Today is World Water Day…it is a good reminder that we all should conserve our precious liquid asset that we do often take for granted. Millions of people around the globe don’t have running water in their homes, and even more of then have to work more than a mile to get access to “clean” water. Naturally, the water quality improvement industry is continuing to make access to clean drinking water cheaper and easier. Technologies like Ultrafiltration, ultraviolet irradiation,reverse osmosis, nanofiltration and EDI/CDI are making previously undrinkable water drinkable and at increasingly lower prices. In developed nations, we are improving residential water quality while minimizing discharge and costs of production, but there is still so much more to be done. As end-users we should be mindful of how long we run faucets during routine tasks like dish-washing, dental hygiene, and grooming. Commercial and industrial users should continue to streamline their processes to minimize waste and provide cleaner drain effluent discharge. My personal pet peeve is the proliferation of ornamental grren grass in arid areas like Utah; we need to landscape with xeric plants that are beautiful and beneficial without wasting copious quantities of water. I’m using this day to plug my favorite charity – Water for People please go to their website and contribute to this valuable cause.
Blogs
Fix those Leaks!
Across the country, household leaks waste more than 1 trillion gallons of water per year – enough to supply the water needs of Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles combined. Easily corrected household leaks can increase homeowners’ water bills by 12 percent. To help consumers find and repair easy-to-fix leaks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is promoting the third annual Fix a Leak Week, March 14 through 20.
The New Aquamatic NXT Stager Controller
I am very excited about the new Aquamatic NXT Stager Controller assembly.
This innovative assembly incorporates the benefits of the 3214 NXT with the proven aquamatic stager – a winning combination indeed! When fabricating commercial/industrial water softeners, dealkalizers, deionizers, and specialty media filters, one usually prefers to incorporate the simplicity of the Fleck seal and spacer design to minimize fabrication effort and ensure high-reliability. Frequently, one has to incorporate Aquamatic diaphragm valves instead, whether for flow, materials compatibility, or simply engineered specifications. Pentair’s vision and foresight in incorporating the 3214 into this platform allows the designer/manufacturer to incorporate the simplicity, reliability, and network connectivity of the NXT platform with the proven flexibility and reliability of the Aquamatic stager.
Common pesticides block male hormones
I recently read this abstract in Environmental Health Perspectives Magazine (A free resource from the US National Institutes of Health). It is a summary of testing conducted at the School of Pharmacy’s Center for Toxicology under the auspices of the University of London. Naturally the information was so compelling I had to read the entire report (The study report can be read in its entirety here).
Based on their testing, many common pesticides (frequently found in food as well as milk and drinking water) will disrupt testosterone production and uptake in humans and possibly other mammals. The researchers strongly recommended that all pesticides in use today be screened to check if they block testosterone, which is critical to male (and female) reproductive health & general development.
Thirty out of 37 pesticides tested by the University of London team altered or inhibited male hormone activity, including 16 that had no previously reported hormonal effects. Most are fungicides applied to fruit and vegetable crops, including strawberries, corn, wheat, & lettuce.
Traces of pesticides and herbicides are known to remain in fruits and vegetables; these same chemicals can migrate into the ground and contaminate groundwater while also contaminating surface water. Interestingly, certain pesticides and herbicides will travel with water vapor when it evaporates, so that the contamination can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles from where it was originally applied.
British study finds no eczema cure from softened water
Eczema is a number of chronic inflammatory skin conditions that affect many people around the world. As many as one in nine persons will be diagnosed with eczema at some point in their life. The actual causes of eczema are not entirely understood, but it is generally agreed that it is related to an immune condition.Soap scum can easily create a home for bacteria and other unwanted contaminants on every surface it touches. Since skin is one of the surfaces that soap scum can contaminate, it is easy to understand that soap scum will stick to skin and hair; choking and clogging pores and possibly even causing irritation to sensitive skin.Hard water residue can also accumulate in the fibers of clothing, making them rough and irritating.
It is logical to me that by removing soap scum from my household, it is one further irritant removed from the equation. Soft water is certainly not a cure to dandruff, eczema, skin rash or other health conditions, but it certainly is BETTER than hard water. I recommend that anyone suffering from skin ailments consult with their medical practitioner and remove as many irritants from their lifestyle, like hard water, and chlorine.
Jim Lauria: A Valentine to Women Who Keep the Water Flowing
A Valentine to Women Who Keep the Water Flowing – by Jim Lauria
As we men scramble to remember our sweethearts on this Valentine’s Day, our thoughts tend to drift toward life’s luxuries — chocolates, roses and wine. But this Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking about something much more fundamental — water. Not just the water to refresh the roses, but the water that sustains us all. Valentine’s Day seems to be a perfect time to thank women, billions of whom are committed to nourishing the world with clean, safe water.
After all, the female connection to water goes far beyond the symbolism found in literature and legend, well past the traditional symbolic links between women and the tides. In the developing countries of the world, right now, there are millions of women hauling water for their families from distant wells, rivers and lakes. According to the United Nations Population Fund, they’re walking an average of 6 km — 3.7 miles — per day to collect water. (Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. Think about carrying a bucket of it for miles.) In conflict zones around the world, from Darfur to Latin America, they are risking their very lives as they walk those dangerous miles for water — and they’re carrying life itself back to their families.
Here in the U.S., where water is as close as the nearest tap, girls can look up to role models we can all admire — Christine Todd Whitman and Lisa Jackson, past and present administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). During her tenure as head of the EPA, Whitman tightened standards for arsenic in drinking water and grappled with the Bush Administration’s efforts to sweep climate change discussions under the rug. Following Whitman’s successor, the feckless Stephen Johnson, current EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is proving to be another woman of courage and commitment. Coming into the role with a couple of chemical engineering degrees and long experience in environmental protection at the state and federal levels certainly doesn’t hurt. Her big test will be how she handles the chromium-6 issue — wrangling the heated debate between science and hysteria surrounding the contaminant and appropriate limits in drinking water.
Speaking of the EPA, the agency is helping Girl Scouts gain insight into water issues as young women from Brownies to Seniors earn their Water Drop patch, working their way through a beautifully crafted manual on water created in partnership with the Girl Scouts of America.
Boy Scouts can earn a Soil and Water Conservation merit badge, and they tackle water-and-oil questions in merit badges for chemistry and environmental science. But if they want to dive deeper into water, they’re better off taking their swim tests — the most recent entry on BSA’s book list for soil and water conservation is a decade old.
Come on, fellas. Here in the U.S., scientific literacy — and water literacy — are growing more important every day. Perhaps our Girl Scouts (and the leaders many of those young women will become) will help us understand and manage the pressing issues surrounding our water supply by choosing to become the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Back in the developing nations, the need is more basic and more desperate. After hours of bringing water back to their homes, millions of women have to make the decision — a real-life Sophie’s Choice — between supplying their growing children or washing their babies. Slake their thirst or clean their butts? Both are vital. Our mission should be to ease their burden — to make household water more locally available, and safer, so those women can keep their families healthy.
So as we fill up vases today for bouquets of cut flowers, let’s not neglect to think about women and water… and to learn something from them about protecting the resource that sustains us all.