As Summer Heats Up, Algae in Lakes Cause Concern

As summer temperatures rise, the presence of algae in some surface waters in the US has increased. Not all algae produce toxins that affect public health, but increased growth in recent years of  harmful algal blooms is triggering some concern.  Last August, a major algal bloom in Lake Erie caused the city of Toledo, Ohio, to issue a “do not drink” order for more than 400,000 residents.  The EPA estimated in 2009 that  20 percent of the nation’s lakes are highly impacted by algae, and one-third contains some level of harmful algae.

In response to the rise in harmful algae in lakes, the  EPA determined toxin levels in tap water that are safe for human consumption and offered recommendations for how utilities can monitor and treat drinking water for algal toxins and notify the public if the water exceeds these levels.

Green scum produced by and containing cyanobacteria.

More About Algae

Algae are found naturally in lakes, streams, ponds and other surface waters. When conditions are favorable, they multiply rapidly and cause a “bloom” characterized by a pea-soup green color or blue-green scum. Their nature can be affected by the intensity of sunlight, water temperature, nutrient availability (especially nitrogen and phosphorous), pH, and water movement.

Most algae are not harmful. Last year’s Toledo algae scare was due to fresh water algae known as cyanobacteria, often called blue-green algae.   Cyanobacteria proliferate in stagnant or slow-moving bodies of water with high levels of nutrients — nitrogen and phosphorous — often due to agricultural runoff or wastewater. When the ecosystem becomes unbalanced, non-harmful algae are often replaced by cyanobactria.

These fresh water algae can produce cyanotoxins, one of the more harmful types of algal toxins.

Cyanotoxins can cause health problems primarily affecting the nervous system, liver or skin. If present in recreational water or drinking water at high enough levels, a wide range of symptoms may occur — including fever, headaches, muscle and joint pain, blisters, stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting, mouth ulcers and allergic reactions. These symptoms can occur immediately or several days after exposure.

Some of the most common classes of algal toxins are microcystins, anatoxins and cylindrospermopsins. Microcystins have a World Health Organization guideline of 1 mg/l for drinking water,  as do cylindrospermopsins which primarily affect the liver, and anatoxins which affect nerve synapses. However, appropriate standards for these toxins are still in development.

When cyanobacteria are present in a water source, the preferred strategy is to remove them from the water before toxins are released. This can be accomplished through processes such as dissolved air flotation. However, the best approach is to prevent the growth of algae that can produce the toxins through watershed management.

Many solutions are available to treat algal toxins. Disinfectants and oxidants such as chlorine, chloramine, ozone, ultraviolet (UV) and chlorine dioxide are frequently used in standard treatment facilities. Most algal cells can be removed by chlorine disinfection, in addition to coagulation, sedimentation and flocculation. Removal of the toxin is more difficult. Many standard water treatment strategies are used with some success.  These include granular activated carbon (GAC), ozone, advanced oxidation processes, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis (RO). At present there is no single recommended treatment for algal toxins.

Algae in water sources is, of course, of interest mainly as a public water issue. Point of use treatment for residential water has been infrequently considered, but the standard techniques of carbon filtration, chlorination, and reverse osmosis would seem to be the obvious final barrier strategies.

Reference: Water Technology.

Editorial: Water conservation becomes the standard, prudent thing to practice

Gazette Introductory Note: It’s good to be reminded now and again that rules and regulations often make sense. It’s our nature to dislike being “regulated,” but surely no one would honestly deny that the onerous restrictions placed upon Americans by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts have worked wonders to clean up our environment. The terrible burden of auto emissions standards placed upon the auto industry have performed a miracle in cleaning up our air, and contrary to the predictions of crusty regulation-haters,  requiring catalytic converts has not shut down the auto industry or made cars so expensive that no one can afford them. The following editorial from the Vancouver Sun reminds us that even the government sometimes knows what it’s doing.–Hardly Waite.

Every attempt at broad-brush solutions to problems seems accompanied by its black comedy of peculiarities. For example, bring in watering restrictions to deal with the prolonged dry spell that’s running down Metro Vancouver’s drinking water reservoirs and you generate seemingly wacky contradictions.

If you wash your car in the driveway with a hand-held, spring-loaded shut-off nozzle, that’s an offence but if you take it to a commercial car wash where automated robots do it, that’s fine, and you can do it every day if you are so inclined. You can’t refill your spa tub on the back deck but you can go indoors and use the soaker tub with whirlpool jets as often as you like. You can wash artificial turf but watering the natural lawn is a no-no.

Such oddities are always good for griping about city hall and its endless follies, but that’s all they’re good for. In most cases they are illusions. The robots at that commercial car wash are much more frugal than you. It’s estimated that washing a car by hand uses about from 300-500 litres of water. The car wash robots will use about 170 litres and wax, polish and dispose of the soapy water properly, not down the storm drain. An automatic dishwasher will clean your dinner dishes with one-sixth the water used in hand-washing and, because it’s so efficient with the hot water, will use only about half the energy. That energy is generated by spilling precious water through turbines or by burning fossil fuels, both of which exacerbate the connected problems of water reserves and climate change.

So once we have done with the mandatory Canadian ritual of huffing over apparent contradictions that prove we’re governed by fools, it’s more useful to back the wise philosophy of water frugality as a new norm imposed by climate change. Our rainy winters have encouraged us to think of fresh water as a limitless resource. But as prolonged droughts elsewhere and now in British Columbia and Canada’s western plains indicate, that’s not necessarily so.

If these dry conditions prove to be the new summer normal, prudence suggests we start thinking about water conservation as the standard rather than the exception. We should, even if this drought proves anomalous. On a range of possibilities, one must be that things could prove even more extreme in the future. The time seems ripe for a serious public conversation about what we should be doing to plan for our civic adaptation in the way we live that changing climate seems increasingly likely to impose with increasing severity, frequency and duration.

Source: The Vancouver Sun.

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 Except in the US, Fluoridated Drinking Water is Hard to Find

Although the U.S. Centers for Disease Control boasts that water fluoridation as one of the “top ten public health achievements of the twentieth century,” most of the western world, including the vast majority of western Europe, does not fluoridate its water supply.

At present, 97% of the western European population drinks non-fluoridated water. This includes: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and approximately 90% of both the United Kingdom and Spain. Although some of these countries fluoridate their salt, the majority do not. (The only western European countries that allow salt fluoridation are Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland.)

Despite foregoing “one of the top ten public health achievements of the twentieth century,” tooth decay rates have declined in Europe just as fast over the past 50 years as they have in the United States. This raises serious questions about the CDC’s assertion that the decline of tooth decay in the United States since the 1950s is largely attributable to the advent of water fluoridation.

Reference: Fluoride Action Network.

California Drinking Water: Not Just Vanishing, But Also Widely Contaminated

by Tom Philpott

In normal years, California residents get about 30 percent of their drinking water from underground aquifers. And in droughts like the current one—with sources like snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains virtually non-existent—groundwater supplies two-thirds of our most populous state’s water needs. So it’s sobering news that about 20 percent of the groundwater that Californians rely on to keep their taps flowing carries high concentrations of contaminants like arsenic, uranium, and nitrate.

That’s the conclusion of a ten-year US Geological Survey study of 11,000 public-water wells across the state. The researchers tested the wells for a variety of contaminants, looking for levels above thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency and/or the California State Water Resources Board.

Interestingly, naturally occurring trace elements like arsenic, manganese, and uranium turned up at high levels much more commonly than did agriculture-related chemicals like nitrate.

In the ag-heavy San Joaquin Valley (the Central Valley’s Southern half), for example, you might expect plenty of nitrate in the water, because of heavy reliance on nitrogen fertilizers. Over the limit of 10 parts per million in water, nitrate can impede the blood’s ability to carry oxygen and has been linked to elevated rates of birth defects and cancers of the ovaries and thyroid. But while 4.9 percent of wells in the San Joaquin turned up over legal nitrate thresholds, arsenic (over legal limits in 11.2 percent of wells) and uranium (7.4 percent)—neither of which are used in farming—were more common.

But in the case of uranium—which heightens the risk of kidney trouble and cancer when consumed in water over long periods—agriculture isn’t off the hook. Kenneth Belitz, the study’s lead author and chief of the USGS’s National Water Quality Assessment Program, explains that before irrigation, the arid San Joaquin landscape supported very little vegetation, and the naturally occurring uranium in the landscape was relatively stable. But as farms sprouted up, irrigation water reacted with carbon dioxide from now-abundant plant roots to “mobilize” the uranium, pushing it downward at the rate of 5 to ten feet per year and eventually into the water table.

Conversely, some of the regions with highest nitrate levels are former ag areas that are now suburban, Belitz says: northern California’s Livermore Valley and southern California’s Santa Ana basin. That’s because nitrates, too, move through the soil strata at a rate of five to ten feet per year, and take years to accumulate in underground aquifers.

And that means that today’s ag-centric areas, including the San Joaquin Valley, could be slowly building up nitrate levels year by year that could lead to much higher nitrate levels in well water in coming decades, Belitz says.

For California residents and policymakers, the reports adds another distressing data point to the current water crisis. The fossil record and climate models suggests that precipitation levels will likely drop significantly compared to 20^th century norms going forward, according to UC Berkeley paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram—meaning an ever-growing reliance on groundwater for both farms and residents. Meanwhile, NASA research shows that this increasingly important resource is being drawn down at a much faster pace than it’s being replenished. And this latest USGS study suggests that the state’s precious, vanishing groundwater supply is widely contaminated. It’s enough to make you want to open a bottle of the state’s famous wine.

Source: Mother Jones.

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 Mark Your Calendar

The common garden hose is one 0f life’s treasures that we take for granted.  The hose is pretty amazing, though, when you think of it for what it is–a very inexpensive portable pipe that can bend around corners, roll up for storage,  and carry high volumes of water quickly over great distances. For most, the garden hose also evokes happy memories of childhood and summer days.

The only thing better than a garden hose is a garden hose with a filter.

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

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

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

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

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

Bottled Water Facts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall per gallon cost of bottled water–$1.23.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man wanted in water hose assault

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

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

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

Is Weed the New Almond?

by Anna North

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source:  New York Times.

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