water pollution

I served in 4 different units. A cav troop, which AZ shit canned because they never wanted it, followed by an Artillery unit. The arty, 1-180 FA FIST detachment was an excellent unit with great moral, a great CO and lots of excellent NCOs. Our CO hooked us up with other units for training (like flying on Blackhaks to training areas and carrying out various training missions and then exfilitrating on the birds back to PHX). Then, I moved up to CO and was in HHB 1/157 FA. This unit sucked for me because it was a GS (general support) arty unit, not a DS unit (direct support). DS units are great for FOs but GS units suck... fearsomely. So HHB was kinda lame and we often tonnes of down time, which makes for VERY LONG drill weekends. From there, I took an E5 slot in a firing battery and that was a very good unit that filled the hours with good training... and being an NCO I got to plan and execute a lot of that training, which was really engaging and fun. If I could do any job in the army full time, it would be instructing. Lots of fun teaching people how to do stuff and see them grow in confidence and ability.

So I was batting about .500, which is great, but isn't terrible either.

 

I don't have the patience for that sort of crap. If I really put myself in the correct frame of mind, I can muddle through.

If I have to deal with slow people, I tend to get snappish and crabby with them

 

Great Salt Lake's currents are derived from temperature, density and salinity gradients and subsurface springs, not just surface winds. This is the same for other lakes such as Mono and Pyramid. Water coming from snow and glaciers has suspended "glacial flour" or sediment.

We are now in peak everything. Reliable water will come from efficiency and conservation, not new sources. We have not quite come to grips with limits and human population growth. Time to limit human numbers. At 6.7 billion we are beyond sustainability.

 

As long as the student is a good soldier I don't have that issue. Now, if it's somebody who's thick AND can't be arsed to try... let drown.

In my last unit we had a SSG who was not a smart guy, but he gave his all and was utter dependable. He kinda suffered from low self esteem, I think, because he didn't have any confidence. I was giving a class on that wonder piece of Army kit, the PLGR (see, now you know I'm being facetious), and he was really anxious about it. It was cool to work with him to understand it because he really cared about trying to "grock" it. In the end he understood it and it was nice to be able to say "See Sarn't xxx, I told you that you could do it." and see him smile knowing it was true. Those are great moments and I think probably my fondest ones from my time in the service.


Skruse, you're correct about population, to be sure. I forsee a lot of desalinating in our future.

 

A lot of folks don't understand that. They see a large body of water, like one of the Great Lakes, and believe it to be endless

Ok, fine. Walk to the shore, take a cup, and drink it straight, as-is.

A lot of our domestic water sources are pretty scary, and require extensive treatment to make it safe. "Extensive" as in really expensive

Some folks like the idea of going "up north" for water. Oops, that isn't so safe either. Seems a lot of uranium mining has taken care of all that potential water

Burned By The Ore

Uranium Institute Conference Proceedings

Can you make water safe, even after tritium exposure? Sure. Is it cheap to do so? No way

 

Yeah, you're sinister that way



A COTS unit, like a Garmin or Magellan, is preferable for my use

Wow, back to topic. Scary I mean baaaaaaa

A lot of caveats with this method. eg need for mixed oxidants to control biofilm. My practical exposure to desalination is with flash evaporators

 

Oh, I didn't say this is a good thing, just that I see us going down that path.

 

Right, the path we're going down. A lot of folks don't realize that biofilm fouling is now becoming a serious concern for most water treatment facilities. As a hint: nasty things like Legionaires are nicely hosted by the polysaccharides that make up the biofilm, which is excreted by bacteria like burkholderia cenocepacia.

An interesting twist is that most potable water disinfection - using sodium hypochlorite or chlorine gas - is relatively ineffective against b. cenocepacia at the residuals now considered "safe" for human consumption.

Levels of sodium hypochlorite required to moderately control biofilm - but that do NOT prevent its reoccurance - are far in excess of what is safe for potable water

So, how's that for just one interesting twist?

 

ah, just dump a lot of silver compounds in the water. It'll be fine.

What about further treatment at the point of use?

 

I'm sorry I don't understand the question

Are you asking about point of use treatment to minimize disinfection artifacts? For example, tri halo methanes (Trichloromethane or chloroform, dibromochloromethane, etc), haloacetic acid, chlorite, bromate, etc.

Or are you asking what sort of point of use treatment can be used to control biofilm, such as resulting from b. cenocepacia and other biologics?

 

I'm talking about filters or something at the tap... the point of use. Also, why is this biofilm becoming a problem. What is/has changed that it wasn't a problem before?

 

Ok, something at the tap. You want to control the disinfection artifacts? I know of no tap filter that can do so. Even the RO systems do a fair to poor job - at best - of capturing thm's and the like. Distillation with carbon pre and post-treatment will absolutely take care of that

Various biofilms have always been a problem of one kind or another. That is, the bacteria exist in the environment and are mostly all around us, every single day

A lot of folks don't realize that something like a water treatment plant will concentrate organics during treatment. I'm going to have to grossly simplify this process, but here goes

The water is subject to lab tests all throughout the treatment process, to optimize chemical treat levels. The first step to water treatment is coagulation. Coagulation is the process of adding a chemical, like aluminum sulfate, and then rapidly stirring up the water. You will get a jelly like stuff made up of a lot of the suspended organics. The smaller particles that form together are referred to as microfloc. The cloudiness in water is refered to as "turbidity"

The next step is flocculation. Flocculation is generally referred to as the process of a solute coming out of solution in the form of floc. Cationic polymers and anionic polymers are generally added during flocculation. Gentle mixing and retention time, typically half an hour, alows the floc to settle out of the water.

The next step is sedemintation, which is usually a six hour process. In the sediment tank, the water flow is much reduced, to allow the floc to completely settle out of suspension to the bottom of the basin.

You have to add Ca(OH)2 to the water coming out of the sedemintation basin to raise the pH, as the Al2(SO4)3 is acidic and the pH would be too low otherwise. At this point, primary sodium hypochlorite treatment is also started

The next step is a filter bed, actually quite a few in parallel. The filter bed has a few layers, the first being anthracite coal. The next layer is uniform sand. The final layer, at the very bottom, is a uniform stone or composite. Water drawn off the bottom of the filter bed is sent to retention clearwells, essentially tanks

In the clearwell, a stabalizing agent like polyphosphate is added to control corrosion in the pipe network. Further sodium hypochlorite checks and adjustments are made. If your community flouridates the water, it is done at this step

This is a gross simplification.

However, at the level of disinfection that is considered safe for potable water, a lot of bacteria are not controlled, such as the b. cenocepacia or the p. aeruginosa strains.

If you really want to see something gross, that will forever make you suspicious of what comes out your kitchen tap, ask to witness the video inspections of clearwell outlet ports, or membrane headers. The biofilms form very neat colonies of "stuff"

It's not so much the biofilm itself, but what it excretes, that can possibly impact human health. If you're a normal healthy person, you probably won't even notice it. A baby, an elderly person, somebody with a very weak immune system, can be sickened or even die as a result of ingesting the minute traces of excreted stuff from biofilm

There are treatment options that can minimize or eliminate biofilm formation, and all of them have side effects too. Ozoniation, UV post treatment, mixed oxidant disinfection, can all reduce or eliminate biofilm

For point of use, again distillation with pre and post-treatment carbon filtration is very effective

Overall, our water treatment system is very safe. I'd rather take my chances with tap water, than with raw water from a lake or stream. I'm not too fond of giardia lamblia, flukes, and stay the hell away from tapeworms

 

So what you're saying is that we should abandon water for malt liquor?

 

Well, I didn't necessarily mean it that way, but I would not be opposed to substituting barley pop as a potable source

 

What are the implications for folks who have rain water capture systems? I know that they're just dirty hippies, but are there similar issues that crop up in these systems?

 

Oh cah-rist you couldn't PAY me to drink untreated rainwater/cistern water. Do you have any idea the protazoa, bacteria, even mosquito larvae that can inhabit such systems?

Birds might poop on the roof - actually birds WILL poop on the roof, no "might" about it. Birdies are known for hosting a yummy variety of cestodes, trematodes, etc. It rains, that gets washed off into the rainwater collection system

Just grab a sample and stick it on a microscope slide. Hmmmm. Critters! Little wiggling, pooping, fornicating critters!

I suppose after filtration, mixed oxidant disinfection, I would probably consider drinking it. If run through a quality home distiller, would probably be safe

Raw, it's probably safe for watering the lawn

 

Ok, I've received an email from a PC member asking what I mean when I use the term "mixed oxidant"

A mixed oxidant is just different oxidant species that have disinfection properties. The most common disinfectant is Cl or Chlorine, as the common elemental form it is Cl2 or dichlorine.

A very common liquid disinfectant is sodium hypochlorite, or NaClO. You probably have this in your home as laundry bleach. Other oxidant species are Cl02, O2, and O3.

So, when a water treatment plant claims to use a "mixed oxidant" disinfection approach, they are probably using Cl2, ClO2, O2, and O3. If you take something like a sodium chloride brine, and electrolize it, you will end up with:

Cl2, which will hydrolize to HOCl

H2, a gas which must be properly vented for safety reasons

ClO2

O2

O3

If you wish, I can get more into reductants and oxidants.

 

I'm not comfortable with chlorine in the water supply. It's likely better than all those lifeforms, but there has to be a better way. How much of the mixed oxidants end up in rivers and oceans, and on our vegetables? Maybe my fears are unfounded, but wouldn't a combination of UV and distillation be more effective and less harmful?

 

I was gonna suggest UV. Seems like the flow rates are low, so you wouldn't need a big system to treat the water, esp if you had a pressure tank that the "scrubbed" water went into, prior to being delivered to a point of use.

and Jay, I did say they were dirty hippies.

 

ehh, I grew up raising cattle and shoveling straw laden with manure and soaked in calf urine. (It's damned warm/downright steaming hot in mid winter.) A few little wigglies don't scare me much. Tetanus shot, for that little scratch? Honey, I eat tetanus for breakfast.

Still, I like my water clean, and my beer is okay after I get the yeast to go dormant...until it is time to culture it for another batch. That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger. :rip:

jayman should stop talking dirty about flocculating and all that, it gets the conservatives all hot and bothered. Doesn't he realize that reverse osmosis is illegal in most of the Southern states.