PeakOil is You
THE Water Quality Thread (merged)
Re: NPR: Your drinking water includes sterilants, hormones
by Ludi » Thu 31 Dec 2009, 11:09:21
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('2cher', 'M')aking the world infertile sounds like the best damn news for the planet that I have ever heard.
So you'd prefer there are no animals on the planet? Not only humans are affected, you know.
- Ludi
Re: NPR: Your drinking water includes sterilants, hormones
by Jotapay » Thu 31 Dec 2009, 12:33:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('culicomorpha', 'I')'ve looked at many of the filtering technologies, and they all leave something to be desired in my opinion. The craziest thing the municipalities do is to fluoridate the water. It's impossible to remove except with R.O. or distillation, both of which are wasteful processes. The water sources for many places are actually fairly good, as most municipalities at least try to protect their reservoirs and watersheds, but then they poison it with fluoride at a dose that is not that far below the toxic dose. Ground water can be better, or it can be very heavily contaminated. That's a crap shoot, but it seems like the number of known-polluted aquifers increases every year.
Regardless of the filtration type, it doesn't really help much since these technologies typically cannot filter fast enough for a shower without spending a lot of money on a whole-house-sized system. I came across a study a few years back - I'll see if I can find it again - that determined experimentally that the vast majority of exposure to volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) happened in the shower, and that only a small amount is absorbed via drinking water. So if you can't filter your shower, and your shower accounts for, say, 90% of your total daily exposure, then it doesn't matter if you filter your drinking water or not.
Regardless of the filtration type, it doesn't really help much since these technologies typically cannot filter fast enough for a shower without spending a lot of money on a whole-house-sized system. I came across a study a few years back - I'll see if I can find it again - that determined experimentally that the vast majority of exposure to volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) happened in the shower, and that only a small amount is absorbed via drinking water. So if you can't filter your shower, and your shower accounts for, say, 90% of your total daily exposure, then it doesn't matter if you filter your drinking water or not.
Sorta takes the wind out of your sails. I have more thinking to do. I guess I need to do some reading about plumbing and see if the expense/time is even worth it.
I'd really like to see the study about VOCs in the shower. I studied VOCs a little in one environmental engineering class. They are nasty little buggers. They are carcinogens and can give pregnant mothers a three-headed baby. Just kidding, sort of, but I try and keep them far, far away from me. I'd never read about exposure in a shower before. I wonder what the typical exposure level and resultant cancer rate is in typical showers in different cities.
Remembering my book lernin', VOCs would usually be actively absorbed by the skin and concentrated there. They would then be transported by the blood around the body until they broke down, depending on their half-life. Depending on the type of VOC, birth defects are a real issue.
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Re: NPR: Your drinking water includes sterilants, hormones
by dinopello » Thu 31 Dec 2009, 14:39:53
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jotapay', 'T')he thing that gets me is that these people who pretend to be environmentalists around here (but who are really big-government control freaks) will freak out about CO2 emissions and push global laws and regulations and inspections of our homes, but not give one rats ass about sterilants or other pollutants in the drinking water. That's so messed up.
From what I've heard, Texans aren't going to let anyone reduce their freedom to pollute the aquifers. The Edwards Aquifer is absorbing toxins from all over due to its porousness. Boone Pickens has that plan to buy up the Ogalla Aquifer and sell it's water down to San Antonio and other places with polluted water. Bad news for the Edwards Aquifer is good news for T Boone ! I wish I knew how to invest in that venture.
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-US Army Corps of Engineers Field Manual, 1917 Edition
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Re: NPR: Your drinking water includes sterilants, hormones
by Jotapay » Thu 31 Dec 2009, 15:03:35
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'F')rom what I've heard, Texans aren't going to let anyone reduce their freedom to pollute the aquifers. The Edwards Aquifer is absorbing toxins from all over due to its porousness. Boone Pickens has that plan to buy up the Ogalla Aquifer and sell it's water down to San Antonio and other places with polluted water. Bad news for the Edwards Aquifer is good news for T Boone!
Well, that's one interpretation of it, but not the whole story. Texans do care quite a bit about our water, as referenced by the Save Our Springs alliance in Austin and the Texas Water Development Board. Any Texan knows that we are DEAD here without a good water supply. But more pollution occurs than one would like, of course. All the development around Austin with these golf courses and fertilized lawns is causing rather noticeable algal growth in our streams from the nitrogen run off.
As for the Edwards Aquifer, there are a lot of people living over the recharge area which extends all the way from Austin to San Antonio. Whatever goes onto the ground is going into that aquifer. It's impossible to stop all toxins from going into the aquifer because of the human activity, no matter how good one's intentions are. However, signs are posted everywhere over the recharge area and people generally do a good job here to not dump any refuse onto the ground. Central Texas is actually a pretty well-kept landscape, relatively speaking.
This state will have a severe water issue in about 50 years, in my opinion. I used to work at the Texas Water Development Board right when I was finishing my Geology degree and before I started my IT career. Ten years ago, the charts that I saw on the senior hydrologists' walls of Texas aquifer elevation levels looked completely different than the ones you will find if you look online right now. They showed a constant rate of decline starting in the 1950s. The ones you will see today on line show no decline and I'm not sure why they are different. But I think T Boone Pickens is a smart businessman. He knows what the future holds and now he owns the water. Hopefully he'll manage it wisely. He's giving away hundreds of millions of his fortune right now before he dies, so hopefully he'll be rather thoughtful about water management as well.
Last edited by Jotapay on Thu 31 Dec 2009, 15:07:20, edited 1 time in total.
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