U.S. mayors agree to phase out bottled water

“The change could mean people at city council meetings around the
country in the future could more often see pitchers of water instead of
clear plastic bottles on the tables of local legislators.”
This sends a clear message to consumers and it is a great message for the mayors to endorse. The question is where is the FCM on this issue. How can we get a similar resolution on their agenda?
Article is here.

It’s Time To Drink Toilet Water

Slate hits a note with this article by Eilene Zimmerman. The Netherlands started a practice almost 25 years ago of treating wastewater and pumping it into the ground. In their case though, it was to push back the saline water boundary with fresh water. If they pump out too much ground water they get salt water intrusions.

The waterfootprint.org is an interesting site worth checking out.

Los Angeles to Drain Two Reservoirs Due to Cancer Risk

”

he Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
intend to drain 600 million gallons of water from Elysian and Silver
Lake reservoirs early next year, a process that will leave them out of
action for three to four months amid drought conditions, the department
said in a statement.

According to the
department, high levels of the carcinogen bromate were discovered by a
commercial water customer during tests in early October.”
- from here.

Brisbane residents best water savers in world: Newman

From ABC News, “Councillor Newman says the Queensland Water Commission data, showing residents are using an average of 123 litres a day, means Brisbane has overtaken cities in Germany as the best water savers in the developed world.”

What does 123 litres of water a day look like compared to Canada?

I’m familiar with a typical value of 340 as the average daily water consumption per person but I have seen info suggesting that we are getting down to below 300 for some communities that have implemented water conservation measures.

Other info, here , here, here and here.

So if a community has implemented water conservation, what does it take to get down to the EU typical rate of 140 litres per capita? What does a solution look like that cuts a typical Canadian water consumption figure in half? To even consider this, we have to go and look at the CBC article and a breakdown of water use, Toilet flushing = 30%, and water used per task.

Just for completeness, I checked and our household’s consumption based on the last bill was 138 litres/person.

Discovering a pin hole leak

Our children’s caregiver lives with us during the week and last night she came upstairs to say that she could hear water dripping. We have an old house and this is exactly the kind of thing that gives me palpatations when I hear it.

Investigation revealed that we did have a water leak but I could not find from where. Two years ago, we had a pipe freeze and burst which revealed itself with a light fixture filling up with water. We were lucky that we were home and caught that one when we did.

Thankfully, this time the old line had an isolation valve on it and so with relative ease I was able to close the valve and confirm that the dripping was slowing down. So I had the right pipe at least. I turned the line back on and climbed up on a chair and reached in towards the pipe and found a pin hole leak in one of the elbows. Wow, what causes that to show up?

I’ve read some of the reports that have associated excess flux on copper pipe soldering with pin hole leaks and maybe that’s what’s going on here. It’s not an easy failure to diagnose as compared to say the burst elbow from pipe freezing. It looked like someone had shot a bullet out of the elbow from inside. The pin hole leak for this elbow was on the top outside part of the elbow and I believe the flux leakage corrosion points were all along the invert or lower portion of copper pipe and not the upper side.

It’s in a tricky position to fix but that’s what my afternoon is going to look like.

Water based pipe platelets for clogging leaks

This seems a suitable post for a freaky Friday. Not sure what to make of that idea, other than dubious at best. If it clogs leaks what’s to stop it from clogging everything else too. Source is here.

“I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it”

Nice public consultation campaign.

Tofino No Longer Trucking In Water From Ucluelet

Tofino is no longer trucking in water from Ucluelet with simple
measures like washing dishes by hand, helping cut the island
community’s consumption by up to 30 per cent.

I don’t think so.  From the technical studies that I’ve read, public annoucements to conserve water usually account for 10 to 15% savings in average daily consumption; however, it is possible that dramatic changes in consumer behaviour are accounting for a 30% shift in consumption. The emphasis there should be on dramatic. Does switching to washing dishes by hand count as dramatic? I doubt it, there has to be more to this story than that. I’m not sure exactly how fog helps either.
The mention of a reservoir is interesting. Expanding the reservoir volume will certain aid in managing their supply but it is also introduces a greater challenge in operating the system. Too much water in the reservoir will lead to poor water quality due to aging of the water and stagnation.

Prentice announces clean water plan for reserves

he government has a five-point plan for improving water standards on
native reserves, and said work would begin right away in 21 communities
identified as most at risk for waterborne health hazards.
Full story at CTV.ca on March 21, 2006

Big water companies quit poor countries

Political and consumer pressure forces rethink – Full story by John Vidal in The Guardian, March 22, 2006
Okay so the gist of the story is that privatization hasn’t been the solution to a third world water problem that people thought it would be. I really don’t like that categorization of third world vs. first world.
The problem seems to be that poor people in poor countries have trouble paying for clean and safe water where that clean and safe water was produced using first world style treatment and distribution technologies.