Siliphos

Siliphos is a milk thistle extract. It is made of 100% food grade materials.

Siliphos prevents scale formation and stops corrosion of pipes. After months of use, it can actually slowly remove some of the existing scale from pipes and appliances.

Siliphos acts as a sequestering agent, coating the inside of pipes and making a thin protective layer on metal surfaces to prevent scaling, corrosion and brown or red water.

Siliphos does not alter the taste of the water. It dissolves slowly into the water and acts by preventing the adhesion of minerals to metallic surfaces.

It can be added as an inexpensive whole house or point of use treatment. Siliphos spheres can be inserted into the center core of carbon block or sediment filters or dispensed through a separate filter housing installed in the water line. The larger system with separate housing lasts longer and supports higher flow rates. There is little pressure drop across Siliphos units as compared with most media filters.

Unlike conventional water softeners, Siliphos is inexpensive, easy to install, does not use salt or electricity, and does not add sodium to water. Siliphos costs considerably less than TAC softener alternatives. 

Basic Stand-Alone Siliphos Units from Pure Water Products

All units have replaceable cartridges. Ballpark prices for the replacement cartridges are $40 (9.75″ X 2.5″), $90 (9.75″ X 4.5″), and $115 (20″ X 4.5″).

Please call 888 382 3814 for exact pricing of Siliphos units or to order.

Mid-Sized Siliphos Unit, uses 4.5″ X 9.75″ replaceable (or refillable) filter cartridge with 200 Siliphos spheres.

Denver Water wants to double the amount of recycled water used in the city. The health department is not sure it’s safe

Strain on the Colorado River, treatment budgets, could be eased by using recycled water for growing dope, flushing toilets

By Bruce Finley

Gazette Introductory Note. This is a truncated version of a much longer article that we’re reprinting to illustrate the increasing reuse of water by cities as well as the legal intricacies of water recycling.  The full article is here.

Water is asking for state permission to expand the uses of recycled water to include flushing toilets in commercial buildings, washing cows and pigs at the National Western Stock Show, and irrigating crops such as marijuana.

This could increase the 80 or so big customers in metro Denver who already tap a 70-mile network of underground purple pipes carrying recycled water, cleaned to meet the drinking water standards that applied in the 1980s.

But state health officials aren’t sure it’s safe to allow wider use.

A  Denver Water plan calls for at least doubling the amount of recycled water the utility provides, beyond the current 2.6 billion gallons a year to more than 5.6 billion gallons by 2020.

Using more recycled water could save money because stripping away contaminants to meet current drinking water standards increasingly requires costly, energy-intensive treatment. And reusing water reduces Denver’s need to siphon more H2O out of the over-tapped Colorado River.

Denver’s marijuana sector, alone, could make a big difference. Dope growers have emerged as significant guzzlers, feeding plants an estimated 146 million gallons a year of drinking water. That’s more than the 98 million gallons that metro Denver brewers use to make beer.

“This is where the world is going,” Denver Water chief executive Jim Lochhead said.  “Utilities are exploring this concept of ‘one water,’ the right water quality for the right purpose, and making the most efficient use of water.”

Rising temperatures from climate change and exhaustion of the river compel new approaches, he said.

“The demands on our system are going to increase simply because it is going to be warmer. People and plants are going to be using more water,” Lochhead said.  “The prospects of a major new diversion project on the Colorado River are difficult at best.”

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has raised multiple concerns.

State water quality staffers are reviewing  “adequate control of pathogens,” including the potential for bacteria to grow in the purple pipes, an agency spokeswoman said. That’s because irrigation of crops for human consumption could mean more people are exposed to bacteria. They’re also evaluating the potential for salts to build up in soils and groundwater. And they’re looking at issues around build-up of “antibiotic resistant genes” that recycled water could accelerate. (Bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics can reproduce and pass on that resistance, creating many more antibiotic resistant bacteria.)

“We’re as much about water conservation as anyone else,” director Larry Wolk said. “If there’s reuse potential for that kind of water that doesn’t pose any type of health risk or has an acceptable health risk, then it is something we definitely should consider.”

“We won’t know until that technical assessment is complete if it is an acceptable risk or not. Just because it was OK in 1980 doesn’t necessarily mean it is OK today , because we know a lot more, after nearly 40 years, than we knew then,”Wolk said.

“But we are all about reuse,” Wolk said, “whether it is produced water, recycled water, graywater, if there is an acceptable health risk.”

A CDPHE meeting is scheduled for next week to launch a rulemaking process that will run through August 2018. Health officials said they want to hear from all sides and said any new uses of recycled water won’t hurt people or the environment.

State rules currently allow use of recycled water for car washing, landscape irrigation, industrial systems and putting out fires.

For years, Denver Water crews have been capturing wastewater, treating it and sending it back through the city. It is water initially diverted from the Colorado River and moved through tunnels under the Continental Divide. (Denver Water legally is limited to a one-time use of its other water that originates here in South Platte River Basin, because downriver agricultural producers have rights to use Denver’s  “return flows.”) The purple-pipe water is classified as nonpotable, but utility officials emphasized it meets the standards of water people were drinking in the 1980s.

The 80 current users of recycled water include irrigators and industrial plants, nine schools, 34 parks, five golf courses and the Denver Zoo.

Source: Denver Post.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Well Water Contaminants that Can Affect Your Health

Adapted from a Vermont Health Dept. Bulletin

You have probably heard about the big three contaminants that could be in your well water: arsenic, lead and E. coli bacteria. But what about lesser-known contaminants, such as manganese and nitrates?

They can have harmful health effects, too, and testing is the only way to know if they’re in your drinking water.

Manganese is a naturally-occurring metal found in rocks and soil that can dissolve from bedrock and enter groundwater. We get manganese from the foods we eat, and small amounts are also added to most vitamin supplements and baby formulas.

Nitrogen, also a natural element, can be found in water in the form of nitrate. Nitrate contamination of water usually comes from fertilized agricultural fields, septic system failures, or manure piles that are too close to wells.

Manganese and nitrates are required for health,  but we typically get all that we need from our diet, so we don’t need extra manganese and nitrates in our water.

Exposure to high concentrations of manganese over many years has been linked to toxicity to the nervous system.

Babies who drink formula made with nitrate-contaminated water are at risk for blue baby syndrome, a condition where the baby’s blood is less able to carry oxygen. Affected babies develop a blue-gray color and need emergency medical help.

Infants are more susceptible to adverse health effects associated with high levels of manganese and nitrates in drinking water because their bodies are smaller and still developing.

Health Departments recommend that people with private wells or springs have their water tested every five years for manganese and nitrates. In fact, comprehensive tests that evaluate all significant well-water issues, not just nitrates and manganese, are recommended.

How Long Do Water Filters Last?

Probably you have seen an ad for a small, one-cartridge “ten stage” water filter that promises to remove chlorine, lead, pesticides, herbicides, VOCs, fluoride,  and “pharmaceuticals,” and to “last for 10,000 gallons.” This advertising claim is actually true. But at the same time, it is a big lie. A really big lie.

The intent is to imply that  the filter will remove fluoride, VOCs, and all the other heavy contaminants listed “for 10,000 gallons.” But what “lasts for 10,000 gallons” really means is that it won’t fall apart and that it may even be removing some chlorine after 10,000 gallons. While it may “remove fluoride” for the first few gallons, it really doesn’t contain enough fluoride media to last past the original cartridge rinse. The trick is in the words.  It’s true that it “removes fluoride” and that it “lasts for 10,000 gallons,” but it certainly doesn’t remove fluoride for 10,000 gallons.

Even single media filters, like carbon blocks, have greatly different capacities for various contaminants that they treat.  Filter carbon is a very effective treatment–the best, in most cases–for a large majority of water contaminants, but in almost every case carbon filters treat chlorine much longer than they effectively treat more difficult contaminants.

For example, the manufacturer of one superb carbon block filter states the capacity of its 2.5″ X 10″ cartridge for removing chlorine as 20,000 gallons @ 1 gallon per minute. For removal of VOCs, however, the claim is for only 500 gallons at the reduced flow rate of 0.5 gallons per minute.

It is a mistake to assume, in other words, that the filter will remove VOCs as long as it will treat chlorine. If chlorine removal and taste/odor improvement are the only goals, then the filter can be used to its full chlorine capacity; but if you really need serious removal of specific contaminants, you should find out the cartridge’s capacity for the specific item you’re targeting and change the cartridge accordingly.

You should also notice that flow rate matters–a lot–and that if you want a faster flow rate, you need a larger filter.

Study finds that refillable water bottles are fertile growing ground for bacteria

Reprinted from Toronto Sun.

Gazette Introductory Note: We recommend that as you read this you try to remember any recent accounts you’ve heard of outbreaks of illness resulting from the use of refillable water bottles. Remember that we live in an ocean of bacteria. It isn’t remarkable that water bottles are teeming with microorganisms; it would be remarkable if they weren’t. –Hardly Waite.

You need to keep hydrated at the gym so you chug water from a refillable water bottle.

You might want to think twice before doing that.

According to a study by Treadmill Reviews, reusable water bottles contain high levels of human-harming bacteria. Swabbing four different bottle styles, the study found the containers were crawling with more than 300,000 colony-forming bacteria units per square centimetre.

Conclusion: drinking from a refillable bottle may be worse than licking a dog’s toy, the U.K. Sun reported.

The study detected that the average water bottle had 313,499 CFU (colony-forming units of bacteria) compared to 2,937 CFU found on a dog’s toy.

Bottles with a slide-top spout contained the most germs with an average of 933,340 CFU.

Squeeze-top bottles are just as harmful with an average germ count of 161,971 CFC.

Screw-top lid bottles aren’t as bad with 159,060 CFU. Surprisingly, the least harmful were straw-top bottles with a fraction of an average compared to others at just 25.4 CFU.

While squeeze-tops weren’t as harmful as its slide-top counterparts, almost 99% of bacteria found on the bottle contained harmful traces of antibiotic-immune bacteria like E.coli, the study suggested.

Overall more than 60% of germs found on water bottles can make people sick.

The study’s researchers suggested using straw-tops or stainless steel bottles over plastic ones. Researchers also recommend not letting a half drunk bottle sit unattended for weeks.

Bottles should also be hand washed with a weak bleach solution or cleaned via dishwasher.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Rinsing Water Filter Cartridges: Getting the Air Out

by Gene Franks

When water filter owners ask how long they should rinse the filter cartridges in new water treatment units, or in units they are replacing the the filter cartridges in, they usually expect a simple answer and that’s what they usually get.  Actually, though, the answer can be quite complicated and in most cases there is not a pat answer.

We’re concentrating on carbon filters here, which are by far the most common in residential treatment units, but the same principles apply in varying degrees to other media, like calcite, ion exchange resins, or activated alumina.

Fines

If you have a carbon filter, you’ve probably noticed that a big blast of black stuff comes out of the faucet when you start up a new cartridge. This is called “carbon fines.” It’s just manufacturing left-overs,  small pieces of carbon that have to be washed out.  Some filters, you may also have noticed, put out virtually no fines. This is because the manufacturer has gone to the trouble to clean the carbon up well (often washing it with acid) to keep the “fines” from going into your RO membrane or your refrigerator.

The assumption is that when the fines have subsided and the water is running more or less clear, the cartridge is ready to use. Not so.  There are other considerations.  For example, brand new carbon filters can contain residuals of contaminants (like arsenic), and even NSF Standard 42 cartridges, which are certified to be safe, sometimes are labelled with the admonition to “place the cartridge in an appropriate housing and rinse for a minimum of 20 minutes before use.” Anyone who has tested a reverse osmosis unit after a cartridge change knows that you do not get a valid TDS (total dissolved solids) reading of membrane performance after the cartridge change.  This is because the new carbon postfilter, for up to a week after the cartridge change, is putting out “solids” that the meter can see but the human eye cannot. To be clear, the same “TDS throw” occurs in all new carbon filters, not just RO postfilters; it’s just that only RO units are routinely tested for TDS performance.

AirWhat air inside a carbon block cartridge looks like

A fact that water treatment professionals are aware of but that water filter users seldom consider is that new carbon filters are mostly air. What makes carbon such an amazingly effective filter medium, in fact, is not only what is there but what is not there. It’s the countless tiny air-filled pores inside the carbon particles that provide enormous amounts of surface area for chemical contaminants to cling to that make carbon so effective.   The so-called “40-40-20” rule has it that most carbon filters are 40% air-filled space between carbon particles, 40% air-filled inner pores, and 20% actual solid carbon. In fact, depending on the type of product and the manufacturing method, most carbon filters are said to be 70% to 90% air.

When a new cartridge is put into service, it can take days for the air to work out completely. That’s why users sometimes experience cloudy water (if air is causing the cloudiness, the water in a glass will clear from bottom to top) and why there sometimes appears be a scummy substance at the top of a glass of water from a new filter. The scum is air trapped under the “skin” at the top of the water column.  Both the cloudy color and the scum will go away with time, and it’s nothing to worry about.

Diminished Performance Because of Air

While fines and trapped air are aesthetic problems with filter startup that goes away fairly quickly, there is actually diminished performance from a new filter cartridge or carbon bed in a large filter caused by trapped air that lasts longer.   I sometimes tell customers with new products that the water will taste and look better after a week or so,  when the new filters have had a chance to “mellow in.”  Mellowing in is a low tech way of saying that everything will work better when water has had a chance to push the air out of the millions of tiny crevices within the carbon, thus allowing the water to come into intimate contact with the carbon itself.

Large industrial filters have to be soaked for long periods after rebedding to drive the air out the carbon.  Hot water, which speeds the process up, is also used.  Henry Norwicki et al. in a recent Water Conditioning and Purification article actually recommend a 72 hour soak for small filter cartridges:

There are two ways to replace the nano-spaced concentrated air: 72 hours submerged soaking in tap water or using hot water to remove trapped air. Water forms larger conglomerates by hydrogen bonding of water molecules. Conglomerates of hot water are smaller and can better penetrate adsorption spaces than larger, cold-water conglomerates. Replacing filter soaking water with fresh water and turning the filter vertically upside down is also beneficial. Draining helps remove air bubbles. When air in nanospaces is replaced by water, bubbles go into bulk volume between media particles. Simple draining removes these bulk water bubbles. Water inside particles, however, is not removed by draining. Soaking for 72 clock hours is necessary and extra time is acceptable.

We’re a long way from recommending that customers soak filter cartridges for 72 hours before using them, but it helps to know what’s going on inside the filter and be a bit forgiving if water is cloudy and doesn’t taste as good as you would expect with brand new filter cartridges.

Enlargement of granular carbon shows countless pores that adsorb contaminants. The surface area of the pores is exceptional. A single pound of activated carbon has more surface area in its pores than 100 football fields. When the carbon is new, these pores are filled with air that must eventually work its way out.