A Server, A Spy, and a Water Footprint

by Elizabeth Cutright

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell:  Few are aware what a water-intensive business spying is. It takes water, lots of water, to quench the thirst of the big computers that listen to millions of millions of phone calls every day.

Here’s another angle to the NSA citizen-spying story you may have not considered—the amount of resources devoted to this mass surveillance project. In order to keep tabs on all those website visits, e-mails, and Google searches, the NSA needs data centers packed with servers.

Lots and lots of servers…

And while racks and racks of computer processors require a lot of energy, the water-demand component cannot be ignored.

So how much is the NSA’s water footprint? As reported online by the website Geek, the NSA’s latest facility—set to open in September near Bluffdale, UT, “will require as much as 1.7 million gallons of water each day.”

Spying takes lots of water. In this case, 1.7 million gallons per day.

The facility, christened the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center (now that’s a mouthful!), is a “1–1.5 million square foot facility with about 100,000 square feet devoted to data storage.” And while the NSA will only admit that the data being collected is classified, Geek’s Ryan Whitwam believes “the data center will be processing the contents of electronic communications including phone calls, e-mails, and Internet searches.”

“Basically, it probably has something to do with PRISM,” he writes.

Regardless of the motives behind the data center’s information processing capacity, this newest NSA facility has a water footprint that would make most suburban neighborhoods jealous: its millions of gallons in cooling water roughly equivalent to the water usage of several thousand average American households. While up to one third of the data center’s cooling water can be reused for irrigation, the city of Bluffdale anticipates that up to 1% of the region’s water supply will be used by this new data center.

Source: Water Efficiency

Gazette Fair Use Statement

Birth defects linked to bad Valley water

by Mark Grossi

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell: Nitrate contamination of drinking water in middle states like Wisconsin and Iowa has recently received much attention, but now states like California and Texas are reporting significant nitrate contamination as well. 

An extensive new study confirms a long-suspected link between crippling birth defects and the nitrate contamination that threatens drinking water for 250,000 people in the San Joaquin Valley.

The study took place in the Midwest, but its findings hit hard in the Valley, where research last year showed farm-related nitrate pollution is extensive and expanding in the underground water of Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties.

The birth defects involved include spina bifida, cleft palate and missing limbs.

Valley clean-water advocates say the study again raises the profile of safe drinking water as a human right. Bureaucratic and funding delays have slowed fixes for years in many small towns.

“This contamination is so dangerous,” said Maria Herrera of the Visalia-based Community Water Center. “Many towns need help with their drinking water, and we’re still not seeing enough.”

The study from Texas A&M was published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, making the strongest case to date about nitrates and birth defects.

Researchers looked at real-world situations, locating and contacting thousands of mothers using the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Participants’ addresses were matched to drinking-water sources.

“We went beyond other studies to find out how much water pregnant women were drinking at home and at work,” said lead scientist Jean Brender, associate dean for research and a professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center’s School of Rural Public Health.

The study focused on Iowa and Texas where nitrate problems are found in the groundwater. Nitrates can come from farm fertilizers and dairy waste. Other sources include septic systems, sewage treatment and decaying vegetation.

The study says mothers of babies with spina bifida were twice as likely to have consumed 5 milligrams or more of nitrate from their daily drinking water than women whose babies had no major defect.

Spina bifida is among several birth defects that happen during pregnancy as the baby’s brain and spinal cord develop. In some cases, spina bifida can result in bowel or bladder problems — in others, paralysis.

Many people living in rural Valley towns buy bottled water to protect themselves and their children from nitrates, which also can cause a potentially fatal blood disease in infants.

Many are forced to use 10% or more of their farmworker wages to pay for both bottled water and suspect tap water. When they cannot afford the bottled water, they drink from the tap, residents say.

Two years ago, the United Nations came to Seville, a town of 480 in Tulare County, as part of a worldwide tour of communities where drinking water is chronically unsafe. The U.N. investigator’s tour included communities in Costa Rica, Slovenia, Uruguay and Namibia.

The U.N. investigator recommended that California move with more urgency to address the problems, and the state has funded some projects. Money has been granted to study a solution in Seville.

The California Department of Public Health, which doles out money to improve rural water systems, last month announced a plan to push investment of $445 million of unspent federal drinking water funding. The report was ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which this year scolded the state for not spending the money.

Kathleen Billingsley, chief deputy director of policy and programs at the Department of Public Health, said, “The entire administration is committed to addressing the concerns outlined by the U.S. EPA.”

Back in Tulare County, some residents of small towns blame the water for unexplained stomach problems, hair loss and dizziness. Their biggest concerns are for pregnant women and infants.

“When I was taking care of my grandchild, I ran out of (bottled) water for the formula,” said Becky Quintana, a Seville resident. “I had to go buy more. I was not going to use the tap water.”

The nitrates problem is not just in Tulare County. A study released last year by the University of California at Davis showed the problem is widespread throughout Fresno and Kern counties in the Tulare Lake Basin, one of the most intensely farmed regions in the country.

Previous studies have suggested birth defects related to nitrate consumption, but the Texas A&M study went into more depth in looking at Iowa and Texas.

Researchers discovered about 25% of the participants in Iowa only drank bottled water, as did nearly half of them in Texas.

They compared birth defects among mothers who had very low exposures of nitrate from their drinking water to those who took in higher amounts of nitrate from water. Researchers took into account bottled water and tap water that either came from a municipal system or a private well.

The results might not be surprising. Researcher Brender said the women who drank water with low amounts of nitrates — bottled water, which was noted as having the least nitrate — were far less likely to have a child with birth defects.

Brender added that the research does not directly say nitrates cause the birth defects. There may be other chemicals, including pesticides, that have an impact. The researchers only examined nitrates in this study.

But she has advice for pregnant women and anyone else living in a rural area who drink water from a private well: “Get your private well tested, or drink bottled water.”

 

Gazette’s After Note: As compared with “drinking bottled water,” getting an undersink or countertop reverse osmosis unit costs a fraction as much and assures a high level of nitrate reduction. 

Source:  Fresno Bee.

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Corrosion of water pipes has many causes, and not all are well understood. Corrosion causes leaks and also affects the quality of drinking water.

Here are a few of the main reasons why water pipes corrode. Some are simple and easy to remedy; others are complex and hard to diagnose. Often, more than one of the following contributes to the breakdown of pipes.

Galvanic.  Galvanic corrosion is common with metal pipes.  It occurs when pipes made of different metals are joined.  A small electrical current flows from one to the other.  Galvanic corrosion is easily prevented by installing a dielectric union when joining the pipes, but in the effort to save money, dielectric connectors are often left out.

Galvanic Corrosion

Dissolved Gases and Chemicals. High levels of dissolved gases, like oxygen or carbon dioxide, can corrode metals pipes and cause pinhole leaks. High levels of chlorine can be corrosive to pipe, and high levels of fluoride corrodes stainless steel. Chloramine is associated with the leaching of lead from inner pipe surfaces.

Low pH.  Water with low pH attacks copper pipes and causes pinhole leaks. Copper is subject to corrosion when the water is below 7.0 pH. This is usually not a problem with city water, but it can be a significant issue for well owners.

Low alkalinity.  Alkalinity is related to pH, but it isn’t the same. Low alkalinity leaves pipes vulnerable to acids.

Low TDS (Total Dissolved Solids).  Nature hates a vacuum. Water that has a low dissolved mineral content can pull minerals from metal pipes.

Pinhole Leak in Copper Pipe Caused by Corrosion

High Temperature and High Flow Rates.   Hot water is much more corrosive than cold. The faster water flows through a pipe, the more it breaks down the pipe.

Microbiological.  Microbes, if given a food supply and oxygen, can corrode pipes causing interior buildup and subsequent leaks.

Corrosion in a water distribution system can cause health issues as well as damaging water leaks.  When pipes are corroded, some of the metal from the pipe enters the drinking water and is consumed. Pipes and fixtures containing copper, lead, and brass (brass contains lead) can cause a variety of health problems.

While the municipal supplier regulates such contaminants as lead at the water plant, no one is checking the actual amount of lead or copper that comes out of the kitchen tap.

Pipe corrosion is a compelling justification for having a drinking water system under the kitchen sink.  A comprehensive treatment system like reverse osmosis takes care of virtually any  contamination that enters the water on its way from the water plant.

People often purchase a water filter when a plumber shows them the inside of a pipe during a plumbing repair. The pristine water described in the city’s annual water report has to come through miles of dirty pipes before it gets to your drinking glass.

2,810 leakages found in water pipelines last month

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In A Nutshell: This piece from Hindustan Times describes a situation of severe degradation of  the water infrastructure of a city in India. Leaks do more than waste water.  When water pipes are pierced,  water quality is compromised.  In the US, the EPA is warning that massive infrastructure upgrades will be necessary in the very near future.  As water pipes age and and leaks become more frequent, the need for point of use, or “final barrier” water treatment for microbial contamination becomes more urgent. 

Here is why contamination continues to plague the city: the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) detected 2,810 leakages across the city’s drinking water pipelines in June.

The leakages allow water from the sewage lines to seep in to the drinking water pipelines.

This alarming number of leakage points in a ward has a direct co-relation with the presence of E coli bacteria or percentage of unfit water samples collected from the area.

Presence of the bacteria can lead to water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, dehydration, nausea and vomiting.

 

Maximum leakages were detected from in Kurla (L ward), where the BMC found 62% of the water samples collected in June to be unfit for consumption. Five samples also tested positive for E coli.

This pipe not only wastes water.  It introduces dirt and microbial contamination into the water supply.

Water lines in other areas such as Malad, Marve, Andheri, Vile Parle, Jogeshwari, Chandanwadi, Marine Drive, Bhandup, Vikhroli and Powai also has maximum leakage points.

In C ward (Chandanwadi, Marine Drive), more than 50% of the water samples collected by the BMC were declared unfit for consumption. In P-north ward (Malad and Marve), two cases of E coli bacteria were found.

In S ward (Bhandup, Powai, Vikhroli) too, one sample tested positive for E coli and 27% of the samples collected were contaminated.

“Leakages occur mostly because agencies while laying utility lines damage the pipelines. This does not come to our attention unless residents complain,” said a senior official from the hydraulic department.

“We are using sounding method to detect leakages in pipelines.”

In a bid to use modern techniques, the corporation had introduced installation of cameras inside the water pipes to check water leakages and thefts.

However, only two cameras have been installed in the entire water network.

The officials are now planning to install another one in the most affected pipeline in the city.

Source: Hindustan Times.

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Simple Aeration Systems: A Single Tank Treatment for Problem Contaminants

Simple air is one of the most powerful oxidizers for problem well water contaminants like iron, manganese,  and hydrogen sulfide. 

The standard treatment strategy for these contaminants begins with oxidation, which causes the targeted contaminant to change from a dissolved state to a particle with a physical presence that can be caught by a filter.  For example, in the presence of an oxidizing agent like ozone, chlorine, hydrogen peroxide or air, ferrous iron (also called clear water iron) becomes ferric iron (rust) suspended in water.  The ferric iron can then be trapped by a filter.

Air can be introduced into the water stream for oxidation by using a simple venturi valve, or by using a small air compressor,  These methods require a separate aeration tank to give the air time to do its work.

A more compact design that is gaining popularity, especially for applications where iron or sulfide content is not excessive, is a single-tank method  that uses the same tank for aeration and filtration.  This is a more passive approach than an air compressor.

With the passive aeration system the top third of the treatment tank is used for aeration and the remainder of the tank contains the filter medium.  Water enters the top of the tank, sprays down through a pocket of compressed air for oxidation of the contaminant, then filters down through the filter media which physically remove the contaminant.   Filters of this type often use oxidizing media that are capable of working alone;  in this case, the air greatly enhances their performance.

The passive air system is controlled by a control valve that is uniquely designed for use with this filter alone.  It works by drawing air into the treatment tank the same way that a water softener draws brine into the resin tank. Regeneration must take place with relative frequency–usually every night or every other night in residential systems–for the air pocket to be maintained.

Regeneration is a simple three-step operation.  The filter is backwashed just as any iron filter would be by sending water upward through the media with enough force to lift the bed and wash impurities, like iron rust or sulfer,  to drain. The next step, the longest in the regeneration cycle, uses a small internal venturi to pull air into the tank.  The venturi is powered by a small stream of water.  During this phase, air replaces the water in the tank, bathing the media in an oxygen-rich environment.  In the final regeneration step, a rapid downward rinse of the media forces the air in the tank to the top, forming a compressed pocket for treatment.

No air is introduced except during the regeneration phase, so regeneration must be performed fairly frequently to keep the air pocket fresh.

Passive air systems are simple to set up, easy to install (as compared with external venturi and compressor systems), and they can be very effective at dealing with iron, hydrogen sulfide, and manganese.   

Finding the truth about fluoride

By Geoff Cumming

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell: Geoff Cumming offers a thoughtful and well-balanced look at the never-ending dispute over the  fluoridation of public water. He shows that both sides offer some good arguments and some very dumb ones.  Though the battle goes on, the anti-fluoride forces, in New Zealand as elsewhere, seem to be gaining the upper hand.

To see how easily the truth about fluoride can go from pearly white to shades of grey, look no further than the sparkliest weapon in the pro-fluoride arsenal: areas with fluoride in the water supply have lower rates of tooth decay than areas without. Every few years, authorities wheel out new studies clearly demonstrating that fluoridated water helps to produce healthier teeth: drawing not just on foreign academic papers but on the teeth of New Zealanders.

The Ministry of Health’s 2009 oral health survey suggests putting fluoride in the water makes a difference of around 10 per cent in the health of children’s teeth and those gains flow through adulthood.

A 2004 study, which compared non-fluoridated Christchurch with fluoridated Wellington found 5-year-olds in Christchurch had an average of 3.8 “decayed, missing or filled surfaces” compared to an average 2.63 decayed, missing or filled surfaces for 5-year-olds in Wellington. Studies in Auckland, Northland and Southland similarly show incontrovertible benefits of fluoridation. End of story, you might think – and the fluoride debate is a 50-year saga most of us would love to see the back of.

But in the hands of fluoridation opponents, such comparisons assume less and less significance. There are, apparently, 128 tooth surfaces inside the average child’s mouth. So a difference of 1.17 surfaces per child seen in the Christchurch/Wellington study doesn’t cut it, they claim. Then they convert to percentages – and the benefit becomes less than 1 per cent. And that’s just for starters: we should be free to choose and we know not to trust authorities, don’t we?

No wonder the forces of control are losing the battle to drug the water supply with toxic scrapings from industrial chimneys – acids which the “antis” link to lower IQ, brittle bones, thyroid problems, male infertility, cancer and Adolf Hitler. (Go online and grow very afraid, but then check the veracity and depth of the research.)

Establishment experts, using more measured language, will counter that small differences are, in fact, extremely significant on a population basis and the reduction in decay results in big savings in costly and painful treatment. These key messages seem to be getting lost. Throw enough mud and, no matter the substance, some of it sticks.

Dismissed for so long as fringe nutters and conspiracy theorists, anti-fluoride campaigners keep bouncing back and, finally, seem to be winning. First they took Ashburton. In the current (2010-13) local government term, Taumarunui, New Plymouth, Central Hawkes Bay and now Hamilton have fallen – the last three after comprehensive “tribunal” inquiries.

Suddenly, less than half the population lives in areas with fluoride-added water and there’s little impetus in non-fluoridated areas to reverse the tide.

Hastings and Whakatane loom as the next battlefields with referendums in the coming local body elections. Root work, in the form of protests and public meetings, is under way in Auckland and Wellington to put fluoridation on the agenda in next year’s council annual plan processes. Could the silent majority, who’ve accepted the assurances of the medical establishment for so long, now be a minority? Were public health authorities wrong about one of the biggest mass medication programmes in modern times?

What’s beyond challenge is that the anti-fluoride lobby, though small and shoestring-funded, has become well-organised and highly-skilled at challenging the establishment. The internet has helped local campaigners to access international resources, raise funds and run campaigns. Community groups can tap into a national body with links to the US-based Fluoride Action Network. They are no longer isolated but part of an enlightened global movement. For every comprehensive, peer-reviewed study which supports fluoridation, there are many more studies raising doubts about safety and efficacy, no matter how reliable or relevant.

Campaigners have become adept at using local council democratic processes because that’s where decisions on water treatment rest. Annual planning and consultation requirements introduced in the 1990s made it easier for campaigners to bring fluoridation on to the agenda each year. Fluoridation costs – and when councillors are looking to trim rate rises, every drop counts.

Local Government NZ wants the issue taken away from councils and decided at central government level. Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker, a lawyer who says she came new to the issue after winning the mayoralty with no council experience, agrees. “Measures to address tooth decay are a public health matter and in this country public health is dealt with by central government. We deal with delivering the water and purifying it to drinking water standards – we don’t deal with medical issues.”

Many councillors support Hardaker’s view that fluoridation raises complex scientific questions which politicians should not have to call. But the Government isn’t about to risk fallout by taking the decision away from communities.

“The Government’s role is to support local councils when they decide to use fluoride – not to make the decision for them, and we are not considering changing that,” Health Minister Tony Ryall told the Weekend Herald. After New Plymouth opted out in 2011, Labour promised to hold an independent inquiry (the last was in 2001) with a view to developing a national policy when next in power but the Greens at the time expressed reservations about “mass medication of water” and support for local decision-making.

Responsibility for defending (and promoting) fluoridation rests with district health boards – and their public health staff generally have more pressing priorities such as rheumatic fever or meningitis outbreaks to attend to. Repelling the antis’ arguments is both time-consuming and thankless.

Where the antis have gained most traction is in tribunal-style hearings, a process adopted by the New Plymouth, Central Hawkes Bay and Hamilton councils to decide whether to retain fluoridation. For councils, this quasi-court process holds the promise of getting a perennial issue off the agenda: a decision based on an open, exhaustive inquiry shouldn’t have to be revisited in a hurry.

Hardaker says Hamilton opted for a tribunal in preference to yet another referendum (a 2006 vote found 70 per cent support for fluoridation but was challenged as unfair), largely because all sides felt the tribunal process was fair. The Hamilton hearing took four days – time enough, outsiders might think, for medical experts to debunk the myths, quell the emotion, and convince politicians of the wisdom of a measure supported by the World Health Organisation and key health agencies in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Instead, Hamilton councillors voted 7 to 1 to end fluoridation. It may not have been that clearcut: three councillors, on legal advice, withdrew from the process because they are elected members of the Waikato District Health Board. Two others stood back because they had expressed support for fluoridation and could be accused of bias. But even if the five had voted for the status quo, they might still have lost.

What went on?

The district health board gave it its best shot, putting up the chief dental officer, medical officer of health, Maori dental health experts backed by Ministry of Health’s chief child health adviser, chief dental officer and a legal adviser.

But the Fluoride Action Network brought some highly-credentialled experts of its own: doctors and dentists including Dr Andrew Harms, former president of the South Australian branch of the Australian Dental Association; Hamilton Accident and Emergency doctor Peter Scanlon; Whangarei dentist Lawrie Brett and oncologist Anna Goodwin.

Experts who’ve turned – who once stood for fluoridation but now oppose it, such as former Auckland principal dental officer John Colquhoon – helped to raise doubts over the certainty of experts. Video links to strident international campaigners Paul Connett (USA) and Declan Waugh (Ireland) further muddied the scientific waters. (Connett, of the Fluoride Action Network, has made three New Zealand tours since 2003 and, wherever he goes, fluoridation revolts tend to follow).

Mary Byrne, national co-ordinator of the Fluoride Action Network NZ, says campaigners have always included medical professionals but as councils have grown more open-minded it’s become easier to go public. “Having doctors and dentists and scientists gives [decision-makers] that level of security – that it’s not just people misinterpreting science or peddling pseudo-science.”

The net effect, according to councillors, was that the experts – along with the research evidence – cancelled each other out; their decision to stop fluoridation swung on issues other than science.

Several councillors were influenced by the mathematical blurring of individual vs population gains and bought the anti-fluoridists’ line that “at worst it’s equivalent to one further decayed tooth over your lifetime”.

“One other thing was a real arrogance from some of the DHB people and scientists who told us we’d just been listening to a whole lot of quack science,” says councillor Dave MacPherson. “We felt they were treating us as a bunch of morons.”

To emphasise what they are up against, the district health board used a shocking image of a child’s front teeth rotted by decay in a non-fluoridated area. But fluoridation opponents used the same image to argue the real culprit was sugar.

Evidence that fluoridated water plays a minor role compared to topical application of fluoride toothpaste swayed some, particularly those attuned to concepts of individual responsibility – and choice.

“For people who don’t want fluoride in the water, it’s extremely costly to remove it [using filters],” says Hardaker, “whereas people who want to use fluoride can buy a three-pack of toothbrushes for 99c at Pak’nSave and a tube of toothpaste on special for $1.29 – and the best application is to clean your teeth twice a day.”

“The other issue was babies,” Hardaker says. “Advice from the Ministry of Health was that children under 3 should not ingest fluoride and that babies under 6 months should not be exposed to fluoride via bottle-fed formula.”

There’s nothing new in the arguments raised by opponents – their strategies and the studies they draw on have been critically analysed by Adelaide-based fluoridation supporter Jason Armfield of the Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health. “Techniques such as the ‘big lie’ and innuendo are used to associate water fluoridation with health and environmental disasters,” Armfield wrote in a 2007 analysis. “Half-truths are presented, fallacious statements reiterated and attempts are made to bamboozle the public …”

It’s clear the two camps are deeply locked in trench warfare; not just at referendum or tribunal time.

It can go too far – Waikato DHB boss Craig Climo complains that senior officials have been subjected to offensive, highly-personal emails before and since the Hamilton result.

It’s relevant that council decision-makers, not just in Hamilton, are predominantly white and middle class, while the majority of their constituents behave as if there really is something in the water – improved dental health has fuelled complacency over fluoridation.

What irks authorities most is that the measure continues to have value as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – giving socio-economically deprived groups, particularly Maori and Pacific Island children, a fighting chance of healthy teeth and adults a better chance of keeping theirs.

These groups are more likely to have higher intakes of high-sugar drinks and snacks, and less likely to brush their teeth as frequently. Many under-5s don’t access any dental care, Waikato DHB principal dental officer Rob Aitken told the tribunal.

A truncated trial in Northland points to the difference fluoridation can make in disadvantaged communities. During the two-year trial, decay rates fell significantly in newly fluoridated areas in Kaitaia and Kaikohe, even though advocates thought the benefits might need five years to show up. But the Far North District Council ended the trial in 2009 after a postal vote which drew a response of just 16 per cent.

Waikato DHB estimates the end to fluoridation in Hamilton will add $500,000 a year to the cost of treating decay.

Ministry chief dental officer Dr Robyn Haisman-Welch stresses that the fluoridation tide has not all been in one direction. Thames, Dunedin, Hutt Valley and Kapiti Coast all recently resolved to maintain treatment after passionate debates.

Treatment has been introduced in Patea and Waverley in Taranaki while the Waikato District Council is working to extend it to northern Waikato towns. The 2009 oral health survey showed public support for fluoridation was still strong, Haisman-Welch says.

But the pro-fluoride camp needs to lift its game. If New Plymouth wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, Hamilton certainly was, with the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, issuing a missive and the ministry reviewing its approach.

A ministry offshoot, the National Fluoridation Information Service, keeps tabs on the fluoride science industry (such is the volume of research) and maintains that none of the health fears raised by opponents amount to a proven threat – not in the dosages allowed in our water of less than 1 part per million.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for doubt. The one established side effect is dental fluorosis, a mottling or flecking of tooth enamel. This has an aesthetic effect but is not a clinical concern at current levels. Children under 6 should not use full-strength toothpastes and there is concern about the impact of formula milk on babies’ developing teeth.

But Emmeline Haymes, information service national co-ordinator, suggests more is needed than reassuring messages. DHBs do not have staff dedicated to the issue and do not take a pro-active approach. “Other than me, there’s nobody working permanently on this in the country.”

Source: The New Zealand Herald.

Gazette Fair Use Statement

We’re in danger of dying of thirst, one drop at a time

by Jack Flobeck

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell: As hard times approach there is still time to do something, but Americans, like the frog in the heating pot, continue to ignore the obvious warning signs.  Are we going to dribble our last drops of water onto a golf course in the middle of a desert?

It reminds me of the story of the frog in a pot of water on the stove. When the heat is turned up slowly, the frog doesn’t notice until it’s too late, and he finds himself in a pot of boiling water without the strength to jump out. So, too, we see the signs of drought all around and are doing nothing. How long before there is nothing left to do?

Some time back, I traced the Colorado River from Grand Lake to Yuma, Ariz. – finding only a trickle at the terminus where years previously there was a beautiful lush weeded marsh with great varieties of fish, flowers and birds, replaced now by a cracked dry desert bed of ugly hard mud. The river never makes it to the sea, but the portion that is diverted off into the All American Canal trudges west to California to irrigate the Imperial Valley and provide San Diego with desperately needed water. The fluid in the All American Canal is a shiny yellow green soup of phosphates, fertilizers and salt with a dash of animal and human waste thrown in, too. Don’t judge hastily and call people paranoid who double wash all produce from the Valley, especially after seeing the water that irrigates and grows those crops.

Recently, I traveled across New Mexico and Arizona. I always scan the local papers for water, ranching and agricultural news. This time the articles were front page and gloomy, headlining the latest data showing that cattle herds were at all-time lows as a result of the drought. Drought means no water for the cattle to drink, no water to grow feed, and since neighboring states all have the same problem, imported feed becomes excessively expensive. No one needs a degree in “the dismal science” of economics to understand that with fewer cows the price of meat will go up, and we certainly have seen increases at our supermarkets. Wheat crops wither as flour prices explode, and the price of the staff of life, bread, goes up daily.

Articles in the press, in towns south of us like Lamar, as well as in communities in Oklahoma and Texas, warn of a coming return to the Dust Bowl and print vivid pictures of dried-up lakes and burned-up crops telling the visual picture all too well.

We ignore the warnings of reputable research organizations like Scripps that tell of “Dry Pool” at Lake Mead, and we scoff at the predictions that the Ogallala Aquifer will be dry by 2030.

But what if that comes to pass? Tens of millions of people from all walks of life – the farmers, the ranchers, the city office workers, the manufacturers, the bus drivers, the scientists – all relying on Ogallala water and river waters from our wonderful headwaters state of Colorado, from diverse regions across New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California; simply put, they all will be sucking a dry straw.

We have preached the nexus between energy and water; but an overlooked and inevitable result of drought in the southwest will be eventual electrical brownouts and blackouts. How will the youngest and the oldest generations survive 100-degree days in Arizona without air conditioning?

The past few weeks should serve as a wake-up call to cope with water shortages. It’s hotter now than it was a few years ago. More heat means more evaporation and thus less water. We should be developing innovative options for local ponds and water sources to fight forest fires that will be with us for years to come as beetle kill, lack of cutting, possibly more careless campers converge to produce more Western forest fires.

So, let’s take a few years to study the situation, write a plan, examine the plan, have public discussion about the plan, have legislative debate to decide on how to fund the plan, culminating in starting the plan to solve the drought dilemma in five or six years. Will we have the stamina to jump out of the pot?

Source: Gazette.com

Gazette Fair Use Statement

Hopes climb amid talks to clean contaminated ‘Mt. PCB’ in Kalamazoo

 By Keith Matheny

Gazette Introductory Note

The article below gives a fine picture of the efforts of Kalamazoo citizens to get rid of “Mt. PCB,” a massive pile of toxic trash left behind when a wealthy corporation pocketed its profits and moved away.  This story repeats itself again and again across the nation.  Such toxic trash dumps  are supposed to be cleaned up by the EPA “Superfund.” The Superfund was initially effective because it had money.  Its funds came, logically and sensibly, from a corporate income tax and excise taxes on hazardous substances like petroleum and chemicals.  When funding for the Superfund expired in 1995, Congress did not renew it.  Instead, we now have a “plan” that funds cleanups like the Kalamazoo PCB mess by the largesse of a stingy Congress and by attempting to collect the money from “primary responsible parties.”  The “responsible parties” part usually involves more litigation than cleanup and leaves locals with the trash and the tab.  In short, we’ve created another opportunity for corporate welfare where the rich reap the benefits and avoid the cleanup while taxpayers are stuck with the bill.–Hardly Waite.

KALAMAZOO — John DeKoff lives only a few hundred yards from a mound of 1.5 million cubic yards of potentially carcinogenic, toxic material. And he prefers it stay right where it is.

“I want it left alone,” he said of the nearby hill — visible over his shoulder in his backyard — made of materials contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, chemicals used in paper recycling and other industrial processes and known to cause cancer in both animals and humans.

“PCBs attach themselves to the soil,” DeKoff said. “When you start digging into it and moving it around, it dries up and blows in the form of dust. I think a worse short-term problem would be dust, getting it in the air.”

Many of DeKoff’s neighbors have a different view. They want what one called “Mt. PCB” out of the neighborhood as soon as possible. Every

Portage Creek and Kalamazoo River Superfund Cleanup Area

few houses nearby has a yard sign reading: “Message to EPA: Cleanup, not coverup.”

The mound is at the location of the former Allied paper mill on the banks of Portage Creek, about a mile south of downtown Kalamazoo. It was one of several former paper mills in the area that for decades in the 20th century let their untreated wastes flow downstream, eventually into the Kalamazoo River and on into Lake Michigan.

The years of unabated pollution from Allied and other paper companies created one of the nation’s largest EPA Superfund sites, an 80-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River from west of Battle Creek to Saugatuck on shores of Lake Michigan.

Some residents say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency previously considered the Allied site only as a temporary holding spot for PCB-contaminated paper wastes until a long-term disposal site was determined. But now the EPA is considering making the Allied landfill the permanent home of the PCBs, as removing them to an approved landfill might cost more than $300 million by their estimates.

“We knew it was dirty, stinky, that sort of thing,” said Jim Reibel, who’s lived nearby since 1956. “But nobody had any idea it was poisonous.”

‘We have a mess’

EPA officials are expected soon to announce a preferred alternative for dealing with the Allied site through release of a feasibility study.

James Saric, EPA’s on-site coordinator for the cleanup effort, said in early May that the study would be released “probably in a month or two.” The EPA did not respond last week to a request for an update.

Allied neighbors say the EPA’s decision could set a precedent for needed decontamination efforts along the rest of the river and elsewhere, with EPA choosing the least expensive and not necessarily the best solution for those living nearby.

“We’re saying, ‘Clean it up. And you people in other parts of the country, you watch what we’re doing, because they will probably do this to you,’ ” said Sarah Hill, a professor of anthropology at Western Michigan University, local resident and member of the Kalamazoo River Cleanup Coalition, a group of community residents seeing a full restoration of the polluted areas near their homes.

Complicating matters, dams along the river allowed PCBs to accumulate behind them over decades. Several of the dams were partially or completely removed in recent years, as they were no longer being used for power generation or other purposes. That’s led to changed river flows that are eroding river banks loaded with PCB contaminants, re-polluting the river.

“We have a mess, and it’s a big project for cleanup,” said Jeff Spoelstra, sustainability coordinator for Western Michigan University.

The Michigan departments of Environmental Quality and Community Health have issued fish eating advisories for fish caught on the Superfund segment of the Kalamazoo River, saying women and children should avoid eating various fish species from the river such as bass, carp and catfish, depending on the location where they were caught.

Hope for a tailor-made solution

Nearly a quarter-century of Superfund remediation costing more than $65 million has only put a dent in the problem. By some estimates, the cost of a thorough remediation will top $2 billion.

Who will foot that bill is uncertain, as holding responsible the perpetrators of the mess is proving elusive. After trading hands multiple times, the company that last owned Allied Paper Inc., Millennium Holdings LLC, a division of Lyondell Chemical Co., went bankrupt in 2010. The company was ordered to provide $50 million for cleanup of the Allied site and another $50 million for cleanup elsewhere along the Kalamazoo River.

“It’s lunacy to think that would pay for it all,” Hill said.

As other contamination hotspots on the river were resolved through capping materials with plastic, clay and earthen layers and leaving them in place, and because such a remedy would fall within the $50 million available from the Allied bankruptcy, many in the community expect that’s the plan that’s coming from EPA for the Allied site.

But city officials don’t accept that as a solution.

“It’s not going to happen here,” Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell said. “They need to listen to us, how we do things differently here, and find other solutions. Just because you’ve done this in the past, let’s learn from our past.”

Bruce Merchant, the city’s recently retired director of public services who continues as a Kalamazoo consultant, said city officials have significant concerns about the Allied pile’s proximity to groundwater and Portage Creek. EPA testing has shown no contamination leaching into the groundwater, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually, Merchant said.

“This site is within a half-mile of our largest well group for the city of Kalamazoo, servicing about 120,000 residents of Kalamazoo County,” he said.

Ironically, anyone filing for regulatory permission from EPA to create a toxic landfill at the Allied site to store PCBs would be rejected “because it sits on top of an aquifer; because it sits next to a creek; all kinds of things that would violate its own rules,” Hill said.

The EPA’s delay in releasing a feasibility study for the Allied site, as well as the agency’s willingness to meet with officials from The Environmental Quality Co., are positive developments, Hopewell says. Environmental Quality Co. officials have indicated they can remove the Allied materials and take them to their specialized landfill off I-94 near Belleville for more than $100 million less than EPA has projected.

“(EPA) haven’t said that these poisons are going to be removed, but they have been moving a little differently than they normally do,” Hopewell said. “That gives me all kinds of hope.”

Many options, but limited funds

Further downriver, in Allegan County, some question the fight to remove the Allied landfill.

“If they get the kind of cleanup they want, it could jeopardize a meaningful cleanup downstream,” said Dayle Harrison, Saugatuck area resident and president of the nonprofit Kalamazoo River Protection Association.

There’s a limited amount of money available, and areas from Plainwell downstream are “almost completely contaminated” with PCBs, he said. Money could best be spent at the Otsego, Trowbridge and Allegan city dams, where the toxins have accumulated, he said.

But the Allied area residents’ fight — which has garnered support from Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow as well as Republican U.S. Rep. Fred Upton — is using up political capital, energy and time, Harrison said.

Hill, of the Kalamazoo River Cleanup Coalition supporting the Allied landfill’s removal, said instead of bickering over insufficient cleanup funds, citizens should push for a reinstatement of the taxes that once supported Superfunds.

The Superfund trust fund was initially funded through excise taxes on petroleum, chemicals and other hazardous substances, and an environmental corporate income tax. Those taxes expired in 1995, and the program has since been funded through general revenues and the elusive chase of “primary responsible parties.”

“When we start nickel-and-diming cleanup, we are fighting with each other on things we should be unifying about across the country, going to our elected representatives and saying put more money into the system,” she said.

Source:  Detroit Free Press.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Micropores, Minipores, Molasses and Iodine

by Gene Franks

Filter carbon, the most basic ingredient of numerous water treatment devices,  is a manufactured product.  It is made from base materials like coal (bituminous, sub-bituminous, or lignite), coconut shells, wood, peat, fruit pits, nutshells and more.

Each of these substances has unique characteristics that make the resulting carbon perform uniquely.  For example, lignite carbon and carbon made with certain woods are best at removing colors like tannins from well water; coconut shell carbon is known for its ability to remove disinfection by-products and volatile organics; bituminous carbon gets the “best all-around” prize for doing almost everything pretty well.

There is a reason why each carbon product is uniquely suited for specific jobs.

The base material is prepared for use as filter carbon by a special activation process that involves high temperatures in a low-oxygen environment,  followed by high pressure treatment with steam, carbon dioxide, or acids.  The goal of activation is to produce a product with a complex pore structure that has a strong attractive power for organic molecules. It is the size and arrangement of the pore structure that makes each carbon uniquely suited for the reduction of specific contaminants.

Carbon makers have rating systems to measure their products’ performance.  These rating criteria are many: ash percentage, bulk density, abrasion number, and peroxide number, for example.  In regard to pore size, which we are concerned with here, the main classifiers are the molasses number and the iodine number.

The molasses number measures carbon’s large pores, know as macropores,  which are officially defined as pores with a diameter of 0.01 microns (1,000 angstroms).      The higher the concentration of macropores,  the higher  the molasses number.

On the other hand, micropores, which have a diameter of less than 0.01 microns,  are considered when assigning the carbon its iodine number.  The iodine number expresses the milligrams of iodine than can be adsorbed by one gram of activated carbon.  Iodine is a very small molecule and it takes carbon with small pores to adsorb it effectively.

carbon pores illustration

Carbon with a high molasses number is best at adsorbing organic contaminants with a high molecular weight; a high iodine number indicates that the carbon will be good at removing contaminants with a very low molecular weight.

Water Filtration, a training and reference book published by the Water Quality Association,  uses the analogy of a parking lot to explain how organic chemicals are adsorbed on filter carbon. I’m going to paraphrase:

The inside surface of the activated carbon particle can be viewed as a large parking lot for organic molecules.  Further, one can view the large molecules as semitrucks, and the small organic molecules a compact cars. . . . If most of the pores in the activated carbon are micropores (small parking spaces), the semitrucks are going to have a difficult time moving inside the parking lot, and they will have difficulty finding a parking site which fits.  But, the compact cars will have an easy time.  [This parking lot has a high iodine number.] Second, if the pores are mostly macropores (large parking spaces),  the semitrucks will be able to get around fine, but it will be an extremely inefficient way to park compact cars. [This lot has a high molasses number.] If there are only a few roads connecting the various areas inside the parking lot, the cars will all pile up,  and the roads will act as a bottleneck.  Ultimately, a large number of small cars can be parked, but the parking lot will fill slowly.  This is what happens if there is not a suitable mix of micropores and macropores [as would be the case with a well balanced, bituminous carbon].

One final thing to note is that there are miles and miles of roads and lots of parking spaces in a relatively small amount of carbon.  It is estimated that a teaspoon of activated carbon has a total surface area equal to a football field.  That’s why carbon is a prominent ingredient of almost all water treatment devices that aim at reduction of chemicals, disinfectants, colors, odors,  and much more.

The Pure Water Gazette’s Famous Water Pictures Series

The Cuyahoga River Fire Pictures

Cuyahoga River on fire in 1952.  This fire was the worst of the Cuyahoga fires. This picture and others created a demand for action.  (Click picture for a larger view.)

Cuyahoga River Fire

by Michael Rotman

Pure Water Gazette Introductory Note

When water catches fire it gets people’s attention. We’ve all seen pictures recently of burning well water, laced with methane from hydraulic fracturing operations. So far, these spectacular displays have provoked only a timid “more studies are needed” response from environmental regulators. We may need a Cuyahoga River event to get the country’s attention.

The Cuyahoga River at Cleveland caught fire at least 13 times in the past two centuries.  The first recorded fire was in 1868. The “most fatal” was in 1912, when five people were killed. The final fire, 1969, although it wasn’t the biggest or the worst of the Cuyahoga fires, played a big part in the advancement of the environmental reforms of the 1970s and was even instrumental in the creation of the Clean Water Act.  The 1969 fire came at a time when the country was ready to listen.

All the Cuyahoga fires (the 1952 fire was the worst) were the result of numerous petroleum spills,  the dumping of fats and greases by slaugherhouses, acids from steel plants, and dyes from paint plants.  There were also a lot of picnic benches, screen doors, automobile tires, boxes, and other combustible debris washed into the river by rains.  Add to that much untreated human sewage from the Cleveland-Akron area, which may not have burned but certainly contributed to the stench.

Here is an account of the fires from a Cleveland historian. We’ve added the pictures and captions.–Hardly Waite.

The story of the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969 – the event that sparked pop songs, lit the imagination of an entire nation, and badly tarnished a city’s reputation – is built more on myths than reality. Yes, an oil slick on the Cuyahoga River – polluted from decades of industrial waste – caught fire on a Sunday morning in June 1969 near the Republic Steel mill, causing about $100,000 worth of damage to two railroad bridges. Initially the fire drew little attention, either locally or nationally. The ’69 fire was not even the first time that the river burned. Dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century, the river had caught fire on several other occasions.

Photo of the 1948 Cuyahoga Fire.  (Click picture for a larger view.)

The picture of the Cuyahoga River on fire that ended up in Time Magazine a month later – a truly arresting image showing flames leaping up from the water, completely engulfing a ship – was actually from a much more serious fire in November 1952. No picture of the ’69 river fire is known to exist.

Throughout much of Cleveland’s history, water pollution did not trouble the city’s residents too much. Instead, water pollution was viewed as a necessary consequence of the industry that had brought the city prosperity. This attitude began to change in the 1960s as ideas associated with what would become known as environmentalism took shape. In 1968, Cleveland residents overwhelmingly passed a $100 million bond initiative to fund the Cuyahoga’s clean up. Also, by this time deindustrialization was somewhat alleviating the pollution problem, as factories closed or cut back operations. Ironically, the city and its residents were beginning to take responsibility for the cleanliness of the river in the years before the infamous fire of 1969.

U.S. Steel plant belching untreated chemical discharge into the Cuyahoga in 1965.  (Click picture for larger view.)

The ’69 fire, then, was not really the terrifying climax of decades of pollution, but rather the last gasp of an industrial river whose role was beginning to change. Nevertheless, Cleveland became a symbol of environmental degradation. The Time article contributed to this, as did the notoriety of Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes. Stokes, who was the first black mayor of a major city when elected in 1968, became deeply involved with the issue, holding a press conference at the site of the fire the following day and testifying before Congress – including his brother US Representative Louis Stokes – to urge greater federal involvement in pollution control. The Stokes brothers’ advocacy played a part in the passage of the federal Clean Water Act of 1972. In Cleveland, a number Cleveland State University students celebrated the inaugural Earth Day in 1970 by marching from campus to the river to protest pollution.

Even though it has been misunderstood, the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire did help bring about positive change. The river’s water quality improved during the following decades, and business investors capitalized on this by converting parts of the Flats’ abandoned industrial landscape into an entertainment district featuring restaurants, nightclubs, and music venues.

Much of the industry that both made Cleveland rich and caused its river to burn may never be coming back, but Clevelanders are meeting this challenge by reshaping their city to reflect its current realities.

The Cuyahoga Today Is Fireproof.  Environmentalism Works.

Text Source: Clevelandhistorical.org