Cleaning Up After California’s Pot Farmers

An L.A. Times Editorial

Marijuana Farm in Northern California

Long known as the nation’s “salad bowl,” California has also become its marijuana bowl. The state produces as much as 70% of the cannabis sold in the United States, and its landscape bears the scars of both legal and illegal cultivation. Pristine habitat has been clear-cut to make way for pot farms, roads have been carved into hillsides, creeks have been pumped dry for irrigation and wildlife has been poisoned by pesticides and rodenticides. The effects of irresponsible cultivation, coupled with the drought, could doom the survival of some salmon species in Northern California.

Environmentalists now worry that damage to the state’s flora and fauna from marijuana growing will only increase as more states vote to legalize the recreational use of the drug. It’s essential that the various ballot measures being floated for California’s November 2016 election include not only rules for regulating marijuana farms but enough funding to enforce them and to mitigate the damage that’s already occurred.

Too often, however, the environmental impacts of cultivation are an afterthought. California legalized medical marijuana nearly 20 years ago, but state lawmakers largely ignored the exponential increase in cannabis cultivation. Now, officials estimate there are 50,000 marijuana plantations across the state. Yet the California Department of Fish and Game has 16 people to police pot farms and has been able to inspect fewer than 1% of the sites. Gov. Jerry Brown budgeted $3.3 million in 2014 to boost enforcement, but experts estimate that the state needs $25 million a year to regulate these plantations and enforce environmental laws.

Recent legislation around the country hasn’t made environmental protection a priority either. Neither Washington nor Colorado earmark tax revenue from the sale of recreational marijuana to help enforce rules on growers. (To be fair, those states have more indoor growing and haven’t experienced damage on the scale of California.) The California Legislature recently passed bills that regulate medical cannabis, but lawmakers removed a proposed excise tax that would have generated $60 million for environmental cleanup and enforcement. Instead, the bills would let state agencies raise fees on licenses to cover enforcement. The high cost of licenses, however, could prompt some growers to remain in the black market rather than come into compliance.

Until recently, there has been little opportunity and no incentive for growers to act responsibly. Any effort to legalize marijuana must ensure that this billion-dollar industry repairs the legacy of damage and becomes a responsible steward of the land.

Source: LA Times.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

 Eight-trillion Microbeads pollute water daily

by Jareen Imam

Eight-trillion of these, enough to cover 300 tennis courts, go into our water supplies every day.

Not to alarm you, but your daily morning regimen might be harming the planet’s oceans.

What’s the culprit? Microbeads. They are tiny, plastic beads that many companies have added to body scrubs, cosmetics, soaps — essentially hundreds of products, to create an exfoliating sensation for users.

There’s more than eight trillion microbeads entering aquatic habitats every day in the United States alone, according to a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology. It’s enough microbeads to cover 300 tennis courts daily.

A microbead is any plastic that is smaller than 5 mm, about three times the size of a pinhead. They are designed to wash down drains, but have added to the increased microplastic debris littering the Earth’s oceans and many freshwater lakes, the study states. Due to their size, plastic microbeads are difficult to clean up on a large scale.

Microbeads have even been subtly added to products like toothpaste. Despite their tiny size, they still pose a threat, according to Stephanie Green of Oregon State University and co-author of the study.

“Part of this problem can now start with brushing your teeth in the morning,” she said. “Contaminants like these microbeads are not something our waste-water treatment plants were built to handle, and the overall amount of contamination is huge,” she said.

Unlike Sprite shower filters, microbeads do not improve your singing.

The eight trillion microbeads entering the United States’ aquatic habitats on a daily basis is only a fraction of what is being dumped in waste-water treatment facilities. Eight hundred trillion of these plastic beads settle into a sludge and transform into a runoff from sewage plants and go on to pollute the waterways.

“We’re facing a plastic crisis and don’t even know it,” Green explained.

Some species of marine life mistake the small plastic particles for food, and scientists are currently examining how microplastics are affecting marine life once ingested and whether those chemicals can be transferred to humans if people consume these marine species later on, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Chelsea Rochman of the University of California, Davis and lead author of the study, said microbeads were one of many types of microplastics to be found in the gut content of the marine wildfire that they examined.

“We’ve demonstrated in previous studies that microplastic of the same type, size and shape as many microbeads can transfer contaminants to animals and cause toxic effects,” Rochman said. “We argue that the scientific evidence regarding microplastic supports legislation calling for a removal of plastic microbeads from personal care products.”

Scientists from the study are calling for a complete ban on microbeads. They say that public support for the effort is also growing. Companies such as Unilever and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to phase out the use of microbeads in their personal care products.

In June 2014, the state of Illinois became the first state to ban the production, manufacture and sale of products that contain plastic microbeads, according to NOAA. Although the study argues that the legislation does not go far enough to eliminate microbeads that claim to be “biodegradable” but are not. Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado have implemented regulations or bans on the plastic products as well.

Authors of the study are calling for new wording in microbead legislation that will ensure a total ban on materials that are “persistent, bioaccumulative, or toxic” to be added to products that are meant to be wash down the drain.

Source: CBS4Indy.com  (we added some images).

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Iron Bacteria in Well Water

Well Management Program

Editor’s Note: This excellent description of the common well water problem known as iron bacteria is reprinted here from the website of the Minnesota Department of Health.  I’ve added a couple of pictures. –Hardly Waite.

Does this describe your water……red stains in the sinks?….swampy, oily, or other unpleasant tastes or smells?….red, slimy growths in the toilet tank? If so, your well or water system may have iron bacteria. Iron bacteria are small living organisms which naturally occur in soil, shallow groundwater, and surface waters. These nuisance bacteria combine iron (or manganese) and oxygen to form deposits of “rust,” bacterial cells, and a slimy material that sticks the bacteria to well pipes, pumps, and plumbing fixtures. The bacteria are not known to cause disease, but can cause undesirable stains, tastes and odors; affect the amount of water the well will produce; and create conditions where other undesirable organisms may grow.

Detecting Iron Bacteria

Clues which indicate that iron bacteria may be present in well water are:

TASTES AND ODORS – Iron bacteria often produce unpleasant tastes and odors commonly reported as: “swampy,” “oily or petroleum,” “cucumber,” “sewage,” “rotten vegetation,” or “musty.” The taste or odor may be more noticeable after the water has not been used for some time. Iron bacteria do not produce hydrogen sulfide, the “rotten egg” smell, but do create an environment where sulfur bacteria can grow and produce hydrogen sulfide.

COLOR – Iron bacteria will usually cause yellow, orange, red, or brown stains and colored water. It is also sometimes possible to see a rainbow colored, oil-like sheen on the water.

RED SLIMY DEPOSITS – Iron bacteria produce a sticky slime which is typically rusty in color, but may be yellow, brown, or grey. A “feathery,” or filamentous growth may also be seen, particularly in standing water such as a toilet tank.

The characteristics listed above are typical of iron bacteria. However, objectionable stains, tastes, or odors may be due to other causes including iron, sulfate, hydrogen sulfide, manganese, or other nuisance organisms such as sulfur bacteria. Identification of substances in water is best done by having a laboratory test a water sample. Many laboratories provide iron bacteria tests for costs under $35. It is also a good idea to evaluate the sanitary quality of the well by doing two things: (1) testing the water for nitrate-nitrogen and coliform bacteria; and (2) assuring that the well is properly constructed, located, and maintained.

Prevention of Iron Bacteria

Iron bacteria are present in most soils in Minnesota. Iron bacteria can be introduced into a well or water system during drilling, repair, or service. Elimination of iron bacteria once a well is heavily infested can be extremely difficult. Normal treatment techniques may be only partly effective.

Good housekeeping practices can prevent iron bacteria from entering a well:

• Water placed in a well for drilling, repair, or priming of pumps should be disinfected, and should never be taken from a lake or pond.
• The well casing should be watertight, properly capped, and extend a foot or more above ground.
• When pumps, well pipes, and well equipment are repaired, they should not be placed on the ground where they could pick up iron bacteria.
• The well, pump, and plumbing should be disinfected when repaired.

Control of Iron Bacteria

Treatment techniques which may be successful in removing or reducing iron bacteria include physical removal, pasteurization, and chemical treatment. Treatment of heavily infected wells may be difficult, expensive, and only partially successful.

Physical removal is typically done as a first step in heavily infected wells. The pumping equipment in the well must be removed and cleaned, which is usually a job for a well contractor or pump installer. The well casing is then scrubbed by use of brushes or other tools. Physical removal is usually followed by chemical treatment.

Pasteurization has been successfully used to control iron bacteria. Pasteurization involves a process of injecting steam or hot water into the well and maintaining a water temperature in the well of 60°C (140 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 minutes. Pasteurization can be effective, however, the process may be expensive.Chemical treatment is the most commonly used iron bacteria treatment technique. The three groups of chemicals typically used include: surfactants; acids (and bases); and disinfectants, biocides, and oxidizing agents.

Surfactants are detergent-like chemicals such as phosphates. Surfactants are generally used in conjunction with other chemical treatment. It is important to use chlorine or another disinfectant if phosphates are used, since bacteria may use phosphates as a food source.

Acids have been used to treat iron bacteria because of their ability to dissolve iron deposits, destroy bacteria, and loosen bacterial slime. Acids are typically part of a series of treatments involving chlorine, and at times, bases. Extreme caution is required to use and properly dispose of these chemicals. Acid and chlorine should never be mixed together. Acid treatment should only be done by trained professionals.

Disinfectants are the most commonly used chemicals for treatment of iron bacteria, and the most common disinfectant is household laundry bleach, which contains chlorine.

Chlorine

Chlorine is relatively inexpensive and easy to use, but may have limited effectiveness and may require repeated treatments. Effective treatment requires sufficient chlorine strength and time in contact with the bacteria, and is often improved with agitation. Continuous
chlorine injection into the well has been used, but is not normally recommended because of concerns that the chlorine will conceal other bacterial contamination and cause corrosion and maintenance problems.

Shock Chlorination

“Shock” chlorination is the process of introducing a strong chlorine solution into the well, usually at a concentration of 1000 parts per million or more. Ideally, the well should be pumped until clear, or physically cleaned before introducing chlorine. A brochure is available which explains how to add chlorine and determine the amount of chlorine to use. Otherwise, approximately 2 gallons of chlorine beach can be mixed with at least
10 gallons of water, and poured into the well. If possible, the chlorinated water should be circulated through the well and household plumbing by running the water back into the well through a clean hose, washing down the sides of the well casing. The chlorinated water should be drawn into the household plumbing and remain overnight, and if possible for 24 hours. Heavy infestations of iron bacteria may require repeated disinfections.Shock chlorination may only control, not eliminate, iron bacteria.

Before attempting to chlorinate, or doing any maintenance on a well, it is important to disconnect the electricity and understand how the well and water system works. It is usually advisable to hire a licensed pump installer or well contractor.

High concentrations of chlorine may affect water conditioning equipment, appliances such as dishwashers, and septic systems. You may want to check with the manufacturer of the appliances before chlorinating. The equipment can be bypassed, however, iron bacteria or other organisms may remain in the units and spread through the water system. It may be possible to disinfect the well with higher chlorine concentrations; and if the water storage and treatment units are not heavily infected, disinfect the treatment unit and piping with lower concentrations circulated through the water system.

After the chlorine has been in the well and plumbing overnight or for 24 hours, the water should be pumped out. If possible, water with high chlorine concentrations should not be disposed of in the septic system. It may be possible to discharge the water to a gravel area, run the water into a tank or barrel until the chlorine dissipates, or contract with a hauler to properly dispose of the water. Water from the well should not be consumed until the chlorine has been removed.

Source: Minnesota Department of Health. 

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

New Product: The Classy Viqua VH420-F20 UV Unit

We now stock the new Viqua 18-gallon-per-minute ultraviolet unit.  It’s an ideally sized UV system for all but the very largest residential users, treating a generous 18 gallons of water per minute for bacteria, cysts, and viruses at a strong 30 mJ/cm2 UV dosage.

The VH420 unit comes with its own 5 micron sediment filter, conveniently mounted on a U-shaped rack that can pointed in either direction to meet the installer’s requirements. It is backed by the many years of experience behind the Sterilight and Trojan brands, now merged under the Viqua name.

The dosage rating for the powerful residential unit is

16mJ/cm2 @ 34 gallons per minute

30mJ/cm2 @ 18 gallons per minute

40mJ/cm2 @ 14 gallons per minute.

The unit’s 5 micron sediment filter is mounted in the superior Viqua easy-service housing (see picture below) that accepts all standard radial flow 4.5″ X 20″ cartridges. See full details on the filter housing here.  The high quality Viqua UV lamp is equally easy to service.  Lamp change can be done without turning off the service water.

Viqua is the manufacturer of both the prestigious Sterilight and Trojan lines of ultraviolet equipment. We are factory-direct Viqua vendors and can supply any Sterilight, Trojan, or Viqua branded items.

Please call for information:  Pure Water Products. 940 382 3814.

War and Water in Syria

Water availability in Syria has been cut in half since the conflict there began nearly four and a half years ago, and millions of people around the country endure “long and sometimes deliberate interruptions to their water supplies,”  according to a United Nations report.

In a report about the scarcity of water in Syria, Unicef said it had recorded 18 deliberate cuts to the public water supply in the northern city of Aleppo this year. “Taps in some communities were left dry for up to 17 days in a row — and for over a month in some areas of the city,” the report asserted, accusing antagonists in the conflict of “using water to achieve military and political gains.”

Unicef estimated that 2.3 million people in Aleppo, 2.5 million in Damascus and 250,000 in the southern city of Dara’a are suffering water shortages. When water has to be brought in, children are often sent by their families to carry water, a practice that has led to the deaths of number children  who have been killed while collecting water.

Further, the group warns, the cuts have forced families in Damascus, Dera’a, Aleppo, and other areas to “have to rely on dirty water from unregulated and unprotected groundwater sources, exposing children in particular to the risk of contracting diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis, and other diseases.”

In addition to the “deliberate” cut offs, fighting has exacerbated the shortages by causing severe damage to pipelines and other water infrastructure where workers are unable to carry out the repairs.

Gazette’s Famous Water Picture Series: The Waterfall at Jajce

Jajce is a city and municipality located in the central part of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the confluence of the rivers Pliva and Vrbas. It was originally built in the 14th century.

Jajce is famous for its beautiful waterfall where the Pliva River meets the river Vrbas. The waterfall was thirty meters high, but during the Bosnian war, the area was flooded and the waterfall is now 20 meters high. The flooding may have been due to an earthquake and/or attacks on the hydroelectric power plant further up the river.

Low water pressure in your home may have an easy solution

If you get your water from a city water system that puts out plenty of water pressure but the pressure in your home isn’t what it should be, here are some possible causes to consider.

Debris and mineral buildup in pipes

 Plain old lawn grass is our nation’s largest irrigated crop

Grist reports that the largest irrigated crop in the United States isn’t corn or soy or marijuana or cotton or even presidential candidates. It’s grass.

It us now estimated that there are more than 63,000 square miles of lawn in the U.S., an area  three times larger than the land occupied by any irrigated crop in the United States. And while grass can act as a carbon sink by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, its positive effects are cancelled out by the amount of water required to keep lawns alive.

One report says that lawn maintenance uses up to 235 gallons of water per person per day  and adds emissions from fertilization and operation of mowing equipment. In most regions, outdoor water use accounts for 50 to 75 percent of total residential water use.

In spite of an increasing national awareness that growing and mowing our largest irrigated crop is a terrible way to go, people are still  getting arrested for not mowing and lawn mower sales are rising smartly.

Reference: Grist.

Going Tankless

by Gene Franks

Since I started using, building, and selling residential reverse osmosis units in the early 1990s, there have been repeated efforts to get rid of the much maligned bladder tank that’s a standard feature.

Small reverse osmosis units need a storage tank because they make water very slowly. Without a tank, a typical undersink RO unit would put out only a small trickle of water when the thirsty user opened the faucet. Most of us aren’t patient enough to wait several minutes to fill a water glass, much less a couple of hours to fill a spaghetti pot. The function of the bladder tank is to collect and store the trickle produced by the RO unit so that when you put your glass under the spigot the pressurized tank can supply enough water to fill your glass quickly. Or even your spaghetti pot.

The standard RO tank has a small air charge that pushes water out of the tank when the countertop spigot is opened. As the tank fills, the pressure in the tank increases and the RO unit has to work harder and harder to pack water into the tank. As the tank fills and pressure increases, the RO unit’s efficiency decreases dramatically. 

Although this standard bladder tank works pretty well at storing and delivering water, it has a flaw. As the tank fills, pressure inside increases, causing the RO unit to have to push against the rising pressure to fill it. When the tank is near full, in fact, the RO unit is really huffing and puffing to push water into the tank and its efficiency is a fraction of what it would be if it were putting water into a pressure-free container. In practical terms this means that a small RO unit whose efficiency is set up to work at 3 or 4 parts to drain to 1 part to storage is actually running 10 or 12 parts to drain to 1 in the storage tank when the tank is almost full and the RO unit is pushing against 40 or so pounds of tank pressure.

Overcoming the Problem of the Conventional Tank

The many attempts to replace the conventional RO tank system fall into three main categories:

The “water on water” tank.  The “water on water” strategy is to push the permeate (the water you’re going to drink) from the tank with tap water rather than air. The permeate is in a bladder inside the tank.  When the spigot is opened, tap water rushes into the tank around the outside of the bladder, squeezes the bladder and pushes the permeate out of the faucet. This is only a semi-solution. Although the RO unit produces water without back pressure in the tank, saving water, water is wasted when it is used to push the permeate out of the faucet. All of the “push” water eventually goes to drain. The worst part is that water on water units seldom work as advertised.  Those that I bought and tested failed to shut off reliably when the permeate tank was full. The most recent incarnation of the this style, a hybrid water on water, the highly promoted Next RO, was recently taken off the market because of repeated performance issues caused by its over-complicated water storage scheme.

The  electric pump tank. With this style, a small unpressurized tank receives the permeate water, allowing the RO unit to produce without back pressure interference.  When the spigot is opened, a small electric pump comes on to push the RO water out of the faucet. This style mimics large “whole house” units, but it’s a case where something that works well full size doesn’t works so well when it’s miniaturized. Most attempts to create the electric pump tank style have fallen victim to complaints of leaks, excessive noise, chattering pumps, high cost,  and failure of high tech components. It just isn’t feasible to make a pump-driven system that fits under the sink and gives the same silent, trouble-free performance  over a period of years as the old-fashioned bladder tank.

The jumbo RO unit.  The most popular attempt to replace the bladder tank in recent times has been to simply make a massively over-sized RO unit–one that’s so big that it produces as much water as you need on demand, in real time, without having to rely on a storage tank. To put this in context, we build a small countertop RO unit that has a 50 gallon per day production. It is a bona fide tankless RO unit. It produces into a no-pressure container. This works well if you catch the water in a bottle for later use. It produces in theory (with RO, theory and reality are seldom the same) about 2 gallons of water per hour and will fill your 5 gallon bottle in 2.5 hours. If you depended on this unit, however, for real time use, you would have to patiently hold your 8-oz. cup under the dispensing tube for almost 4 minutes to fill it. But, if the unit produced 700 gallons per day rather than 50, you could fill your cup on only about 20 seconds.  That’s about half speed compared to old reliable bladder tank performance, but  you could live with it.

The 700 gallon-per-day production was what was promised by the now defunct Merlin wonder unit that came out a few years ago. The Merlin was a multi-million dollar promotion by its originator, General Electric, and later by Pentair, that got stuck with it as the result of a merger. The Merlin was touted as the “most significant advance in home RO technology in 30 years,” but ended being finally pulled off the market in 2010 after years of frustrated customers and failed attempts to fix its many faults. The last heroic effort to save the tank-free Merlin was, you guessed it, the addition of a pressurized storage tank.

To say that the Merlin was a flop is an understatement. What’s strange isn’t that it didn’t work but that that anyone with rudimentary knowledge of RO units thought it would work. I won’t dwell on its many design flaws, but I’ll mention one problem that automatically spells doom for any attempt to make a tankless undersink RO unit by simply making a big producer and sticking it under the sink.

When a reverse osmosis unit comes on and begins to make water, the first water that comes out of it is the worst it will make. On startup, it spits out some pretty awful water. That’s why “whole house” units normally begin with a “flush” cycle that opens the drain and flushes the membrane for one to five minutes before the unit begins collecting water. Obviously, this isn’t practical with an undersink unit. So to use a large “water-saving” tankless unit, the logical thing would be to open the faucet and let it run for a minute or so before filling your glass. Or, to be content with drinking the worst water the unit can make every time you fill your glass.

This tankless RO unit (for which an optional tank is available) advertises production of up to 1,000 gallons per day.

The Best Solution

A web search confirms that there are a couple of new jumbo-style tankless undersink units on the market.  I haven’t looked at them seriously. One has a strange physical resemblance to the ill-fated Merlin. My advice is to never be first on this type product. If they’re still selling it in a couple of years and the reviews are good, then consider buying it.

The best solution to the bladder tank problem at present is the permeate pump. This well established addition to conventional RO units does not get rid of the tank but it eliminates back pressure,  the main problem caused by the tank, by allowing the membrane to produce into a pressure-free chamber. The permeate pump is not perfect, but it definitely saves water.

The future for water saving with small RO units may be found more in improved membranes than getting rid of the bladder tank. A new Pentair membrane (we’re testing it now) is designed to run on a one to one brine to permeate ratio rather than the one to three or four of standard membranes. We’ll see.

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bea Sharper brings you up to date on the current water news in numbers.

 Mid-August, 2015

Percentage of trash found on Australian beaches that is plastic — 75%.

Highest level of microcystin recorded this summer in the Toledo Lake Erie area, in parts per billion – 2.5.

Gallons of contaminant-laden water dumped into the Animas River by the Gold King mine spill– 3,000,000.

Miles of Colorado’s streams that are impaired by mining related impacts – 1645.

Rank of marijuana among the cash crops grown in California – #1.

Percentage of marijuana consumed in the US that is now grown in drought-ridden California—70%.

Estimated value of California’s annual marijuana crop – $11 billion.

Value of California’s second most valuable cash crop, milk and cheese – $6.9 billion.

Approximate number of separate water districts and agencies that regulate California’s use of water—3,000.

Daily per person consumption of water in Sydney, Australia – 83 gallons.

In Irvine, California – 193 gallons.

Rate in inches per month at which land is sinking in the San Joaquin Valley due to overpumping of water wells — 2.

By CDC estimate, the number of people hospitalized each year in the U.S. with Legionnaires’-related ailments — 8,000 to 18,000.

Gallons-per-minute pemitted for shower heads under California’s new Tier 1 regulation – 2.

Years in which Los Angeles and New York City respectively imposed the same 2 gpm limit on shower heads– 2009 and 2010.

Pure Water Gazette’s proposed time limit on songs that can be sung in the shower –2 minutes, 15 seconds.