96,000,000 shade balls dropped into LA Reservoir to help with water quality and conservation

plastic?

 

Yeah, you can see the wind pushing them around at different times of day. Sepulveda reservoir just west of the 405 in LA.

I'm sure they aren't grinding on each other and leaving microplastics in the water supply. Lube or something.

 

yeah, me too

 

Shade balls - Wikipedia

HDPE with carbon black for coloring.

Used in food-grade containers (notably bottle caps) so should be no problem for the water supply. However, I would gladly consume some HDPE to reduce the amount of bromate in my water (see BROMATE COMPOUNDS - National Library of Medicine HSDB Database)

 

In 1988, when I went to work at the Goldstrike Mine, they were at the heart of an environmental brouhaha, as they had filed paperwork that hinted they killed more migratory birds than all other mines in Nevada combined. This got ugly when it was discovered that this was because we were not lying on our paperwork. (Nevada is in the Pacific Flyway, water is very reflective)

In the 14 years I worked there, we tried nets, we tried owls - both real and mechanical, we tried blank shotgun shells, cannons, Loudspeakers, we tried a lot of way to discourage a bird with out killing it.

We had two ponds, the Barren pond is full of Cyanide that has not yet dissolved gold, and the Pregnant pond, which has. Landing on either pond is fatal. (birds, too)

Sometime in 1998, one of our employees saw his children playing in the McDonald's Playplace go completely invisible under the balls. If the balls could hide his children, could it hide the water? He stole a fair number of Playplace balls, and experimented: They always covered the entire surface, they stacked higher if the pond area decreased, you could not see the water at any angle, It should work. He presented his findings to management and they had two immediate problems. Which they solved in one blow: they went to the local McDonalds and apologized for their employees theft, (you can't give them back, they have had Cyanide on them) and offered to buy an entire Playplace of new balls if the McDonald's would give them the contact information to where you buy Playplace balls.

We ordered the new balls for the mine in matte black (so they never drifted back to McDonalds, that would be bad) as that help prevent the ponds from freezing. When I left in 2002, a sprinkling of our pond balls were still the red, blue, and yellow ones stolen from McDonalds, in among the black ones. By the time I quit consulting with Goldstrike they were all but gone.

Yes, this GREATLY reduced the bird kills we had to report.

In the 2010s, Goldstrike pioneered a way to extract gold with Sodium Thiosulfate, rather than Cyanide. So even less environmental risk occurs.

Leach Gold using Hyposulphite Of Sodium AKA Thiosulfate Gold Extraction

 

One of our waterbaths in the lab these. Smaller size and not colored. Ping pong balls would have been much cheaper.
At a friend's old job, the moats to the hydrofluric acid tanks had these balls. In addition to the evaporation, and bird death reduction, they reduce splashing.

It is also used for milk jugs, but milk jugs don't also have a layer of HDPE balls in them. Constantly rubbing against each each and the jug walls, flaking off microscopic bits to be consumed by a person or poor cat.

Not as deadly, but the waste brine ponds to the mines that supply our detergents are also a threat to birds.

Anyone that had an aquarium or gold fish bowl likely used sodium thiosulfate to neutralize the chlorine in tap water at one time.

 

I grew up with 50 aquariums from 5 to 250 gallons, but we used rainwater exclusively. Many fish breed with the rainy season.

 

Never had the means to collect rain water for my aquariums. The only ten gallon I have going now is at work, and I use water from the di tap in the lab for it. had a basic deionizer for the marine aquarium, but that was because it was a pain dissolving the salt in the hard tap water of the apartment.

Water chemistry is important for breeding fish, but some require the rain to actually be simulated in the tank with a watering can or showerhead. Then some fish just don't give a damn, and difficult part is keeping the fry alive.

 

We used marbles instead of gravel to breed Neon Tetras, so the eggs fall to where the adults can't get them. You let the water level get very low then add warmed rainwater (we got 88 inches of rain a year, but 55F) you still want it low enough they can't make it back to the eggs before they fall into the marbles. Take the adults out before the fry hatch. We used 5 gallon tanks for Neons.

Many of the Chiclids lay eggs on blackboard slate (no idea where you would get that now, but 40 years ago students broke enough blackboards for our use) if you make a teepee of slate they can guard their eggs and fry. We had Chiclids over a foot long, so they got the 50 to 250 gallon aquariums.

Guppies, Swordtails, and Mollys need surface plants with elaborate root systems in the water so the adults can't get to the fry. You want a tank with a lot of surface area.

(the local Police feigned an interest in Tropical Fish. Glow-lux bulbs in 50 aquarium hoods held their interest as possible indoor marijuana farm)

 

Chlorine is very active, Oxygen itself, not as much. Cyanide is not really 'poisonous' so much as it 'wants' Oxygen so much your brain does get any, and you die. We had canisters of pure Oxygen in the hopes that if you had 100% Oxygen, there might be some left over for your brain. Sodium thiosulfate can de-oxidize Gold but it is a delicate process, Cyanide is brute force.

 

So I guess if you want to be a cat, be a rich cat.

 

I use ping pong balls in my lab for this. Cheaper, and more fun to play with after everyone else goes home. Also, not heavy enough to knock over any size beaker we use...

 

Some places have a 'if you don't spend it, you lose it next year policy' though, or they just write it off for taxes.

 

Interesting.
I was trying to understand why they are treating with both Chlorine and ozone. I am thiking there is trend to ozone treatment because the chlorine also forms chlorinated hydrocarbons.

 

Ozone doesn't hang around. It's effective in a closed or limited system, like a water treatment plant or aquarium filter, but the water has to come out of the tap still uncontaminated. The chlorine compounds used stay in the water supply long enough to handle anything that happens to get into the water supply after the treatment plant. Ozone can also be brutal on some materials.