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.

Great lakes water levels

Yes, anyone that’s been to the great lakes this past fall can bear witness to the low levels.
Story here.

But how low are they?
Here and here.

One thing to consider is that the great lakes drainage basin is not a particularly deep one.
.

Compare to the Fraser River in BC.
“The Fraser River watershed is almost as large as California and accounts for over 25% of the land in British Columbia.”

What you see in comparison to the Great Lakes are fed by a myriad of relatively small and large rivers that are not very long in comparison to the long rivers like the Fraser. The great lakes basin is mostly about short duration contributing streams that are very affected by available rainfall and snowfall. The lakes themselves have a 25 year turnover, (different for each one of course).

I was of the opinion that September was a very low precip month and that was true for all of the stations in the Great Lakes but for Superior. The result is that across all the Great lakes precipitation for September was pretty much right on average.

G.L. Basin      3.48            3.41

more on precip. data is here.

So yes the precipitation this past fall has been lower for most of the Great Lakes but not necessarily lower in the extreme. Can the lower levels be a double whammy of low precip. and high evaporation? Maybe.

PVC concerns?

probably not for rigid PVC plastic. Story

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.

Top 10 causes of pipeline failures

A USA report from last year analyzed the 10 most common mistakes for serious pipeline failures. (What defines serious from superfluous I wonder?) More info here.

I think that 7 & 8 are big ones for water and wastewater.

The academic library and the future

“if libraries had shareholders, would they, like newspapers, be in the midst of a gut-wrenching, brake-screeching exercise in redefinition?”
Full story here. I like libraries but I’ve not been in an academic library in years. This info puts into question what role these libraries will serve in the community in the future.

I should draw a differentiation between the fact that I like libraries and I don’t like newspapers (should preface that by saying modern newspapers). Libraries are a collection of information that exist in a sort passive relationship with their patrons. You must search out and discover your interests in the collection. You, the reader, get primary and direct access to information and where a reference is listed, you may follow that reference further.

Newspapers, in contrast, solely exist to parse information for a readership profile. Newspapers apply a value filter that I dislike and distrust. Newspapers, in the modern age, seldom if ever connect me to direct sources and rarely pass references to follow further. Television news is by and large even worse.

This is not to say that I don’t read newspapers, occasionally I do and I do watch TV news but I pay for neither. My expectation is not that I shall be informed but that I will be entertained. With any newspaper, I always head first to the comics section and occasionally that is as far as I get.

So the quote I’ve put above is more in reference to another of society’s institutions that is being impacted by the Net than a comparison of like institutions.

Lastly, I can recall a story told by my father, who described a man that became jobless in the dirty thirties. He unlike his peers did not stand in long lines only to discover that there was no work. He went to the library day after day and read as much material as he could. He did this in the face of considerable criticism and ridicule. The result was that he was able to find work with a newspaper while his contemporaries were still seeking lines to stand in with the hope of discovering work. He went on to a distinguished career in the newspaper business. The library was the catalyst for this success. The point being that if he had read a newspaper every day instead of going to the library would the result be the same? Not likely and therein lies an important distinction.

Don’t judge each day
     by the harvest you reap,
     but by the seeds you plant. 
          Robert Louis Stevenson

Interesting Dam DeConstruction Story

Civil engineers planning the demolition of the 60-year-old Matilija Dam on the Ventura River
Full story here.

Introducing the rPhone

I have a fondness for steampunk techno-gear. This probably dates back to my time spent with steamthreshers. The parody of the iPhone is great too.

Homeland Security hacked

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suffered more than 800 hacker
break-ins, virus outbreaks, and other computer security problems over
two years, senior officials told Congress.
Story here.

Climate change guide

Greg Wilson’s Third Bit points to this interesting guide.