Lake Champlain’s creatures feed on diet of plastic ‘microtrash’

by Mike Polhamus

A ruler marked in millimeter increments shows the size of these “nurdles,” tiny and relatively uniform but unidentified pieces of gray rubber found throughout Lake Champlain.

Plastic fibers, apparently from people’s clothing, are accumulating in Lake Champlain fish, plankton and birds, according to a SUNY Plattsburgh professor who is researching “micro” trash ingested by the lake’s aquatic organisms.

The fibers are suspected of introducing harmful substances like heavy metals and hydrocarbons — with which they bond readily — into creatures that ingest them, said Danielle Garneau, who teaches at the university’s Center for Earth and Environmental Science.

Garneau said she and other researchers found accumulations of the fibers in the innards of 14 species of Lake Champlain fish, as well as in zooplankton and cormorants from the lake.

The researchers also found flowing into the lake significant quantities of other tiny plastic particles that pass through Vermont’s wastewater treatment plants, including unidentified tiny gray rubber pieces called nurdles. Garneau said the nurdles’ origin is a mystery but that they’re distributed throughout the lake.

Lake Champlain from Battery Park in Burlington.

The nurdles and many other forms of plastic microtrash found throughout Lake Champlain appear to pass through most aquatic organisms, or to otherwise become undetectable, unlike the fibers that concentrate in their guts, Garneau said.

These fibers are primarily made of polyester and rayon, suggesting that many of them originated in the performance clothing Vermonters favor for outdoor activities in the species’ habitat, Garneau said.

The fibers seem to “biomagnify” up the food chain, she said, meaning predators accumulate garbage fibers from their prey, and those fibers then end up in whatever eats those predators, and so on.

In addition to potentially introducing harmful chemicals into organisms, the fibers are believed to interfere with their digestion in larger quantities, said Rachael Miller, founder of The Rozalia Project, a Vermont water advocacy group.

Miller said people often envision milk jugs and broken portable toilets when they think of large-scale aquatic plastic trash problems such as the garbage patches in the North Atlantic and the Pacific.

But the garbage patches consist primarily of tiny pieces of plastic found in greatest concentrations at the center of vast oceanic gyres that form the marine currents driving the world’s weather patterns, Miller said.

“That’s worse news than if it were a big floating island of trash, because microplastic is a much more difficult pollution problem to deal with,” she said. A milk jug is easy enough to lift out of the ocean, she said, but it becomes much more difficult to remove after sunshine and waves break it down into millions of microscopic fragments.

The tiny fibers that Garneau and her fellow researchers are finding accumulated in Lake Champlain organisms probably came from clothes, she said.

Research suggests the fibers escape into the environment not just from wastewater from washing machines, but also from air pumped out of clothes driers, Miller said.

Wastewater treatment plants aren’t designed to remove the fibers or other particles of plastic, and so the best way to reduce their spread is to prevent them from leaving the house in the first place, Garneau said.

Miller invented a device meant to catch the fibers while they’re floating in washing machines.

Both women said there is evidence people can help by washing their clothes in ways that don’t break down fabrics. This means liquid detergent instead of powdered, soft water instead of hard, cool water instead of hot, and gentle cycle instead of heavy duty.

“Microplastics are not just a phenomenon at the center of ocean gyres,” Miller said. “We have microplastics in urban harbors and in Lake Champlain. … It’s important that people understand this is a problem right at our toes, and not just thousands of miles away.”

Source: VTDigger.org

What an oil spill looks like

The Canada to Texas Keystone Pipeline spilled oil in Amherst, S.D., on  Nov. 16, raising questions of groundwater protection. TransCanada Corp., the pipeline’s owner,  has as of late November recovered 44,400 gal, the equivalent of 1,057 barrels, though an estimated 210,000 gal were released during the leak. The site of the oil spill lies only 20 miles from the Lake Traverse Reservation, the home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate.

Currently, the pipeline stretches 2,147 miles from Hardisty, Alberta to the Texas coast. Since 2010, the pipeline has suffered three leaks in North and South Dakota. Before constructing the pipeline, TransCanada released a spill risk assessment that estimated the chance of a leak of more than 50 barrels to be no more than once every 11 years.

Tank Tip: How to Fix a Crooked, Tipping Mineral Tank

We get occasional calls about tanks for large filters or softeners that lean to the side. If your tank looks like the leaning tower of Pisa, there’s an easy way to fix it.

Before you load the tank with media and before you hook it to your plumbing,  straighten it by simply picking it up and tapping it on a solid floor to arrange the tank to sit straight in its base. The tank will move easily in its base when you tap the base against a solid surface.

The tank is not attached to its base–it’s simply sitting in it.  Sometimes tanks get out of line during shipping and an adjustment is needed.  Once you get it straight and in place, load it and install it to your plumbing.  Once fixed, it will stay put.

The Diameter of Pipes and Plastic Tubes: Double is More Than Double

The rule of thumb in pipe sizing is twice the diameter equals four times the flow.  Two one-inch pipes do not equal a two-inch pipe. It actually takes four one-inch pipes to carry the same load as a single two-inch pipe. Therefore, if you split a two-inch pipe into two one-inch pipes, you are cutting its flow capacity in half.

People who plumb with large pipes are usually aware of this, but with smaller tubing it’s easy to overlook this basic law of nature.

With the small flexible plastic tubing used for undersink filters and reverse osmosis units it is important to know that what is called 1/4″ tubing is measured by its outside diameter.  With 1/4″ tubing, the inside diameter, the path that the water flows through is actually about 1/8″. What we call 3/8″ tubing is roughly 1/4″ inside diameter, so following the rule of thumb of pipe flow, a 3/8″ OD tube will actually carry four times the water flow as compared with the 1/4″ OD tube.  This is a very important fact to keep in mind if you’re planning to send water from your RO unit across the room to an icemaker or refrigerator. Especially if your run is long, you’ll have a much better result with 3/8″ tubing than with 1/4″.

Alternative Methods of Protecting Pipes

Over the years many products have been developed to protect pipes. Although the conventional ion exchange water softener, now in use for over 100 years, is the product of choice, there are many alternatives.

Poly-phosphates

The use of phosphates to inhibit scale buildup goes back to the early 19th century. Phosphate treatment does not remove hardness minerals but “sequesters” them to prevent hardness scale deposits. Preventing scale with phosphates has wide application. Poly-phosphate cartridges (which often combine phosphate with carbon to add taste/odor improvement to scale prevention) are very popular in restaurants, for example, to protect equipment such as coffee machines from scale while providing good-tasting water. Poly-phosphate can also be fed as a liquid into a water stream to protect home appliances and to prevent hardness buildup on buildings and sidewalks from irrigation water.  Siliphos beads, popular in Europe but not as widely used in the US,  are an application of phosphate technology. Siliphos is a natural product, made of milk thistle, that forms a microscopic coating on the inside of pipes to protect from scale formation.

Above is a granular activated carbon/ phosphate cartridge for scale prevention and chlorine/chemical reduction. It fits standard filter housings and contains Granular Activated Carbon with 8 ounces of polyphosphate. This is a good taste/0dor cartridge that protects equipment (coffee machines, icemakers, etc.) from scale formation.  Phosphate does not remove hardness minerals in water but “sequesters” them so that they do not damage metal surfaces. The cartridge is good for about 2000 gallons service at a one gallon-per-minute flow rate.

Other Corrosion Control Methods

There are highly concentrated chemicals that can be pump fed into the water stream to protect large reverse osmosis membranes from calcium scaling. Spectraguard, for example, is used to protect reverse osmosis membranes from scaling even when inlet water is extremely hard. It can replace a water softener for RO pre-treatment.

The popular treatment medium KDF, most often used  for chlorine reduction, as in shower filters, for example, is also marketed as a scale preventer. KDF uses the “redox” process of passing water over dissimilar metals to modify the structure of scale causing minerals and converting hardness to Aragonite. There are variations on this technique that use metal bars inside pipes rather than granular KDF media.

Magnets, Electro-Magnets and the Newer Methods, TAC and NAC.

Over the past few decades consumer demand for non-traditional scale prevention methods has led to the development of a number of magnetic and electro-magnetic devices. Treating scale with natural magnets actually goes back to the late 19th century. Currently there are a great number of electro-magnetic and other electronic systems on the market, ranging from simple and inexpensive to very complex and very expensive. The effectiveness of electro-magnetic devices is often debated.

By far the most popular new “salt-free” technologies, however, is TAC (“Template Assisted Crystallization”), which has become very big in the residential market and is also used in commercial applications. TAC works both in tank style units, which require no backwash, no electricity, no salt, no drain connection, and cartridge-style units for smaller applications. Like other alternative methods, TAC does not actually soften water by removing hardness minerals, but instead purports to convert hardness to microscopic crystals. As with other non-traditional softening methods,  TAC units do not actually remove anything from the water, so their performance is essentially impossible to quantify with a test. These units cost a bit more than conventional softeners, but do not consume water, salt or electricity. The media, however, is expensive and requires replacement, usually after about three years. TAC units are also more fragile than softeners,  requiring protection from sediment, chlorine, copper, and iron.

Scale Prevention Offerings from Pure Water Products

We do not sell magnets or electronic conditioners, but we do offer small poly-phosphate cartridges and feed systems (pumps, tanks, media) for larger applications. We have Siliphos in bulk and can put it in cartridges for whole house scale prevention.  We have Spectraguard for large RO protection. We have KDF in bulk, in cartridges, and in shower filters. We have all sizes of TAC (OneFlow, formerly branded as ScaleNet).  With these we stock media, cartridges, and pre-built units. See our TAC units on our main website.

And, yes, we do have lots of water softeners, both single tank and twins,  in different formats and sizes. They cost about 1/4 as much as the telemarketers’ systems, but you don’t get a free year’s supply of soap.

The Battleground Beneath Our Feet: The Politics of Water Pipes

by Gene Franks

A  2017  New York Times article  focused on a pressing problem that few Americans are aware of:

America is facing a crisis over its crumbling water infrastructure, and fixing it will be a monumental and expensive task.

Two powerful industries, plastic and iron, are locked in a lobbying war over the estimated $300 billion that local governments will spend on water and sewer pipes over the next decade.

The battleground is beneath our feet. Who wins the plastic vs. iron war will affect the safety and availability of drinking water of generations of Americans.

Some of our water pipes are 150 years old. In just a couple of years the average age of  over 1.5 million miles (think of it!) of water and sewer pipes will be 45 years.  In hundreds of towns and counties cast iron pipes are more than a century old. There are even said to be a few miles of old wooden pipes that have survived for well over a century. Lead water pipes, once widely used, have been banned for 30 years but more than 10 million old lead pipes are estimated to be still in service. The lead from these pipes, as the Flint experience taught us, can leach into public drinking water supplies at any time if there is a change in water treatment methods or water source.

About two-thirds of our existing water pipes are made from traditional materials like steel or iron. Plastic piping is now growing in popularity as a substitute for existing metal pipes, partially because the plastics industry is taking advantage of fears created by the Flint experience.  As much as 80% of new piping is being done with plastics.

The sale of pipe, as is to be expected, is a highly politicized business. Piping standards are often mandated by law, and many laws are outdated but very hard to change, so whether plastic or metal piping is used often depends not so much on economic, health, or safety considerations as on which industry’s trade organization has the deepest pockets.

With $300 billion in pipe sales at stake, politics rules. Corporations that supply pipe pay high dues to trade associations who lobby and initiate legislation on their behalf. Trade associations and large corporations court politicians with campaign donations.

There is much industry-sponsored legislation aimed at modernizing piping standards. Opponents of the industry-backed bills, including many municipal engineers, say they are a thinly veiled effort by the plastics industry to muscle aside traditional pipe suppliers.

At first glance it would seem that plastics are an obvious replacement for the nation’s aging metal pipes. Plastics, after all, have already pushed out copper as the preferred pipe for connecting municipal lines to homes as well as within the homes themselves. Plastic pipe is light, easy to install, corrosion-free, and about 50% less costly than iron pipe.

Not everyone is comfortable with plastic piping, however, and there are rising health concerns.

Although plastic piping has been around for some time, we are just starting to understand the effect of plastic on the quality and safety of drinking water.  Concerns have always focused on chemicals that could leach into the water from the pipes themselves. We have not answered completely questions about how water treatment chemicals like chlorine and chloramine react with the plastics in piping. Now there is concern that contaminants can enter plastic piping through surrounding groundwater contamination. It appears that pollutants like benzene and toluene from soil polluted by chemical spills or from groundwater can permeate certain types of plastic pipe and leach into the water. One report identified 150 contaminants that can migrate from plastic pipe into drinking water. The New York Times says, “Scientists are just starting to understand the effect of plastic on the quality and safety of drinking water. . . .”

One thing that should really concern us is that their is a total lack of government regulation over the safety of piping used in water supply insfrastructure. There is no federal oversight of the materials or processes used to manufacture plastic water pipes; instead, water pipes are certified and tested by an organization paid for by industry, NSF International.

NSF International is not a government agency, and it has never received regulatory authority from the federal government, yet NSF certification is widely accepted by the public as the ultimate guarantee of product safety and reliability. NSF is paid by the industries it regulates and in the case of pipe it does not disclose test results for the pipes it certifies.

Although NSF International displays a picture of the US Capitol building on its web page, it is not a government agency and does not receive its authority from the government.

There is no doubt that switching to plastic piping exclusively could save water suppliers (and consequently taxpayers) significant amounts of money in the short term, but there are public health concerns that should be addressed. It would be good if these issues could be decided not by politicians but by qualified experts acting in the public interest.

Texas Researchers Find Harmful Bacteria In Groundwater Near Natural Gas Wells

The research found bacteria can be “quite prevalent”  in groundwater already contaminated with various chemicals

by Travis Bubenik

Some Texans living near natural gas wells are drinking contaminated water.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have found that certain bacteria can thrive in water that is already contaminated with chemicals related to natural gas extraction.

Kevin Schug is the director of the university’s  Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation, or “CLEAR“ lab.

“Some of these microbes are the type of bacteria that the World Health Organization doesn’t want you to be coming in contact with,” he said.  “They have drug resistance and they can be pathogenic, and cause other adverse health effects.”

The research does not suggest the bacteria are directly caused by fracking. Schug said the chemicals in groundwater that were found to help the bacteria grow can be as seemingly harmless as chlorine– typically used as a disinfectant –and can even be tied to agricultural activities.

Still, his lab’s findings were from oil and gas-heavy areas of North and South Texas.

State regulators do monitor for bacteria in groundwater, but Schug said authorities should pay closer attention to this kind of contamination. And, he said, it needs to be cleaned up.

“In these cases, certainly for [the] presence of some of these bacteria, which are pathogenic, it’s gotta go.”

Houston Public Media

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As Hog Farms Proliferate, So Too Do Water Problems

An Iowa state water assessment released in 1017 found that 750 of Iowa’s waterways of the 1350 tested were “impaired.”

Large hog farms are undoubtedly a major contributor to that “impairment.”

Iowa has more than 6,300 hog farms and about 60 percent of them raise more than 1,000 hogs, which leaves farmers with massive amounts of manure to deal with. More than 10 billion gallons of liquid manure are applied to Iowa fields annually. State records show 800 manure spills between 1996 and 2012. The manure is high in fecal coliform, nitrogen and phosphates.

The situation is essentially the same in the country’s second largest hog producing state, North Carolina.  North Carolina also deals with an estimated 10 billion gallons of hog feces and urine waste each year, according to an analysis of state data by the non-profit organization, Environmental Working Group. The waste, like the hog farms themselves, is concentrated: North Carolina has the two highest hog producing counties in the nation. Together they account for 40 percent of the state’s wet waste.

Across the U.S. nitrogen pollution from livestock manure has increased 46 percent over the past 80 years.

A number of pollutants impair Iowa waters but nitrate, which can also get into water from leaky septic tanks, wastewater treatment systems, and certain fertilizers, plagues the state. The pollution, which has been linked to certain cancers, some birth defects and other diseases, exceeded federal limits in 11 of the state’s public water supplies in 2015, according to a state report.

About 300,000 people in the state are on private wells and a University of Iowa study of 475 wells across the state found that 49 percent tested for nitrates, with 12 percent of those above federal safety limits. An additional 43 percent tested for coliform bacteria, which comes from animal or human waste and can make people sick.

In 2016,  federal researchers tested the South Fork Iowa River basin before and after hog manure was spread on a field nearby (This is a typical disposal method.) The researchers found multiple harmful bacteria and pathogens in the water after the application, including a surprising amount of hepatitis E. The researchers concluded that there exists
“…a potential role for swine in the spreading of zoonotic pathogens to the surrounding environment.”

As feces contaminated water reaches streams, fish kills are common.  One group estimates that almost 5 million fish have been killed by animal waste over the past decade in Iowa streams.

Water use is also heavily dependent on livestock population. Over the entire state in Iowa,  livestock accounts for only about 4 percent of water use, but in some agricultural counties the figure can go a high as 95%.

The hard-to-treat antibiotic resistant bacterial infection MSRA is also easily found in swine and swine workers.  People who live near large hog operations appear to have about triple the risk of getting MSRA . The US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention says MRSA is the most concerning of current antibiotic-resistant threats, resulting in about 11,285 deaths annually.

With mounting evidence of the dangers of hog manure to human health and environmental safety,  one would expect that Iowa would step up its regulation efforts.  The opposite is true.  One researcher says that Iowa’s lawmakers are “leaving its people at risk in favor of hogs.”

Environmental Health News reports:

Iowa’s GOP-controlled Legislature has shown little desire to fix this and in fact has moved backwards: This year it forced a $1.2 million budget reduction on the state Department of Natural Resources, the agency charged with overseeing water safety and health. The DNR eliminated the Bureau of Forestry and eight other positions, including the animal feeding operations coordinator.

Source Reference: Environmental Health News.

Research in Great Britain Warns of Worldwide Nitrate Crisis

A study conducted by the  British Geological Survey warns that there are huge quantities of nitrate chemicals from farm fertilizers are polluting the rocks beneath our feet. Researchers at the say it could have severe global-scale consequences for rivers, water supplies, human health and the economy.

They say the nitrate will be released from the rocks into rivers via springs.

That will cause toxic algal blooms and fish deaths, and will cost industry and consumers billions of dollars year in extra water treatment.

The researchers estimate that there are up to 180 million tons of nitrate are stored in rocks worldwide–perhaps twice the amount stored in soils. They say this is the first global estimate of the amount of nitrate trapped between the soil layer and the water-bearing aquifers below. They warn that over time the nitrate will inevitably slowly seep into the aquifers.

In some developed countries, the amount of nitrate stored in the rocks is increasing, despite improvements in farming practice and the introduction of rules to control the pollutant. In developing countries, the problem is currently not so severe. But there is an urgent need for early intervention to avoid the environmental damage experienced by rich countries.

Matthew Ascott, hydro-geologist at the BGS and lead author of the study, said: “With big investments being made to reduce water pollution through changes in farming, it is vital that we understand what pollution is already in the environment. Water and the pollutant travels through the rocks below our feet very slowly. This and a history of intensive agriculture means that a large store of nitrate pollution has built up over time. When this pollution is released, it will continue to impact water quality for decades, in some cases, even where controls on fertilizer use have been put in place.”

Reference source: BBC.

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