More People Drown Than You Think: Ten Per Day in the US

Ten people die every day from unintentional drowning in the United States, making it the fifth-leading cause of unintentional injury death.  About 20% are under the age of 14. Nearly 80% are male.

Only about 35% of Americans know how to swim, and only 2% to 7% swim well.  Teens are particularly susceptible to peer pressure and often go past their limits. Exhaustion or disorientation under water could cause a weak swimmer to panic.

In this case, the swimmer would go through the stages of what lifeguards call an “active drowning.”  The word “active” may be misleading, as active drowning is nothing like what you usually see on TV.

In an active drowning, a swimmer is at or below eye level at the surface of the water for about 10 to 20 seconds. The head is tilted back to get air. The eyes are either wide open or tightly shut. The mouth is often in an “O” shape from shock.  If you can call for help, you aren’t drowning.

After about 20 seconds, the victim will start to sink and will hold his breath underwater for anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds. If rescued during this time, the swimmer usually will be fine.

After 90 seconds,  a swimmer will black out. At this point, the outcome is hard to predict.  If a swimmer is resuscitated after the four-minute mark, there’s a high risk of brain damage.

Typically, a person holding his breath will be triggered to breathe when his CO2 levels get high. But if a swimmer is holding his breath for a long time while exhaling underwater, or is going underwater repeatedly, his CO2 levels are lowered. When that happens, the brain’s built-in alarm to breathe doesn’t go off, despite a lack of oxygen.

More than half of drowning deaths in people older than 15 occur outside of pools, according to the CDC. And alcohol is involved in 70% of cases.

More information from CNN Health.

 In Rural India, Where Rains Pour Down in Buckets,  Water Is Scarce

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bee Sharper Indexes the Numbers that Harper’s Misses

by Bee Sharper

Portion of the water supply in rural India (where 70% of the people live)  that is routinely contaminated with dangerous bacteria — 1/2.

Approximate number of Indian children who die each year of diarrhea or pneumonia caused by toxic water — 600,000.

Year by which it is predicted that India will need to double its current water supply — 2030.

Number of Indians who currently scrounge for water from unproven sources — 100,000,000.

Percentage of the world’s population that lives in India — 16%.

Percentage of the world’s fresh water supply that is available to India — 4%.

Annual rainfall in the small northern Indian town of  Cherrapunji — 4 feet.

Occasional daily rainfall amount during the rainy season — 1 foot.

Factor by which this rainfall exceeds the annual rainfall in Seattle — 12 times.

Number of miles many Cherrapunji women have to walk to bring water to their homes during the dry season — 1+

Number of trips per day required to bring water to the home — 4 to 5.

Number of hours per day that residents have tap water in the city of New Delhi — 2 to 3.

Percentage of New Delhi’s total water output that is lost to leaky pipes and theft — 30% to 70%.

Women Carrying Water from a Community Tap in Cherrapunji.

Reference: New York Times

Land and Ocean

by Janet Kaspersen,  Stormwater Editor

 

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

Gazette’s Nutshell View:  The problem of plastics in the ocean is getting worse all the time.  Two years after the Japanese tsunami, Hawaii is catching the debris.

The problem of plastic in the ocean—where it lasts for decades and gets eaten by birds, fish, and other animals—is nothing new; in fact, it’s getting worse. Now, two years after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Hawaiian islands are receiving an extra share of plastics and other debris.

By some estimates, about a million and a half tons of debris was washed out to sea during the tsunami; some has landed in North America. Hawaii, though, which is sometimes described as the “comb” of the Pacific because it catches debris as it swirls westward across the ocean, is getting much of the material now. Items with Japanese text and logos, ranging in size from tiny shards to whole appliances, have been prevalent for months. Although big items like refrigerators are more dramatic, it’s the smaller and more plentiful ones—bottle caps, bits of plastic bags—that are of greater concern to wildlife specialists.

Earlier studies by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that 9% of ocean fish had ingested plastics. As this article details, recent NOAA studies have shown that 12% of fish—and as much as 45% in some species—have done so. And one oceanographer studying albatross in Hawaii says that every single bird he examined recently had eaten some sort of plastic debris. It’s a reminder, another NOAA researcher says, that “the land and the oceans are incredibly connected.”

Source:  Stormwater

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 The Comeback of Water as America’s Drink

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bee Sharper Indexes the Numbers that Harper’s Misses

by Bea Sharper

Percentage increase in the amount of water consumed by the average American vs. 15 years ago — 38%.

Per capita US consumption of of soda in 1998 — 54 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of water in 1998 — 42 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of  soda in 2013 –44 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of water in 2013 — 58 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of water in 2013 in ounces — 7,242.

Per capita US consumption of water in 2013 in cups — 2.5.

Year in which soft drinks peaked in popularity in the US — 1998.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in gallons — 180.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in kegs — 11.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in bathtubs-full — 4.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in large aquariums-full — 1.

Percentage increase in American bottled water consumption since 2001 — 50 %.

Percentage of US bottled water market now held by Coca Cola — 13%.

Percentage of US bottled water market now held by PepsiCo – 10%.

Percent increase in wine consumption in the US during the past decade — 20%.

Percent decrease in beer consumption in the US during the past decade – 12%.

Cups of light yellow or colorless urine that you should produce each day if you are drinking enough water, according to the Mayo Clinic — 6.3.

Ms. Sharper’s Sources:

Beverage Digest.

The Atlantic.

Dead Pigs in Shanghai Water Supply Don’t Ring Alarm Bells for Chinese Officials

by Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

Gazette’s Nutshell View:  When Chinese pigs die of disease, farmers routinely toss their bodies into the nearest river.  The Huangpu, Shanghai’s drinking water source,  gets more than its share. 

More than 2,800 pig carcasses were discovered in the Huangpu River, which feeds Shanghai taps. Rivers are apparently a popular repository for swine that die of disease.

Here’s a riddle for you: When is the discovery of 2,813 dead and rotting pigs in a major city’s water source not a public health problem?

Answer: When the discovery is made in China.

The Shanghai water bureau, which oversees the water consumed in China’s largest city, was insisting on Monday that tap water derived from the Huangpu River met national standards despite the presence of the decomposing pigs.

All I can say is that I am glad I live in Beijing, not Shanghai.

Workers Pulling Dead Pigs from the River that Provides Drinking Water for Shanghai

 

Truly disgusting photographs of bloated porcine carcasses on a riverbank have appeared in many Chinese papers and websites, drawing attention to what seems – believe it or not – to be a relatively common occurrence.

When pigs die of disease, farmers who cannot be bothered to bury the animals just toss them into the nearest river.

Local residents of one pig-rearing village upstream from Shanghai told the national broadcaster China Central Television on Sunday that disposing of dead pigs in the river was a common practice. “After the pigs died of illness, [they] just dumped them in the river … constantly. Every day,” one villager said.

“They are everywhere and they smell very bad,” the villager added.

Thousands of pigs in the Shanghai area have succumbed to epidemic disease in recent months, according to the Jiaxing Daily, a government-run paper in a hog-raising region southwest of Shanghai.

Last week the paper reported that more than 18,000 pigs had died since the beginning of the year in Zhulin, a village in the Jiaxing district. It was not immediately clear how many of them had been legally disposed of and how many had been thrown into the river.

But in a report last week, the paper quoted one pig farmer as saying that “when things are busy,” he and his fellow farmers do not bother to call the local veterinary services to take the corpses away and just “throw them away where we can.” In the summer, he added, the smell of rotting meat is sometimes so strong that villagers cannot open their windows.

More worryingly, the paper said, many readers had called the editorial desk’s hotline to report pig carcasses abandoned by the roadside or in water channels that had mysteriously lost their hind legs overnight.

“What if they were cooked in a restaurant?” the newspaper article wondered.

Source:  Christian Science Monitor

Gazette Fair Use Statement

Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products

Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) include drugs and personal care cosmetic products as well as household cleaners.These are many and diverse. They include both synthetic and natural products, prescription and over-the-counter concoctions, plus medicines and grooming products for animals. Also included are natural and synthetic hormones and antibiotics, including natural hormones excreted by animals and humans.Some very common examples include aspirin, ibuprofen and caffeine. Some exist in very small amounts. To keep things in perspective, a cup of coffee contains about one million times the amount of caffeine that has been detected in some water samples. Other common examples of drugs and PPCPs found in water are detergents, household cleaning agents, insect killers and repellants, etc.

PPCPs include products that are ingested or used for personal health and well-being and for cosmetic purposes. They include prescribed and over-the-counter drugs, veterinary drugs, fragrances, lotions, cosmetics, detergents, plasticizers, pesticides, flame retardants, and illegal drugs.  

In a word, there are so many items in this category that generalizations about their effects or how to remove them from water are at best simply generalizations.

Although it seems from media reports that the presence of drugs and PPCPs in water is on the rise, it is likely that increased reporting due to improved detection methods is in part responsible. In any case, presence of drugs and cosmetic items are being reported frequently now in ppt (parts per trillion) amounts as well as microgram and nanograms.

Because of the tiny amounts being detected, there is no reason to assume that human health is being affected. However, there is now strong evidence that behavior changes in fish can be caused by drugs in the water even in tiny amounts. Also, “feminization” of male fish near sewage release points has been reported, and the supposition is that drugs and hormones are the cause.

Water Treatment: There is obviously no way to determine the preferred treatment method for every possible drug, cosmetic, or household chemical, but it is safe to assume that standard water treatment techniques can be effectively used in most instances. Some contaminants can be oxidized by chlorine, ozone, or hydrogen peroxide, and granular carbon, the standby tool for most chemicals, can be used to adsorb a large percentage of the contaminants in this category. Reverse osmosis membranes will screen out chemicals with larger molecular weights (over about 100 daltons). More advanced oxidation processes, though expensive, are also available for items not removed by conventional treatments.

From a residential water user’s standpoint, an undersink reverse osmosis unit (which contains pre- and post- carbon block filtration) is the obvious best choice for pharmaceutical-free and PPCP-free drinking water. A good multi-stage carbon filter would also be an excellent second choice.

Source Reference: Water Technology.

River Water in China That You Would Not Dare Swim In

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

Gazette’s Summary: China has gone through a period of increasing economic prosperity, but industrial development has taken its toll on the nation’s waterways.  Many of China’s rivers are far too polluted for use by humans, yet environmental officials usually rate them as meeting national standards.

If we Chinese die of cancer caused by pollution, what’s the meaning of economic growth for us?”—Jin Zengmin.

In February of 2013 a Chinese eyeglass entrepreneur offered a $32,000 reward to the chief of the local environmental protection department if he would swim in a local river for just 20 minutes. The offer was declined.

The eyeglass maker, Jin Zengmin, lives in a small city near Shanghai.  The city has known economic prosperity in recent years, but prosperity has taken its toll.  The city is the home of 100 shoe factories that dump raw chemical wastes directly into the local river.

In late 2012, Jin’s sister died of lung cancer at age 35.  He blames water pollution for her death. “When my sister received medical treatment in big cancer hospitals in Shanghai,” Jin says, “we found that many patients there are from my hometown. They have various cancers, and what is astonishing is that most of the cancer patients are in their 30s to 50s. They are still young. I realized these cancers may have something to do with the water pollution in our hometown.”

Jin made his $32,000 bet after local environmental officials declared that the foul-smelling Sina Weibo river met national health standards. After Jin’s wager, internet users posted thousands of pictures of polluted waterways in their regions.

Black Waste Water from a Chinese Electronics Components Recycling  Plant

Clearing Rubbish Along a Chinese River

Source Reference: Time.Com

Gazette Fair Use Statement

Hydraulic Fracturing Uses 4 to 6 Million Gallons of Water Per Well

Water News in a Nutshell.

Gazette’s Summary: Although lawns and agriculture use more water,  hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a major cause for concern in drought-ridden South Texas. Although alternative water sources and efforts at recycling are in use, a river of  fresh water is being sacrificed in the production of oil.  At present, in dry South Texas,  more gallons of water go into the ground  than gallons of oil come out.

Fact About Fracking and Water in Texas

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking , is a drilling process that requires massive amounts of water.

Some south Texas ranches report that their wells are drying up, and a study commissioned by one groundwater district found that in one five-county area, fracking reduces the amount of water in the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer by the equivalent of one-third of the aquifer’s recharge. Recharge means the average amount of water an aquifer regains each year from precipitation and other factors.

Fracking uses roughly 4 to 6 million gallons of water per oil or gas well.

Studies say that fracking consumes less than 1 percent of the total water used statewide, far less than agriculture or  watering lawns.  But in some drilling hotbeds like Dimmit County, the proportion of water used for fracking has reached the double digits and is growing along with the oil boom. Companies are springing up to offer recycling, and some drillers are able to use brackish water, but those technologies are often not cost-effective.

At two state legislative committee sessions studying fracking and water use,  industry representatives testified about emerging water-saving technologies like recycling. But in 2011, only about one-fifth of the water used in fracking came from recycled or brackish water.  The consensus is that the industry is not doing enough to restrict water use.In a typical fracking job, water blended with smaller amounts of sand and numerous chemicals is pumped down a well to release oil or gas trapped in the pores of hard rock. The use of chemicals has stirred fears of spills and contamination, especially because companies keep some of the chemicals secret.In 2011, Texas used a greater number of barrels of water for oil and natural gas fracking (about 632 million) than the number of barrels of oil it produced (about 441 million), according to figures from the Texas Water Development Board and the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulator.

Another study found that the amount of water used statewide for fracking more than doubled between 2008 and 2011. The amount is expected to increase before leveling off in the 2020s.

Often. landowners sell groundwater to frackers. Water for fracking may sell for 35 to 50 cents a barrel, according to the Texas Water Recycling Association, a new nonprofit advocating for the water recycling industry.

Much water used in fracking comes from wells that are drilled specifically for the purpose.  State law is ambiguous on the legality.

There is also the issue of heavy use of trucks to haul away “produced” water, which is the name given to the frack water that comes back to the surface along with the oil and gas–water which must be subsequently hauled away.

Another controversial practice is disposing of chemical-laced water left over after fracking that is injected into injection wells.  The safety of the practice is debated and is likely due for more regulation.

More companies are experimenting with the use of brackish water, an abundant underground resource in Texas. The water contains more salts than freshwater does. It may also contain other elements like boron, which can harm the drilling process, and the reservoirs may be deeper and more expensive to tap.

A few companies have branched into water-free fracking. Gasfrac, a Canadian company  uses propane rather than water in fracking.

In another alternative, city sewage has been recycled for use in fracking. But for right now, fracking is a major consumer of fresh water.

 Source Reference: StateImpact,  Texas Tribune.

Gazette Fair Use Statement

Study Shows That Irresponsible Drug Disposal Is Still Common

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

Gazette’s Summary: In spite of widely published reports of pharmaceuticals contaminating public water supplies, more than half of the medical facilities examined in a recent New York study were discovered to still be following the irresponsible practice of disposing of drugs by flushing them down the toilet.

Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a New York environmental group,  reviewed the pharmaceutical disposal plans of 59 facilities and found that 51 percent of the medical and health facilities in Suffolk County are still flushing unused medications down the toilet. The group is pushing for guidelines and legislation to stop this disposal method.

The medical community certainly should know better, and better ways of getting rid of drugs are available.

Newsday says that a quarter of the facilities in the study use a reverse distributor service to collect the unused drugs. It says 12 percent participate in a take-back program sponsored by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. Nevertheless, over half of the medical facilities are still simply flushing drugs down the toilet, and  trace amounts of these drugs are now being detected in drinking water supplies.

 

The Farmingdale environment group is pushing for new state legislation and guidelines that would ban flushing of medications.  One would hope that medical facilities would take it upon themselves to dispose of drugs responsibly.

Source Refernce:  New York Daily News.

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