Gazette Famous Water Pictures: Smithson’s Spiral Jetty

Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” land art sculpture in Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

The most famous work of American art that almost nobody has ever seen in the flesh is Robert Smithson’s ”Spiral Jetty”: 6,650 tons of black basalt and earth in the shape of a gigantic coil, 1,500 feet long, projecting into the remote shallows of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where the water is rose red from algae.–NY Times.

In 1970, when artist Robert Smithson executed  his famous “earthwork” that extends into the Great Salt Lake, the lake’s water level was exceptionally low because of a severe drought. The work cannot be seen when the lake’s water is at normal levels.

As New York Times Magazine explains, “Smithson anticipated that the lake would rise and fall, the residue of salt crystals causing the black rocks to glisten white whenever the water level dropped. But he miscalculated. Spiral Jetty was visible for about two years, then became submerged and stayed that way except for a few brief reappearances.”

Because of that minor miscalculation, the only time you can see “Spiral Jetty” peeking above the water is when the levels are below 4,195 feet. This is likely to happen during a drought (like the one that occurred during the initial building of the Jetty), but in recent years, water levels have been dipping below the historic average (4,200 feet) more often than usual, likely as a result of what many scientists speculate are man-made influences.

The Spiral Jetty from the air.

If you are the largest dairy producer in Saudi Arabia and you are running out of water to grow cattle feed, there’s only one thing to do if you want to stay in business: go shopping.

Which is exactly what dairy giant Almarai has done, undertaking a global search for land and water to grow alfalfa to feed its dairy cows. The search brought Almarai to a most surprising place: California, which is suffering its worst drought in recorded history.

Earlier this year, the company announced that it had paid $31.8m for 1,790 acres of land near Blythe, in the southeastern corner of California, for the sole purpose of growing alfalfa. Known as lucerne in some parts of the world, alfalfa is a member of the pea family, growing up to 1 meter high with small purple flowers and leaves that resemble clover. Almarai will grow the crop using water diverted from the Colorado River, then ship it back to Saudi Arabia to feed Almarai’s estimated 1m dairy cows, helping to ensure it remains the number one dairy producer in a nation of 30 million people.

But for Adam Keats, a senior attorney at the advocacy group Center for Food Safety, Almarai’s land purchase highlights everything that’s wrong with globalization. Not only does it result in exporting California water in the form of alfalfa, he said, but it also creates enormous carbon emissions to transport heavy, bulky animal feed to the other side of the world.

“Water is an essential and core common good,” Keatsa said. “But they have figured out this proxy method of owning our shared water resources. It’s a fiction to believe that globalization is this unqualified good thing for the world.”

Almarai’s methods have also prompted concerns in the Blythe area, but for different reasons. Farmers there don’t particularly care who owns the land or where the alfalfa gets consumed. They merely want the water to remain devoted to farming, where it can support the local economy, and not sold off to Los Angeles to ease urban water shortages.

“They’re not doing anything else but farming at this point. But I still watch,” says Ned Hyduke, general manager of the Palo Verde Irrigation District, which delivers water to farms in the region. “They are our customers and we’re going to take care of them, but we want to make sure they follow the rules.”

For decades, an agricultural boom in Saudi Arabia relied entirely on groundwater. But rapid growth depleted those aquifers, causing many farms to collapse and forcing the nation to whiplash from being a net exporter of many commodities to a net importer. Alfalfa, a thirsty crop that is among the most nutritious livestock feeds, is just one case in point.

Almarai is the largest player in the Saudi Arabian dairy business. Its founder and largest shareholder is Saudi Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer. The company holds the top position in sales of cheese, milk and yogurt, notching record profits of $1.4bn in 2015, up 15% from the prior year. It has held that position, despite water shortages, by importing alfalfa and buying farmland in other countries.

With such deep pockets, the company is able to buy farmland anywhere. It made a smart choice in the Blythe area: the desert region has abundant sunshine and ample water rights in the Colorado River, which have remained secure despite California’s four-year drought. This combination is partly why California’s soil can produce more alfalfa per acre than any state except one. Only Arizona gets a higher yield – and Almarai has bought farmland there too.

But its latest purchase in California is simply “insane”, according to Christopher Thornburg, an economics professor at the University of California, Riverside. California officials, he says, have effectively become spectators to a game in which the state’s most precious resource is exported across the globe in the form of alfalfa.

“We are exporting water in the middle of the drought at shockingly low prices,” Thornburg said. “This is a travesty. There’s no other word for it. This is a complete and utter travesty.”

Almarai officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Thornburg is not necessarily upset that California is exporting alfalfa. That’s been going on for a long time, and Saudi Arabia is a small player. California exported one-fourth of its total alfalfa production of roughly 2m tons in 2015. China took about one-third of that, or around 700,000 tons, and Japan was a close second. Saudi Arabia bought only 5,000 tons.

What irritates Thornburg is that the state’s most abundant water supply is being used to grow a thirsty and low-value crop like alfalfa. What California needs, he said, is a real water market that would direct the resource to its highest and best use, whether that’s a more valuable crop, like protein-rich almonds, or to meet the urban needs of homes and businesses.

All of the state’s water is considered a public resource, but it is controlled under an outmoded system known as “first in time, first in right”, which took hold when the state was settled starting in the late 1850s. Although the water is owned by all Californians as a public resource, whoever claimed that water first has top priority to use it, and there are virtually no limits on how they use it. Water claims often come with the land, so water rights are typically attached to property sales. Rights holders may sell their water, usually in the form of temporary transfers, although there is no permanent market in place to simplify the process.
How one man plans to make billions selling Mojave desert water

Water to grow alfalfa in the Blythe area costs farmers about $70 an acre-foot, Thornburg said. But that same water could fetch $1,000 per acre-foot if piped to homes in Los Angeles, 200 miles away, where water shortages caused by the drought have prompted rationing.

“You’ve got to assign a price to water,” he said. “You can’t just give it someone and tell them to do whatever they want with it. You’ve got to allocate water to its best use.”

Because that water isn’t freely available on an open market, agencies like the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California are forced to do what Almarai has done: buy land with good water rights. The district is the largest urban water provider in the US, serving the vast population stretching from Los Angeles to San Diego. And in July, Metropolitan became the largest property owner in the Palo Verde Irrigation District when it bought 12,000 acres of farmland near Blythe for $256m.

This rattled farmers in the area even more than Almarai’s purchase. They expect Metropolitan merely wants to fallow the land and export its Colorado River water via pipeline to serve urban homes and businesses. Almarai’s land purchase, conversely, could lock up some Colorado River water in alfalfa production. This would prevent it from being available for some other purpose to help California manage its present and future water shortages.

“It’s a huge problem,” Keats said. “We need to be taking a more proactive stance on how we want anybody to be using our shared resources. Those uses have to be subservient to the public good.”

Source: The Guardian.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Waterborne diseases like infectious hepatitis,  bacterial dysentery, cholera, and giardiasis were common until fairly recently.  Throughout the world, health impacts were staggering. Entire villages in Europe were wiped out by plagues in the 11th and 12th centuries.   In 1848 and 1849 in a single cholera epidemic alone, 53,000 people died in London.

In 1854 Dr. John Snow, a London obstetrician, carefully plotted the locations of the illness and compared his findings to the subscriber lists of two private companies that provided water for London. His research showed that cholera occurred with greater frequency among the customers of one of the companies–the one that drew its water from the lower Thames river which was contaminated by London sewage. The other company used upper Thames water, which was less polluted.

Dr. Snow’s maps indicated a strong correlation between cholera cases and the proximity to the intersection of Cambridge and Broad Streets. The obvious conclusion was that the main cause of the cholera epidemic was the water drawn from a community pump on Broad Street.

The picture above depicts Dr. Snow removing the handle from the Broad St. pump. Below, an artist’s rendition of the deadly pump before Dr. Snow’s discovery.   For more details. 

Larvicide Manufactured By Monsanto Partner, Not Zika Virus, True Cause Of Brazil’s Microcephaly Outbreak: Doctors

By Alyssa Navarro, Tech Times

 

  A group of Argentine physicians claim that the sudden microcephaly outbreak in Brazil was not caused by the Zika virus, but by a larvicide injected into the country’s water supplies.

The microcephaly outbreak in Brazil, which coincided with the spread of the Zika virus, continues to stun the world, even months after the incident was first reported.

Pregnant women all over the world have been advised to take caution. The Zika virus infection has been linked to newborn babies with the birth defect microcephaly. This is a congenital condition in which babies are born with unusually tiny heads.

The notion, however, has recently been challenged by a group of Argentine physicians. The group suspects that the Zika virus is not to blame for the rise in microcephaly cases, but that a toxic larvicide introduced into Brazil’s water supplies may be the real culprit.

Not A Coincidence?

According to the Physicians in Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was injected into Brazil’s water supplies in 2014 in order to stop the development of mosquito larvae in drinking water tanks.

The chemical, which is known as Pyriproxyfen, was used in a massive government-run program tasked to control the mosquito population in the country. Pyriproxyfen is a larvicide manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a company associated with Monsanto.

“Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added pyriproxyfen to drinking water is not a coincidence,” the PCST wrote in the report.

For instance, the Brazilian Health Ministry had injected pyriproxyfen to reservoirs in the state of Pernambuco. In the area, the proliferation of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the Zika virus, is very high, the PCST said.

 

Pernambuco is also the first state in Brazil to notice the problem. The state contains 35 percent of the total microcephaly cases in the country.

The group of Argentine doctors points out that during past Zika epidemics, there have not been any cases of microcephaly linked with the virus. In fact, about 75 percent of the population in countries where Zika broke out had been infected by the mosquito-borne virus.

In countries such as Colombia where there are plenty of Zika cases, there are no records of microcephaly linked to Zika, the group said.

When the Colombian president announced that many of the country’s citizens were infected with Zika but that there was not a single case of microcephaly, the allegations soon emerged. Some 3,177 pregnant women in the country were infected with Zika, but the PCST report said these women are carrying healthy fetuses or had given birth to healthy babies.

Remain Skeptical

On its website, Sumitomo Chemical says pyriproxyfen poses minimal risk to birds, fish and mammals.

However, the evidence is overwhelming. The Washington Post reported in January that after experts examined 732 cases out of 4,180 Zika-related microcephaly, more than half were not related to Zika at all. Only 270 cases were confirmed as Zika-linked microcephaly.

On top of all the suspicions, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been careful not to explicitly link Zika to microcephaly.

“Although a causal link between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly — and I must emphasize — has not been established, the circumstantial evidence is suggestive and extremely worrisome,” said WHO General Director Margaret Chan.

In the meantime, scientists are currently racing toward developing a vaccine for the mosquito-borne infection.

While there is no solid proof yet that the larvicide causes microcephaly, the local government of Grande do Sul in the southern portion of Brazil suspended the use of the chemical larvicide pyriproxyfen.

 Source: Tech Times.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Parts per Million, Parts per Billion

Gazette Technical Wizard Pure Water Annie Answers Another of Life’s Perplexing Water Treatment Questions

The constituents that are dissolved or suspended in water, whether they are natural minerals or serious chemical contaminants, are usually measured in either “parts per million” or “parts per billion.” Another way of expressing the same values is “milligrams per liter” or “micrograms per liter.”

There are a variety of ways to express these same values.

mg/L or ug/L

ppm or ppb

are the same.

The u is sometimes written as the Greek letter µ, but the meaning is the same.

When you read a water test, the first thing you need to notice is what the unit of measurement is.  Is the contaminant being reported as parts per million or parts per billion?  To say the least, this is important, because one part per million represents a quantity one thousand times greater than one part per billion.  I won’t bother with the old “if you cut a pie into a million pieces” explanation.

To convert parts per billion to parts per million, divide by 1,000.  If the EPA’s maximum allowable (MCL) for an industrial chemical is 2 ppb, dividing 2 by 1,000 gives you the allowable in ppm: 0.002.

If a water test reports in mg/L, you get the ug/L by multiplying by 1,000.  If a test finds 0.015 parts per million of a substance, it’s the equivalent of 15 parts per billion.

Parts per trillion, by the way, is usually expressed as ng/L (nanograms per liter) and 1 ug/L = 1000 ng/L.

It is hard to think through the relationships between water contaminants because they vary so greatly and are seldom expressed in the same denomination.  For example:

The current “allowable” (MCL) for nitrates (which many cities in Iowa are finding  hard to meet) is 10 parts per million.  That’s 10,000 parts per billion, or 10,000,000 parts per trillion.

The current allowable for arsenic is 0.010 parts per million.  That’s 10 parts per billion or 10,000 parts per trillion.

The current allowable for lead is 0.015 parts per million. That’s 15 parts per billion or 15,000 parts per trillion.

There is no national allowable for the likely carcinogen 1,2,3 -Triclopropane (TCP), but California’s proposed limit is 5 parts per trillion.  That’s 0.005 parts per billion or 0.000005 parts per million.

Softening Water with Potassium Chloride (KCl)

Postassium chloride (KCl) can be used as a substitute for traditional water softener salt to regenerate residential water softeners.  It is a popular alternative because of both  health
and environmental concerns associated with regular softener salt. Although KCl costs more than conventional softener salt–a lot more in some areas–use of potassium is increasing. A number of questions arise when softener users considered switching to potassium.  The informal FAQ below, based on information from William Wist et al., Water Softening with Potassium Chloride, answers most of these.

Do you need a special water softener if you plan to use potassium chloride?

No, any standard water softener will run on either salt or potassium.

Are changes in equipment needed if you switch from NaCl to KCl?

For normal salt settings, no change is needed. For extremely low salt doses (e. g.,  4 lbs. of salt per cubic foot of resin), however, a slight increase might be needed.  Four lbs. to 4.5 lbs., for example.

Can potassium chloride be added to a tank that already has salt in it?

Yes, there’s no incompatibility  issue if you mix the two.

Can a softener running on KCl be used to remove iron and manganese from well water?

Yes, in reasonable amounts, just like salt.

Does KCl soften water as effectively as NaCl?

Yes.

Are there any negative health issues associated with drinking water that has been softened with potassium chloride?

No, except for with a small number of people who are at risk of potassium overload.

Can KCl be used to water house plants?

Yes. Keep in mind that, as with any water, excess water should be allowed to drain from the bottom of the pot.
Can you put KCl-softened water in a fish tank?

Not a good idea. No softened water is recommended for use with fish.

How about dogs and cats?

Yes, its good for them.

How about lawn and garden?

No problem. In fact, potassium is a plant nutrient. However, avoid giving your plants too much of a good thing. It’s best to alternate between watering with hard and softened water to provide a balance of nutrients.

The Water Quality Association Addresses Frequently Asked Questions about Lead in Water

 Because of the ongoing problem of lead in the water of Flint, Michigan, the Water Quality Association of America (WQA), a not-for-profit organization of water treatment dealers, prepared a concise FAQ to help answer the many questions about lead. Below, we’ve excerpted the highlights.

What are potential health effects from lead?

Lead poisoning often displays no outward symptoms; however, irritability, weight loss, vomiting, constipation, and stomach pain are possible signs to look for. Young children and pregnant women are at the greatest risk, even from short-term exposure. Reduced cognitive development and neurobehavioral deficits are associated with blood levels less than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood in children. Therefore, there is no safe level for lead to be present in the blood of children. Individuals will adsorb more lead if they have poor nutrition than those with better diets.

Can a Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) meter be used to detect lead in drinking water?

No. There have been some misconceptions around TDS Meters. These meters cannot measure lead specifically; they detect the conductivity directly related to the concentration of combined total dissolved solids such as minerals, salts and metals. The typical sample of tap water in the U.S. contains approximately 350 parts per million (ppm) of TDS, which, as a whole does not on its own indicate a health concern and in many cases is used as a means to enhance taste of water.  Lead concentration is found 1000 times lower at the parts per billion (ppb) level, and is too small to be detected without sophisticated instrumentation. Moreover, because TDS meters don’t measure individual ions, lead cannot be detected on its own.

Where can I go to get my water tested?

Water testing should be done be a certified testing laboratory.[4] WQA strongly recommends water testing be conducted at each point of use in accordance with appropriate sampling procedures. The water should be checked after a period of disuse before a specific water treatment product is selected. Water conditions can change, so the water should be tested both before a treatment product has been installed and at regular intervals following installation. Studies have shown the reported levels of lead found in some Flint, MI water results are higher than conditions under which the manufacturer set the replacement recommendations for filters in published manuals. A list of certified labs in Michigan can be found here.

How do I maintain a filter once it is installed?

Always follow the manufacturer’s installation instructions and contact the manufacturer to confirm usage and capacity. To ensure the manufacturer can provide the most accurate recommendations, have test results for lead and iron on hand for review.

Where do I find a product certified for lead reduction?

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited entities offering product certification include: WQA’s Product Certification Program, NSF International, International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials, and Underwriters Laboratory. All of these certifiers have product listings. To find products certified by WQA for lead reduction, click here. Contact information for local professionals and manufacturers of certified products can also be found wqa.org.

More about lead from the Pure Water Products website.

Pure Water Products Urges Safe Shopping Practices at Groundhog Day Sale

In spite of signs throughout the stores urging observance of the store’s “Safe Shopping” policies, the big Pure Water Products Groundhog Day sale at its Denton, TX store can be dangerous.  At last year’s event, the shopper  pictured above in the foreground slipped in the Reverse Osmosis Parts aisle and skidded, getting a nasty bruise on her hip and breaking the index finger on her left hand.

PWP’s  Groundhog Day Sale has been a big event in North Texas for a number of years, pulling shoppers from the the Dallas/Ft.Worth area into the company’s Denton location in record numbers. Its popularity is attributed to not only to low prices but to the fact that Groundhog Day is the first big shopping event of the year.

Store manager Katey Shannon says, “People have recovered from Christmas and ready to get going again. When we open the doors at 2:00 AM on Groundhog morning, they’re lined up and ready.”

Shannon says that low prices are the key. “Our everyday prices are so low that when we apply the 15% store-wide Groundhog markdown, some products actually come out below zero. With quick-connect fittings, for example, we actually pay people to take them. John Guest reducing tube tees this year are going for -$o.21–that’s a negative 21 cents each. No wonder people are lining up.” Shannon added that shoppers with a practical turn of mind take advantage of the sale to stock up on items they may need down the road, like dry pellet chlorinators, seal and spacer kits for iron filters,  and vacuum breakers for retention tanks.

“So please,” says Shannon, “come early and stay late, but most of all observe the rules given on the Safe Shopping signs displayed throughout the store. Most shopping injuries can be avoided by common sense.”

An Easy Do-it-yourself Bypass for Water Filters

The compact whole house filter pictured above is a decade and a half old.  While age may have taken its toll on its appearance, the unit has functioned flawlessly over the years with no more care than an annual cartridge replacement.  The filter is protected from freezing in winter by a removable cover.

A bypass valve is a handy addition to a filter. It allows sending water to the home even if the filter has to be taken out of service for repair or replacement. In this installer-built bypass system,  water enters from the right. The filter is shown in service position. The top valve is closed and the two lower valves are open. To bypass the filter, close the lower right valve and open the top valve. With both lower valves closed, water (unfiltered) can be sent to the home even if the filter is disabled or removed.

Getting the Lead Out

by Pure Water Annie

Pure Water Gazette tech wizard Pure Water Annie tells you how to protect your drinking water from lead.

The most common advice for removing lead from drinking water tells you to remove the source of lead. This is excellent advice, but unfortunately home owners have no control over lead entering the home from external sources.

Lead most often comes from piping. If the water supplier still has lead pipes in service, or if your home has old copper pipes with lead solder joints, that is probably your source of lead.  If you can’t remove the source, then “removing” the lead usually involves corrosion control through pH and alkalinity adjustment, adding calcium (e. g. with a calcite filter) to the water line, or using a phosphate-based corrosion inhibitor.

This sounds complicated, and it is. Most of these strategies must be done by the supplier and are outside the control of the individual home owner.

A common whole house strategy for lead removal that is sometimes recommended to home owners is using a standard ion exchange water softener. This, too, can be tricky, because flow rates have to be kept low, and often the source of lead can be in the home plumbing itself. If so, a softener, by removing the calcium from the water, can actually promote corrosion and leaching of lead and make the problem worse.

For homeowners treating lead, the best strategy is to treat only the drinking water.  Lead is an ingestion issue. It is not taken in through the skin during bathing, so if you can break your habit of drinking water from the bathtub, whole house treatment really isn’t needed.

Here you have several good options for drinking water.

Point of Use Treatment

There are carbon cartridges with excellent lead removal properties from reputable makers that can be used in countertop and undersink filters. These usually consist of a an ion exchange medium that is molded into the carbon. Such filters can be inexpensive and very effective.

Activated alumina, most often used for fluoride reduction, can be used as well for lead removal, but since its effectiveness is pH-dependent, be sure you know what you’re doing.  KDF combined with carbon has also been shown to be very effective at removing lead, but results should be verified if you’re going to trust your life to it.

Another very effective way to remove lead from drinking water is with a steam distiller.  Distillers work well, but they can be inconvenient, expensive to operate,  and  they often require lots of attention.

Without doubt, the best home treatment to assure lead-free drinking water is a reverse osmosis unit.  RO serves as an excellent lead barrier and removes 95% or so of soluble lead. RO units are relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain.

Reverse osmosis by its nature removes 95% of lead from incoming water.  RO is the most effective drinking water protection for the home.

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