War and Water in Syria

Water availability in Syria has been cut in half since the conflict there began nearly four and a half years ago, and millions of people around the country endure “long and sometimes deliberate interruptions to their water supplies,”  according to a United Nations report.

In a report about the scarcity of water in Syria, Unicef said it had recorded 18 deliberate cuts to the public water supply in the northern city of Aleppo this year. “Taps in some communities were left dry for up to 17 days in a row — and for over a month in some areas of the city,” the report asserted, accusing antagonists in the conflict of “using water to achieve military and political gains.”

Unicef estimated that 2.3 million people in Aleppo, 2.5 million in Damascus and 250,000 in the southern city of Dara’a are suffering water shortages. When water has to be brought in, children are often sent by their families to carry water, a practice that has led to the deaths of number children  who have been killed while collecting water.

Further, the group warns, the cuts have forced families in Damascus, Dera’a, Aleppo, and other areas to “have to rely on dirty water from unregulated and unprotected groundwater sources, exposing children in particular to the risk of contracting diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis, and other diseases.”

In addition to the “deliberate” cut offs, fighting has exacerbated the shortages by causing severe damage to pipelines and other water infrastructure where workers are unable to carry out the repairs.

Gazette’s Famous Water Picture Series: The Waterfall at Jajce

Jajce is a city and municipality located in the central part of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the confluence of the rivers Pliva and Vrbas. It was originally built in the 14th century.

Jajce is famous for its beautiful waterfall where the Pliva River meets the river Vrbas. The waterfall was thirty meters high, but during the Bosnian war, the area was flooded and the waterfall is now 20 meters high. The flooding may have been due to an earthquake and/or attacks on the hydroelectric power plant further up the river.

Low water pressure in your home may have an easy solution

If you get your water from a city water system that puts out plenty of water pressure but the pressure in your home isn’t what it should be, here are some possible causes to consider.

Debris and mineral buildup in pipes

 Plain old lawn grass is our nation’s largest irrigated crop

Grist reports that the largest irrigated crop in the United States isn’t corn or soy or marijuana or cotton or even presidential candidates. It’s grass.

It us now estimated that there are more than 63,000 square miles of lawn in the U.S., an area  three times larger than the land occupied by any irrigated crop in the United States. And while grass can act as a carbon sink by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, its positive effects are cancelled out by the amount of water required to keep lawns alive.

One report says that lawn maintenance uses up to 235 gallons of water per person per day  and adds emissions from fertilization and operation of mowing equipment. In most regions, outdoor water use accounts for 50 to 75 percent of total residential water use.

In spite of an increasing national awareness that growing and mowing our largest irrigated crop is a terrible way to go, people are still  getting arrested for not mowing and lawn mower sales are rising smartly.

Reference: Grist.

Going Tankless

by Gene Franks

Since I started using, building, and selling residential reverse osmosis units in the early 1990s, there have been repeated efforts to get rid of the much maligned bladder tank that’s a standard feature.

Small reverse osmosis units need a storage tank because they make water very slowly. Without a tank, a typical undersink RO unit would put out only a small trickle of water when the thirsty user opened the faucet. Most of us aren’t patient enough to wait several minutes to fill a water glass, much less a couple of hours to fill a spaghetti pot. The function of the bladder tank is to collect and store the trickle produced by the RO unit so that when you put your glass under the spigot the pressurized tank can supply enough water to fill your glass quickly. Or even your spaghetti pot.

The standard RO tank has a small air charge that pushes water out of the tank when the countertop spigot is opened. As the tank fills, the pressure in the tank increases and the RO unit has to work harder and harder to pack water into the tank. As the tank fills and pressure increases, the RO unit’s efficiency decreases dramatically. 

Although this standard bladder tank works pretty well at storing and delivering water, it has a flaw. As the tank fills, pressure inside increases, causing the RO unit to have to push against the rising pressure to fill it. When the tank is near full, in fact, the RO unit is really huffing and puffing to push water into the tank and its efficiency is a fraction of what it would be if it were putting water into a pressure-free container. In practical terms this means that a small RO unit whose efficiency is set up to work at 3 or 4 parts to drain to 1 part to storage is actually running 10 or 12 parts to drain to 1 in the storage tank when the tank is almost full and the RO unit is pushing against 40 or so pounds of tank pressure.

Overcoming the Problem of the Conventional Tank

The many attempts to replace the conventional RO tank system fall into three main categories:

The “water on water” tank.  The “water on water” strategy is to push the permeate (the water you’re going to drink) from the tank with tap water rather than air. The permeate is in a bladder inside the tank.  When the spigot is opened, tap water rushes into the tank around the outside of the bladder, squeezes the bladder and pushes the permeate out of the faucet. This is only a semi-solution. Although the RO unit produces water without back pressure in the tank, saving water, water is wasted when it is used to push the permeate out of the faucet. All of the “push” water eventually goes to drain. The worst part is that water on water units seldom work as advertised.  Those that I bought and tested failed to shut off reliably when the permeate tank was full. The most recent incarnation of the this style, a hybrid water on water, the highly promoted Next RO, was recently taken off the market because of repeated performance issues caused by its over-complicated water storage scheme.

The  electric pump tank. With this style, a small unpressurized tank receives the permeate water, allowing the RO unit to produce without back pressure interference.  When the spigot is opened, a small electric pump comes on to push the RO water out of the faucet. This style mimics large “whole house” units, but it’s a case where something that works well full size doesn’t works so well when it’s miniaturized. Most attempts to create the electric pump tank style have fallen victim to complaints of leaks, excessive noise, chattering pumps, high cost,  and failure of high tech components. It just isn’t feasible to make a pump-driven system that fits under the sink and gives the same silent, trouble-free performance  over a period of years as the old-fashioned bladder tank.

The jumbo RO unit.  The most popular attempt to replace the bladder tank in recent times has been to simply make a massively over-sized RO unit–one that’s so big that it produces as much water as you need on demand, in real time, without having to rely on a storage tank. To put this in context, we build a small countertop RO unit that has a 50 gallon per day production. It is a bona fide tankless RO unit. It produces into a no-pressure container. This works well if you catch the water in a bottle for later use. It produces in theory (with RO, theory and reality are seldom the same) about 2 gallons of water per hour and will fill your 5 gallon bottle in 2.5 hours. If you depended on this unit, however, for real time use, you would have to patiently hold your 8-oz. cup under the dispensing tube for almost 4 minutes to fill it. But, if the unit produced 700 gallons per day rather than 50, you could fill your cup on only about 20 seconds.  That’s about half speed compared to old reliable bladder tank performance, but  you could live with it.

The 700 gallon-per-day production was what was promised by the now defunct Merlin wonder unit that came out a few years ago. The Merlin was a multi-million dollar promotion by its originator, General Electric, and later by Pentair, that got stuck with it as the result of a merger. The Merlin was touted as the “most significant advance in home RO technology in 30 years,” but ended being finally pulled off the market in 2010 after years of frustrated customers and failed attempts to fix its many faults. The last heroic effort to save the tank-free Merlin was, you guessed it, the addition of a pressurized storage tank.

To say that the Merlin was a flop is an understatement. What’s strange isn’t that it didn’t work but that that anyone with rudimentary knowledge of RO units thought it would work. I won’t dwell on its many design flaws, but I’ll mention one problem that automatically spells doom for any attempt to make a tankless undersink RO unit by simply making a big producer and sticking it under the sink.

When a reverse osmosis unit comes on and begins to make water, the first water that comes out of it is the worst it will make. On startup, it spits out some pretty awful water. That’s why “whole house” units normally begin with a “flush” cycle that opens the drain and flushes the membrane for one to five minutes before the unit begins collecting water. Obviously, this isn’t practical with an undersink unit. So to use a large “water-saving” tankless unit, the logical thing would be to open the faucet and let it run for a minute or so before filling your glass. Or, to be content with drinking the worst water the unit can make every time you fill your glass.

This tankless RO unit (for which an optional tank is available) advertises production of up to 1,000 gallons per day.

The Best Solution

A web search confirms that there are a couple of new jumbo-style tankless undersink units on the market.  I haven’t looked at them seriously. One has a strange physical resemblance to the ill-fated Merlin. My advice is to never be first on this type product. If they’re still selling it in a couple of years and the reviews are good, then consider buying it.

The best solution to the bladder tank problem at present is the permeate pump. This well established addition to conventional RO units does not get rid of the tank but it eliminates back pressure,  the main problem caused by the tank, by allowing the membrane to produce into a pressure-free chamber. The permeate pump is not perfect, but it definitely saves water.

The future for water saving with small RO units may be found more in improved membranes than getting rid of the bladder tank. A new Pentair membrane (we’re testing it now) is designed to run on a one to one brine to permeate ratio rather than the one to three or four of standard membranes. We’ll see.

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bea Sharper brings you up to date on the current water news in numbers.

 Mid-August, 2015

Percentage of trash found on Australian beaches that is plastic — 75%.

Highest level of microcystin recorded this summer in the Toledo Lake Erie area, in parts per billion – 2.5.

Gallons of contaminant-laden water dumped into the Animas River by the Gold King mine spill– 3,000,000.

Miles of Colorado’s streams that are impaired by mining related impacts – 1645.

Rank of marijuana among the cash crops grown in California – #1.

Percentage of marijuana consumed in the US that is now grown in drought-ridden California—70%.

Estimated value of California’s annual marijuana crop – $11 billion.

Value of California’s second most valuable cash crop, milk and cheese – $6.9 billion.

Approximate number of separate water districts and agencies that regulate California’s use of water—3,000.

Daily per person consumption of water in Sydney, Australia – 83 gallons.

In Irvine, California – 193 gallons.

Rate in inches per month at which land is sinking in the San Joaquin Valley due to overpumping of water wells — 2.

By CDC estimate, the number of people hospitalized each year in the U.S. with Legionnaires’-related ailments — 8,000 to 18,000.

Gallons-per-minute pemitted for shower heads under California’s new Tier 1 regulation – 2.

Years in which Los Angeles and New York City respectively imposed the same 2 gpm limit on shower heads– 2009 and 2010.

Pure Water Gazette’s proposed time limit on songs that can be sung in the shower –2 minutes, 15 seconds.

Facts about Legionellosis

Water treatment consultant and author Dr. Joseph Cotruvo recently called Legionaries’ Disease, or Legionellosis, “the most important waterborne disease in the United States.”

According to Dr. Cotruvo, Legionellosis has been a reportable disease only since 2001. The disease is not caused by ingestion of the water, but rather by inhalation of aerosols such as during showering or from inhaling blow down from cooling system heat exchangers, or probably even humidifiers. Those at particular risk are the elderly and especially people with impaired immune systems such as those who are hospitalized and in extended care facilities.  

It is well known that legionella are detectable in a high percentage of plumbing systems, including in homes, hotels and other buildings, and a substantial number of people in the general population are susceptible because of their ages or health or immune status. Several hospital-related outbreaks of legionella-related diseases are reported annually around the world, but undoubtedly most are not identified or attributed to the water system. CDC has estimated that between 8,000 and 18,000 people are hospitalized with Legionnaires’-related disease each year in the U.S. It is not known how many of those are attributable to exposure from the plumbing or cooling systems.

Legionella microorganisms are common environmental and soil bacteria. Water treatment at the central plant is capable of removing them from influent water, but if even a few enter distribution/plumbing systems, through the plant or during main breaks or from being present on pipe interior surfaces at installation, the water distribution environment is conducive to colonization. They can proliferate at temperatures in the range of about 25oC  to 55oC (77oF to 130oF) such as can be found in hot water systems, shower heads and in cold water systems in warm climates, or during warm times of the year. Maintaininghot water temperatures below 120 F for energy efficiency and to reduce water heating costs can actually create an ideal condition for legionella proliferation.

Treatment

Treatment is a real challenge and a cookie cutter approach is not likely to be widely successful. The problem of controlling microorganisms colonizing plumbing and distribution systems is not trivial because many of them are associated with biofilms or protozoa such as amoebas and can be protected by them. Disinfectants that have been employed have had limited success. They include chlorine, chloramine, chlorine dioxide, ozone, UV light, copper/silver ionization and shock thermal and steam treatments. Each of them has its benefits and weaknesses, and often a combination of treatments must be applied on a regular basis supported by monitoring to indicate the conditions of the system and the time to re-treat.

Chlorine is a powerful disinfectant, but even when applied in a temporary hyperchlorination mode (e.g., 50 ppm for several hours) total eradication may not be achieved. Chloramines, which are far less potent than free chlorine, have demonstrated considerable success in reducing legionella counts in some water plumbing systems. This could be due to the lower chemical reactivity of chloramine and greater hydrophobicity that allows greater penetration into biofilms.  Ozone and UV might have some efficacy in recirculating systems, but they will be primarily effective against organisms in the water column. Copper/silver in combination and individually have shown successes when they are properly managed and maintained. Shock thermal treatment for several hours at temperatures above 70oC have shown temporary success, but a complete strategy would require a combination of initial biofilm cleanout with a disinfectant system that will retard regeneration of the biofilm.

The concept of final barrier protection has value in situations where sufficient risk exists. For example, instant hot water delivery systems leave a smaller volume of water to stagnate and provide a growth environment.

Dr. Cotruvo concludes that pathogenic microorganisms such as legionella frequently colonize water plumbing systems, and they now are the most significant public health risk associated with drinking water. Many illnesses and deaths are attributable to that problem and drinking water standards are not designed to deal with them. Indeed, the existing standards may actually result in increased public health risks because they provide a disincentive for health care facilities to take corrective actions. The risk benefit balance is clearly in favor of eliminating the burdens that are imposed upon those facilities, so that they will be more likely to take actions to reduce risks to their patients.

Undersink Water Filters: Better than they used to be.

By Pure Water Annie

Gazette Technical Consultant Pure Water Annie explains how undersink water filters have improved in recent years.

An undersink water filter is a treatment device that is inststalled under the kitchen sink but dispenses its treated water on the sink top. This is a very practical and efficient arrangement because it leaves the countertop uncluttered but allows plenty of equipment space for excellent filtration.

Several improvements in recent years have made undersink filters extremely effective, practical, and easy to install and service. These include

1. The replacement of copper and galvanized undersink piping with flexible connectors.
2. The improvement in filter housing and cartridge designs that allows installation of more compact and easy-to-service filtration units.
3. The improvement in filtration technology that allows targeted treatment of many more problem contaminants.

The use of flexible undersink pipes not only makes installation of standard undersink filters with their own dispensiing faucet much easier and safer, it also allows very easy installation of “simple” undersink filters, the type that dispense water through the existing cold water side of the sink faucet rather than an added ledge faucet. (For the difference between “simple” and standard undersink filters, see How Undersink Filters Work.)

Modern filter housings are now available that make cartridge changes as easy as changing a light bulb. Even traditional housings have been improved so that the best brands are easy to open and virtually leak-proof.

Carbon block filters have been steadily improved over the years so that now extra fine powdered carbon provides much more effective filtration and greatly increased cartridge life as compared with old granular carbon filters. In addition, cartridges can now be made to target specific contaminants like lead, arsenic, fluoride, iron, bacteria, nitrates, low pH, and cysts.

This last aspect, the use of “media cartridges” for special purposes, is especially effective with multi-filter undersink units that use two or more canisters with different cartridges.

The classy triple undersink filter shown above has exceptional chlorine/chloramine reduction capacity and can, depending on the cartridges chosen, remove such contaminants as bacteria, cysts, nitrates, colors, sediment, odors, lead, iron, arsenic, fluoride, and more. Go here for a listing of cartridges that will fit this filter.

Sludge to Energy: A Dallas Recycling Success Story

The City of Dallas is cleaning waste water, making energy and saving money – all at one plant on the south side of the city.

The Southside Waste Water Treatment Plant receives and cleans about 50 million gallons of dirty water a day. It is water that originates in homes and businesses – down the drains, sinks, toilets and showers – into the sewer system, and piped to the plant.

Through a multi-step process, the water is cleaned – almost to drinking level – then fed back into the Trinity River.
“We try to eliminate as much as possible – the food waste, the grease. It impacts our infrastructure and makes the water itself harder to treat,” said Jesse White, the plant manager at Southside.

White says, the plant also takes on another process: converting sludge – the name for that solid waste – into energy.

The solids are separated out and stabilized. In the process, methane gas is produced as a by-product. At one time the biogas was flared off as a means for disposal.

Around six years ago, the City of Dallas began a co-generation project, allowing that biogas energy to be recaptured and used by the plant for its own power needs.

It reduces dependency on the electricity grid, saving tax payer dollars. Right now the Southside Waste Water Treatment Plant powers about 50-60 percent of its own energy.

“It benefits Dallas citizens because waste water treatment plants are very energy intensive. Waste water plants are probably one of, or the largest consumers of energy throughout the United States,” said White.
The project helps the plant reduce its grid derived electrical needs by 27 million kWh a year.
Along with the solid waste conversion, the plant takes in grease for the same purpose.

The city’s “Cease the Grease” campaign includes more than two dozen cooking oil and grease recycling stations, at grocery stores, college campuses and other locations around the Metroplex.

Right now, the city collects an average of 300 gallons of grease a month, from homeowners who drop off canisters at the stations, and pick up empty bottles to take home to fill again.

“We would like to generate even more. There’s a lot more oil out there in Dallas,” said Helen Dulac, an environmental coordinator for Dallas Water Utilities.

Extra stations are currently available and Dulac says the city is looking for businesses, churches or groups who want to be host sites for collection. The Cease the Grease team will drop off the station and take care of maintenance for free.

It’s also a reminder for water customers to not pour cooking grease or fat down the drain, which can lead to big infrastructure problems.

“Even through bacon grease in the pan might be liquid when you pour it down the drain, it’s going to cool off and turn into a solid. It can clog up your pipes plus our city sewer pipes,” Dulac said.

Excerpted from CBS Local.

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Let free market determine price for water

by John Ford

Gazette’s Introductory Note: This editorial comment by attorney John Ford of Orange County, CA presents ideas that deserve consideration. Although relying strictly on “the free market” to set the price of an essential commodity would certainly create its own set of problems, allowing the real cost of providing water to play a major part in determining of the price we pay would certainly make sense. The Gazette has consistently advocated higher water prices as a means of conservation as well as a necessary part of a well-funded public water system. We forget that we live in a world of subsidized products. Water is not the only commodity for which we pay way less than the real cost. If “the free market” alone determined the price of gasoline, few of us would be driving cars and eating almonds trucked from California. While we certainly need to reform and simplify our antiquated water distribution system and increase the price we pay for water, we believe that water is an essential element that belongs to us all and that allowing “the free market” alone to determine its distribution and availability would result in water being distributed  the same way that money is distributed–with 1% of the population controlling most of it.–Hardly Waite.

As California searches for solutions to our ongoing drought, we would do well to look to how Australia successfully responded to a similarly severe drought nearly 20 years ago. In 1995, Australia found itself in the midst of the most serious drought since European settlement began. Rivers were drying up, and farms were going fallow all over the country. The crisis was so severe that Australia was forced to do something that was considered radical at the time: It adopted a market price for water.

The basic argument for a water market is straightforward. People should pay for the resources they use and they should pay what the resource is actually worth. If people have to pay a market price for water, then they will be encouraged to conserve in the ways that are the most economically efficient. In California, there is no market price for water. Water in this state is artificially cheap – this low price encourages overconsumption that is harmful to both our economy and our environment. A market price for water would solve this problem.

Australia proved the theory behind water markets could work in the real world. Australia is subject to regular (often severe) droughts. The severity of the drought that began in 1995 forced Australia to try a variety of measures to combat water scarcity. It tried everything, from mandated cutbacks to building huge, expensive desalination plants. Nothing worked. Then, in 2007 Australia adopted a national system for trading water rights, building on smaller programs created in a previous drought by some of Australia’s states. In doing so, they created a national market for water.

After water markets were adopted, water consumption in Australia fell by 35 percent. Today, water consumption in Sydney is only about 83 gallons per person per day. Compare this with 193 gallons a day in Irvine, 186 gallons in Anaheim and 219 gallons in Orange. Australia got its citizens to conserve by using prices. Because they have to pay the market price for water, residents of Sydney pay about $6.50 per 1,000 gallons of water. In Irvine, the cost is much less, at only $3.19 per 1,000 gallons. But because people in Sydney use so much less water, the average person there pays only about $196 per year for water, whereas residents of Irvine pay about $228 per year for water.

Put simply, markets worked. A modest price increase resulted in significant conservation with only a modest impact on consumers’ pocket books.

In California, there is no market price for water. Of California’s 58 counties, 22 restrict any trading of water for any reason. Water in California is governed by a convoluted morass of regulations and bureaucracy. The state has 3,000 separate water districts and agencies, many of which exist only to sell water to each other at artificially low prices. Orange County alone has 28 separate water agencies.

This bureaucratic tangle means that instead of adopting a rational system of water trading based on market prices, we have responded to our drought by putting restrictions on when a restaurant can serve a glass of water to its patrons. No serious person believes this sort of rule will have a measurable impact on conservation.

If leaders in Sacramento want to do something that would actually alleviate the drought in a way that would protect both our environment and our economy, they should take inspiration from Australia, do away with pointless red tape and adopt a market price for water.

Source: The Orange County Register.

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