Pure Water Occasional, November 25, 2020 |
Election Results
The Wekiva River flows through Orange County, Florida. County voters approved a charter amendment to grant this river and other county waterways legal rights.
Relax, this isn't about the presidential election. It's about the many ballot initiatives around the country that affected water. Most are not very sexy and don't get a lot of attention. Circle of Blue has made a compilation of water issues that were decided by voters in the recent election.
The lead story is from Orange County, Florida, where residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of changing the county charter to give legal protection to rivers. The result was one of a handful across the country in which voters endorsed new protections for waterways or property taxes that will fund water projects. Voters in Utah and Wyoming also approved constitutional amendments that fix technical matters related to municipal water supply and water infrastructure spending.
Ballot initiatives about technical water issues aren't very exciting, unless you are someone who after years of hauling in water to your just-outside-the-city-limits home will finally get connected to the city water supply. Full article from the Circle of Blue.
No More Zico
Sales of Coconut Water, the hottest drink on the market four years ago, have fallen off so much that Coca-Cola has announced that it is cancelling its coconut water brand, Zico. Bloomberg News.
Congressional Democrats petitioned the CDC to halt water shutoffs during the pandemic to help in curbing the spread of the virus. More.
Thank God for the Hygropause
Hygropause, for those who don't know, refers to "a layer in the atmosphere that's cold enough to condense (and therefore stop) any water vapor traveling upward." That's why Earth has water but Mars has lost most of the water it had. This is according to a researcher at Arizona State University, who has somehow traced water loss on Mars back one billion years in an effort to challenge the classical scientific explanation of why Mars can't hold on to its water. Newswise for details.
PFAS in Carbonated Water
In tests reported by Consumer Reports, La Croix, Canada Dry, Perrier, and several other brands of carbonated waters contained over 1 ppt PFAS.
“All carbonated water that CR tested fell below legal limits for heavy metals, and none had arsenic levels above CR’s recommended maximum of 3 parts per billion. But many products had measurable amounts of PFAS,” Consumer Reports explained. “There are a few possible reasons. Phil Brown, at the PFAS Project Lab at Northeastern University in Boston, says the carbonation process could be a factor. The source water could also have more PFAS, or treatment used by some brands doesn’t remove PFAS to below 1 part per trillion.”
It should be noted that the IBWA has refuted the conclusions of the study. The International Bottled Water Association challenged the testing method used by Consumer Reports, arguing it "cannot accurately and reliably detect the amount of PFAS in bottled water," Water Online.
Lowndes County, Alabama has a populartion of less than 10,000 but has the highest per capita Covid infection rate in the state. This is attributable mainly to the deplorble state of plumbing infrastructure that leaves residents living in close contact with raw sewage. NPR.
Planting Trees to Save the Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is one of the world's most important shipping routes and a vital source of income for the country. But with too little rain, climate change has contributed to a dramatic fall in its water levels, slowing traffic and cutting the country's revenues from the waterway in half. By investing in reforestation and land restoration, Panama's government hopes to secure the future of its famous canal. Video.
Innovative Approach to Arsenic Removal
A UC Berkeley scientist, Ashok Gadgil, has created an innovation on the standard technique of removing arsenic by allowing it to bind to iron oxide. His method speeds up the oxidation process by a factor of 10,000. The process could lead to immense health benefits in impoverished areas unable to remove arsenic from water by traditional treatments.
In the process, "iron is dissolved in the contaminated water to form rust, and arsenic then binds to the rust to form denser, easily removable sediment." The rapid oxidation process would allow a water treatment plant for 50,000 people to be housed in a small garage. Details from The Daily Californian.
Cold Water Swimming
A new study from Cambridge University lends scientific credibility to the belief that swimming in cold water can cure a number of ailments and even ward off dementia.
"Ask any winter swimmer and they will tell you how amazing it makes them feel, but the reasons why are only beginning to be understood by science. A 2018 study looked at cold water swimming as a treatment for depression and anxiety. The theory is that cold water adaptation can combat depression as well as help high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and arthritis by reducing inflammation.
"Whatever the science, many cold water swimmers . . . believe that regular immersion improves mood, reduces stress and strengthens the immune system. The recent research into cold water and dementia is another exciting development, but more than anything swimming outdoors is good for your well-being. When you are immersed in nature, feeling the cold water on your skin, all your worries drift away." Full article from Runner's World.
The town of Fixty-Six in Stone County Arkansas has run out of water. The Arkansas National Guard hauls in 32,000 gallons of water per day from nearby Mountain View to supply Fifty-Six's 173 residents. This has been going on since June. A nearby town with the same problem had to drill a new and deeper $900,000 well. Fifty-Six is working on a pipeline to bring in water.
Oral Contraceptives Affect the Genetic Makeup of Fish
A new study reported in The Science Times found that water polluted with synthetic human hormones can impact marine life. For instance, freshwater fish exposed to even the smallest estrogen from oral contraceptives could lead them to produce more female offspring and fewer populations in general. The study described how synthetic human hormones from oral contraceptives were found in waterways near sewage treatment plants that are not designed to filter pharmaceuticals.
According to Latonya Jackson, the lead author of the study, "A human's body can only absorb a small amount of the medicines that they intake. Almost 90% of it gets flushed down the toilet and into the wastewater treatment facility. Although the sewage systems might be good at treating many things, they are not designed to remove the medications mixed with the water. Much of the residue gets flushed into the wastewater treatment plants when women who take birth control or are under hormone therapy go to the bathroom." Full article.
Arctic Ocean Freeze is Unseasonably Late
With the setting of the sun and the onset of polar darkness, the Arctic Ocean would normally be crusted with sea ice along the Siberian coast by now. But this year, the water is still open.
This year’s events in the Arctic are just part of the climate change story of 2020.
"Global average temperatures have been at or near record highs since January. The West has been both hot and dry – the perfect recipe for massive wildfires – and warm water in the Gulf of Mexico has helped fuel more tropical storms in the Atlantic than there are letters in the alphabet. If you’ve been ignoring climate change and hoping that it will just go away, now would be an appropriate time to pay attention." Full story.
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FAQ
This section always includes actual questions received since the previous Occasional and our actual answer.
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Question:
I notice you don't have twin tank water softeners on your website. Do you sell them? I want to get my water as soft as possible.
Answer:
First, we do sell twin softeners, but we don't have them on the website. You can email or call for information. We have Fleck 9100 and Fleck 9000 twins in standard residential sizes.
Here's an article that will tell you a lot more about twin softeners – how they work, and what they will and will not do.
As the article explains, twin softeners don't make the water any "softer" than single tank softeners, because only one tank is in use at a time. Water doesn't pass through one tank then go on to the other. Instead, one tank is in service while the other is in reserve. When Tank A is exhausted, Tank B goes immediately into service while tank A is being regenerated. This means you get full capacity of each tank (no "reserve" is needed, as with single tank units), resulting in savings of water and salt. It also means you never run out of soft water, even when the softener is being regenerated.
Twin tank systems are necessary for some special uses where there is an absolute need for soft water continually without downtime for regeneration, but single tank units are standard for residential use, where the softener regenerates at night while there is little if any need for softened water.
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Does TAC (Template Assisted Crystallization) treatment make soap work better?
by Emily McBroom and Gene Franks
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One of the much touted virtues of conventional water softeners is that they make soap lather better. Many a softener has been sold using in-home sales demos that fill the homeowner’s heart with visions of sudsy showers, silky-soft laundry, and big bags of money saved on soap purchases.
With the salt-free TAC units, the emphasis is usually on more mundane items like scale-free pipes and water heaters than on silky hair and spot-free dishes. We sell TAC units only with the promise that they will prevent scale buildup in pipes and appliances. As for soap performance, we always say we don’t know. Some customers have told us that soap does, in fact, lather better with TAC and some aren’t sure.
To settle this weighty question once and for all, we decided to do a quick test.
One of the conventional tests that home-demo sellers have used to impress prospective customers is the simple soap demo. It is done with a dropper bottle of tincture of green soap and a small test bottle. You put some water in the test bottle, add a drop a soap, give it a shake, and see how much suds appear in the bottle. The result is predictable: The hard water sample is suds-free and the soft water sample is topped off with a big frothy head of suds.
Here’s what our test looked like when we tested untreated tap water, water softened with a conventional softener, and water treated with a small TAC unit that we made for the test.
1. Denton municipal tap water. Mildly hard: 6 grains per gallon (Hach titration test). Soap test result: almost suds free.
2. Denton municipal tap water processed by our office water softener: Hardness = 0 grains per gallon (Hach titration test).
The result: lots of lasting suds.
3. Finally, we tested tap water treated with a small TAC unit made with Watts Scalenet (OneFlow) media, 1/4 liter in a 9.75″ X 2.5″ filter cartridge in a standard sized housing. The cartridge was rinsed for 5 minute rinse at 0.5 gpm, then tested. The result:
Hardness = 6 grains per gallon (standard Hach titration test). This is as expected. TAC units do not remove calcium and magnesium, which is what is being tested with a conventional hardness test.
Tested with the soap test: medium suds.
So that proves it. TAC improves soap performance. Although this is not a peer-reviewed, double blind test, and as far as we know no one has tried to verify the results, we’re satisfied that TAC-treated water makes soap lather a little bit better than tap water. (“Little bit” is a technical term that we use in testing to indicate an amount somewhere between “just a tiny bit” and “a whole lot.”)
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One of the headaches of water treatment is that whenever there is change, there is complaint. When cities switch from chlorine to chloramine disinfection, taste complaints are usually numerous and loud. The irony is that when there is a temporary switch back to chlorine, which regulatory agencies recommend periodically, there are equally strong complaints about the taste of chlorine in the water.
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Car wash products have never been our favorites.
We believe that the best place to wash a car isn’t at home but in a professional car wash establishment. Commercial car wash locations are set up to furnish water for spot free rinses at a reasonable cost, to recycle water, and to get rid of the wastewater in a much more environmentally friendly way than you can at your home. At home, the soap, chemicals, and wastewater end up in the worst place you could put them–in the storm drain.
Nevertheless, home car washing is extremely popular, and there are probably worse things people could do with their time than washing their cars.
We sell a garden hose filter with a softening cartridge that has been very popular. It isn’t perfect, but if you use it according to instructions it will do a fair job of knocking down the hardness minerals (calcium and magnesium) that cause spots on cars. This helps in many cases but in others not so much, because the softening process (whether it’s done by our tiny cartridge or by a full-fledged home water softener) doesn’t always solve the problem. Softening removes the hardness (calcium and magnesium) from the water, but it adds an equal amount of sodium, which also can cause spotting. So, washing with softened water helps, but you often still have to wipe away the spots caused by the sodium.
The only way to get a real spot free wash is with low mineral water and the only practical ways to produce this are with deionization (DI) or reverse osmosis (RO), or with a combination of the two.
Softening “exchanges” ions–salt for calcium and magnesium–but DI removes all of the minerals. DI makes water that’s perfect for a spot-free car wash, but it has the drawback of being very expensive. Softener resin can be regenerated at home, but DI resin can’t, and it doesn’t last long. The small garden hose car wash “filters” that come and go (Mr. Clean, for example) are DI units. They work well, but cost is so high that it would almost make more sense to trade in your car for a new one when it gets dirty. There are lots of larger refillable DI home car wash units on the internet now that allow you to buy resin in bulk to cut the cost. Buying in bulk is better than buying small individual cartridges, but any way you do it, DI costs a lot and continually changing the resin is no fun.
Reverse Osmosis removes about 95% of the minerals in water–both hardness minerals and sodium–not by exchanging but by straining them out. RO is what car wash establishments use to get “spot free” water, and it is the most economical way to do it at home.
RO is a slow process, so a storage tank is needed. In the simple home RO car wash setup shown above, the small RO unit might need half a day or more to put enough water into the storage tank to wash a car. (But, what’s time to an RO unit?) The low-mineral RO water is then sprayed onto the car using the small “demand” pump. If only the final rinse is done with RO water, a small tankful of water is plenty.
Although there is an initial investment, RO is the most economical source of spot-free rinse water. The simple unit shown above, without the tank (any plastic tank, including a strong garbage can will work) costs only about $350 for the essential parts–the RO unit and the pump. Upkeep is small.
This simple system can be enhanced with items like a float shutoff to make filling automatic, larger tanks and larger pumps. The small “countertop” RO unit will make as much water as you want if you give it the time.
This simple system, of course, does not have to be used for car washing. It works well for small greenhouses, aquariums, and more–any venue in which a small amount of top quality water is needed.
RO water is a lot like rainwater, so having the system shown above is like having a rain barrel but not having to wait for it to rain.
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The Viqua IHS22-D4: The ideal Sediment, Carbon, and UV Unit for Large Homes
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The Viqua IHS22-D4. An Ideal Whole Home Treatment
The IHS22-D4 Unit from Viqua features Viqua’s compact but powerful D4 UV system–twice as strong as it needs to be even at 12 gpm flow rate– plus a 5 micron sediment filter and Viqua’s highly effective carbon block filter for chlorine, general chemicals, lead, and taste/odor improvement.
Features & Specs
| Disinfection Flow Rates |
| 30mJ/cm2 |
12 GPM (45 lpm) (2.7 m3/hr) |
| 40mJ/cm2 |
9 GPM (34 lpm) (2.0 m3/hr) |
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Specifications
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| Dimensions |
25 1/5″ x 12″ x 28″ (64 cm x 30 cm x 70 cm) |
| Shipping Weight lbs (kg) |
35 lbs (15.9 kg) |
| Connection Size |
3/4″ FNPT/MNPT |
| Power Consumption |
50W |
This unit is our part #UV894, and the price is $995, shipped free to any lower-48 US address. It is not on our main website, but can be ordered any time by phone: 940 382 3814. Approximate annual upkeep for filters and UV lamp replacement is $230. Normal lamp replacement interval is one year, and the unit reminds you when it’s time to replace the lamp.
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Hydrogen Peroxide for Water Treatment: Treating Hydrogen Sulfide and Iron with Hydrogen Peroxide Injection
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Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is one of the most powerful oxidizers available for water treatment. Although it can be used to control bacteria, it’s main use is as pretreatment for filters removing iron and hydrogen sulfide.
Less hydrogen peroxide than chlorine is required to treat iron and hydrogen sulfide. When hydrogen peroxide reacts, oxygen is liberated and an oxidant potential 28 times greater than chlorine is produced. It is this large charge of liberated oxygen that makes hydrogen peroxide work so well.
Seven percent hydrogen peroxide (70,000 ppm) is the standard water treatment strength. At this strength liquid hydrogen peroxide can be transported through normal shipping methods and is not considered hazardous.
Thirty-five percent hydrogen peroxide (350,000 parts per million) is sometimes used. It is a hazardous material and must be handled with great care. It usually requires dilution with distilled water for residential use. For this reason, for most home applications 7% hydrogen peroxide is the product of choice.
A Filter Is Required
Like air, ozone, and chlorine, hydrogen peroxide prepares contaminants to be removed by a filter. The oxidizing agent is only half of the treatment. The filter that follows is necessary to remove the precipitated contaminants. Carbon is in most cases the filter medium of choice after hydrogen peroxide treatment. Manganese dioxide media like Birm, Katalox and Pyrolox can be destroyed by hydrogen peroxide. Carbon, both standard and catalytic, works well for both hydrogen sulfide and iron removal. Carbon also breaks down the residual peroxide, so there is usually no peroxide left in the service water. Mixed media filters, zeolite filters, and redox filters (KDF) have also been used successfully.
If the water is very clean and no iron is present, a carbon block filter alone can be used following H2O2 injection, but in most cases–in all cases, if iron is present–a backwashing filter is required. The backwashing process can also clear the system of gas pockets which can form, so backwashing filters are preferred in most cases, even if only odor is being treated.
Stability and Storage
Hydrogen peroxide is exceptionally stable, having around a 1% per year decomposition rate. Heat and sunlight can increase the rate of decomposition. Dilution of the peroxide should be done only with the best water possible. Distilled water is preferred. H2O2 reacts with impurities in the water and loses strength in the process.
If using 35% peroxide, the 35-percent solution should be diluted to 7%. To do this, add 5 parts distilled, reverse osmosis, or deionized water to 1 part 35% hydrogen peroxide. Seven percent hydrogen peroxide is usually fed without dilution although it can be diluted if the injection system will not feed it in small enough quantities.
Practical Treatment Limits
H2O2 can be used to treat up to 10 ppm iron. There is virtually no limit for hydrogen sulfide. It is not uncommon to oxidize up to 70 ppm hydrogen sulfide with peroxide.
Dosage: Simple But Not So Simple
Figuring the dosage needed for your application could not be simpler.
Here’s the formula:
- Well pump output rate in gallons per minute, multiplied by
- Required dosage in parts per million, multiplied by
- 1440—the number of minutes in a day—divided by
- Solution Strength in parts per million, which equals
- Needed Metering Pump Output in gallons per day (GPD).
Just joking about the “could not be simpler” part. Actually, dosage calculations are impossible and only work in college chemistry classes. In the real world, there will always be parts of the equation that you don’t know. However, working the formula helps you make an educated guess so you will know which size pump to buy and it will give you a starting place. Understand that in the end, there will always need to be some trial and error, some adjustment to your settings, then more trial and error. The information and calculator on this page may help, but don’t expect the calculator to give you a pat answer.
Other Considerations in Sizing and Setup
Use 0.4 ppm peroxide for each ppm of iron. Hydrogen sulfide treatment is pH dependent. Use 1 ppm hydrogen peroxide for each ppm of hydrogen sulfide at pH 7.0. The more alkaline the pH, the greater the dosage required. Adjust dosage accordingly for higher pH.
Warm water also causes oxygen to dissipate more quickly, so a higher dosage may be necessary as water temperatures increase.
Dosage is determined by the same formula as with other oxidants: gpm x 1,440 x dosage/ % concentration of H2O2= chemical feed rate needed.
Never mix H2O2 with alkaline chemicals such as soda ash, limestone, or ammonia. This will cause the rapid decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide and might even result in a violent reaction.
If an alkaline chemical like soda ash is needed to raise pH, feed with separate pumps.
Contact Time Required
One of the great advantages of using hydrogen peroxide rather than chlorine is that its reaction rate is much faster. Therefore, it is common to use hydrogen peroxide without a retention tank. Its reaction rate is so fast that a retention tank is usually not needed between the injection point and the filter.
Equipment Needed
As stated, a holding tank is usually not needed with hydrogen peroxide. Inject the peroxide with a peristaltic pump. (Conventional pumps can be used, but they often require modification.) If 7% peroxide is fed undiluted, a very low delivery rate pump (< 3 gpd, for example) is usually best in theory, but since hydrogen peroxide dosage needs don’t always follow theory, a higher dosage rate pump often works best. If no holding tank is used, a static mixer at the injection point is recommended. Injection is always before the well’s pressure tank. The filter, of course, follows the pressure tank. A softener, if used, must be downstream of the filter.
Reference: Scott Crawford, “Residential Use of Hydrogen Peroxide for Treating Iron and Hydrogen Sulfide,” Water Conditioning and Purification, December, 2009.
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Places to visit for additional information:
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Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the next Occasional!
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