Pure Water Occasional, April 19, 2021 |
According to research reported by Science, 3 billion years ago the planet's oceans held twice as much water as they do today.
Governor Spencer Cox has issued a state of emergency because of drought in Utah. Approximately 90% of the state is considered to be in "extreme" drought conditions. Fox 13, Salt Lake City
Texas, always marching ahead of the nation, announced that it will begin testing for lead in the drinking water of schools and day care centers in 2024. "In Texas, it will be the first time the state’s roughly 25,000 schools and child care facilities will undergo mandated water inspections for lead and copper — the state did not previously have any testing requirement. Young children are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of lead poisoning on the brain and nervous system, according to the EPA. Lead exposure in children is known to cause slowed growth, behavior and learning problems, difficulty hearing and lower IQ." Water Quality Products.
Why is the appointment of a top quality person as Secretary of the Interior such a big deal for water quality? The agency oversees some 800 dams and reservoirs, providing water to 31 million people and one in five farmers in the western U.S.
Trump Tower in Chicago is liable for $12 million in fines for blatant violation of environmental laws involving massive illegal withdrawal of water from the Chicago River. Yahoo.
A total of 118 out of 120 samples of US water examined by the Guardian and Consumer Reports contained levels of PFAS or arsenic above CR’s recommended maximum, or detectable amounts of lead. About 35% of the samples also contained potentially toxic “forever chemicals." A nine-month-long investigation selected 120 people to test their water out of 6,000 volunteers, and samples came from water systems that provide for more than 19 million people.
World Water Day 2021
Monday, March 22, marked the annual observance of World Water Day. According to the United Nations (UN), which organizes the campaign, 2.2 billion people worldwide use a source of drinking water contaminated with feces.
This isn’t just a problem for the Third World. In just one year, 10,261 community water systems in the United States serving more than 12 million Americans had fecal bacteria violations above maximum contamination levels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 7.15 million Americans suffer from waterborne illnesses each year. This breaks down to over 600,000 emergency room visits, 6,630 deaths, and an estimated $3.3 billion in healthcare costs annually. The Milford Daily News
The non-profit Resource Innovation Institution is issuing a comprehensive report to help cannabis growers make most efficient use of water. One finding of the report is that although cannabis has the reputation of being a "thirsty" plant, cannabis cultivation uses far less water than many other agricultural crops. Water Technology.
In Pasadena, Texas a six year old girl was fatally shot by a relative during an argument about a spilled glass of water. KIRO 7 TV.
A hacker attempted to contaminate the water supply in Oldsmar, FL by increasing the amount of sodium hydroxide (lye) added to the water, but the plan was foiled by an alert employee of the water plant. Lye is used in small amounts to control acidity. BBC.
Water Guzzlers
With the Southwest drying up, water guzzlers placed throughout the San Juan Mountains for wildlife are becoming ever more important.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. Forest Service, in partnership with Colorado Parks and Wildlife started to place water guzzlers on the landscape for big game as well as some bird species.
Increased need for water has prompted the Forest Service to upgrade water guzzlers. The new model, pictured above, has two separate guzzlers side by side that can store up to 1,000 gallons all told. The updated structures also make it easier for wildlife to access the water, and also more effectively keep smaller animals from falling in. The Durango Herald.
Weaponizing water, police deployed water cannon and pepper spray after a gathering of some 20,000 protesters against lockdown and other coronavirus rules in central Germany turned violent, with some demonstrators throwing bottles at police. U. S. News.
"Real Water" Blamed for Liver Ailments
Five children in Nevada were hospitalized with liver failure after drinking "Real Water," a popular brand of "ionized" alkaline water. The FDA has advised against cooking with or drinking "Real Water," although the link between the water and the liver ailments of the children remains unclear.
A Live Science report contains a good overview of the current interest in "alkaline" water:
Real Water is marketed as a "premium, drinking water" that has been "infused with negative ions" and has a pH of 9, according to the company's website.
A water's pH is a measure of how acidic or basic it is, with a range from 0 to 14, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Water normally has a neutral pH of 7, and water with a lower pH is considered acidic while water with a higher pH is considered basic, or alkaline. (Specifically, acidic water has more free hydrogen ions, while alkaline water has more free hydroxyl, or OH, ions, according to the USGS.)
Recently, drinking alkaline water with a pH of 8 or 9 has become a health trend, with followers claiming that it can make you age more slowly, maintain a healthy pH in the body and prevent diseases such as cancer, according to Healthline. But there's no evidence that alkaline water has any health benefits over regular water, Healthline reported. (On its website, Real Water says its product "promotes a balanced pH" and can "detoxify," but notes that "these statements have not been evaluated" by the FDA.)
Drinking alkaline water is generally considered safe, although water with high alkaline levels can have an unpleasant taste, according to Healthline. (Acidic water, on the other hand, can be dangerous because it can dissolve metals from pipes and thus become polluted, according to USGS.) The body is generally good at maintaining a pH close to neutral (around 7.4), but too high alkaline levels in the blood can lead to gastrointestinal issues and skin irritation, Healthline reported.
Florida’s governor has warned of a potential “catastrophic flood situation” in the state, as a storage reservoir in an old phosphate mine threatens to collapse. In response, millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater have been pumped into an environmentally significant bay in the state to ease pressure on the reservoir, with experts warning this could cause devastating pollution. Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency after officials said the pond’s collapse could be “imminent”, and aerial images showed water pouring from leaks. The Guardian.
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FAQs
This section always includes actual questions received since the previous Occasional and our actual answer.
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Question:
I am concerned about the filter tank that arrived yesterday. The tank appears to be leaning. Will this correct once weight of the water and bed is added to the tanks? I think these are sitting in self leveling bases. I tried to adjust it but it doesn’t move. I don’t want to apply any pressure to it and cause other issues.
Answer:
The leaning tank issue isn't uncommon, so I wrote and article about it some time ago.
Let me know if you don't get it straightened up. The main thing is, straighten things up before you load the media into the tank.
Question:
I've been looking at installing one of your 32,000 grain softeners with the Fleck 5600 SXT valve. My only issue right now is discharging the regeneration cycles. I would need to go up about 10' vertically from the floor that the softener would rest on (maybe 5-6' vertically from the valve) and over horizontally about 30-35' to the nearest sewer vent stack to tie into. I've been trying to determine whether this would cause issues with the softener discharge cycle and whether it would function correctly with that rise and horizontal run. Would the backpressure be significant enough to cause only partial regenerations?
Answer:
We've faced this issue before but I hoped I could find some "expert" advice about just how far up a vertical drain line can go without it creating a problem as well as how long the drain line itself can be. What I found is that advice varies a lot. The issues, in our experience, are two.
If the line's vertical orientation or total length are extreme this can restrict the drain flow, affecting the backwash and rinse cycles, but it can also limit the performance of the softener's brine draw and brine fill functions. (These functions are powered by water exiting through the drain line.) The reason an exact maximum length or vertical lift can't be predicted is that there are variables like water pressure going into the unit and even water temperature to be considered.
There are a couple of things you can do to overcome the vertical lift issue. One is to oversize the unit's brine line flow control. The unit you are considering uses a 2.0 gallon per minute flow control. By increasing to the next size up, 2.4 gpm, you would probably overcome the vertical pushback. A second strategy would be to use a larger drain tube--3/4" (garden hose size)--instead of the standard 1/2". This will help a little as well. My suggestion would be to use a 2.4 gallon per minute flow control (a modification we would make before shipping the softener) and see how it works. My guess is that it will work fine, but keep in mind that water treatment often involves some trial and error, so you may have to go to a looser restrictor if you don't get good performance.
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Editor’s Note: Probably this is something you’ve wondered about. If everyone on earth decided to go swimming in the ocean at the same time, would there be room for all of us? And would the water spill out of the world’s oceans causing devastating flooding? To put our minds at ease, here’s the answer from the Curious Kids section of at The Conversation website.
You can think about the oceans as a gigantic bathtub. More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is ocean, giving this bathtub an area of about 140 million square miles. To figure out how much the water will rise, we need to know the volume of people sitting in it and divide it by this ocean area.
Currently, there are almost 8 billion people on Earth. Human beings come in all sizes, from tiny babies to large adults. Let’s assume the average size is 5 feet tall – a bit bigger than a child – with an average volume of 10 cubic feet. Only half of each person’s body would be submerged when they sit down, so only 5 cubic feet adds to the water level. With 8 billion people total, you can calculate 5 x 8 billion which gives a whopping 40 billion cubic feet that would be added to the oceans.
But remember, this volume would be spread over the vast area of the oceans. Using the same bathtub math as before, we divide the 40 billion cubic feet of volume over the 140 million square miles of ocean.
The answer? The total rise in sea level would be about 0.00012 of an inch, or less than 1/1000th of an inch. If everyone completely submerged themselves, this would double the answer to 0.00024 inches, which is still only about the width of a human hair.
It turns out the oceans are enormous – and humans are just a drop in the bucket.
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Water filter cartridges whose function is to trap suspended particles come in three distinct styles. Mr. Robert LeConche, President of Shelco, one of the largest makers of sediment filtration products, describes them like this:
Wound Filters
Wound filters are versatile all-purpose filters that exhibit rather high dirt-holding capacities. They are relatively low cost, depending on the materials of construction, and work well in most applications. This style of filtration offers great compatibilities because of a wide range of raw materials available for production. Its distinct diamond patterns create fluid channeling from the outer diameter to its center core making it a true depth filter. One caution is that low-quality wound filters used under high differential pressures have a tendency to “unload” or release sediment that was previously filtered out of the solutions.
Melt blown or Spun
Melt-blown or poly spun filters are almost always made of FDA-grade materials for use in potable water and food and beverage applications. There are two levels of product efficiencies, Nominal and Absolute rated. Nominally rated cartridges should offer efficiencies ranging from 70% to 80%. Absolute or High Efficiency Melt Blown Cartridges will offer efficiencies in the range of 90% to 99%. Melt-blown filters are usually a lower cost option to wounds or pleated cartridges (although they may require more frequent cartridge changes).
Pleated. Pleated filters offer higher flow rates with lower clean differential pressures and extended filter life than most cartridge filters. They are almost always made of FDA grade materials for use in potable water and food and beverage applications.
Pleated filters can be used alone or as final stage filtration in multi-stage filter systems. Although pleated filters typically are more expensive than other filters, they have a longer filter life and some can be clean and reused (when appropriate). Pleated cartridges also offer nominally rated and bsolute rated alternatives.
As to which is “best,” our answer is usually that it depends on the individual case. Some customers prefer one, others swear by another. Whichever works best in your situation is the best.
Wound string and melt-blown cartridges are called “depth” cartridges because they can trap and hold particles beneath the surface, while pleated filters trap and hold sediment on the surface only. However, pleated filters have much more surface area than the other styles because of the unique accordion shape. Although pleated cartridges usually cost more, they can be washed and reused in most cases. The rule of thumb is that pleated cartridges of 5-microns or more can be reused; tighter than 5 microns, reuse usually is impossible. Because of their great surface area, pleated cartridges can often support a higher service flow rate as well.
A well-used wound string filter. Note the diamond patterns mentioned by Mr. LeConche.
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Boil Water Orders Are Increasing
What This Means to Residential Water Users
by Gene Franks
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We All Do It, But Is It Actually Safe to Reuse Plastic Water Bottles?
by Eva Hamrud, Metafact
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Every minute about 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased, creating huge amounts of waste, which mostly ends up in landfills. Today, many people reuse their water bottles by refilling them. This avoids having to repeatedly buy new bottles, saving money, and reducing the amount of plastic waste. However, these bottles are designed to only be used once, so some people are concerned about where it is actually safe to reuse them. We asked eight experts ‘Is it safe to reuse plastic water bottles?’ and the consensus was 75 percent ‘likely’. What are water bottles made of?Plastic water bottles vary in their material, but most single-use bottles are made of PET – polyethylene terephthalate. PET is a clear, lightweight plastic used for packaging of many foods and drinks.It is approved as safe for contact with food and drink in many parts of the world, including the USA and European Union.
Can leaching chemicals from the plastic give you cancer?
Many online articles claim that reusing water bottles can lead to cancer due to certain chemicals being released from the plastic.One chemical that many people are concerned about is BPA, bisphenol A. BPA may disrupt the endocrine system, potentially causing issues related to reproduction and metabolism. BPA is not used to make PET bottles but can be found in other, more rigid plastics like polycarbonate. Despite this, one study has found very low concentrations (5 ng/L) of BPA in PET-bottled water. Two other studies did not find this chemical, so this finding is inconclusive. A different chemical, antimony, is used as a catalyst for PET production. Antimony is not considered a carcinogen when ingested but can cause vomiting and diarrhea. A 2008 study tested the levels of leached antimony in commercially available bottled waters. They did find that leaching occurred gradually over time, but the amounts were much lower than what is considered dangerous. The concentration at which antimony becomes dangerous is around 6 ppb (parts per billion). The study found that antimony concentrations started at 0.195 ppb and rose to 0.226 ppb after three months at 22 degrees Celsius (71 °F).Antimony is not the only chemical that has been studied in bottled water, a whole range of chemicals from plasticizers to metals have been researched. These studies have found that there are some chemicals, like antimony, that leach into bottled water. As of yet, there is no evidence that these pose a risk to human health.
Is leaving your water bottle in the Sun safe?
There are some concerns that the chemical leaching described above happens more frequently at higher temperatures, meaning that leaving your water bottle in the car on a hot day could be dangerous. The 2008 study on antimony levels did indeed find increased leaching at higher temperatures. When water bottles were left at 60 °C (140 °F) it took them 176 days to rise above the threshold of 6 ppb, whilst at 80 °C this only took 1.3 days. These temperatures are very high, so this is likely to only be a problem if you live in a very hot place and regularly leave your water bottle in the Sun to heat up.
What about microplastics?
Microplastics are small pieces of plastic. They are found almost everywhere, including in our drinking water. In fact, a study found that 93 percent of freshly opened plastic water bottles contained some microplastic contamination. The WHO looked into the potential dangers of microplastics, but based on current data they have concluded that they do not pose a significant threat to human health. Interestingly, Dr Umar Abdulmutalib from the University of Surrey says, “Newly released plastic bottles might contain more microplastics compared to the used ones”. Dr Marek Cuhra from the Institute of Marine Research in Norway also thinks that “drinking water out of a used and washed bottle should be safer than a brand-new bottle”. His group found that water fleas grew and reproduced better in plastic tubes that had been washed with warm water than in new plastic containers.
Are there any other risks?
There is one widely-accepted risk of reusing a disposable plastic water bottle, but this is not chemicals – it’s contamination. As these bottles are not made for durability, they can get easily damaged and crack. Dr Jill Bartolotta says, “The plastic used to make bottles is very thin and consequently subject to cracking due to a weaker structure. These cracks can harbor bacteria.” Contamination is particularly likely if the inside of the bottle is damp. Bacteria can grow very fast in bottled water, one study found an increase from 1 colony per ml to 38,000 colonies per ml in 48 hours when the bottle was kept at 37 °C.
The takeaway:
Of the eight experts, six answered that it is likely that it is safe to reuse plastic water bottles. Studies of chemical leaching and microplastics have found that these occur at very low levels and are unlikely to pose serious health threats, unless bottles are repeatedly exposed to very high temperatures. The more likely risk is that of contamination, so if you do reuse a water bottle – remember to wash it regularly.
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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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