The Tide Has Turned.  The Age of Dams Is Over, But Politicians and Bankers Still Love Big Money Projects

Indian Novelist, Political Activist, Essayist, and Film Director Arundhati Roy Is Probably the World’s Most Passionate and Most Famous Opponent of Large Dams. 

 “What have we done to this beautiful desert, to our wild rivers? All that dam building on the Colorado, across the West, was a big mistake. What in the world were we thinking?”–Senator Barry Goldwater, reflecting late in life on his support of the Glen Canyon Dam Project.

Dams are a relic of the Industrial Age, a brute-force solution to water scarcity that sets off a cascade of environmental collapses, from the upstream tip of the reservoir to the river’s mouth and beyond. They’re particularly ill-suited to the era of extremes — heat waves, floods and droughts — that climate change has brought on. High temperatures intensify evaporation from reservoirs. Massive floods threaten dams with overtopping and breaching. Droughts defy the very reason for dams’ existence: They drop reservoir levels, wasting the “capacity” that goes unused, and cause hydroelectric output to dwindle.–Jacques Leslie.

To learn “How Not to Fix California’s Water Problems,” please read Jacques Leslies’s piece in the  LA Times.

Bottled Water Facts

Gazette numerical wizard B. Sharper fills in the blanks that Harper’s misses.

Based on Professor POU/POE’s “Bottled Drinking Water” piece in the July 2015 Water Technology, with some modification and augmentation.

Percentage of US tap water that is used for drinking and cooking– <1%.

US bottled water sales for 2013, in gallons – >10 billion.

US bottled water sales for 2013 in dollars – >$12.3 billion.

Percentage of bottled water consumed in the US that is imported – 10%.

For comparison, the daily drinking water production (tap water) of the city of Chigago – > 1 billion gallons.

US per capita consumption of bottled water in gallons – 32.

Factor by which Mexico’s per capita bottled water consumtion exceeds US consumption—2.

Percentage of US bottled water consumption is for “still” (non-carbonated) water—90%.

The most popular size bottle for home/office water delivery—5 gallon.

Overall per gallon cost of bottled water–$1.23.

Typical cost of tap water in the US per 1,000 gallons – $3 to $4.

Minimum TDS (total dissolved solids) required for bottled water to be classified as “mineral water”–250 ppm.

Total number of recalls of bottled water reported between 1989 and 2011 – 6.

Percentage of plastic water bottles that are recycled — c. 20%.

Current American annual consumption of bottled water, in gallons — 8.6 billion.

Years required for plastic water bottles to decompose — 400 to 1,000.

Factor by which the amount of water needed to produce a plastic water bottle exceeds the water needed to fill it — 3.

Barrels of oil required each year to produce plastic water bottles — 17,000,000.

Man wanted in water hose assault

Editorial Note: It is unfortunate that the event reported below happened at all, but it is doubly unfortunate that it took place on the eve of National Garden Hose Day (coming up Aug. 3).  At a time when water hoses are being viewed with suspicion as contributors to water waste from excessive irrigation or recreation (having too much fun), the use of a water hose as a weapon could in today’s volatile political atmosphere lead to talk of banning or limiting garden hose ownership. Since there is no constitutional amendment whose meaning can be bent to protect garden hoses, efforts to restrict or even ban garden hose sales are not out of the question. And while the incident reported below is only a single event, copycat crimes are common, and an outbreak of several weaponized garden hose events could certainly lead to talk of restricting or requiring registration of garden hose ownership. We must resist such efforts. The Gazette urges restraint. A single bad actor should not be allowed to tarnish the names of the millions of  responsible garden hose owners worldwide who water their lawns, wash their cars, and fill their kiddie pools with their garden hose and never even think of beating someone up with it. — Hardly Waite.

A 64-year-old Maryville man is wanted after reportedly attacking his ex-girlfriend Thursday outside an East Lamar Alexander Parkway business.

Maryville Police officers were dispatched to the business at 5:23 p.m. Thursday after a 52-year-old woman reported being attacked by her ex-boyfriend. The man fled in a vehicle as officers responded to the business, according to the police report.

Undersink Drinking Water Filters: Dollar for dollar, the best value in drinking water treatment products.

Double undersink filter with standard housings.

The double filter shown above comes with its own ledge faucet and inlet adapter. Just push in the faucet and inlet tubes and it’s ready to go.

Multi-cartridge drinking water filters are much under-rated. A good undersink double or triple filter can produce very high quality drinking water for many years with maximum efficiency, minimum maintenance, and at a cost that is only a fraction of that of bottled water. Undersink filters do not consume water (like reverse osmosis) or electricity (like a distiller).  They are economical performers with a basic simplicity that makes them almost maintenance-free.

Undersink water filters come in several formats. For the two most basic styles we have technical terms. We call them the standard and the simple.

Pictured above is a standard undersink filter. It gets its water from the undersink cold water pipe at point A, then sends it via a flexible plastic tube to the water filter (B). It leaves the water filter through a flexible plastic tube (C) and is delivered to the user through the filter’s own special faucet, mounted on top of the sink.

The simple filter style shown above uses the cold water side of the regular sink faucet to dispense water. All of the cold water that goes to the sink is diverted through the filter and comes out as treated water. No separate faucet is needed. The hot water is not filtered.

The simple version without a separate ledge faucet is becoming more popular and more practical with the advent of flexible rather than hard copper undersink piping and harder to drill granite countertops. Flexible delivery pipes make installation of simple undersink units very easy and inexpensive.  Nevertheless, the standard dedicated-faucet style remains the most popular.

The chart below shows the pros and cons of the two models.

Our Black and White Series of Standard Undersink Filters

Pure Water Products’ basic Black and White undersink series includes single, double, triple, and even quadruple undersink filters. All use top quality, heavy-duty parts. All are standard sized to make parts easy to find, and they are so tough that you normally never need parts except filter cartridge replacements. Filter cartridges are the most common size made, the basic “10-inch filter” (9.75″ X 2.5″) sold everywhere.

The basic Black and White undersink units include a choice of our basic Tomlinson Pro-Flo faucet (top picture) or the Tomlinson

“Contemporary Value” faucet (bottom picture). Other styles and finishes are available on our faucet page. Black and White undersink units also come with an inlet valve appropriate for your situation. Fittings are all John Guest or Mur-lok quick connect. Push the tubing into the fitting and forget it. Everything is designed for easy installation and upkeep and long, dependable service. Installation is simply installing the faucet and the inlet valve, then pushing tubes into two quick-connect fittings. Full instructions are included.

All our Black & White single, double, triple and quadruple filters are mounted on brackets and can be either hung on the wall or stood in a secure undersink location.

Filter Cartridges

The great thing about a multi-cartridge filter is that you can get multiple stages of carbon, the essential ingredient in most water treatment strategies, plus the ability to add specialty media to deal with targeted problems. Multi-cartridge design allows the user to customize the treatment unit to suit his water. Thus, a well planned undersink filter can address chemicals of all types–from disinfectants added by municipal water suppliers, the by-products of these disinfectants, and extraneous chemicals that accidentally enter the water supply. With the right cartridges they can also deal with lead and heavy metals, fluoride, cysts, bacteria, and aesthetic issues like taste and odor and low pH.

The main cartridge ingredient of most undersink filters is activated carbon. Carbon is the preferred treatment, and sometimes the only treatment for most chemical contaminants, and it is unequaled at taste/odor improvement. In cartridges carbon can be in granular form or it can be made into high performance carbon blocks. Carbon filter technology is rapidly improving. Some of the high performance carbon units available today were not possible just a few years ago. We have carbon filters made with standard bituminous carbon, coconut shell carbon, and specially enhanced “catalytic” carbon as well as carbon mixed with KDF redox medium for chlorine and heavy metals reduction and with calcite for pH increase.

The MatriKX cartridges, which form the heart of our undersink systems, are tough, effective, top performing carbon blocks. But we have many alternatives, including the exceptional Pentek chloramine-specific filters.

We also supply a good number of specialty cartridges, top quality “media” filters to reduce specific problem contaminants like nitrates, arsenic, and fluoride. (I would stress, however, that the best way to deal with arsenic, nitrates, and fluoride is with an undersink reverse osmosis unit. Reverse osmosis handles these contaminants by its nature and does not need special cartridges.)

Black and White undersinks give customers the opportunity to design their own filtration unit. By choosing a single filter cartridge or combining two, three or four cartridges from the many we offer, a unique treatment system can be created. Here are some of the more popular cartridges. All cartridges are in the standard 9.75″ X 2.5″ size.

I’m listing only ten of the fifty plus cartridges we stock in the size of our Black and White undersink units. Most of the rest are in our “Cartridge Menu.”

When you buy a Black and White undersink unit, you can select from among all the cartridges in the Cartridge Menu. The price of the unit stays the same regardless of the cartridges you choose. Prices vary, of course, when cartridges are replaced.

Start

Above, a Black & White double undersink filter, installed.  Undersink filters are simple , effective, and economical.The standard unit shown above comes standard with two MatriKX carbon block filters, other cartridges may be substituted.

Is Weed the New Almond?

by Anna North

Broccoli, beef, and perhaps most notably almonds have all come under fire in the past year for sucking up too much of California’s scarce water. Now you can add another crop to the tally of alleged water-guzzlers: marijuana.

A raid last week in California’s Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity Counties targeted marijuana growers not for growing the drug per se but for their illegal water use, reports Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones. Mr. Harkinson also writes that marijuana uses about six gallons of water per day per plant, while the notoriously water-intensive cotton uses just ten gallons per plant for the whole season.

Some have put marijuana’s water consumption lower or higher than the six-gallon figure. According to an analysis by Swami Chaitanya, a member of the Mendocino Cannabis Policy Council, which advocates for sustainable cannabis farming, an eighth of an ounce of marijuana takes 1.875 gallons of water to produce. That’s much less than it takes to produce a pound of beef (1500 gallons, according to Mr. Chaitanya), a bit less than it takes to grow a head of broccoli (5 gallons), and a bit more than it takes to grow a single almond (1 gallon).

Whether or not Americans will now give up weed the way some have been boycotting almonds is an open question. Ultimately, though, individual consumption decisions are less important than California’s ability to sustainably regulate its water — which, with respect to weed, it’s trying to do.

The California water board, along with the state’s Department of Fish & Wildlife, is developing a system of permits that would require cannabis growers to properly manage pesticide runoff and construction waste and get authorization to draw and store water. The goal is to mitigate the environmental impact of marijuana cultivation, and to get growers out in the open where their water use can be measured and regulated.

The regional water board for California’s North Coast, which includes Humboldt County, is set to adopt the permits in August, with the Central Valley likely to follow suit later this year.

The state isn’t doing a great job of measurement even when it comes to licit water use, but bringing weed growers into the state’s water system would help.

So would legalizing marijuana. As Samantha Page notes at ThinkProgress, growing weed for medical use is legal under California state law, but growing it for recreational use is “in a gray area of law enforcement.” Illegal growers tend to plant in remote wooded areas in Northern California, where the waterways are habitats for endangered and threatened fish species.

“Cannabis farming doesn’t happen out in the woods in Humboldt County because that’s a good place to grow things,” said Cris Carrigan, the director of the state water board’s office of enforcement. “It happens because you can hide there.”

If growing weed became fully legal in California, growers might shift to places where their crop’s environmental impact was less severe — especially since, absent the threat of raids, growing in the woods isn’t necessarily cost-effective.

Getting a permit system in place now will prepare California for the potential of legalization in the future, said Mr. Carrigan.

And it might make one of California’s most famous crops a little kinder to the state’s drought-stricken environment.

Source:  New York Times.

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Gazette’s Great Water Pictures Series

Annie Edson Taylor and Her Famous Barrel

Annie Edson Taylor (October 24, 1838 – April 29, 1921) was an American adventurer who, on her 63rd birthday, October 24, 1901, became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Annie Edson Taylor’s trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel brought her some attention for a short time but never the fortune she hoped for. Here’s an account of the event from history.com.

After her husband died in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the U. S. before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898. In July 1901, while reading an article about the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the border of upstate New York and Canada. Strapped for cash and seeking fame, Taylor came up with the perfect attention-getting stunt: She would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Taylor was not the first person to attempt the plunge over the famous falls. In October 1829, Sam Patch, known as the Yankee Leaper, survived jumping down the 175-foot Horseshoe Falls of the Niagara River, on the Canadian side of the border. More than 70 years later, Taylor chose to take the ride on her birthday, October 24. (She claimed she was in her 40s, but genealogical records later showed she was 63.) With the help of two assistants, Taylor strapped herself into a leather harness inside an old wooden pickle barrel five feet high and three feet in diameter. With cushions lining the barrel to break her fall, Taylor was towed by a small boat into the middle of the fast-flowing Niagara River and cut loose.

Knocked violently from side to side by the rapids and then propelled over the edge of Horseshoe Falls, Taylor reached the shore alive, if a bit battered, around 20 minutes after her journey began. After a brief flurry of photo-ops and speaking engagements, Taylor’s fame cooled, and she was unable to make the fortune for which she had hoped. She did, however, inspire a number of copy-cat daredevils. Between 1901 and 1995, 15 people went over the falls; 10 of them survived. Among those who died were Jesse Sharp, who took the plunge in a kayak in 1990, and Robert Overcracker, who used a jet ski in 1995. No matter the method, going over Niagara Falls is illegal, and survivors face charges and stiff fines on either side of the border.

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 Gold Standard Fluoride Review Contradicts New Zealand Advice

A new review just released by the Cochrane Collaboration, internationally acknowledged as the gold standard in evidenced based reviews of health science, confirms doubts over the benefits of fluoridating water supplies in modern developed countries like New Zealand.

The Cochrane Review finds the science does not support claims that water fluoridation is of any benefit to adults, nor that it reduces social inequalities, nor that it provides additional benefits over and above topically applied fluoride (such as in toothpaste), nor that tooth decay increases in communities when fluoridation is stopped.

These are all arguments used by our health department in promoting the procedure.

The review is not convinced that studies showing that water fluoridation reduces decay in children are applicable to today’s society either, as nearly all the studies used in calculations (dating back to the 1940’s) were conducted prior to the availability of fluoride toothpaste and other sources of fluoride which we have today, and were at high risk of bias.

These findings are completely at odds with last year’s Royal Society review , which our government refers to as justification for promoting  fluoridation.

The Cochrane Review was not charged with investigating the health risks of water fluoridation, other than the harmful effects on teeth.

Here it found that 40% of children in fluoridated areas have dental fluorosis, developmental damage to the tooth structure caused by fluoride overdose.

Fluoride has been shown to affect brain development and thyroid function in low doses, and was classified as an endocrine disruptor by the landmark review on health effects of fluoride by the top scientific body in the U.S., the National Research Council (published in 2006).

It is of concern that while fluoridation promoters proclaim the science is settled, and base their policies on unreliable studies, the  properly conducted gold standard systematic reviews stress the need  for better research to be done.

The Cochrane Review findings support statements previously made by FIND, an independent dentist group looking at fluoridation in New Zealand, and reinforce their call for a national moratorium on water fluoridation, and an independent investigation into the policy in this country.

“It’s important to consider what the implications could be of a health department allowing such a policy to continue when it is not backed by the weight of scientific evidence” says FIND spokesman, Dr. Stan Litras.

Source: Fluoride Action Network.

One California drought winner? The local car wash.

by Lauren Sommer

Editor’s Note.  How Drought Affects Businesses.  The California drought has had a devastating effect on some businesses.  Pool, contractors,  for example.  Although in the long term, a backyard pool probably usually uses less water than a conventional lawn, in the short term it’s hard to justify filling a large pool that could be better used for drinking and general household purposes. (See “A California drought loser: Pool Contractors.” )  One business that’s done well, however, is the local car wash.–Hardly Waite.

Common Protozoa that Infect Drinking Water and How to Get Rid of Them

by Gazette Technical Wizard Pure Water Annie

The the most common protozoa that affect drinking water quality in the United States are Cryptospridium and Giardia.  Both are intestinal parasites of warm-blooded animals.  There are several species of each, and some can infect humans.  Infection can come from recreational waters, drinking water, or food.

According to one authority, “Infection requires ingestion of about one to 10 organisms. Some infections are asymptomatic, so some people are not aware they are infected. Symptoms can include diarrhea and sometimes nausea, vomiting and fever. The infections are usually self-limiting, lasting several days for healthy people, but they can be chronic or fatal for less healthy or immunocompromised people.”

Both Cryptosporidium and Giardia thrive in cold water, but Crypto cysts are sensitive to higher water temperature and can survive only about a week in 85 degree F. water.  Both cysts are much more resistant to the usual water disinfectants than bacteria, and Cryptosporidium is virtually unaffected by regular municipal chlorination.  Ozone and ultraviolet treatment are very effective for both, and because both cysts are relatively large, tight filtration devices like ultrafiltration,  microfiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis easily remove them.  In fact, a common treatment for both is conventional filtration in the two-micron range and tighter.

In a word, both cysts are fairly easily eliminated by point of use treatment like tight undersink filters and reverse osmosis and point of entry treatment by ultraviolet, but regular city water disinfection with chlorine and chloramine cannot be relied upon.

 The size of the Giardia pictured above shows that the cysts are easily controlled by tight filtration devices like reverse osmosis and even conventional 1-micron filters.

More about Giardia.

More about Cryptosporidium.

Rivers, lakes loaded with artificial sweeteners

It may be lurking in your diet soda, your chewing gum and even in your favourite yogurt. Now scientists have found artificial sweeteners are also coming out of your faucet. Sweeteners are used in thousands of food and beverages sold around the world, according to The Sugar Association. And on World Oceans Day, marked every June 8, scientists are asking us to consider where sweeteners end up after they’re ingested. According to recent research, scientists have found artificial sweeteners in bodies of water around the world, including Canada.

Sugar substitutes — such as Splenda and Sweet’N Low — are designed to be eaten, but not absorbed by the body. Because our bodies cannot break them down, sweeteners go straight through humans.

That’s how consumers get the sweet taste without the weight gain often associated with sugar-laden foods.

Once the sweetener leaves the body, wastewater treatment plants face the same dilemma: studies have found they can’t break down the complex chemical. Most sweeteners, then, flow into oceans, lakes and rivers in practically the same form in which they were consumed.

It’s a situation playing out in the water flowing through southwestern Ontario’s Grand River, which empties into Lake Erie. Researchers from the University of Waterloo and Environment Canada found the amount of sugar substitute in the water is equivalent to about 81,000 to 190,000 cans of artificially sweetened soda flowing through the 300-kilometre river each day.

The study tested for sucralose, cyclamate, saccharin and acesulfame. It also found three types of sweetener coming out of the faucets in Brantford.

Sweeteners could harm aquatic life

According to the Canadian study, the effect of artificial sweeteners in the water is largely unknown. But Amy Parente, an assistant professor of biochemistry at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Penn., says scientists should be on alert.

Parente did her own study in Lake Erie looking for sucralose, the substitute used by Splenda. Her team also found the sweetener in the water. But while other studies took samples from what came out of wastewater treatment plants, Parente tested water found at the lake’s beaches, where the sweeteners had a chance to dilute.

She and her team found 0.15 micrograms of the sweetener for every litre of water, which meant there could be up to 72 metric tons of sweetener floating in the waters of Lake Erie.

Since Parente’s study came out in 2012, Parente and her students have been looking at how sweetener affects a snail living in Lake Erie that forages for food. As part of that work, one student found the presence of sweetener made the animals believe there was nutrition in the water.

The team believes the sweetener affected their foraging abilities, leaving them with fewer calories to be healthy and reproduce. And Parente thinks this could be true for other foraging animals.

“When people think about small animals and small organisms, they tend not to be concerned,” Parente said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca. But she added the impact has the potential for a domino effect.

Another study published by Environmental Science and Technology also found large amounts of sucralose, saccharin, aspartame and acesulfame near wastewater treatment plants in New York State. The study suggested sweetener can harm a plant’s ability to perform photosynthesis.

This could create less food for animals that depend on the plants, creating a ripple effect that could make its way back to humans.

The taste is not in the tap

For now, more research is needed before drawing any conclusions about sweeteners’ impact on all aquatic life, said Environment Canada research scientist, John Spoelstra, part of the team that tested the Grand River.

And while research shows a large amount of sugar substitutes in our bodies of water, Spoelstra said consumers shouldn’t expect their drinking water to taste any sweeter.

“Concentrations in the river are very small,” Spoelstra told CTVNews.ca. “They’re in the tens to hundreds of thousands of times lower than the concentration that would be in a can of soda.”

As for aquatic life, scientists have had less than a decade to study the effect of the sweeteners, since research showing its concentration only came out a few years ago, Spoelstra said. But work is underway by scientists around the world.

The few studies that have come out shouldn’t be ignored, Parente said, likening them to the canary in the coal mine.

“I feel that out of these small organisms are early warnings,” she said. “We need to heed those warnings.”

Source:  CTV News.

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