Earth could hold more water

Five times as much water as in all the world’s oceans may lurk deep below its surface.

8 March 2002

by Philip Ball

 

Geologists have divined water where you might least expect it: 1,000 kilometres below the Earth’s surface. Here, rocks heated to over 1,000o C and squeezed under high pressures may harbour around five times as much water as in all the world’s oceans. This could give clues to how the Earth formed and how it behaves today.

Between 650 and 2,900 km below the Earth’s surface hot, compressed minerals surround the planet’s iron-rich core. Called the lower mantle, this material may hold up to 0.2 per cent of its own weight in water, estimate Motohiko Murakami, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, and colleagues1.

Theories of planetary formation take into account how much easily vaporized material, such as water and carbon dioxide, were originally present. The findings hint that Earth’s starter mix may have been sloppier than anticipated.

Water would lower the melting point of rocks in the lower mantle and decrease their viscosity. Over millions of years, the mantle churns like a pan of hot soup. This moves the tectonic plates and mixes the mantle’s chemical components. A less viscous mantle would churn faster.

The take-up of water by minerals in the lower mantle might also affect the ease with which tectonic plates sink deep into the Earth. As the plates descend, heat up and become squeezed, the water that they release might soften the surrounding mantle and ease their passage.

There is already thought to be several oceans’ worth of water slightly higher in the mantle, at a depth of around 400-650 km. This region is called the transition zone, as it is between the upper and the lower mantle.

The lower mantle’s minerals can retain about a tenth as much water as the rocks above, Murakami’s team finds. But because the volume of the lower mantle is much greater than that of the transition zone, it could hold a comparable amount of water.

“The findings will boost the debate about how much water is locked away in the mantle,” says geologist Bernard Wood of the University of Bristol, UK. Until now, he says, “most people would have argued that there isn’t much water in the mantle”. A similar study two years ago concluded that there isn’t much water down there at all2.

Taking on the mantle

Murakami’s team mimicked the lower mantle in the laboratory. They studied the three kinds of mineral thought to make up most of the region: two perovskites, one rich in magnesium, the other in calcium, and magnesiowustite, a mixture of magnesium and iron oxides.

To recreate its furious conditions, the researchers used a multi-anvil cell. This heats materials while squeezing them between hard teeth. Having baked the minerals at around 1,600o C and 250,000 atmospheres, the team measured how much hydrogen the rocks contained using secondary-ion mass spectrometry. This technique blasts the material with a beam of ions and detects the ions sprayed out from the surface.

Any hydrogen in the rocks presumably comes from trapped water, an idea that other measurements support. The researchers found more hydrogen than previous experiments had led them to expect.

References

1. Murakami, M., Hirose, K., Yurimoto, H., Nakashima, S. & Takafuji, N. Water in Earth’s lower mantle. Science, 295, 1885 – 1887, (2002).
2. Bolfan-Casanova, N., Kepler, H. & Rubie, D.C. Water partitioning between nominally anhydrous minerals in the MgO-SiO2-H2O system up to 24 GPa: implications for the distribution of water in the Earth’s mantle. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 182, 209, (2000).

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Dr. Laura on Abominations

 

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.

The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a Florida resident, which was posted on the Internet.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other specific laws and how to follow them:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev. 1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness – Lev. 15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination, in Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? – Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted fan,

marty

Dr. Laura does not recommend our undersink water filters because they are not mentioned in Leviticus.

    Will Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap Continue to Defy Selling Out to Corporate Culture?

By Richard Seireeni,   Chelsea Green Publishing

July 2009

You can use it in a river. You can use it in the shower. You can lather up outside, and it doesn’t hurt a flower! Yes, you got it. It’s Dr. Bronner’s magical soap.

Started by Emmanuel Bronner, a third-generation soap maker, rabbi, and wacky spiritual guru, Dr. Bronner’s soap has been hot since the 60s and is still going strong. Mr. Bronner rejected the use of industrial chemicals way ahead of his time, and now, more than forty years later, his grandsons run the business. So with a mega-historic company whose founder is called “the godfather of today’s green brands,” how will his grandsons keep the vision alive?

The following is an excerpt from The Gort Cloud: The Invisible Force Powering Today’s Most Visible Green Brands by Richard Seireeni.

 

Emanuel Bronner was on a lifelong spiritual mission (his Hebrew name means “search for truth”). He espoused the view that a prophet arrives on earth every seventy-six years, inspired by Halley’s comet, to bring man back to God. These prophets, to name a few, are thought to have included Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Hillel, Lao-tzu, and Gautama, the Buddha.

The doctor’s obsessive passion was sometimes mistaken for mental illness, due in part to his tendency to rant about his opinions. “He was often yelling,” says Michael Bronner.

In 1947, while giving a talk on the importance of free speech at the University of Chicago, Bronner was detained by authorities, who eventually contacted his sister, then living in Rhode Island. She agreed to commit her brother to the Illinois State Asylum in Elgin. There he underwent shock treatments, says Michael, for what they saw as his “crazy beliefs that we’re all children of one divine source, and we will destroy ourselves if we don’t realize this.”

Bronner ultimately escaped the asylum after stealing twenty dollars out of his sister’s purse when she was visiting. He headed west, thereafter referring to the mental institution as the time he spent in a “concentration camp.” “I think he did have some slight schizophrenic tendencies that were exacerbated by the asylum’s persecutory environment,” says David.

Michael adds, “He ended up setting up shop in Pershing Square in Los Angeles, which was a hotbed of political activity at the time. He was a very passionate speaker. People would come and listen to him.”

Product storytelling with a spiritual message

 

As the company’s Web site states, “Bronner’s essential vision and philosophy were born out of the fate of his family and the Holocaust, and are emphatic that we are all children of the same divine source: People must realize that we are ‘All-One!’ and that the prophets and spiritual giants of the world’s various faith traditions all realized and said this.”

“Constructive capitalism is where you share the profit with the workers and the earth from which you made it,” the site continues in its summary of Bronner’s teachings. “We are all brothers and sisters, and we should take care of each other and spaceship earth!”

Following his speeches in Pershing Square, Bronner would hand out a bottle of peppermint soap made with his family’s secret formula.

“People would come for the soap because it was so darn good, and then leave and not always listen to him,” Michael says.

It wasn’t long before Dr. Bronner was putting his “Moral ABC” message on the bottle labels. “Whereas no 6 year old can get by without learning the ABC’s, no 12 year old can get by without learning the moral ABC’s,” he was fond of saying. He didn’t waste any space, squeezing in as much text as possible, eventually adding well over two thousand words per bottle. To this day, approximately thirty thousand words of the doctor’s teachings are spread across the range of the company’s products.

A hit with hippies

When the late 1960s hit and a new counterculture erupted, Dr. Bronner’s eco-friendly soaps and his peace-loving message found their audience.

The product “became successful for all the reasons that it wasn’t successful before,” says Michael Bronner. “The quality was always good, but you had this packaging that included my grandfather’s spiritual message that was completely anti-corporate.”

The soap “was never advertised, yet everybody seemed to know about it . . . like it arrived on the scene by magic, appearing in backpack after backpack,” Michael continues. In addition, “it was a soap that could be used for anything . . . It was biodegradable, good for the earth . . . you could jump into a nearby lake and use it,” which is what I used it for back then. We always had a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s in our packs when we went hiking in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-1 Pure-Castile Soap, as it was called back then, became a sought-after product for those in the know, spreading to hippie communes across the United States. “If you were a part of that world, you knew Dr. Bronner’s soaps,” David Bronner explains. “It was like a club. The fact that it wasn’t advertised was a big advantage.”

Whether consciously or unconsciously, Dr. Emanuel Bronner knew his nonconformist, antiestablishment target audience well enough to understand that using conventional channels to reach them would not work. That is still largely the company’s understanding now.

Keeping a loyal customer base happy

As the members of the counterculture have grown up and aged, many have stayed loyal to the Dr. Bronner’s product. David and Michael Bronner, who were not alive in the 1960s, do their best to keep this market segment satisfied.

“Making our soaps is similar to making wine — you can have the same ingredients, but it’ll turn out a little bit differently depending on where those ingredients come from, where they’re grown, such as the peppermint coming from a different field. Especially with a natural product, there can be variation,” Mike Bronner explains. “People will call us up and ask about it because they want to know what’s going on. They’ll say, ‘What did you do with my soap?’ So while you’re always supposed to improve a product, no one lets you change it.”

Because they’re not of the ’60s generation, the brothers are also fighting the perception that “we’re trying to milk the product and the profits out of our grandfather’s legacy,” Michael explains. “If we raise our prices, no one understands that our materials cost twice as much as they did before — they just think that we’ve gone for a cheaper grade, that we’re selling out in some way. I get pretty strongly worded e-mails calling us out, saying, ‘You’ve lost a customer forever!’ or ‘You sold out!’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.”

“All you can really do,” he continues, “is write these people back and say something like, ‘Our peppermint oil did change a little bit when we went organic. It now comes from India so it has a little bit more of an edge.’ And sometimes they’ll e-mail back and they’ll say, ‘Wow, keep up the good doctor’s work.'”

Keeping the legacy alive

David and Michael Bronner attempt to keep their grandfather’s spiritual message alive while at the same time relegating it to the background. They work to keep the brand associated with truth and goodness and respect for the planet but attempt to stay away from promoting a religious- sounding message.

“I very much respect my grandfather for his beliefs and for the cosmic vision he had . . . his urging people to break free of whatever barriers confine them . . . to reach out to others [who] may not share our same cultural or religious perspective on things . . . to be mindful of the environment,” explains Michael Bronner. “But that is not part of how we brand ourselves these days. We’re a secular company. We don’t get into religious discussion.” The company does send out a booklet on Emanuel Bronner’s philosophy, The Moral ABC’s, to customers who ask for it.

The Bronner brothers believe they are keeping their grandfather’s social mission alive, albeit in a different way than he did. “What the whole thing meant to him was very much what he put on the label,” explains Michael. “He wanted those words to find their way into everybody’s mind on Planet Earth so that they could interpret them and come together.”

“The ideas behind that label are very sound,” Michael continues. “And those ideas are ones of environmental sustainability and of social accountability and responsibility. By going organic, we’ve achieved the environmental aspect of my grandfather’s mission. And by going Fair Trade, we’re on our way to fulfilling his social mission.”

Fair Use Statement

Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year

Reprinted from Dr. Joseph Mercola’s email newsletter.  (See signup invitation below.)

Gazette Introductory Note:  Since this 2000 report was issued, progress has been made.  Doctors have kept pace and are now causing far more than the annual 250,000 deaths reported by JAMA.

This article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is the best article I have ever seen written in the published literature documenting the tragedy of the traditional medical paradigm.

If you want to keep updated on issues like this click here to sign up for my free newsletter.

This information is a followup of the Institute of Medicine report which hit the papers in December of last year, but the data was hard to reference as it was not in peer-reviewed journal. Now it is published in JAMA which is the most widely circulated medical periodical in the world.

The author is Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and she desribes how the US health care system may contribute to poor health.

ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR:

  • 12,000 — unnecessary surgery 8
  • 7,000 — medication errors in hospitals 9
  • 20,000 — other errors in hospitals 10
  • 80,000 — infections in hospitals 10
  • 106,000 — non-error, negative effects of drugs 2

These total to 250,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes!!

What does the word iatrogenic mean? This term is defined as induced in a patient by a physician’s activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially of a complication of treatment.

Dr. Starfield offers several warnings in interpreting these numbers:

  • First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized patients.
  • Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include negative effects that are associated with disability or discomfort.
  • Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the IOM report.1

If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebrovascular disease).

Another analysis 11 concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience negative effects in outpatient settings,with:

  • 116 million extra physician visits
  • 77 million extra prescriptions
  • 17 million emergency department visits
  • 8 million hospitalizations
  • 3 million long-term admissions
  • 199,000 additional deaths
  • $77 billion in extra costs

The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit, but seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health results from more expensive care.

However, evidence from a few studies indicates that as many as 20% to 30% of patients receive inappropriate care.

An estimated 44,000 to 98,000 among them die each year as a result of medical errors.2

This might be tolerated if it resulted in better health, but does it? Of 13 countries in a recent comparison,3,4 the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators. More specifically, the ranking of the US on several indicators was:

  • 13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
  • 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall 14
  • 11th for postneonatal mortality
  • 13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
  • 11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
  • 10th for life expectancy at 15 years for females, 12th for males
  • 10th for life expectancy at 40 years for females, 9th for males
  • 7th for life expectancy at 65 years for females, 7th for males
  • 3rd for life expectancy at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
  • 10th for age-adjusted mortality

The poor performance of the US was recently confirmed by a World Health Organization study, which used different data and ranked the United States as 15th among 25 industrialized countries.

There is a perception that the American public “behaves badly” by smoking, drinking, and perpetrating violence.” However the data does not support this assertion.

  • The proportion of females who smoke ranges from 14% in Japan to 41% in Denmark; in the United States, it is 24% (fifth best). For males, the range is from 26% in Sweden to 61% in Japan; it is 28% in the United States (third best).
  • The US ranks fifth best for alcoholic beverage consumption.
  • The US has relatively low consumption of animal fats (fifth lowest in men aged 55-64 years in 20 industrialized countries) and the third lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among men aged 50 to 70 years among 13 industrialized countries.

These estimates of death due to error are lower than those in a recent Institutes of Medicine report, and if the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000.

Even at the lower estimate of 225,000 deaths per year, this constitutes the third leading cause of death in the US, following heart disease and cancer.

Lack of technology is certainly not a contributing factor to the US’s low ranking.

  • Among 29 countries, the United States is second only to Japan in the availability of magnetic resonance imaging units and computed tomography scanners per million population. 17
  • Japan, however, ranks highest on health, whereas the US ranks among the lowest.
  • It is possible that the high use of technology in Japan is limited to diagnostic technology not matched by high rates of treatment, whereas in the US, high use of diagnostic technology may be linked to more treatment.
  • Supporting this possibility are data showing that the number of employees per bed (full-time equivalents) in the United States is highest among the countries ranked, whereas they are very low in Japan, far lower than can be accounted for by the common practice of having family members rather than hospital staff provide the amenities of hospital care.

Journal American Medical Association 2000 Jul 26;284(4):483-5


 

Some Good News: UN Survey Finds Water Management Improvement

A UN Survey Found Significant Improvement in Water Management in Many Countries. Sustainable water management is achieving economic, social and environmental benefits.

More than 80% of countries have reformed their water laws in the past twenty years as a response to growing pressures on water resources from expanding populations, urbanization and climate change.

In many cases, such water reforms have produced significant impacts on development, including improvements to drinking water access, human health and water efficiency in agriculture.

At the same time, global progress has been slower where irrigation, rainwater harvesting and investment in freshwater ecosystem services are concerned.

These are among the findings of a United Nations survey of more than 130 national governments on efforts to improve the sustainable management of water resources.

To read the full article.

 

Pure Water Annie’s Glossary of Common Water Treatment Abbreviations

by Pure Water Annie

 

Like most professions, the water treatment industry runs on initials. Here are a few of the essential ones.

Reprinted from the Pure Water Occasional for October 2011

ANSI – American National Standards Institute. ANSI sets the standards by which organizations alike NSF and WQA certify water treatment products. For a full explanation, see “ANSI/NSF: What’s It All About?” in an earlier Occasional

DI – De ionization. An ion exchange process that removes virtually all the mineral content of water.

DBP – Disinfect ion by-product. Disinfect ion by-products are potentially toxic chemical compounds that are formed in extremely low concentrations during the disinfection of water supplies. Most often, they are the by-product of chlorination.

EPA – Environmental Protection Agency. See the full article below.

GAC – Granular Activated Carbon. Carbon prepared by a special process for water treatment.

GPD – Gallons Per Day.

GPG – Grains Per Gallon.

GPM – Gallons Per Minute.

MF – Microfiltration. Describes membrane filtration usually between the sizes of 0.1 to 10 microns (µm). It is often distinguished from nanofiltration and reverse osmosis by the fact that it does not require pressure (although pressure is often applied).

NSF – National Sanitation Foundation. A leading “third party” certifying agency for water treatment equipment. For a full explanation, see ANSI/NSF: What’s It All About? in an earlier Occasional. 

OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer. (A term that is vague and widely misunderstood within and outside the water treatment industry. In water treatment parlance it means essentially “anyone who puts stuff together or simply buys stuff from another source and sells it to somebody else for resale to the public.”)

ORP – Oxidation-reduction potential. A measurement of the electrical potential of water for the oxidation-reduction process to occur.

PPB – Parts per billion. One ppb represents one microgram of something per liter of water. See ug/l.

PPM – Parts per million. Same amount as Mg./l. (milligrams per liter).

POE – Point of entry. Used to describe treatment devices that treat all the water entering a building. A “whole house filter.”

POU – Point or use. Used to describe treatment devices that treat water at the point of use only. An undersink filter is an example.

PVC – Polyvinylchloride.

RO – Reverse Osmosis.

SDWA. Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. See EPA article below.

TAC – Template Assisted Crystallization. A technique of scale control used as an alternative to conventional water softening.

TDS – Total Dissolved Solids. Measurement of all “solids” (minerals or salts) dissolved in water.

TOC – Total Organic Carbon. The total amount of carbon bound in a water sample.

UF – Ultrafiltration. Crossflow filtration method that operates between microfiltration and reverse osmosis, between the 0.002 and 0.1 micron range.

UG/L – Microgram per liter. One ug/l is the same as 1 ppb (part per billion.)

UV – Ultraviolet. Water treatment for microorganisms.

VOC – Volatile Organic Compounds. Organic chemicals that turn to vapor at a relatively low temperature.

WQA – Water Quality Association. The leading trade organization for water treatment professionals.

ZZZ– Sound made by people who read too many definitions of water treatment terms.

See also Pure Water Annie’s Glossary of Water Treatment Terms on the Occasional’s website.

Barrels Provide Gardeners Savings from a Rainy Day

Barrels Provide Free Irrigation Water for Use in Dry Summer Months

by Sarah Jackson

This article is reprinted from the Pure Water Occasional for April, 2011.

Rain Barrels, which used to be as American as apple pie used to be, are staging a comeback as water becomes scarce
Warning.
 If you own a rain barrel, or even look at one, you run the risk of getting the Rain Barrel Song from the 1940s in your head. You can never get rid of it. and more expensive.
Below is an Earth Day contribution to the growing body of rain barrel literature from the Everett, WA Herald,

 

 

Gardeners use a lot of water, especially during the summer months when local rains slow to a trickle right when our lawns, flowers and vegetables need moisture the most.

And so we turn on the tap, and we water, water everywhere, using drinking water for everything we like to do outdoors, even washing off dirty tools.

Conservationists and green-living advocates are asking: Do we really need to be using drinking water on our ornamental landscapes?

There is a green solution: Install a rain barrel and harvest some rainwater this summer.

If you haven’t jumped on the rain-barrel bandwagon yet, Friday, which is Earth Day, might be a good time to get motivated.

Part of your home rain-harvesting system is already in place: your roof

Every inch of rain that falls on a 1,500-square-foot roof can provide about 900 gallons of free water, more than 30,000 gallons in Everett in an average year.

You just need somewhere to put it.

Because the average rain barrel holds only 50 to 75 gallons, you’ll have to install rain barrels near numerous downspouts to reclaim even a small percentage of the rain that falls on your property.

Fortunately, rain barrels are available in a variety of styles, including basic 50-gallon plastic barrels outfitted with basic hardware for about $35. There also are more aesthetically pleasing models designed to look like urns, whiskey barrels, even outdoor storage bins.

Flat-backed rain barrels help you save space as do collapsible varieties you can use seasonally. Extra-large models can hold up to 300 gallons. And wooden types are available if you want to avoid buying plastic.

Some come with top covers that can be planted with your favorite flowers.

You can even make your own rain barrel with kits that contain all the key parts.

If space is bountiful near your home, you can connect numerous barrels together for a much larger water supply.

Here are some tips about rain barrels.

Don’t drink the water: Collected rainwater is only as clean as your roof and gutters, where birds and animals may drop their waste. Use it with caution for watering some vegetables, but it is best used on ornamental plants and lawns. Avoid overhead irrigation of food crops when using rain barrel water, especially leafy greens. Always wash garden vegetables with tap water before eating them.

Know your roof: Roofing materials are sometimes treated with chemicals to fight rot and other problems. Moss-killing products, including zinc strips and zinc or copper-based moss killer, can leach into roof runoff and can affect plants and animals.

Direct the overflow: Rain barrels tend to fill quickly, even during light rain. Be sure your barrel has an overflow outlet and a tube or hose to divert excess water away from your house.

Cover it: To prevent mosquitoes from using the barrel to breed, cover any openings with fine mesh.

Raise it up: Build a raised platform from cinder blocks and place your rain barrel on top. This give you more room to fit a watering can beneath the spigot.

Secure: A full 50-gallon rain barrel can weigh more than 400 pounds. Find a sturdy, level site for your barrel. Strap it to the house with metal straps, especially if it is raised.

Rinse: Clean your barrel at the end of each season and scrub off any algae growth.

Check for clogs: Make sure intakes and overflows are not blocked with debris. Downspout diverters can easily be clogged with leaves if they don’t have built-in filters.

Prevent ice damage: If the temperature is predicted to drop below 32 degrees for several days, drain the barrels and disconnect them from the downspouts. Reconnect them when the cold snap is over.

 

In Praise of Tap Water

Adapted from the Pure Water Occasional for April, 1011.

From the press release announcing American Water’s 125th Anniversary celebration:

“The seemingly small decision to drink tap water rather than bottled water can have a major impact on the environment,” commented Dr. Mark LeChevallier, director of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship for American Water.

“Disposable plastic bottles are burdening our landfills and increasing fuel consumption through their production and delivery.” More than 1.5 million gallons of oil are used each year to produce the disposable plastic water bottles consumed in the U.S., and significant amounts of fuel are required to transport the bottles, as well.

“Additionally, consumers can realize significant savings by relying less on disposable water bottles and more on tap water in refillable bottles. Tap water is typically available from the faucet for less than a penny a gallon as a national average. Depending on the brand, bottled water costs 250 to 10,000 times more than tap water. Consumers drinking their recommended eight glasses of water a day from the tap, may spend approximately $3.65 (based on a glass of water being 8 ounces) a year. Purchasing the same amount in bottled water can add up to $1,400 annually. Ounce-for-ounce, bottled water can cost more than gasoline or even milk.” 

The Occasional’s Comment: Assuming even a five to one usage ratio, home-produced reverse osmosis water would cost (according to American Water’s figures) about $18 per year vs. $1,400 for bottled water. This puts all the “RO wastes water” concerns in a different perspective. From the environmental point of view, saying “I don’t want to waste water with a home RO unit, so I’ll drink bottled water,” ignores the water and energy used in producing the bottled water and the bottle, plus the large energy expenditure for transporting it to the consumer. Long live tap water, but make it better than bottled water by treating it in your home with a point-of-use drinking water filter or reverse osmosis unit.

Water and Trees


Posted May 7th, 2012

Water and Trees

by Gene Franks

You’ve probably seen the charts that show how much water is contained in the makeup of everything from an orange to the human heart. Massive, solid trees are no different. Their mass is comprised of a significant amount of water. And like people, not all trees are equal in water content.

The Catalpa tree in my back yard, according to a chart supplied by the National Computational Science Leadership Program, is, by weight, 48.25% water. Trees listed range from 7% to 54% water.

These Spruce trees are, by weight, about twenty percent water.

How Much Sodium Does Softening Add to Your Water? Here’s a Simple but Very Complicated Answer.

David M. Bauman, CWS-VI, CI, CCO, is technical editor of Water Technology magazine and a water treatment consultant in Manitowoc, WI. He writes a regular column called “Professor POU/POE,” that appears in each issue of Water Technology–both print and online versions. Water Technology is a leading trade journal read by water treatment professionals. It is online at www.watertechonline.com. The information below is adapted from a previous article.

The “Professor” here addresses a frequently voiced concern about the amount of sodium that water softeners add to drinking water.

First keep in mind that there is already sodium in the untreated water. This cannot be avoided, so potential softener owners will have sodium in their water with or without softening.

Then the question is how much sodium will be added by softening the water. Frequently, the sodium added is much less than that which is in the raw water.

My favorite way to respond to this is to calculate the amount of sodium added by softening then compare it to the existing sodium and/or to the sodium in some common foods or beverages.

Since hardness is exchanged for sodium, start with the amount of hardness, and then convert it to the equivalent amount of sodium:

• GPG (grains per gallon) total hardness as CaCO3 (calcium carbonate … total hardness is always expressed as its calcium carbonate equivalent) is exchanged for an equal value of sodium as CaCO3. So, if the hardness is 20 gpg as CaCO3, the sodium added is 20 gpg as CaCO3.

• Then, multiply gpg Na (sodium) as CaCO3 x .460 (to convert Na as CaCO3 to Na as Na). 20 gpg Na as CaCO33 becomes 20 x 0.460 or 9.2 gpg Na as Na.

• To compare with the common way of expressing sodium, convert Na in gpg to Na in mg/L (milligrams per liter, same as ppm). Multiply 20 gpg Na times 17.1 to determine that there will be 157 mg/L (ppm) Na added during softening.

• To phrase this as a common volume of water multiply 157 x 0.24 to get 38 mg of sodium in 8 oz. of treated water.

• The above steps were given for educational purposes. A short-cut would be to multiply the total hardness of 20 gpg x 1.89 to get the same 38 mg per 8 oz. glass of softened water.

To compare this to common sodium levels in foods and beverages, I refer to the WQA technical paper titled “Sources of sodium in the diet.” This reveals that a slice of white bread contains 161 mg, a tablespoon of ketchup contains 204 mg and a can of Pepsi-Cola contains 38-49 mg of sodium. Given these levels, the amount of sodium added by softening seems quite inconsequential.

Here are a couple of items from Pure Water Gazette numerical wizard B. Bea Sharper to elaborate the relative significance of this added sodium:

Amount of sodium added to an 8 oz. glass of water by a water softener processing 7 grain hard water– 13 mg.

Amount of sodium in an 8 oz. glass of 7 grain hard water after it has been processed through a water softener then an undersink reverse osmosis unit– 0.6 mg.

Amount of sodium in a slice of white bread– 161 mg.

Footnote from the Occasional: I don’t want to muddy the softened waters, but you should note that there is some slight of hand taking place, The 1.89 times grains per gallon of hardness is yielding not mg per liter, the usual measurement of water constituents, but mg per 8 oz., a common water serving size. Therefore, the softener isn’t adding 1.89 mg of sodium for each grain of hardness it removes, but about four times that amount. A better multiplier would be 7.5 mg/L sodium added for each grain of hardness removed.

Here’s a clip from a nutrition website on the same subject:  (START HERE)

For most individuals, the amount of sodium present in softened water is not a health problem. If however, you are trying to maintain a low sodium diet, this can add to your difficulties.

The amount of sodium in softened water can vary. According to a paper by Yarows et al., (Sodium concentration from water softeners, Arch Intern Med. 1997 Jan 27;157(2):218-22) the sodium concentration of softened well water averaged 278 mg/L but the variation was very large. Levels from 46 to 1219 mg/L were observed. 17% of households had sodium levels above 400 mg/L. The amount of sodium that gets added depends on how hard the water is to start with. If the water is very hard then the sodium level will be higher, as shown in the table below.

Initial Hardness
(Grains CaCO3/gallon)

Na added
mg/liter

10 75
20 150
30 225

 

Actually, the nutrition website’s figures and Professor POU’s are identical. They are just stated differently. Multiply the grains of hardness by 7.5, not 1.89, to get an accurate estimate to the sodium added by softening.

If sodium is a concern, an undersink reverse osmosis unit will remove virtually all of the natural sodium in tap water as well as the sodium added by the softener. Softeners and reverse osmosis units are perfect companions, since the RO unit removes the sodium added by the softener, and the RO unit thrives on the softened water. Sodium (as opposed to the calcium removed by the softener) is very easy on the RO membrane. RO membrane life is greatly extended when it processes either naturally soft or softened water.