encouraging mayors in the eight states and two Canadian provinces adjoining the lakes to urge residents to buy products without microbeads. “We’re not calling for a boycott, but we’re asking citizens to inform themselves,” Ullrich said.

Scientists led by chemist Sherri Mason of State University of New York at Fredonia and the 5 Gyres Institute, a nonprofit group based in California, took samples from all five Great Lakes in 2012 and again this year by skimming the surfaces with trawl nets attached to vessels.

In a paper published online by Marine Pollution Bulletin, they reported finding the plastic bits in Lakes Erie, Huron and Superior, with the highest concentrations in Erie. Mason said samples taken this summer from Lakes Michigan and Ontario are still being analyzed, but initial inspections turned up microplastics from both.

Pressuring companies to phase out microplastics quickly in favor of biodegradable abrasives such as grape and apricot seeds is the best way to deal with the problem, Mason said. Because of their size and wide distribution, there’s no practical way to remove the particles from the lakes.

“Unfortunately, once they get into the water, they get widely distributed,” she said. “You can’t just go out and filter all the water.”

Source: SFGate.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

 Study:  Nitrogen Remains in Soils

 Gazette Note:  This important study demonstrates the long-term implications of our excessive use of nitrogen fertilizers.  Nitrate contamination of drinking water is a serious issue, and the study shows that what we do now is polluting the drinking water of future generations. –Hardly Waite.

Nitrogen fertilizer applied to crops lingers in the soil and leaks out as nitrate towards groundwater much longer than previously thought, scientists in France and at the University of Calgary discovered in a new study.

 

Thirty years after synthetic nitrogen fertilizer had been applied to crops in 1982, about 15 per cent of the fertilizer nitrogen still remained in soil organic matter, the scientists found.

 

After three decades, approximately 10 per cent of the fertilizer nitrogen had seeped through the soil towards the groundwater and will continue to leak in low amounts for at least another 50 years.

 

Nitrate is one of the most common groundwater contaminants in rural areas. It is regulated in drinking water primarily because excess levels can cause methaemoglobinemia, or “blue baby syndrome,” which decreases the ability of blood to carry oxygen around the body.

 

The study was led by researcher Mathieu Sebilo at the Universite Pierre et Marie Currie in Paris, France, and by Bernhard Mayer in the University of Calgary’s Department of Geoscience, and included several research organizations in France.

 

Their paper, “Long-term fate of nitrate fertilizer in agricultural soils,” was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America.

 

The findings show that losses of fertilizer nitrogen towards the groundwater occur at low rates but over many decades, says Mayer, professor of geochemistry and head of the Applied Geochemistry Group.

That means it could take longer than previously thought to reduce nitrate contamination in groundwater, including in aquifers that supply drinking water in North America and elsewhere, he says.

 

“There’s a lot of fertilizer nitrogen that has accumulated in agricultural soils over the last few decades which will continue to leak as nitrate towards groundwater,” Mayer says.

 

Canada and the U.S. regulate the amount of nitrate allowed in drinking water. In the 1980s, surveys by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey showed that nitrate contamination had probably impacted more public and domestic water supply wells in the U.S. than any other contaminant.

 

Mayer is an internationally recognized expert in the use of stable isotopes to track contaminants in the environment.

 

The French-University of Calgary study is the first that tracks, using stable isotope “fingerprinting,” the fate of fertilizer nitrogen remaining in a soil zone over several decades. The research team used a stable isotope of nitrogen, N-15, as a tracer to track fertilizer nitrogen applied in 1982 to sugar beet and winter wheat crops on a pair of two-metre-square plots at a site in France.

 

Over the 30-year study, the researchers measured the amount of N-15 labeled fertilizer nitrogen taken up by plants and they quantified the amount of fertilizer nitrogen remaining in the soil.

 

The novel aspect of their study was that they subsequently determined the long-term fate of this fertilizer nitrogen ‘pool’ retained in the soil. Their measurements of seepage water from locations two metres deep in the soil revealed the amount of fertilizer nitrate leaking towards the groundwater.

The team found that 61 to 65 per cent of the N-15 fertilizer applied in 1982 was taken up by the sugar beet and wheat plants over the 30-year study.

 

However, 32 to 37 per cent of the fertilizer nitrogen remained in the soil organic matter in 1985 or three years after application, while 12 to 15 per cent still lingered in the soils after three decades.

Between eight to 12 per cent of the fertilizer nitrogen applied in 1982 had leaked in the form of nitrate toward groundwater during the 30 years, and will continue to leak at low rates “for at least another five decades, much longer than previously thought,” the study says.

 

The scientists predict that about 15 per cent of the initially applied fertilizer nitrogen will be exported from the soils towards the groundwater over a time span of almost one century after the 1982 fertilizer application.

 

“If nitrate keeps leaking into the groundwater for decades after fertilizer application, than it will be more difficult to reduce nitrate contamination of groundwaters in a timely fashion,” says Mayer.

Mayer speculates that if the same research were done in Alberta, the findings would be similar in terms of fertilizer uptake by plants and nitrogen retention in the soils, although Alberta’s comparatively dry climate and different geology might slow the rate of nitrate seeping towards the groundwater.

 

Source: Stormwater

How Much Does A Reverse Osmosis Tank Hold?

We once had a call from a local customer who complained that her reverse osmosis storage tank took up too much space under the sink but didn’t hold enough water. We promised to look for a tank that was larger on the inside than on the outside, but we still haven’t found it.

The only thing certain about RO (reverse osmosis) storage tanks is that they never hold as much as the stated size. RO tanks contain a thick butyl bladder as well as a pocket of air. The actual holding capacity of the tank — the amount of water that you actually have to use when you empty a full tank — depends on many variables.

These include:

• The pressure of the air charge inside the tank.
• The pressure of your feed water going into the unit.
• The shutoff pressure of your RO unit. — Most standard RO units stop filling the tank when tank pressure reaches about 2/3 of the incoming feed pressure. Tanks used with very large reverse osmosis units are usually controlled by a pressure switch like the switches used on wells. Typically, the latter would be shut off when the pressure inside the tank reaches 50 psi or so.

Therefore, the tank on your undersink unit holds more water if you have a permeate pump or a booster pump on the unit, or if you decrease the air pressure inside the tank. It holds less if you put too much air in the storage tank or when your household water pressure goes down while your lawn sprinkler is on. The amount it holds can vary according to the season. If you have a well, the amount of water in the tank of your undersink Ro unit can vary considerably depending on the pressure in your well tank when the RO tank is being filled.

So there really isn’t an exact answer to the question, “How much does the tank hold?”

Here’s one manufacturer’s estimate of what you might expect in terms of real water delivery from each state tank size. These are averages, not promises.

 

Tank Description	Assumed Capacity, on Average
2 gallon tank	1.2 gallons
3 gallon tank	2.2 gallons
4 gallon white tank	3.2 gallons
4 gallon blue tank	3.8 gallons*
11 gallon tank	7.8 gallons
14 gallon tank	10.5 gallons

*(Not really. As far as we can tell, blue tanks don’t hold more than white tanks.)

In our opinion, even these estimates are a bit high for most customers. Our rule of thumb is to assume about half the manufacturer’s stated size. If you need two gallons, get a four gallon tank.

Another point to consider is that you usually don’t need as much water as you think you will at one time. If you draw a gallon from your “four gallon”; tank, the RO unit begins at once to replace it.

Also, if you need more than the standard tank holds, it’s usually easier and more economical to add a second small tank rather than replace the original tank with a larger one. Hooking two tanks together is easy.

For really large RO tanks, in the twenty gallon and upward range, please contact us for more information at (940) 382-3814.

We don’t guarantee capacity. There are just too many things that affect capacity that are beyond our control.

This article is reprinted from purewaterproducts.com.

Water prices a fracking big deal

by Dan Fumano

“For companies using B.C.’s water for fracking, the highest water rental fee paid to the province is $1.10 per 1,000 cubic metres. That’s less than $3 for enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool.”

Critics are raising alarms that oil and gas companies are getting a “free ride” from the provincial government for the billions of litres of water used in fracking operations every year.

Last week, the B.C. government released a proposal for the new Water Sustainability Act, which would update and replace B.C.’s century-old Water Act. Experts have said the proposal is a welcome, if long overdue, sign the government is taking water resources more seriously — but they say the gifting of free or very cheap fresh water to industrial users is an issue that requires attention.

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a process of injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground at very high pressure, in order to fracture rock formations and release natural gas. Fracking is one of the main methods for extracting liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which has been promoted by Premier Christy Clark as the biggest economic opportunity B.C. has had in a century.

In Clark’s Speech from the Throne this year, she said the LNG industry could produce royalty revenues of more than $100 billion for the province, and tens of thousands of jobs. But the practice has also been the subject of controversy for its ecological impacts.

For companies using B.C.’s water for fracking, the highest water rental fee paid to the province is $1.10 per 1,000 cubic metres. That’s less than $3 for enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool.

A ‘FREE RIDE’

“They’re getting a free ride, absolutely,” said Ben Parfitt, a resource analyst for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “I think that charge is egregiously low, and I think that there is a real opportunity for the government, having taken a significant step in the right direction in introducing this proposed legislation, for it to … deal with the whole issue of water pricing.”

 

If B.C. continues to expand LNG production as expected, Parfitt said, it would bring “an unprecedented rush on water,” and make the issue of water price and use all the more vital.

“We need to send the signal now, before that activity ramps up, that … companies are going to have to pay a reasonable dollar for that water. If we don’t do that, then basically we’re sending the signal that this is a resource that we in British Columbia just take for granted,” he said.

Parfitt said he was encouraged to see the public concern over the lack of groundwater regulation in the wake of The Province’s reports on Nestlé and bottled water companies taking BC’s fresh water without paying anything to the government.

“I think the Nestlé issue really highlights that. People feel very strongly that multinational companies should not be getting our water for free,” he said.

FRACKING DEMAND MORE THAN BOTTLED WATER

But, he said, the volume of fresh water used by oil and gas companies in fracking operations around the province dwarfs the amount used by bottled water companies.

According to a B.C. Oil and Gas Commission annual report, “In 2012, a total of 7,054,704 m3 of water was used for hydraulic fracturing.” That’s about 2,800 Olympic swimming pools.

Nestlé’s total water withdrawals last year in B.C. — 265 million litres — would make up a little less than four per cent of the total water used for fracking in B.C.

FRACKING WATER PRICE ‘AN INSULT’

The current going price for water used for fracking is “an insult,” said Eoin Madden, a campaigner from the Vancouver-based national conservation group Wilderness Committee.

“Our message to the provincial government is, if you’re going to price water, be serious about it. You don’t joke around with our most important resource, the one thing you can’t live without.”

The current fee structure is more about “optics” than about assigning a value to the resource, Madden said. “It’s a nominal fee that makes people believe it’s being taxed, it’s being regulated. And it’s not. That amount of money, it’s pointless.”

A spokesman from the Ministry of Environment said Friday that the government is “contemplating changes to both the pricing structure and rates for water.”

The Water Sustainability Act proposal is up for public engagement and discussion until Nov. 15.

Source:  The Province.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Bottled Water Sales Rising as Soda Ebbs

 

Few things are more American than Coca-Cola.

But bottled water is washing away the palate trained to drain a bubbly soda. By the end of this decade, if not sooner, sales of bottled water are expected to surpass those of carbonated soft drinks, according to Michael C. Bellas, chief executive of the Beverage Marketing Corporation.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Mr. Bellas, who has watched water’s rise in the industry since the 1980s.

Sales of water in standard lightweight plastic bottles grew at a rate of more than 20 percent every quarter from 1993 to 2005, he said. The growth has continued since, but now it has settled into percentages within the high single digits.

If the estimated drinking of water from the household tap is included, water consumption began exceeding that of soda in the mid-2000s.

That significant shift has posed a tough challenge for the Coca-Cola Company and rival PepsiCo in recent years. While both companies sell bottled water lines, Dasani for Coke and Aquafina for Pepsi, they have had trouble establishing dominance in the more profitable business of so-called enhanced waters — including flavored and carbonated waters and those with added vitamins and minerals — where a horde of new beverage companies like TalkingRain, Hint water and Fruit2O are giving them a run for the money.

“Given where pricing has gone, I would assume that on the average 24 pack of bottled water, Coke and Pepsi are selling at break-even at best,” said John Faucher, who tracks the beverage and household products businesses at JPMorgan Chase. “The one thing keeping them in plain, old bottled water is that both have a very large and highly profitable single-serve business in it.”

Plain bottled waters are little more than purified tap water with a sprinkle of minerals tossed in, which makes the business one of producing bottles and filling them.

Factors as varied as innovations in bottling technology that have helped drive down the price of water as well as continuing concern about obesity and related diseases are also driving the trend. A recent study by North Dakota State University, for instance, used dietary intake data collected by the federal government to draw correlations between decreased consumption of soda from 1999 through 2010 and improvements in the biomarkers that indicated cholesterol and other chronic diseases.

A study by Coca-Cola asserted that the government’s data, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, was flawed, but that had not stopped public health officials from encouraging greater consumption of beverages with less sugar.

Last month, Michelle Obama heavily endorsed water, teaming up with Coke, Pepsi and Nestlé Waters, among others, to persuade Americans to drink more of it. Health advocates complained that Mrs. Obama had capitulated to corporate partners by not explaining the benefits of water over the sodas they sell and that her initiative promoted even greater use of plastic bottles when she could have just recommended turning on the tap.

Bottled water has also grown cheaper, adding to its attraction. Cases of 24 half-liter bottles of store-brand water can be had for $2, or about 8 cents a bottle, and some grocery store chains even are using waters as loss leaders to attract customers, teeing up shopping carts with a case already on board.

Companies like Niagara Water, a privately held company that is the largest private-label water bottler in the country, have a fully integrated, highly automated production system that starts with plastic pellets that are made into bottles and goes all the way through to filling the bottles, making caps and screwing them on.

This poses a problem for the big beverage companies selling branded waters. “Coke and Pepsi can compete in convenience stores where water is being sold one bottle at a time, but they can’t make money on selling cases at $1.99 apiece,” said John Sicher, publisher of Beverage Digest.

In a conference call with analysts last week, PepsiCo’s chief financial officer, Hugh F. Johnston, said that the company had no plans to invest in increasing its bottled water offerings. “We don’t think it creates value over time,” Mr. Johnston said.

Some of the things that have made Pepsi and Coke formidable competitors in the soda business work against them in water. The companies, for instance, stock grocery store shelves directly off their trucks. That gives them more extensive and timely information about how their products are doing and greater control over marketing, but it also is much more expensive than the distribution system used by companies like Niagara and Nestlé Waters, which has a private label business in addition to marketing brands like Poland Spring and Ozarka.

Those companies let retailers handle stocking, shipping pallets of their waters to warehouses.

Coke sold 5.8 billion liters of waters abroad and 253 million liters in the United States and Canada from 2007 to 2012. Pepsi’s water sales in North America actually declined by 636 million liters over that period, but it still sold 4.7 billion liters overseas, according to Euromonitor.

Both companies’ soda sales fell in North America over that time but grew internationally. Volume sales of soda, however, may be deceptive. “The volume growth is there, but when we’re talking about international markets like China, India and Latin America — prices are lower,” said Jonas Feliciano, an industry analyst at Euromonitor.

The TalkingRain Beverage Company, a bottled water business that started in the Pacific Northwest, is getting out of the plain water business altogether because the economics are so bad. “The water business has become very commoditized,” said Kevin Klock, its chief executive. “Folks in that business have to produce high quantities at fast speed in very light bottles, and it requires a huge investment to be in that game.”

TalkingRain makes Sparkling ICE, a bubbly water that comes in flavors like kiwi strawberry and blackberry with no calories and “vitamins and antioxidants.” The brand had developed strong consumer loyalty in the company’s back yard, consistently generating about $10 million in sales a year when Mr. Klock decided to bet big on it after taking the helm in 2010.

Last year, TalkingRain sold $200 million worth of Sparkling ICE, and sales this year are on track to exceed $400 million, Mr. Klock said. “There’s a large market out there that wants something sparkling, something flavored, something without a controversial sweetener, and we hit that market,” he said.

Now Pepsi and Coke are scrambling to dip their toes into it, too. They are fighting back with investments in flavored and enhanced waters and, in Coke’s case, packaging. Dasani, Coke’s primary water business, comes in the company’s PlantBottle, at least 30 percent of which is made from plant materials.

“First, consumers who purchase Dasani are looking for a high quality product that delivers a high quality taste time and time again,” said Geoff Henry, brand director of Dasani. “Beyond what the brand stands for, we are looking to lead in packaging and sustainability because those things also matter to our consumers.”

On Thursday, Coke introduced its first sparkling Dasani drinks in four flavors, and Pepsi is expected to take the wraps off a premium bottled water product called OM this year, according to Beverage Digest.

Coca-Cola has also been successful with Smartwater, which was part of its $4.1 billion purchase of Glaceau, the maker of Vitaminwater. Smartwater is little more than distilled water with added electrolytes, but volume sales were up by 16.2 percent in the first half of this year, according to Beverage Digest.

Dasani also has introduced Dasani Drops, with flavors like cherry pomegranate and pink lemonade, which consumers add to the drink to fit their taste, a quality especially prized by millennials.

A bumper crop of flavor drops has been coming onto the market ever since Kraft introduced Mio in 2011. SweetLeaf and Stur, for instance, are Stevia-based sweeteners for water that impart flavor. Pepsi recently began selling Aquafina FlavorSplash drops.

Sales of most branded enhanced water, however, were down in the first half of 2013, and whether giving consumers the option to flavor plain water will change that equation remains to be seen. Vitaminwater’s volume sales slid 17.3 percent, for instance, while SoBe Lifewater, a line of flavored waters owned by PepsiCo, dropped 30.3 percent, according to Beverage Digest.

On the other hand, Nestlé and bottlers like Niagara, which carry lower prices, saw sharp increases in volume sales of their enhanced waters.

“Is it a great idea? Not necessarily,” Mr. Faucher said of the big companies’ push into enhanced waters. “Do they have much of a choice? Not necessarily. People want variety and so Coke and Pepsi are going where the opportunity is. There aren’t a lot of other options.”

Source: New York Times.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Nuns argue fracking is a habit we can’t afford

By Nicole Hasham

”It’s not sensible to exploit the resources now and not bother what effect that might have for future generations.”

 

Theirs is a cloistered, holy life far from the whirl of Sydney, where the only sound some mornings is the flap of habits and the squawk of cockatoos.

And if nothing is more God-like than silence, what do the Discalced Carmelite nuns and friars of Varroville, near Camden, think of the prospect of coal seam gas drilling across NSW?

”To me it appears to be a slash and grab approach, get rich quick and – pardon this use of language – but to hell with the consequences,” Sister Jocelyn Kramer said.

”It’s not sensible to exploit the resources now and not bother what effect that might have for future generations.”

New state government rules on coal seam gas, including a two kilometre no-go zone around residential areas, came into force this month, thwarting moves by gas company AGL to drill for coal seam gas near thousands of homes in south-west Sydney, including a property next to the Carmelites’ monastery. But the new rules do not affect approved projects – including an AGL gasfield near Gloucester, bringing wells 300 metres from homes, and Santos’ Pilliga venture in the state’s north-west.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane last month moved to accelerate the industry in NSW and break the deadlock between the state government, farmers and gas companies, saying a gas shortage was looming and he wanted drill rigs going ”before Christmas”.

Sister Jocelyn, who has spent hours trawling through scientific reports and planning documents, said the effects of coal seam gas activity may extend further than two kilometres and the science behind the exclusion zones should be made public.

”When you are drilling underground, you really don’t know what effects you’re having in terms of subsidence, vibration, groundwater, soil … those are significant issues which our faith has something to say about,” Sister Jocelyn said.

”God created the world with integrity and beauty so that each part is interconnected. A little effect here will have another effect there.”

The Carmelites’ concerns are shared by North Sydney’s Sisters of St Joseph, who say the government should protect sensitive water catchments – a view backed by the Sydney Catchment Authority.

With its new rules in place, the state government will ”fully support mining proposals which are in the right places” and pass a ”rigorous” assessment. AGL argues that coal seam gas is a low-impact, low-risk industry which can ”comfortably coexist with other land uses” – but the love-thy-neighbour sentiment is not always returned.

”You’d have to love the people but not the operation,” Sister Jocelyn said.

”The institutions are human, and flawed in various ways. You have to uphold values that some people don’t pay a lot of attention to, and question the pursuit of wealth at all cost.”

Rethinking Big Water:

Is it time for a new approach to municipal water infrastructure?

By Erica Gies

October 21, 2013 — Las Vegas has long served as a stereotype of human excess: gambling, drinking, sex, all-you-can-eat buffets. But the latest chapter is playing out away from the Strip, in the part of the valley where two decades of booming development have swelled the population to 2 million residents who rely on a dwindling water supply.

Ninety percent of the southwestern U.S. city’s drinking water comes from the Colorado River, impounded behind Hoover Dam in Lake Mead. An extended drought has sucked the lake’s water levels down more than 100 feet since 2000, and the pipes that convey the lake’s water to the city may soon protrude into open air.

If Las Vegas’ excess in trying to support the water needs of millions in a sere valley marks an extreme, its proposed solution — boosting supply through megaprojects — is all too common. To ensure continued water delivery, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which manages Las Vegas’ water supply, has spent the past five years boring a lower feed pipe through rock at a cost of $817 million. And to diversify supply, the SNWA also plans to spend another $3 billion to $15 billion (depending upon who’s counting) to build a 263-mile-long pipeline to bring in groundwater from rural northeastern Nevada.

Other massive water supply projects are being planned elsewhere in the U.S. Seventeen desalination plants have been proposed in California alone, according to the Pacific Institute, a non-governmental organization that conducts research and policy analysis. And Dallas–Fort Worth water authorities recently proposed a series of supply-boosting infrastructure projects that could cost $21.5 billion by 2060, according to Sharlene Leurig, senior manager of the water program at Ceres, an NGO that advocates for sustainable business.

The irony is that all this expense and financial risk may not even be necessary.

Water analysts such as Leurig say the persistent impulse to boost supply is an anachronism. Many utilities’ water supply managers believe they need to build new water supply infrastructure because they are using demand forecasts based upon historic use or tied to population growth, or don’t forecast demand at all.

Yet in some places, including southern California, Seattle, Dallas–Fort Worth, and even, yes, Las Vegas, water demand has either plateaued or declined even as population has expanded. “It’s mythology that population growth means increase in water use,” says Leurig. In fact, per capita demand has been decreasing throughout the United States since the 1980s.

Megaproject Mania

Historically humans tended to settle near fresh water; civilizations that relied instead upon extensive engineering to supply water usually faded away or moved on when they used up their supply or a changing environment made their precarious system unstable. Such examples are legion: The Khmer’s Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The Anasazi in New Mexico. The Maya in Central America.

Yet extensively engineered megaprojects such as the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the immense federal dams that clog rivers across the American West have built the contours of the country we know today. Thanks to water megaprojects, U.S. populations are booming in the driest areas, whereas water-rich communities such as Milwaukee, Wis., on the shores of Lake Michigan are losing people. Without Hoover Dam, Las Vegas would still be a tiny desert oasis. Without the LA Aqueduct, the City of Angels would remain a dusty outpost overshadowed by San Francisco. Millions of people live and thrive in places that are naturally inhospitable to humans.

In many cases, megaprojects aren’t sustainable from an environmental perspective. And they can quickly become financially unsustainable. Utilities that pursue water supply megaprojects do so at some risk because they can have unintended consequences, says Leurig. For one thing, even if a city genuinely needs new supply, megaprojects can stimulate new population growth and further exacerbate supply tensions — much as new highways beget more traffic.

Ironically, megaprojects can also reduce demand and thereby undermine the fiscal integrity of the utilities building them. This occurs when the rate hikes required to pay off the project become an economic driver that encourages water consumers to conserve.

The Las Vegas water utility has already run into trouble with its new pipe from Lake Mead — known locally as “the third straw.” Ratings agencies downgraded nearly $2 billion of debt in 2011 amid declining water revenues, according to a December 2012 report from Ceres. Similarly, Moody’s put Colorado Springs’ water utility on watch for a possible downgrade for awhile in 2012, thanks in part to a nearly $1.5 billion capital program to funnel water from the Arkansas River, a tributary of the Mississippi.

Desalination plants are at risk of fueling this cycle because they produce particularly expensive water. A $158 million plant in Tampa Bay, Fla., completed in 2008 at $40 million over budget, is being undermined by lower-than-projected demand and cheaper alternative water sources, according to a November 2012 Pacific Institute report on desalination plant financing. As a result the plant often operates below capacity, yet water customers must still pay for it on their bills.

Another desalination plant permitted for Carlsbad, Calif., may never get built for the same reasons. High costs — ballooning from $300 million in 2002 to nearly $1 billion in late 2011 — and the availability of less-expensive alternatives have brought into question the wisdom of project financing, according to a recent report by the local San Diego County Water Authority.

So, what are those less expensive alternatives? Chief among them are conservation and reuse.

Cheapest by Far

Conservation is actually a source of water — and it’s the cheapest by far. An analysis in San Diego County [PDF] found water conservation and efficiency cost from $150 to $1,000 per acre-foot, whereas desalination costs $1,800 to $2,800 per acre-foot. And there’s plenty of water available in the conservation bucket: The average American uses more than twice as much water [PDF] as the average Frenchman, Austrian, Dane or German, according to a 2006 U.N. report.

More efficient technologies and policies that require their use are already causing demand to decline. For example, plumbing codes throughout the U.S. now require 1.6-gallon or dual-flush toilets rather than the old 6-gallon standard. Front-loading washing machines use less water than their predecessors. The economic shift from manufacturing toward services is also cutting water use across the country.

Many utilities are pushing consumption further downward with maintenance and conservation programs. The U.S. General Accounting Office found that U.S. cities lose one-fifth of their water to leaks, so utilities can gain a lot of water — and reduce the need for megaprojects — just by repairing infrastructure and replacing leaking pipes and faulty meters. These projects are doubly smart because the longer infrastructure repair is deferred, the more it will ultimately cost.

On the consumer side, enticements or regulations can stop people from cleaning their sidewalks with a hose, limit car washing or nudge them to swap out lawns for drought-tolerant plants.

With Great Lakes stuck at historic lows, talk turns to adapting

By Nick Manes and Joe Boomgaard

Adsorption of Water Contaminants: How Filter Carbon Works

According to the Wikipedia,  “Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions, or molecules from a gas, liquid, or dissolved solid to a surface.  This process creates a film of the adsorbate on the surface of the adsorbent. This process differs from absorption, in which a fluid (the absorbate) permeates or is dissolved by a liquid or solid (the absorbent).  Note that adsorption is a surface-based process while absorption involves the whole volume of the material.”

Explained more graphically:

This man has adsorbed a pie.

 

This man is absorbing a pie.

 

In water treatment, activated carbon is the main adsorbing agent.  This is true because filter carbon has an amazing amount of surface area and a strong ability to attract and hold organic chemicals.  Most of the surface area is internal.

 

Enlargement of granular carbon shows countless pores that adsorb contaminants. The surface area of the pores is exceptional. A single pound of activated carbon has more surface area in its pores than 100 football fields. 

 

Carbon’s amazing ability to adsorb organic chemicals varies according to the chemical in question and conditions of the water. In general, chemicals of high molecular weight and low solubility are most easily adsorbed.  The lower the concentration of the chemical, the higher the adsorption rate by carbon.  Also, the fewer the interfering organic compounds present in the water the better.  The pH of the water is also significant, with acidic compounds being most readily adsorbed at low pH.  And, as with most other aspects of water filtration, rate of flow of the water being treated is extremely important with carbon adsorption. The more residence time the better.

In regard to specific chemicals, one source lists dozens of common chemicals and ranks them according to the likelihood that they will be removed by carbon adsorption.  Here are a few of the more common items from the list:

Very High Probability of Adsorption: Atrazine, Malathion, 1, 3-dichlorobenzene,  DDT, Lindade.

High Probability of Adsorption: Toluene, styrene, benzene, carbon tetrachloride, vinyl acetate,  phenol.

Moderate Probability of Adsorption: Chloroform, vinyl chloride, acetic acid.

Unlikely to be adsorbed by carbon:  Isopropyl alcohol, dimethylformaldehyde, propylene.

It should be remembered that although carbon has great chemical reduction capacity because of its ability to attract and hold chemicals on its surface,  it acts in other ways as well.  Chlorine, for example, is reduced mainly by catalytic reaction with the carbon, not by the “grab and hold” process of adsorption.