The Garden Hose Filter: A Versatile and Very Useful Tool

 

The garden hose filter above, mounted on a stand designed by its owner, is used to soften water used for rinsing roof-mounted solar panels.  Softening the water prevents streaking and scale build-up on the panels and allows the user to avoid the dangerous and difficult task of climbing onto the roof to hand-clean the panels.

This is only one of many uses of the very versatile garden hose filter.  Other common uses are providing clean, good-tasting drinking water for work crews via a garden hose, removing chlorine or chloramine from water used to irrigate organic gardens, providing chemical-free water for fish ponds and aquariums, removing sediment that can stop up irrigation emitters, providing soft water for washing cars, boats, motorcycles, patios, driveways, and, as stated, roof-mounted solar panels.

Cartridge-style  garden hose filters come in many sizes.  The filter above uses the largest–the 4.5″ X 20″.  Other popular sizes accommodate 2.5″ X 9.75″, 2.5″ x 20″, and 4.5″ X 9.75″ cartridges.  They can be wall mounted, mounted on a custom-made stand, like the filter above, or simply tossed on the ground.  They are durable: dirt and water don’t hurt them.

 

Speaking of variety, here’s a unique application that was featured in the Pure Water Occasional at the time of last year’s National Garden Hose Day celebration.

Go here for everything you ever wanted to know about garden hose filters.

The Centers for Disease Control Provides Easy Access to Information About Your Local Water’s Fluoride Content 

Fluoride is one of the more controversial issues in water treatment.  A part of the issue that is frequently overlooked is that the amount of fluoride added or maintained by the water supplier should be  an important part of the discussion, as should also the nature and origin of the fluoride that is added.

Certainly there is a difference between naturally occurring fluoride and the industrial waste product that usually serves as a tap water additive, but there is probably a more significant difference between 4 ppm fluoride (currently the EPA upper allowable) and 0.7 ppm, which is what is now being recommended for cities with warm climate.  (There is an assumption that in warm weather areas, people drink more water and therefore should have less fluoride in their tap water.)

We should note that many of the recent studies that show the brain-killing effects of fluoride were done in areas whose water has very high fluoride levels.  Does this mean that if a lot of fluoride damages children’s brains a lot, a little fluoride will damage children’s brains a little?  Perhaps, but not necessarily.  Everything, including water and tomato juice and vitamin C, is toxic if the dose is high enough.  It doesn’t take much fluoride to be too much, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that a small amount is toxic.

US water suppliers add fluoride at different levels.  Optimal fluoride levels recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service and CDC for drinking water range from 0.7 ppm for warmer climates to 1.2 ppm for cooler climates to account for the tendency for people to drink more water in warmer climates.

To illustrate, two major US cities, fluoridate as follows:

New York City, a northern city — 1 ppm.

Denton, TX, a southern city — 0.7 ppm.

The Centers for Disease Control maintains a website where you can check the current fluoridation practices of your local water supplier.

One final comment.  An infrequently mentioned fact about fluoridation of municipal water supplies is that it is not as exact a science as the public often believes.  Fluoride levels can vary considerably from one part of a city to another and from one day to the next.  This is especially true of small water supplies where a lot is being entrusted to personnel whose training is not always up to the job.  The very realistic concern that what is intended to be 1 ppm may well arrive at your home as 4 or 5 ppm should make you consider a protective drinking water treatment for your home.

 

 Pure Water Annie Explains Sediment Filters

 

Water filters have many purposes. Some are designed to remove chemicals from water. Others remove metallic contaminants or “dissolved solids” or charged particles.

This article is about filters that remove suspended solids, variously referred to as turbidity, sediment or particulate.

In general terms, filters of this type are sieving devices. They are like nets that catch and hold particles that are too large to pass through the holes in their surface.

There are large backwashing filters that perform this function. They use beds of natural media like sand, garnet, and anthracite to filter out unwanted particles like dirt or iron rust. The newer versions usually rely on specifically designed and manufactured media with brand names like Filter Ag, ChemSorb, or Micro Z to catch particles. When particles are trapped in the bed, the filter “backwashes” by running water backward through the media bed to wash the unwanted particles down the drain.

This article, however, is about cartridge-style filters rather than backwashing filters. Cartridges are for the most part disposable items. Except in rare cases, they are not backwashed. They are used until they stop up, then they are discarded. Certain cartridges can be cleaned and reused, but most are discarded when dirty.

Here is a picture of a sediment filter cartridge that has done its job and has been replaced:

 

Sediment cartridges are usually made of would string, like those above,  of “melt blown” polypropylene,  or of thin sheets of polypropylene arranged into accordion-like folds.

They are classified by the size of particles, measured in microns, that they will allow to pass.  Common sizes are 1 micron, 5 micron, 20 micron, etc., with the smaller the micron number, the tighter the filter and the smaller the particles it will trap.

There is no “best” material or size when it comes to sediment cartridges.  They must often be chosen by trial and error.  The tighter the filter, the more it restricts water flow, so small micron sizes aren’t necessarily best.

A look at a closeup of the dirty filter above will demonstrate how hard it is for even tiny particles to pass through.

 

For more details about sediment filters, see How Sediment Filters Work and Sediment Filters on the Pure Water Occasional’s website.

 

 Lolong, The World’s Largest Saltwater Crocodile in Captivity, Dies in the Philippines

In its September 2011 issue, the Pure Water Occasional reported the spectacular capture of Lolong, the world’s largest saltwater crocodile in captivity, near a small southern town in the Philippines.

Now we must report that Lolong has died of unknown causes.

Although the giant crocodile was hunted and captured as a safety measure after he had been blamed for the deaths of several villagers, after his capture he become a local celebrity and a formidable tourist attraction that brought fame and dollars to the town of Bunawan.

Bunawan  plans to preserve the remains of the 1-ton crocodile in a museum to keep tourists coming and stop the community from slipping back into obscurity,

Lolong was declared dead after he was  found floating on his back with a bloated stomach in a pond in an ecotourism park which had begun to draw tourists.  The fame of the immense reptile was spreading rapidly, and the town was planning a new road to accommodate tourists.

The cause of death is unknown, and an autopsy will be performed by wildlife experts.

Lolong was estimated to be over 50 years old.  He measured 20 feet 3 inches in length and was proclaimed the world’s largest saltwater crocodile in captivity by Guinness World Records.

According to Yahoo News:

Even though Lolong was blamed for the deaths of several villagers over the years, Bunawan villagers grew to love the giant reptile because it came to symbolize the rich biodiversity of the marsh where it was captured. The vast complex of swamp forests, shallow lakes, lily-covered ponds and wetlands is home to many animals, including threatened species such as the Philippine hawk eagle.

Various religious groups offered prayers Monday and spiritual leaders also planned to perform a tribal funeral rite, which involves butchering chickens and pigs to thank forest spirits for the fame and other blessings the crocodile has brought, Elordie said.

The rite is to be held at the ecotourism park, where the reptile was a star attraction, drawing foreign tourists, scientists and wildlife journalists to Bunawan, a town of 37,000 people about 515 miles (830 kilometers) southeast of Manila.

 

More from Yahoo News.

Other Texas Cities Are Already Planning to Harvest Drinking Water from Their Sewage Plants

The idea of turning treated sewage into drinking water has not been a popular idea, but many Texas cities, Wichita Falls most recently, are turning in that direction.

Lake levels in the Wichita Falls area are at only 40% of capacity and people are beginning to feel that recycling waste water is an idea whose time has arrived.  Wichita Falls hopes to produce 5,000,000 gallons of drinking water per day from recycled wastewater.

Wichita Falls  is one of several cities in Texas pursuing reuse projects. This spring, a $14 million plant in the West Texas town of Big Spring will begin turning treated wastewater into drinking water and distribute about 2 million gallons of it daily to the Midland-Odessa area. Brownwood recently received approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to build a reuse plant. Abilene and Lubbock are in the early stages of examining the technology.

The Big Spring plant will be the first of its kind in the nation.  El Paso, TX  and Orange County, Calif., also have reuse projects, but their treated wastewater gets sent through an aquifer before being pumped up for further cleaning. At Big Spring, there is no aquifer step. The wastewater will be used directly.

In the direct potable reuse process used in Big Spring, regularly treated wastewater goes through additional chemical and biological treatment processes plus extensive filtration.  Then it is mixed into the regular drinking water stream and goes through normal drinking water treatment.

The potable reuse system has generally gained approval of health experts, but there are still many critics who like to refer to the process as “toilet to tap.” The general complaint is that the process “needs more study.”

Wichita Falls is already processing brackish water from a nearby lake to supplement its drinking water supply.

More information from the Texas Tribune.

 

 

 

 Photos Taken at Don Juan Pond Reveal Secrets about the Pond and Possibly Water on Mars As Well 

Antarctica’s strange Don Juan Pond is the saltiest natural body of water on Earth, a fact that keeps the little body of water from freezing in an otherwise frozen continent.

There has been speculation but no real understanding of how the pond gets enough salt to avoid freezing and also how it gets its water.

A Brown University researcher took more than 15,000 pictures over a period of two months in attempt to answer these questions  (see photo below).  Evidence gathered from the pictures may also give clues to how liquid water might also flow on Mars.

 

The photos revealed that the pond’s water level rises slight with the temperature (indicating that there might be a bit of melting snow that adds to the pond’s water) and also dark streaks that could indicate that calcium chloride is being washed into the pond by the tiny water flow from melted snow.

Please read more details of the Don Juan Pond photo studies and their significance at the Science at NBC News website.

MadiDrop Purifier Uses Copper and Silver Nanoparticles, Works Up to Six Months

PureMadi, a nonprofit University of Virginia organization, has invented a simple ceramic water purification tablet called MadiDrop. The tablet — developed and extensively tested at the University of Virginia — is impregnated with silver or copper nanoparticles. It can repeatedly disinfect water for up to six months simply by resting in a vessel where water is poured. It is being developed for use in communities in South Africa that have little or no access to clean water.

PureMadi’s first filter is already being produced.  It is pictured below.

The plan is to produce the PureMadi in 10 to 12 factories in South Africa with an ultimate goal of creating half a million filters per year.

The filters are made of local clay, sawdust, and water. “The result is a flowerpot-shaped filter, which is then fired in a kiln. The firing burns off the sawdust, leaving a ceramic with very fine pores. The filter is then painted with a thin solution of silver or copper nanoparticles that serve as a highly effective disinfectant for waterborne pathogens, the type of which can cause severe diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration.”

The user pours polluted water, such as river water, into the pot and it filters through the filter to a 5-gallon bucket below. 

The design allows a user to pour water from an untreated source, such as a river or well, into the pot and allow it to filter through into a five-gallon bucket underneath. The pot has a flow rate of one to three liters per hour, enough for drinking and cooking. The filtered water is accessed through a spigot in the bucket. Testing has shown that 99.9 percent of the pathogens in water can be removed or killed by the filter.

MadiDrop, the most recent creation,  is an alternative to the flowerpot filter, but ideally would be used in conjunction with it. The plan is to mass-produce the product at the same factories where the PureMadi filters are produced.

MadiDrop is cheaper, easier to use, and is easier to transport than the PureMadi filter, but because it is placed into the water, rather than having the water filter through it, the MadiDrop is not effective for removing sediment in water that causes discoloration or flavor impairment. It is, however, more portable, easier to use, and less expensive.

Testing shows that the filters are safe to use and release only trace amounts of silver or copper particles, well within the safe water standards of the developed world. The filters also would be useful in rural areas of developed countries such as the United States where people rely on untreated well water.

Read the original in Science Daily.

 Does the Fluoride Reduction Medium Activated Alumina Add Aluminum to the Water It Treats?

Editor’s Note:  One of the persistent legends that flies around the internet involves the belief that activated alumina, a manufactured water treatment product, gives up aluminum and adds it to the water being treated.  We’re reprinting the document below in its entirety to address the issue. It reports a study conducted by the prestigious European Food Safety Authority in 2006 to investigate the persistent rumors about the safety of activated alumina.

You can read the entire document below, but you’ll find a more readable PDF version here.  In the text below, we’ve highlighted some of the more significant items.–Hardy Waite.

The EFSA Journal (2006) 394, 1-8

 

 

Opinion of the Scientific Panel on food additives, flavourings, processing aids and materials in contact with food (AFC)on a request related to the safety in use of the activated alumina treatment for the removal of fluoride from natural mineral waters

 

Question N° EFSA-Q-2005-069

 

Adopted on 27 September 2006 SUMMARY

 

SCIENTIFIC PANEL MEMBERS

Fernando Aguilar, Herman Autrup, Sue Barlow, Laurence Castle, Riccardo Crebelli, Wolfgang Dekant, Karl-Heinz Engel, Nathalie Gontard, David Gott, Sandro Grilli, Rainer Gürtler, John Christian Larsen, Jean-Charles Leblanc, Catherine Leclercq, François Xavier Malcata, Wim Mennes, Maria Rosaria Milana, Iona Pratt, Ivonne Rietjens, Paul Tobback, Fidel Toldrá.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Scientific Panel on food additives, flavourings, processing aids and materials  in contact with food wishes to thank Rinus Rijk for assistance in preparing the draft opinion for its consideration.

 Coal and Chemical Concerns Now Use Up 1/4 of the Yellow River’s Annual Flow

When 39 tons of the toxic chemical aniline spilled from a factory in Changzhi in China’s Shanxi province at the end of December, polluting drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people downstream along the Zhuozhang River and fouling the environment, it seemed a grave enough disaster. And it was.

But when Greenpeace China investigated they found something even more alarming: that the fast pace of water consumption by coal and chemical industries in the area is drying up all water resources further downstream. In fact, by 2015, water consumption by coal and chemical industry in China’s dry, western areas is set to use up a whopping quarter of the water flowing annually in the nearby Yellow River.

According to Greenpeace, “Even more worrying than the chemical leak is the high water consumption of the coal and chemical industries in the area.”

None of this may be news to hardened followers of China’s crumpling environment, but the scale of the water consumption in the water-scarce area is nonetheless shocking: The Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group, which caused the spill, consumes water equivalent to the consumption of about 300,000 people per year.

The coal and chemical industry is simply “a major water-eater.”

Water is a key challenge for the country, as rapid industrial growth guzzles water faster and faster.  In the last 40 years, 13 percent of China’s lakes have disappeared, half its coastal wetlands have been lost to reclamation and 50 percent of cities left without drinking water that meets acceptable hygienic standards, the World Wildlife Fund said.  The United Nations has singled China out as one of 13 countries with extreme water shortages.

Authorities agree that China’s water problems are complex.  Although many small-scale conservation plans are underway, massive consumption by industries like coal and chemicals seem to present insurmountable obstacles.

Source Reverence

UNICEF Water Treatment Supplies Will Secure Safe Water for More Than Ten Million People

 

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund issued the following news release in early February, 2013:

A large-scale operation is under way in Syria to secure safe water supplies for more than 10 million people – close to half the population.

The first four trucks carrying 80 tons of sodium hypochlorite water chlorination supplies crossed the Jordanian border into Syria on Sunday, heading for Homs, Aleppo, Hama and Idleb. Over the coming weeks, UNICEF will deliver 1,000 tons of chlorine to cities and communities across all 14 governorates in Syria.

The operation comes amid rising concern over the impact of the 23-month conflict on water pumping stations and other vital infrastructure – and the implications for children’s health in particular. Reports say that the quality and quantity of water supplies continues to deteriorate in different parts of the country and in some areas very severely.

“This shipment is very timely as supplies of chlorine in Syria have fallen dangerously low, making access to safe water challenging for many families,” said Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, UNICEF Representative in Syria. “This puts the population – and children especially – at high risk of contracting diarrhea and other water-borne diseases.”

The chlorine delivery is being conducted in coordination with the technical department of the Ministry of Water Resources and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

As part of its humanitarian response in Syria in the areas of water, hygiene and sanitation, UNICEF is supporting the operation and maintenance of water systems, through providing equipment and chlorination supplies. UNICEF will also work with partners to increase access to sanitation facilities for half a million people and provide hygiene items and hygiene education to 750,000 people.

UNICEF estimated that it needed $22.5 million to provide assistance to Syria in the areas of water and sanitation through June of 2013.  So far, only a fraction of that has been received.