Cold Water Swimming:  It’s More Popular Than You Think

Cold water swimming is a big event in certain parts of the world as a Christmas  or  New Years celebration, but it is also a routine practice of many at any time when the weather and the water are cold.  It is a little-publicized sport, although there are those who keep records about it.  Health benefits are usually associated with the practice, although these have not been verified.

The South London Swimming Club sponsors a very popular event (so popular that online registration for the  upcoming competition has been cancelled because of excessive demand)  called the Cold Water Swimming Championships.   Here is information from the Club’s notice of the upcoming event:

This biennial event has become a must for cold water swimmers, attracting both the experienced cold water swimmer and people who are trying it for the first time. Age and ability is no barrier as, with water temperatures as low as 3°C, jumping in for the 30 yard races is a challenge in itself.

The Cold Water Swimming Championships celebrates the fun and camaraderie of cold water swimming and the competiton is often just friendly but can also be fierce. There are a variety of races this year, from the traditonal “head-up” breaststroke, the freestyle dash and relays to the 450 metre challenge for the really fool hardy. To help the competitors recover there will be a Finnish sauna available after the races as well as good food, a host of stalls and entertainment going on throughout the day.

Here is a taste of the SLSC Cold Water Swimming Championships.

If you’re looking for an event near you, here’s a Wikipedia rundown of some of the main events:

Northern Europe

In Finland, Northern Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, the cold-water swimming tradition has been connected with the sauna tradition.

Ice swimming on its own is especially popular in Finland. There is an Avantouinti (ice-hole swimming) and the Avantouinti Society.

United Kingdom

Famous locations include the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, London.

China

In Harbin, northern China, many ice swim in the Songhua River.

Russia

There are strong traditions for cold-water swimming and dousing with cold water in Russia. They are done for health benefits, as a ritual of the Orthodox Church for the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, and for sports. Such club members are called “walruses” (Russian: моржи) instead of “polar bears”.

North America

The members of Canadian and American Polar Bear Clubs go outdoor bathing or swimming in the middle of winter. In some areas it is unusual or ceremonial enough to attract press coverage. Polar Bear Swims are conducted as fund-raisers for charity, notably the Special Olympics.

The oldest ice swimming club in the United States is the Coney Island Polar Bear Club of Coney Island, New York, who hold an annual polar plunge on New Year’s Day as well as regular swims every Sunday from November to April.

International Ice Swimming Association

The International Ice Swimming Association was founded by Ram Barkai of South Africa and conducts 600m and 1-mile swims in open bodies of water whose water temperatures are less than 5°C (41°F).

World Winter Swimming Championships

The World Winter Swimming Championships are also held annually in Europe where Extreme swimming events attract hundreds of athletes from dozens of countries.

To end this, here’s a famous cold water swimmer out of his usual element making an underwater delivery in warm water:

 

 

How Temperature, Pressure, and Water Quality Affect How Much Water Your Home RO Unit Makes

If your home reverse osmosis unit is rated for 50 gallons per day production, that means that it will, theoretically,  produce water at the rate of 50 gallons in 24 hours, or about 2 gallons per hour.  What it will actually produce is only remotely related to its advertized production rate.  It could be more, but it is often less.  And it usually doesn’t matter.  Unless you use the unit to fill an aquarium, you probably don’t need more than a couple of gallons per day anyway. As long that water comes out of the faucet when you request it, all is well.

When the membrane makers give the gallons-per-day figure for their membranes, they don’t take into account that the unit will most likely be used on an undersink reverse osmosis unit where it has to fill a pressurized storage tank.  If the unit spends most of its time simply topping off a pressure tank when a pint or two of water has been taken out, its advertized production goes way down.

However, the three main variables that influence the final flow rate of the product water from an RO unit are inlet water pressure, the TDS (total dissolved solids) of the inlet water, and the temperature of the inlet water. With these, the membrane maker makes certain assumptions for residential membranes.  The assumed numbers do not represent ideal conditions or even average conditions;  they are simply numbers that have been agreed upon to provide a standard by which membrane production performance can be measured.  Here are the assumptions:

Inlet Water Pressure: 60 psi.

Inlet Water Temperature: 77 degrees F.

Inlet Water Total Dissolved Solids: 500 ppm.

The following chart shows how each of these affects the actual amount of water that comes from your unit.

Variable	How This Affects Performance	Discussion
Water Temperature: 77%.	As the temperature goes down, production goes down, sharply. As the temperature goes up, so does production.	77 degrees F. is higher than water temperature in most areas of the country. It, of course, varies considerably by the season, so you might notice that your RO unit makes more water in summer than in winter.  (If your water source is a deep well, the season won’t matter much.)  Note also that as temperature and consequently production goes down, the overall TDS rejection rate of the membrane goes up.  That is, when low temperature causes the unit to produce less water, it actually makes better water.  It isn’t practical to try to control inlet water temperature for residential units other than by a simple fix like adding more tubing to the inlet water line to allow exposure to ambient temperature as the water enters the RO unit. This might speed production up a bit in the winter.
Inlet Pressure: 60 psi.	As pressure goes up, production goes up; as pressure goes down, production goes down.	60 psi is a fairly common pressure for city water, but most wells run between 30 and 50 psi.  A residential membrane makes little water at 30 psi.  This variable is the easiest to control.  Adding a booster pump in front of the unit will increase inlet pressure to about 80 psi and water production will go up significantly.
TDS of Inlet Water.	As feedwater TDS goes up, RO production goes down; as feedwater TDS goes down, production goes up.	500 PPM TDS is higher than most city water.  Typical city water that comes from a lake, for example, might be 200 ppm.  Your water is the water your RO unit has to deal with, and there is no practical way to alter its TDS before it enters the RO unit.  (The unit will, of course, make a 90% plus reduction in the TDS coming out.)

 

 

How to Determine the GPD Production of Your Home RO Unit

Expected production for home reverse osmosis units is usually stated in gallons per day (GPD). Many factors affect the production. These include inlet water pressure, water temperature, total dissolved solids (TDS), the condition of prefilters, etc.

Here’s an easy way to determine the actual production of your RO. The only tools needed are a standard household measuring cup (or any measuring device that has a milliliter, or ml, scale) and a watch or clock with a second hand.

1. For undersink units, turn off the valve at the top of the tank to isolate the tank from the system, then lock the dispensing faucet open and let the unit produce into the sink for a minute or so. The drip or small stream you see is the actual production of the unit—how fast it is making water. (For countertop units, just start the unit and let it produce water for four or five minutes until a steady production rate is established.)

2. Using the watch and measuring cup, get an accurate measure of how much water the unit produces in milliliters into the cup in one minute.

3. Multiply the result by 0.38 to convert milliliters per minute to gallons per day. The result is how many gallons your reverse osmosis unit will produce if it runs for 24 hours.

Example: If your unit is making 50 milliliters per minutes, multiply 50 X 0.38. The result is 19. Your unit is producing water at the rate of 19 gallons per day.

More details on this subject from the Pure Water Gazette.

The Oil Company Did Not Apologize For the Massive Leak.   It Just Said,  “Oops.”

It is hard to imagine a “leak” of 1.8 million gallons of water.  The weight of the water is some 14,000,000 pounds.   A typical fracking operation consumes that much doubled, at least, and usually more.  This leak alone would furnish water for 27 homes for 2 years.

One authority questioned the company’s ability to protect ground water from fracking fluids during ultra high pressure underground injection when it apparently cannot control plain water on the surface.

Source Reference:  The Gazette of Colorado Springs.

The Main Source of Mercury Ingested by Humans Is Tuna

According to an extensive new report called “Sources to Seafood: Mercury Pollution in the Marine Environment,” mercury pollution near the ocean’s surface has more than doubled as a result of human activities over the last century.

That mercury is largely invisible, but it becomes a human problem when it enters our bodies when we eat seafood.  It is especially harmful to babies born to women exposed to mercury, causing cognitive or developmental problems.

As the chart illustrates, tuna is by far the most largest contributor to mercury poisoning in humans.    Americans get most of their mercury from tuna, largely because it is the most affordable option.

Where Does The Mercury In the Ocean Come From?

By far the greatest part of the mercury that goes into the open ocean is from atmospheric emissions, which comes from fossil fuel burning. Coal-fired power plants are the biggest source, globally.  Also,  on coastal areas like Maine, the Gulf of Mexico, and San Francisco Bay, much of the contamination comes from industrial sources, especially mining operations. As for regions of origin of mercury in the seas, the U.S. is not the largest contributor of atmosphere mercury.  Asia as a continent now far exceeds North America and Europe in mercury pollution.

Fortunately, if mercury emissions can be brought under control, mercury content of fish should go down accordingly.

More details from Grist.

Fluoridation of Water Supplies Is Recommended by Dentists, Therefore It Must Be Safe

by Hardly Waite

One of the most frequently used reasons given by proponents  adding fluoride to drinking water is that fluoride has been used for over half a century and it must, therefore, be safe. Another favorite argument is that fluoridation is endorsed by government “experts” and dental professionals, so it must be safe.

If we followed this logic–that long use and recommendation by experts makes things right–we would still be smoking cigarettes to improve our health, as the American Medical Association for some time recommended;  mothers would still be advised to get their infants on formula as soon as possible,  because (according to the AMA in the 1950s) breast milk is not adequate nutrition for babies; we could forget worries about dentists putting poisonous mercury fillings into our mouths (they have, after all, been doing it for 150 years, so it must be safe); we would still be driving cars with gasoline that spews lead into the environment; the water pipes to our homes would be lined with asbestos, since that was the piping  recommended by experts for decades; our children would be playing in the white spray emitted by DDT trucks spraying for mosquitoes, which experts once told us was absolutely safe; and,  doctors would still be applying their favorite treatment, draining out blood, for virtually anything that ailed us, for the world’s leading medical experts did just that for some 2500 years.

There may be good reasons why fluoride should be added to public water supplies,  but the recommendation of dentists and decades of fluoridation are not among them.

 

Some 94,000 Toys Sold in the US Are Life-Threatening

A recall was announced in mid-December 2012 of water-absorbing toys which the U.S Products Safety Commission says can cause death to children.  The toys grow to 400 times their original size in water.  When swallowed they can cause vomiting, dehydration and even death.

Since the toys do not show up on an x-ray,  surgical removal may be required. An 8-month-old Texas girl who swallowed a toy required an operation.

The recalled toys include Water Balz, Growing Skulls, H2O Orbs from the movie “Despicable Me” and Fabulous Flowers.  Over 94,000 toys were sold in the U.S.

Some of the retailers and websites who sold the expandable toys are:

Bed Bath & Beyond, Five Below, Hobby Lobby, Lakeshore Learning Materials, Microcenter, Urban Outfitters Direct and Wegmans, Amazon.com, incrediblescience.com, keyporthobbies.com, americantoystores.com,  and  Universal Studios.

Reverence source.

Reverse Osmosis Tanks Can Be Sanitized Without Special Tools

 

Sanitizing the storage tank of small, undersink reverse osmosis units doesn’t have to be a high tech procedure.  It is simply a matter of getting some common household bleach into the tank and giving it a little time to work. To do this procedure, you’ll need some standard household bleach and an eyedropper.

1. Turn off the inlet water to the RO unit, lock the ledge faucet open,  and allow all the water to run from the storage tank.

2. When no water is coming from the faucet, turn off the valve at the top of the storage tank and remove the tube from the tee that connects the tank to the RO unit.  (Not from the tank end, but the other end of the tube.)

3. Shake as much water as you can from the tube and use an eyedropper to drop as much bleach as you can into the empty tube.  A few drops is plenty.  Careful–bleach can be messy and it can discolor items that it falls on.

4. Reconnect the tube to the tee, being careful not to allow the bleach to run from the tube.

5. Close the ledge faucet, open the tank valve, and turn on the inlet water to the RO unit. Allow the RO unit to fill the tank. This will take at least a couple of hours. As the tank fills, the bleach is swept into the tank.

6. Do not use the water for at least 3 hours after the tank is full.  Letting it sit overnight is best.

7. After you have given the bleach sufficient time to work, start using the unit.  You do not need to drain the tank.  The unit’s post filter will remove the bleach from the water.

Note that this procedure sanitizes the storage tank only.  Sanitizing other parts of the unit is a more complicated issue.

Kenya Is Growing Fast, but Severe Water Shortages Make The Future Look Grim

 

by Justus Bahati Wanzala

Reprinted from Alternet

As demand for water rises and rainfall becomes less dependable, fewer Kenyans can rely only on rivers, springs or – for the lucky minority – a piped water supply. Many instead are turning to borehole water.

But increasing urbanisation, combined with the effects of climate change and the growing popularity of tapping into underground aquifers, is proving an unsustainable combination, experts say.

Kenya’s traditional water sources are rapidly dwindling in volume due to overexploitation, erratic rains and the degradation of catchment areas. In response, the use of underground water is becoming widespread across this water-stressed east African country, whose population of 41 million has access to an annual renewable fresh water supply of only 647 cubic metres per person, according to government figures.

But some areas are already experiencing depletion of underground water as well. Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, has a rapidly growing population of around three million, and several satellite towns emerging on its outskirts. With no piped water, many residents of these new communities have turned to borehole water, resulting in increasing pressure on groundwater resources.

Daniel Juma, of Joska Township on Nairobi’s outskirts, has dug a 30-metre (100-foot) borehole to supply his household with water. Already he worries about how long it will last.

“It was costly digging the borehole, yet many more are being (dug) in the neighbourhood and it might dry up in a few years,” he says.

LACK OF PIPED WATER

Boreholes are widely used in Nairobi, given that 40 percent of the city’s population is not directly supplied with piped water. Agatha Thuita, an official of the government’s Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA), said that even those with access to piped water often supplement their supply with borehole water or harvested rainwater because the piped supply is unreliable.

The Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company is among those drilling boreholes to improve the water supply to Nairobi residents and supplement the supply of water from dams on the outskirts of the city, Thuita said. Residents without piped water or a borehole buy water from the company’s water tankers.

The problem is not confined to Kenya. Groundwater reservoirs are rapidly being depleted around the world. In August 2012, researchers in Canada and the Netherlands found that 80 percent of the world’s aquifers were not being used sustainably, with heavy exploitation of water threatening livelihoods and lives of millions of people.

Some 430 km (270 miles) west of Nairobi, in the Mundika area of Busia County, near Kenya’s border with Uganda, people already have seen their boreholes dry up. Jackline Ajiambo is one of many residents who dug a borehole to ensure reliable access to clean water because of lower water levels in rivers and the drying up of springs and streams.

“This borehole was initially 28 feet (deep) and drawing water was much easier, but the water level has grown low, compelling us to dig it deeper,” Ajiambo said.

DRYING BOREHOLES

Because drilling boreholes with machines is costly, the majority of borehole users rely on hand-dug holes, but they are not always reliable. Milton Onyango’s borehole is 50 feet (15 metres) deep and was once a source of water for both domestic use and the watering of livestock. But it dried up two years ago, and with no source of running water, he now relies on the Sio river, 7 km (4 miles) away.

In a culture where fetching water is a woman’s role, Onyango’s wife and two teenage daughters must endure the regular long trek.

Officials point to several factors leading to the depletion of traditional water supplies. According to Musembi Munyao, an official with the water ministry in Nairobi, pollution of rivers is partly to blame for the increasing switch to groundwater in Kenya.

“If the Nairobi River (had not) been polluted, its water would still be fit for consumption thus reducing the need for drilling boreholes in the city and its environs,” Munyao, a geologist, says.

Munyao also criticises the damage done to water catchment areas, such as the destruction of vegetation on mountains and hills. According to the WRMA’s Thuita, rapid urbanisation also increases the amount of land covered in impermeable surfaces such as roads, while deforestation can also lead to more surface-water runoff during the rainy seasons. These factors make it difficult for water to percolate into the ground and recharge aquifers.

Although the government has not undertaken detailed monitoring, Thuita believes that two further factors contributing to increasing water stress are low precipitation linked to climate change, and overexploitation of groundwater.

“At the coast, heavy extraction of groundwater has led to seawater intrusion causing salinity in borehole water,” she said.

Munyao notes that the country’s exact groundwater availability is unknown, making it hard to determine which areas have enough water to tolerate increased exploitation.

SOLUTIONS?

Addressing the problem, experts say, will require a range of changes, including more harvesting of rainwater to boost supplies and recharge aquifers, and rules to prevent housing estates being developed in water catchment areas where aquifer recharge takes place.

What Kenya needs is “an integrated water resources management system,” Thuita says. “We need to develop wisely by not undoing what nature has provided us.”

Demand for water, however, is driving action. Speaking at the opening of a recent workshop on developing a master plan for Nairobi’s water resources, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the government intended to meet the needs of the capital and its 13 satellite communities one way or another.

“The water available currently meets a mere 60 percent of the demands of the city and its satellite towns,” said Odinga. In response – for better or for worse – the government plans to sink more boreholes.

• Justus Bahati Wanzala is a writer based in Nairobi.

Read more at AlertNet Climate, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s daily news website on the human impacts of climate change.

Source: Alternet

Gazette Fair Use Statement

 Solar Power and Water.  Desalination Can Be Powered by Solar Energy

U.S  President John F. Kennedy,  speaking in 1962,  said: ‘If we could produce fresh water from salt water at a low cost, that would indeed be a great service to humanity, and would dwarf any other scientific accomplishment.’ In the half century since, the need for innovation to satisfy humanity’s demand for clean water has become ever more urgent. While technological advances continue to improve the efficiency of desalination methods, it is vital that the sources of power used by desalination plants also continue to evolve.

An article by Robin Yapp  discusses Saudia Arabia’s ambitious plans to introduce  new solar-powered desalination plants.

The country’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) announced plans to establish three new solar-powered desalination plants in Haqel, Dhuba and Farasan.   SWCC is the biggest producer of desalinated water worldwide, accounting for 18% of global output.

Around half the operating cost of a desalination plant comes from energy use, and on current trends Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the region would consume most of the oil they produce on desalination by 2050.

The dominant desalination technology at present, with around 60% of global capacity, is Reverse Osmosis (RO), which pushes brine water through a membrane that retains the salt and other impurities.

Thermal desalination uses heat as well as electricity in distillation processes with saline feedwater heated to vaporise, so fresh water evaporates and the brine is left behind. Cooling and condensation are then used to obtain fresh water for consumption.

Desalination with renewable energy can already compete cost-wise with conventional systems in remote regions where the cost of energy transmission is high.

The use of solar power can bring huge cuts to the facility’s contribution to global warming and smog compared to use of RO or MSF with fossil fuels, according to the developers.

Around 700 million people in 43 countries are classified by the UN as suffering from water scarcity today,  but by 2025 the figure is forecast to rise to 1.8 billion. With the global population expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and the US Secretary of State openly discussing the threat of water shortages leading to wars, desalinated water has never been more important.

The World’s Oldest Human Dies Without Revealing What Kind of Water She Drank

by Gene Franks

This week Besse Cooper died in a Georgia nursing home.  She was 116 and officially the world’s oldest living human.  Dina Manfredini, of Iowa, inherits Cooper’s title as world’s oldest living person. She is currently 115.

When very old people die there is almost always a newspaper article that tells their secrets for a long life.  Jeanne Clement of France, who died at 122 and holds the world record for longevity (if you omit the Biblical geezers, who don’t really count),  explained her long life by saying that God must have overlooked her. A very old man, whose name I’ve forgotten,  attributed his long life to having eaten oatmeal cookies for breakfast most of his life. Books and articles about longevity always trot out the same old advice about eating well balanced meals, eating regularly, getting plenty of sleep, having friends, being in a “happy relationship,” and thinking positive thoughts.

It is always disappointing to me that no one ever says they lived to 115 because they drank only mountain spring water or distilled water or Gatorade.  We could, after all, use a hint.  Water is water, but what particular type of water do the people who really live a long time recommend?

There have been many attempts to link the drinking water of a region with longevity.  The best example is probably the southern Ecuadorian village of Vilcabamba, which in alternative health literature is legendary for its high percentage of centenarians.  According to the Wikipedia:

In 1981, the Ecuadorian government hired medical journalist Dr. Morton Walker to study these people in depth. In his book, “The Secret to a Youthful Long Life,”  Dr. Walker reported that his research showed the mineral rich water that the Vilcabambans drank was key to their long lives and health. Laboratory analysis of the Vilcabamba water determined that the unique balance of enriched colloidal minerals in the local drinking water was ideal for promoting optimum human health. 

 Although Dr. Walker’s water theory helped with the marketing of  some health food store supplements and drinks, there has, to my knowledge,  been no effort to bottle and sell water from Vilcabamba, and everyone now seems to have forgotten the whole issue.

Another place that vies for the title of having the oldest people in the world is Hunza in far NE Pakistan.  The inhabitants of Hunza,  or  Hunzakuts as they are called, rival Vilcabambans in the attainment of geezerhood,  and some believe that the water they drink is responsible.  Here’s a description from one website:

This water comes from the melting of glaciers from the nearby mountains. These glaciers are hundreds of thousand of years old and grind the mountainous rock into extremely fine particles. In turn the fine particles of rock are suspended in this water and is called glacial milk because of its cloudy appearance by being so loaded with these minerals. Coming from glacial mountain streams and waterfalls this water carries a negative charge or negative ions and is called “living water.” This results in the water having an oxygen reduction potential and acts as an antioxidant in the body with the ability to neutralize free radicals. Also the negative charge makes minerals easily absorbable. Their crops are also irrigated with this colloidal alkalizing mineral water and thus unlike Western soils, hunza soils are not depleted of minerals.

Keywords like “alkalizing” might lead you to suspect where the article is going.  To live a long time, it appears, you have to 1) move to a place near a glacier, or 2) drag a glacier near to your home so you can drink the water that melts from it, or 3) buy a $2,000 electrical “ionizer” for your kitchen to turn tap water into the glacier water that the almost-immortal Hunzakuts drink.

A fourth alternative would be to learn the secrets of the Immortal Jellyfish.

 More about Besse Cooper.