Tag Archive for: Water

Shape of Water: Cape Town running out of drinking water

The city cut daily water use limits first to 87 liters and then 50 in a bid to avert shutting off supplies.

The city had set a 50-liter daily limit and had told citizens “Day Zero” was approaching when people would have to queue at standpipes.
But water-saving efforts in the South African city have seen the day pushed back from April to 27 August. Seasonal rains should mean that date is now averted, the city said. The shortages follow three years of low rainfall. The city had resorted to increasingly drastic measures to clamp down on water usage, including “naming and shaming” the 100 addresses using the most water and fining residents who failed to comply with the 50 liters (13 gallons) limit per person.

By comparison, the average California consumer uses some 322 liters (85 gallons) of water per day. Water use in California was highest in the summer months of June through September, where it averaged 412 liters per person per day. By comparison, during the cooler and wetter months of January through March of 2016, average per capita water use was only 242 liters per person per day.

Although the risk that piped water supplies will be shut off this year has receded, politicians and environmentalists warn that the water crisis is there to stay in Cape Town, as year-on-year rainfall levels dwindle.

Water Wars

California. California is now heading into its fourth year of record-breaking drought, with no water relief in sight. High temperatures, little precipitation, and historically low snowpack have left the state with dwindling water reserves. The situation is so bad, as NASA scientist Jay Famiglietti wrote in an LA Times op-ed last week, that California has only a year of water left in its reservoirs. Household water rationing is already planned.

Las Vegas. An ongoing drought and the Colorado River’s reduced flow have shrunk Lake Mead to its lowest level in generations. The reservoir, which supplies 90% of Las Vegas’ water, is ebbing as though a plug had been pulled from a bathtub drain. For six years, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has been building an intake pipe below the reservoir’s two existing pipes. Due for completion in fall 2015, critics say it may not provide a long-term solution.

Ireland. Tens of thousands of people marched in Dublin, Ireland on Saturday, 21 March 2015, in the latest protest against the government’s new water charges. The government has begun directly charging households for water use.

Detroit: In bankrupt Detroit back in June the city authorities decided to cut off supply to 200,000 homes who had not or could not afford to pay water bills. Since water charges were introduced a decade ago bills have soared by 120%. The UN condemned the cutting off of the water supply to these people as a “violation of the human right to water and other international human rights”.

Bolivia. The average price of water quadrupled after it was privatized, leading to civil unrest and the eruption of “water wars” in the city of Cochabamba.

Uruguay. The sell-off of water and subsequent rising prices led in 2004 to the government outlawing the privatization of this public utility.

France. The citizens of Paris voted to reject plans to privatize water and took the utility back into public ownership.

California’s Water Shortage

A new paper published in Nature Climate Change, by NASA water scientist James Famiglietti, presents the chilling reality of California’s ongoing drought crisis. “The Global Groundwater Crisis,” uses satellite data to measure the depletion of the world’s aquifers, and summarizes the effects this has on the environment.

These aquifers contain groundwater that more than 2 billion individuals rely on as their primary source of water. Groundwater is also essential, as it is one of the main sources we rely on to irrigate food crops. In times of drought, the lack of rain and snow results in less surface water (the water that settles in lakes, streams, and rivers). Thus, farmers must rely on available groundwater to irrigate their crops, leading to rapid depletion in areas of high farming concentration.

California’s Central Valley has been one of the most effected regions in the state. The map below depicts groundwater withdrawals in California during the first three years of the state’s ongoing drought.

According to James Famiglietti, “California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost roughly 15 cubic kilometers of total water per year since 2011.”  That means “more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually—over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley.”

As more water is pumped from the aquifers, things can only get worse. As this trend continues, wells will have to be dug deeper, resulting in increased pumping costs. This, in turn, will lead to a higher salt contents, which inhibits crop yields and can eventually cause soil to lose productivity altogether. Over time, Famiglietti writes, “inequity issues arise because only the relatively wealthy can bear the expense of digging deeper wells, paying greater energy costs to pump groundwater from increased depths and treating the lower-quality water that is often found deeper within aquifers.” This problem is already apparent in California’s Central Valley.  Some low-income residents are forced to let their wells go dry, while many other farmers are forced to irrigate with salty water pumped from deep in the aquifer.

The lesson we can learn from Famiglietti’s research is that “Groundwater is being pumped at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished, so that many of the largest aquifers on most continents are being mined, their precious contents never to be returned.”  This problem of diminishing groundwater is perpetuated, due the lack of forethought, regulation, or research concerning this water source. Famiglietti contends that if current trends hold, “groundwater supplies in some major aquifers will be depleted in a matter of decades.”

Without any change of practices, we can expect steeper droughts and more demand for water. Famiglietti suggests that if we ever plan on getting the situation under control, we must start carefully measuring groundwater and treat it like the precious resource that it is. However, if the globe continues on this path without any adjustment, it will most likely result in civil uprising and international violent conflict in the water-stressed regions of the world.

AWWA introduces updated cost assessment for impending perchlorate regulation

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) recently introduced a new assessment on the cost-impact of an impending perchlorate regulation. The decision to move forward with the development of this regulation “to protect Americans from any potential health impacts, while also continuing to take steps to ensure the quality of the water they drink” was officially announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early 2011.

Perchlorate is both a man-made and naturally occurring chemical that can be found in some bleaches and fertilizers, and is used to manufacture flares, explosives, fireworks, and rocket fuel. Scientific research finds that perchlorate may negatively impact the thyroids ability to produce hormones that are essential to the development of fetuses and infants- propelling the EPA forward to develop a rule.

In an effort to further evaluate the feasibility of the new regulation, the AWWA’s new assessment updates a review of cost done four years ago. The new evaluation includes additional treatment strategies, accounts for regulatory limits already in place in California and Massachusetts, and considers costs associated with blending, source abandonment, and development of new sources.

The new assessment concludes that the estimated national compliance costs for a perchlorate maximum contaminant level ranging from 2 to 24 parts per billion (ppb) is smaller than estimated compliance costs for other drinking water regulations.

However, according to AWWA Government Affairs, the relatively small compliance cost is most likely attributed to the limited number of public water systems that are expected to be affected by a perchlorate regulation. Because of this, the economic impact to individual water systems is expected to be substantial. For example, smaller water systems could see treatment costs increase by three dollars per 1,000 gallons.

To view the AWWA’s full assessment:

https://www.locustec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AWWA2013PerchlorateCostAssessment.pdf

For further information on perchlorate:

http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/unregulated/perchlorate.cfm

Why Water Quality has its Own Month

How many times has water played a part in your routine activities today? Maybe you have taken a shower, made coffee, flushed a toilet, or washed your hands. Chances are you’ve already counted on water multiple times today, and probably didn’t think twice about it.

As we count down the last few days of National Water Quality Month, I would like to elaborate on the importance of this resource, and urgency of this subject. Water is obviously a crucial resource to sustain life. Not only used for daily consumption, but also for general hygiene, recreational purposes, and as the necessary fuel to propel everyday business operations. Most energy generation sources also heavily depend on high water availability. However, water is not a limitless resource. Yet, most of us continue to take it for granted while it grows in scarcity as the world’s population booms.

Only about three percent of the world’s water supply is drinking water, and more than half of this is unavailable, locked in ice at the North and South poles. The remaining supply is distributed in surface water bodies like lakes and rivers, and in underground repositories as groundwater. According to the United Nations, 783 million people do not have access to clean water. This number is likely to worsen in the future as the demand for clean water is expected to rise 40 percent by 2030.

With water being at such high demand, and such limited availability, it is essential that proper water quality be achieved. This is most important for safety reasons, but water quality issues also pose potential liabilities of billions of dollars to businesses worldwide.

Water is key to the operations and success of many businesses in various industries, such as agriculture, oil & gas, and nuclear. It is the responsibility of these businesses to properly manage this risk, and of all the types of water-related data that companies need, measurements pertaining to water quality stand out in terms of their sheer quantity and complexity.

Existing regulations are largely limited to requiring the monitoring and reporting of the contamination of surface water bodies and groundwater by various industrial processes, spills, and other releases.  However, the focus has begun to shift from compliance-based monitoring and reporting, to the scarcity and quality of drinking water supplies, and the impact that energy consumption associated with water activities has on carbon emissions. As detection technology improves and human exposure to low-level contamination is linked to more diseases, more testing will be required for ever smaller and smaller concentration levels.  All of this means only more and more information that needs to be captured, stored, managed, and reported.

In order to effectively manage all the data for this critical resource, it only makes sense to use the most up-to-date technology. In this case, it comes in the form of a robust, web-based information management system that allows businesses to manage, organize, and visualize their water quality data from a single access point in near real time.

At Locus, we recognize the importance of this resource and the challenges that accompany water quality management. This is why we continue to mold our software offerings to best help organizations responsibly handle this data, and ensure positive decision making. It’s the decisions we make today that will affect the state of this precious resource in the future.

EPA announces schedule to develop hydrofracking wastewater standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing a schedule to develop standards for wastewater discharges produced by natural gas extraction from underground coalbed and shale formations. No comprehensive set of national standards exists at this time for the disposal of wastewater discharged from natural gas extraction activities, and over the coming months EPA will begin the process of developing a proposed standard with the input of stakeholders – including industry and public health groups. Today’s announcement is in line with the priorities identified in the president’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, and is consistent with the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board recommendations on steps to support the safe development of natural gas resources.

Currently, wastewater associated with shale gas extraction is prohibited from being directly discharged to waterways and other waters of the U.S. While some of the wastewater from shale gas extraction is reused or re-injected, a significant amount still requires disposal. As a result, some shale gas wastewater is transported to treatment plants, many of which are not properly equipped to treat this type of wastewater. EPA will consider standards based on demonstrated, economically achievable technologies, for shale gas wastewater that must be met before going to a treatment facility.

Groundwater Monitoring From Space

New York Times reported that scientists have been using small variations in the Earth’s gravity to identify trouble spots around the globe where people are making unsustainable demands on groundwater, one of the planet’s main sources of fresh water.

They found problems in places as disparate as North Africa, northern India, northeastern China and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley in California, heartland of that state’s $30 billion agricultural industry.

Jay S. Famiglietti, director of the University of California’s Center for Hydrologic Modeling, said the center’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, known as Grace, relies on the interplay of two nine-year-old twin satellites that monitor each other while orbiting the Earth, thereby producing some of the most precise data ever on the planet’s gravitational variations. The results are redefining the field of hydrology, which itself has grown more critical as climate change and population growth draw down the world’s fresh water supplies.

According to the findings from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the California’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet — almost enough to fill Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

For decades, groundwater measurements in the United States had been made from points on the Earth’s surface — by taking real-time soundings at 1,383 of the United States Geological Survey’s observation wells and daily readings at 5,908 others. Those readings are supplemented by measuring water levels in hundreds of thousands of other wells, trenches and excavations. But now the satellite technology allows the real time monitoring from space. This may be the best data about groundwater that is available. Harvesting and disseminating all of the information about aquifers as they dry up and shortages loom is the best use of space technology.

Separating groundwater from other kinds of moisture affecting gravity requires a little calculation and the inclusion of information on precipitation and surface runoff obtained from surface studies or computer models.

Because the climate change is first going to be felt on water shortages the groundwater needs to be managed carefully. We have population growth, we have widespread groundwater contamination, and we satellites showing us we are depleting most of groundwater.

EPA proposes stricter water quality controls for wetlands, creeks, and other water bodies

EPA will impose stricter pollution controls on wetlands and streams.

The new guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency, which will be codified in a federal regulation later this year, could prevent the dumping of mining waste and the discharge of industrial pollutants to waters that feed creeks, lakes, and drinking water supplies. The specific restriction will depend on the waterway.

The question of which isolated streams and wetlands qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act has been in dispute for a decade. The EPA policy change is likely to affect tributaries flowing into water bodies such as the San Francisco Bay. Once finalized, the regulations will apply federal water quality standards to a range of waterways, including the headwaters of lakes and rivers as well as intermittent streams.

The new regulations will require companies to better manage their water quality data to avoid fines and to demonstrate that they are not polluting water bodies. Locus EIM software provides of-the- shelf cloud-based tool to accomplish this.

Monitoring and managing radioactive contamination information at, below, and around Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

One of the chief complaints of Japanese citizens—and indeed the world community—as the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has unfolded has been the lack of information that TEPCO, the electric utility that owns and operates the plant, (and the Japanese government) have shared. From thousands of miles away, the nuclear community is piecing together forensic analysis [see NYTimes article from April 3, “Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Is Seen Clearly From Afar”] in an attempt to understand the severity of the crisis. As the world braces for the worst-case scenario, the models that these scientists are running are based only on data approximations. It does not need to be that way.

Fukushima is not just Japan’s problem—we’re all going to be dealing with the fallout from this situation for years. The data collection process and the sheer quantity make managing the data a challenge. Having on-site data storage is risky. If the plant blows up and you lose any critical data; using Cloud technology will allow not only aggregation for the sake of TEPCO, but also for the world community. We all need to be able to see and learn from the data to help Japan solve the problem. It’s bigger than they are—especially when it comes to ocean/fish contamination. TEPCO should learn from the BP oil spill and make data immediately transparent. On the anniversary of BP Gulf Oil Spill public still does not have access to the extent and magnitude of contamination caused by that disaster.

Centralized and reusable data now and in the future will help us all make decisions and take action on the cleanup—and improve safety and fail safes at the rest of the planet’s nuclear power plants. The partial meltdown of three reactors and at least two spent fuel pools, along with multiple hydrogen explosions at the site now rate a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale—a level previously pinned only to the meltdown and explosion at the single reactor at Chernobyl. After the immediate crisis at the Fukushima is bought under control, attention will shift to characterizing the impact of the disaster on human health and the environment and on long-term monitoring and stewardship. At this point, an opportunity exists for TEPCO, to get out in front of the crisis and become as transparent as possible about the evolving conditions at the plant and surrounding areas. To do so, it should move all information gathered on the nature and extent of the releases at the facility to the “Cloud”. Soviet and Russian authorities never did this on Chernobyl, and the general public still does not know the exact extent of that disaster to the human health and environment. The amount of data that is likely to be collected by TEPCO and others in the coming years will be a tsunami in its own right and may be as challenging to deal with as the real one unless the proper information management system is put in place. Samples of air, soil, groundwater, and seawater, as well as various biota, including crops and fish, will be collected from all potentially impacted areas. These will be measured for various radionuclides, all of which have various half-lives. The resulting information will need to be evaluated for both short and long-term impacts on humans and the environment. This can best be accomplished if all relevant data is stored in a centralized information management system that is accessible to all stakeholders. The web makes all this not only possible but quite doable. Many US nuclear utilities and US DOE nuclear weapons sites are already managing their operational data in the Cloud and are well aware of the importance of information management technologies that Cloud offers.

Deploying a centralized environmental management system to the Cloud, and placing all data in it, would allow all interested parties to know where samples of various media have been taken, what parties collected them, how the samples were analyzed, what the levels of radionuclides were in these samples, and what the legal limits and long-term effects of each isotope are. The general public is unlikely to have the sophistication to deal with most of this data. Rather, valid conclusions as to the impacts of the contamination are only likely to be drawn by those experienced in statistics, modeling, risk assessment, and/or health physics.

For More information please see: Japan quake data should be stored in the cloud

EPA Calls for Stricter Drinking-Water Standards

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to tighten standards for four water contaminants that can cause cancer as part of a new strategy to toughen drinking-water regulation.

EPA said it will start rulemakings to revise standards for two contaminants used in industrial or textile processing, tetracholorethylene and trichloroethylene, within the year. The EPA will follow that rulemaking by setting stricter standards for epichlorohydrin and acrylamide, which can contaminate drinking water through the water-treatment process.
Speaking at a conference of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said her agency is now developing a broad new set of strategies to strengthen public health protection from contaminants in drinking water.

“To confront emerging health threats, strained budgets and increased needs—today’s and tomorrow’s drinking water challenges—we must use the law more effectively and promote new technologies,” she said.

Ms. Jackson said the agency would now address contaminants as a group rather than individually, saying the current process is too time-consuming and fails to take advantage of cost-effective programs and technology. She said the EPA would also help to foster new technologies, use existing laws more stringently and partner with states to share data from public-water systems.

The agency is also assessing 14 other contaminants, including law and copper, chromium, fluoride, arsenic, atrazine and perchlorate.