Half a Million Cubic Kilometers of Fresh Water Can Be Found in Aquifers Beneath the Ocean’s Floor

Lead author Vincent Post, from Australia’s Flinders University, said that an estimated 500,000 cubic kilometres (120,000 cubic miles) of low-salinity water had been found buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.

“The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we’ve extracted from the Earth’s sub-surface in the past century since 1900,” said Post of the study, published in the latest edition of Nature.

“Freshwater on our planet is increasingly under stress and strain so the discovery of significant new stores off the coast is very exciting.

“It means that more options can be considered to help reduce the impact of droughts and continental water shortages.”

UN Water, the United Nations’ water agency, estimates that water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population in the last century due to demands such as irrigated agriculture and meat production.

More than 40 percent of the world’s population already live in conditions of water scarcity. By 2030, UN Water estimates that 47 percent of people will exist under high water stress.

Post said his team’s findings were drawn from a review of seafloor water studies done for scientific or oil and gas exploration purposes.

“By combining all this information we’ve demonstrated that the freshwater below the seafloor is a common finding, and not some anomaly that only occurs under very special circumstances,” he told AFP.

The deposits were formed over hundreds of thousands of years in the past, when the sea level was much lower and areas now under the ocean were exposed to rainfall which was absorbed into the underlying water table.

When the polar icecaps started melting about 20,000 years ago these coastlines disappeared under water, but their aquifers remain intact — protected by layers of clay and sediment.

Post said the deposits were comparable with the bore basins currently relied upon by much of the world for drinking water and would cost much less than seawater to desalinate.

Drilling for the water would be expensive, and Post said great care would have to be taken not to contaminate the aquifers.

He warned that they were a precious resource.

“We should use them carefully: once gone, they won’t be replenished until the sea level drops again, which is not likely to happen for a very long time,” Post said.
Souce: BusinessInsider.com

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CDC: Tainted drinking water at Camp Lejeune in NC linked to birth defects, childhood cancer

  by Michael Biesecker and Allen G. Breed

The authors of the study on Camp Lejeune released late Thursday by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry warned it is based on a small sample size and cannot prove exposure to the chemicals caused specific individuals to become ill.RALEIGH, North Carolina — A long-awaited study by the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a link between tainted tap water at a U.S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina and increased risk of serious birth defects and childhood cancers.

But the study did conclude that babies born to mothers who drank Lejeune tap water while pregnant were four times more likely than women who lived off-base to have such serious birth defects as spina bifida. Babies whose mothers were exposed also had a slightly elevated risk of such childhood cancers as leukemia, according to the results.The study surveyed the parents of 12,598 children born at Lejeune between 1968 and 1985, the year most contaminated drinking water wells were closed. They reported 106 cases of serious birth defects and childhood hematopoietic cancers. Of those, researchers said they could obtain medical records to confirm the diagnoses in only 52 cases.

Epidemiologist Richard W. Clapp, who serves on a federal board that has reviewed the Lejeune contamination, said the links found through the study might “appear to be weak” due to the relatively small sample size. But he said the findings are important because they show strong evidence the water that Marines and their families drank, cooked with and bathed in might have made some sick.

“The fact that there was anything found is pretty important,” said Clapp, professor emeritus at Boston University’s School of Public Health. “This is an insensitive tool that we use here, these epidemiological studies. So the fact that they found anything is sort of remarkable.”

The study looked back through time and was designed to see if there was a link between exposure to certain chemicals and certain health problems that developed later. This type of study is often used to investigate disease outbreaks, when health officials are trying to identify possible reasons for the illnesses.

There are no records to measure how much tainted water those surveyed consumed. Therefore, the study had to use complex modeling to gauge how much of the chemicals they could have been exposed to. The study also did not look at the health effects on adults that drank the water. More than 80 men with Lejeune ties have been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of breast cancer.

In the nearly three decades since the contamination was first disclosed to the public, military officials have repeatedly issued public statements downplaying health risks from drinking the tainted water prior to the closure of the most contaminated wells.

A brief statement issued Thursday by Lejeune spokeswoman Capt. Maureen Krebs contained no such disclaimers. It stressed that the water currently flowing from the base’s taps is routinely tested and safe to drink.

“These results provide additional information in support of ongoing efforts to provide comprehensive science-based answers to the health questions that have been raised,” the statement said. “The Marine Corps continues to support these initiatives and we are working diligently to identify and notify individuals who, in the past, may have been exposed to the chemicals in drinking water.”

Krebs said Friday she could provide no comment about the new report beyond the written statement.

Records reviewed by The Associated Press show military authorities continued to rely on the wells for years after testing suggested the water was contaminated. The most highly contaminated wells were closed in 1984 and 1985, after a round of more extensive testing found dangerous concentrations of toxins associated with degreasing solvents and gasoline.

A prior CDC study cited a February 1985 level for trichloroethylene of 18,900 parts per billion in one Lejeune drinking water well — nearly 4,000 times today’s maximum allowed health limit of 5 ppb. Testing also found high levels of benzene, a fuel additive.

The ground water contamination was traced to two primary sources: a leaky on-base fuel depot and an off-base dry cleaner. In prior public statements, Marine officials have emphasized the contamination that came from outside the base. But the newly released study found the greatest negative health impacts to be associated with benzene, which came from the on-base Hadnot Point tank farm built during World War II.

Last year, President Barack Obama signed the Camp Lejeune Veterans and Family Act to provide medical care and screening for Marines and their families, but not civilians, exposed between 1957 and 1987. The law covers 15 diseases or conditions, including female infertility, miscarriage, leukemia and multiple myeloma, as well as bladder, breast, esophageal, kidney and lung cancers.

The law was passed after years of advocacy by former Marines who blamed the contamination for negative health impacts, efforts that were often met with strong resistance from the Marine Corps.

Jerry Ensminger, a former Marine drill instructor, lost his 9-year-old daughter Janey to leukemia in 1985. He is among those with pending federal compensation claims have been on hold while waiting for the CDC research to be completed.

He said the study results are a vindication of what he’s been saying for nearly 20 years, but they won’t bring his daughter back.

“Nothing ever gives you comfort when you lose a child,” Ensminger said Friday. “I think that’s the worst thing that can happen to a human being … to watch them go through the hell they go though. That’s something that never leaves you.”

Source: TribTown.com

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Wastewater Case Raises the Concept of Underground Trespassing

By Jim Malewitz

A case involving the disposal of industrial wastewater pits two interests that are dear to many Texans against each other: oil and gas resources versus private property rights.

A decision by the state’s highest civil court could have major implications for both. The Texas Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Jan. 7 in a dispute between a company that operates injection wells in Liberty County and a nearby rice farm that says wastewater from those wells has migrated into a saltwater aquifer below its land. It calls the migration trespassing, for which it should be compensated. Among several smaller questions, the court will weigh a broad one: Just how far below the earth’s surface do property lines extend?

“This is the classic battle between the two quintessential values that are in direct conflict with each other,” said Matthew J. Festa, a professor at the South Texas College of Law. “On a lot of different levels, this case could make some new law.”

This is not the first time oil and gas interests have clashed with landowners in Texas. State courts have weighed in on several such showdowns in recent years, including eminent domain cases involving land seized to build pipelines. But the court has yet to consider the idea of underground trespassing.

The dispute, which has reached the high court once before, has drawn the oil and gas industry’s attention.

The well in question is classified as Class I and used for nonhazardous industrial waste. It is not one of the 50,000 Class II waste wells that drillers typically use. But lower courts’ opinions have drawn no distinction between the wells, stirring concerns that a ruling in F.P.L. Farming’s favor would harm production.

“Because the ability to produce oil and gas is inextricably tied to the availability of injection wells,” the Texas Oil and Gas Association says in a brief, “a new common law cause of action that threatens operation of injection wells likely threatens oil and gas production.”

In 1997, Environmental Processing Services finished drilling an injection well about 400 feet from F.P.L. Farming’s land, which the farm contested early on. Since then, the company has injected more than 100 million gallons of wastewater.

Bob Kent, a former Texas environmental regulator and F.P.L. Farming’s expert witness, testified that the waste plume had probably traveled across the property lines, basing those conclusions on a formula widely used by state and federal regulators.

Representatives of the farm say they worry that the waste, which includes the flammable liquid acetone, will contaminate its groundwater and erode the value of its property. Though the water is too salty to drink, those on the farm’s side contend that it is valuable because desalination technology could make it drinkable.

The well operator and its supporters, meanwhile, say the waste will make the groundwater no more polluted than it is naturally. And they say it is a moot point because recognizing a subsurface trespassing argument is nearly unprecedented. The appellate court in Beaumont is the only court to have done so.

The suit is flying under the radar of property rights advocates. No group has filed a brief in support of the rice farm, but the Texas Farm Bureau, which typically supports landowners in such disputes, said it was looking at the case after recently learning of its return to court. (The Texas Farm Bureau is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

The group supported F.P.L. Farming the last time the case reached the Supreme Court. That was in 2011, when the justices remanded the case to the lower courts after considering various arguments.

“We think they own the property down to the center of the earth,” said Regan Beck, assistant general counsel for the Farm Bureau, adding, “You have a taking without compensation.”

Source: The Texas Tribune (New York Times).

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U.S. officials prepare to destroy Syrian chemical weapons at sea

 How to control cross connections in your home

Manganese

 by Gene Franks

Manganese is a naturally occurring mineral that is present in soils, rocks, and sediment. It is a beneficial mineral found abundantly in many common grains and vegetables.  It is essential to human nutrition, but in water it is generally regarded as unhealthy for humans in concentrations of as little as 0.5 parts per million.

In deep water wells, manganese can be found in concentrations as high as 2 to 3 parts per million, although amounts are usually smaller. As little as 0.05 parts per million (ppm) can cause black and brown staining. Manganese often exists with iron, and the two together often make chocolate-colored brown stains.

In general, manganese is difficult to remove from water because removal depends on its state of oxidation, the pH of the water, the presence of other minerals, and the TDS (total dissolved solids) of the water being treated. Another complication is that manganese often appears along with iron and hydrogen sulfide.

Evidence of manganese is often first seen in dishwashers because detergents raise the pH of the water high enough (>8) to allow manganese to precipitate (come out of solution and take on a solid, visible form). Another place to look for manganese is in toilet tanks, where it often appears as a floating film on the surface of the water. Shining a flashlight on the surface of the water makes the manganese film more obvious.

Forms of Manganese

Like iron, manganese in water takes on two forms.

The first and the most common is technically called manganous manganese. In this state the manganese is completely dissolved in the same way that sugar or salt are dissolved in water. To be removed with a filter, manganous manganese must first be “precipitated.” It can, however, be removed by a water softener only in this form.

After precipitation, manganous manganese becomes a solid and no longer remains in solution. It can turn water black. This form is called manganic manganese. Precipitated manganese is easily removed by a filter, but it is not removed well by a water softener.

It is important to understand that a water softener is an ion exchanger, not a filter. It deals with Un-precipitated ions. Filters can’t remove manganese or iron in their un-precipitated state.  Softeners can serve as filters for precipitated manganese,  but they are poor filters at best.

Removing Manganese from Water

The water treatment for manganese is similar to that for iron although there are some important differences, mainly involving pH. Removing manganese with a filter requires a higher pH than iron. Removing manganese with a filter is usually easier if iron is present.

Removing Manganese with a Water Softener

If conditions are right, a water softener is the best tool for removing manganese. The softener can handle significant quantities of manganese, but it only works well if all the manganese is un-precipitated and remains un-precipitated. Precipitated manganese is not only poorly removed by the softener, but it is especially harmful to the softener resin.

Here are the conditions that most affect a softener’s performance as a treatment for manganese:

TDS: Softeners remove manganese best if the total dissolved solids (TDS) of the water is low. When TDS is high, other minerals in the water compete with the manganese for space on the resin and can even displace manganese which has attached to the resin. Water with <500 ppm TDS works best for manganese removal by a water softener.

Dissolved Oxygen: Water with a low dissolved oxygen level lends itself best to manganese reduction by ion exchange. This is true simply because high oxygen levels promote precipitation of manganese to a physical form that is hard for the softener to handle. The opposite, as we shall see, is true if manganese is being treated with a filter. [This applies as well to the presence of oxidizers other than oxygen. To remove manganese with a softener, the water should not be chlorinated or treated with other oxidizers like ozone, hydrogen peroxide, or potassium permanganate.]

 pH: There are mixed recommendations from experts on this topic, but logically pH needs to be lower than 8 if a softener is to remove manganese as an ion. The pH must be low to prevent precipitation which occurs at higher pH levels. This is also contrary to what is needed for manganese removal with a filter.

As is also true with iron, when treating manganese with a water softener it is best to use a high salt dosage and keep service run short to avoid mineral build-up on the resin. Frequent regeneration is important.

Removing Manganese with a Filter

To remove manganese from water with a filter, a high pH reading and a sufficient oxygen content are necessary to insure precipitation. Although different filter media have different requirements, in most cases a pH greater than 8 is needed for effective manganese removal. Very active media such as Filox will work at a lower pH. Standard media like Birm may need a pH as high as 8.5 to effectively remove manganese.  In most cases, an oxidizer like chlorine, air, ozone, or potassium permanganate is used as a pretreatment to filtration. Amendment of pH is also often needed.

Removal of manganese with a filter can vary from very simple, with any good granular medium, to a much more complicated two or three step process which requires adding an oxidizer and a pH amendment step.

 Simple Filter 

Manganic manganese can be easily removed by a simple filter. If the amount is very small, a cartridge-style sediment filter will serve. If a significant amount of manganese is involved, a backwashing filter containing multi-media (sand, garnet, anthracite, for example), Filter Ag, ChemSorb, Micro Z, or any good sediment reduction medium can be used.

Catalytic Media

In cases where un-precipitated manganese is present in a relatively low concentration and the oxygen content and the pH of the water are reasonably high, manganese can be handily removed with filter media that serve as catalysts to change the manganese to its precipitated form. Media such as Birm, Filox, and Katalox Light will cause the manganese to convert to its physical form,  then filter out the precipitated manganese in the same operation. Backwashing the filter then rinses away the trapped contaminant and restores the filter bed. Filters of this type are very effective if conditions are right, and they seem to work best if there is more iron in the water than manganese. Catalytic media filters can also be used after pretreatment with an oxidizer, as described below.

Pretreatment/Oxidation Filters 

Pretreatment usually means a free-standing oxidizer, but it can also include pH enhancement.

Aeration 

Pretreatment with air can be done in a number of ways. The oldest is with a “venturi” setup that is installed before the well’s pressure tank to draw air into the water line. The venturi is usually followed by a small vent tank that gives the air time to oxidize the manganese and to get rid of excess air. The water then goes to the filter, where the manganese is removed. A more aggressive and more effective system uses a larger treatment tank into which air is fed from a small air compressor. Air is compressed into the top third of the tank and oxidation occurs quickly as the water being treated falls through the pocket of compressed air. The filter follows the aeration tank. A variation on the compressed air system does the aeration in the filter tank itself, using, again, the top third of the tank and relying on an air draw feature supplied by the filter’s control valve rather than a compressor. All three aeration methods can be effective. 

Closed Tank Aeration System that is fed by a small compressor. The top third of the tank holds a pocket of compressed air.  Air is a powerful and reasonably rapid oxidizer.

Aeration, of course, assures that the dissolved oxygen required for manganese removal is present, but pH is still a concern. A calcite tank can be added before the filter, but with the high pH requirement of manganese, soda ash or caustic soda injection usually works better.

When the water is properly pretreated with air and a pH enhancer, any good filter medium will remove manganese. Best results are gained, however, by using a top grade iron medium like Filox.

Chlorination 

Chlorine is a strong oxidizer, but it requires more “residence time” than air.  Chlorination can be done via a pellet dropper (dry pellet chlorinator), which drops calcium hypochlorite pellets into the well itself, or with a feed pump which injects liquid chlorine under pressure into the water line. If the pump is used, a retention tank must be added to give chlorine time to do its work. At least 20 minutes residence time is usually recommended.

As with aeration, the chlorination step must be followed by an iron filter. The choice again is wide, but one of the standard filters that works well independently or following aeration, Birm, cannot be used with chlorine. Carbon works well if the amount of manganese is small, and catalytic carbon works better than standard carbon. Carbon has the advantage of removing the chlorine along with the manganese.

When chlorine is fed by a pump, a pH increaser like soda ash can be injected along with the chlorine.

Potassium Permanganate 

Potassium permanganate, a strong oxidizer, is used almost exclusively with filters using greensand as a medium. It is usually drawn into the filter during its regeneration stage.  Greensand filters are effective removers of manganese, iron, and odors, but they are generally more difficult to maintain and are, therefore, not a favorite with owners of residential wells.

Ozone and hydrogen peroxide are also powerful oxidizers of manganese, but since they are less frequently used in residential treatment, they aren’t being considered here.

More information about products that remove manganese:

Filox Filters (for iron, manganese, and hydrogen sulfide reduction).

Aeration Systems for Iron & Sulfide

Chlorine and Chemical Feed Systems

Single Tank Aerators for Iron and Sulfide

Water Softeners

In Ireland, Water Will No Longer Be Free

By Sandra Postel

Ireland is surely one of the greenest countries in the world, but its management of freshwater in recent times has been anything but green.

Some 41 percent of the nation’s drinking water leaks out of delivery pipes – twice the UK average. That’s a costly loss given the expense of treating and pumping that water to the nation’s 4.6 million people.

Household water demand per person is estimated to average 102 gallons (386 liters) per day, double or triple that in other European countries and about the same as in the United States, where national usage is driven up by irrigation of large suburban lawns, especially in the drier west.

And with Dublin now running short of water, most of the talk about filling the gap focuses on capturing more supply from the Shannon River or other sources.  There’s been relatively little mention of conservation or curbing demand.

Much of this excess and waste traces back to a simple and perhaps startling fact:  In Ireland, households do not pay for water.  It is free, no matter how much is used.  And no one knows how much any particular household uses, because Ireland – alone among European countries – does not meter water usage.

But change is afoot in the Emerald Isle.

Last week, I visited Ireland at the invitation of the Mayo County Council’s Enterprise and Investment Unit to participate in an event at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology calledClean Water 2040: From Local to Global, What is the Future of our Water Resource Management?”  The forum was part of Ireland’s National Science Week.  And while I spoke on the global water challenge on behalf of National Geographic and our Change the Coursepartnership, the audience of water professionals and the public gathered there in the western city of Castlebar was quite keyed to the national reforms under way– in particular the new Irish plan to install more than 1 million water meters by the end of 2016 and to begin charging for water.

Primary responsibility for that transformation falls to Irish Water, a new enterprise that consolidates the water services provided by 34 local authorities.  Headquartered in Dublin, but with eight regional offices, Irish Water will work to fill a backlog of investment needs – including leak repair – that has resulted from more than a century of underinvestment in water services.

“Irish Water is on track to deliver the key milestones in one of the largest reform projects in the history of the Irish state,” said John Tierney, Irish Water’s managing director.

The first meter went in the ground about three months ago, on August 12, in Kildare, Tierney reported.   Dublin got its first meter on October 13.  All together, nearly 30,000 meters have been put in place.

For consumers accustomed to free water, the rubber will hit the road when billing begins, scheduled for the first quarter of 2015.

Particularly in hard economic times, the new fees may rankle the public.  But the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions conditioned Ireland’s debt bailout on the institution of a more self-sustaining water revenue structure – a sensible request, though perhaps painful in a country where unemployment tops 13 percent.

But as Professor Frank Convery, senior fellow with the University College of Dublin (UCD) Earth Institute and chair of the think tank Publicpolicy.ie, wrote in a recent opinion piece in the Irish Times, “Unless we introduce coherent and effective water pricing, and use it to help us all become water savers, we are doomed to a decade of continuing periods of water rationing with all the costs, economic and social damage and inconvenience that this will entail.”

Irish Water’s Tierney estimates that the nation’s water systems need about €600 million ($812 million) per year in capital investment to fix leaks, upgrade infrastructure, and generally get on a more sustainable footing.

It bothers Tierney that so much water brought up to drinking quality through expensive treatment methods seeps out of leaky pipes or otherwise gets squandered.

“If you waste water after having gone through that (treatment) process, it’s a sin,” Tierney said to the group gathered at GMIT.

Sean Corrigan, manager of the Kilmeena, Ballycroy and Killeen Group Water Schemes in County Mayo pointed out that much leakage may be occurring in homes, not in the distribution network, and until metering and pricing motivate households to look for leaks, the problem will go uncorrected.

For my part in the day’s discussion, I recounted the conservation success of Boston, Massachusetts, a city similar to Dublin in climate and size, and which faced a like need to fill a gap between supply and demand back in the mid-1980s.

Like Dublin today, Boston back then was considering expanding its supply by diverting water from the Connecticut River and storing it in the Quabbin Reservoir.  Instead, pushed by conservation and citizens groups, the state water authority invested aggressively in demand management – including leak repair, pricing, education, and retrofits of faucets and other home water fixtures.

From its peak, greater Boston’s water use has dropped 43 percent.  Usage today is back where it was fifty years ago.  And the conservation strategy cost about half as much as the river diversion would have, saving ratepayers money and the river from ecological harm.

It’s a success Irish Water might take to heart.

Tierney said he hopes to see Ireland become one of the most water-resilient countries in the world. “

That’s a prize worth fighting for,” he said.

But winning it will take a good deal of water reform – and metering and pricing are the right places to start.

Source: National Geographic.

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