The Truth of Water – Answers

• 02Feb

  The Story of Stuff

  Conservation, Other No Comments

  This post isn’t directly related to water, but it’s related in a way.  Annie Leonard put together a website with a twenty minute video called “The Story of Stuff”.

  In this video she describes the how’s, why’s of our current environmental train wreck we call the planet earth.

  She does this with clarity and foresight, and in such a way to make it clear to everyone why this is happening and what we need to do to save ourselves.

  This applies to every resource, including water.

  Please, go check out the Story of Stuff and learn how to save the water, the resources, the planet and ourselves. It’ll be the best twenty minutes you’ve ever spent.

  

  Tags: The Story of Stuff

• 19Jan

  A Viable Solution to Water Shortages

  Conservation, Drinking Water 3 Comments

  I live in Southern Ontario.  It’s hard for me to imagine a water shortage.  The nearby river is full, our ground is full of water, and I’ve had to shovel so much snow so far this year I’m plain sick of it.  I buy water for mere pennies a cubic meter and couldn’t imagine ever going thirsty.

  You may be like me, living in an environment of plenty.  You turn on the tap and the water is there. You may have to live with the slight annoyance of having vague lawn watering restrictions in the summer time, but that’s all you have to endure.

  Yet for millions of people worldwide, water is extremely difficult to come by.  Water shortages are so severe that many people scrounge just to get enough water to drink.

  In my last post, I wrote about how it’s not economically viable to transport large amounts of water over long distances.  With conventional technologies, it’s not.

  My perceptions changed when Mr. Terry Spragg contacted me regarding this issue.  Mr. Spragg is the inventor of the Spragg Bag and this technology promises to help quench the thirst of millions around the world.  The Spragg Bag is the first technology that makes it viable to transport water from places that have a lot to places that don’t have so much, quickly and economically.  Please, watch the following video. It shows the system better than I could describe it.

  If you care at all about the current water crisis, I ask you to help Mr. Spragg by spreading the word.  Bookmark both this post and Terry’s website on your favorite social networks to help gain more internet popularity.  If you own a blog, write a post about the Spragg bag, bookmark that post too, and help spread the word.

  Let’s make the Spragg Bag public knowlege.  The more people are in the know, the faster this technology can be put into mainstream use, and the sooner that parched people can forget what thirst is about.

  

  Tags: long distance water transport, Spragg Bag, water shortages

• 14Jan

  Shipping Water Across Long Distances

  Conservation, Drinking Water 2 Comments

  Jessica from Australia asks:

  I remember… it would have been about 2001. Queensland was suffering with massive floods while the rest of the country was parched. I remember asking my Grade 5 teacher why they didn’t just ship all that water further down the continent. He seemed to think it wasn’t feasible.  Is that true?

  Thanks for the question, Jessica.

  Because of geology, terrain, the hydrological cycle, and many other factors, it is true that there are some geographic locals that have more water than others.  Typically, human civilization has sprung up around vast sources of fresh water.  Farming, drinking, shipping – these are but some of the uses of a local and large fresh water supply, and most cities that are near one tend to be better off than those who’s water supplies are short.

  Water supplies are in high demand, and there’s no doubt as our supplies dwindle wars will be fought over them, as they are now over fossil fuels.

  It may not seem like it, but water is a very heavy substance.  It may surprise you to learn that on average, a full ten percent of all electricity used by any particular city is consumed just to move potable water around water mains.  That is a lot of electricity.

  The average person in a first world nation, considering the high and low, uses about four hundred liters of water a day.  This includes bathing, cooking, drinking, cleaning, laundry, gardening and other miscellaneous activities.

  Then a typical family of four would use 1,600 liters a day, and 11,200 liters a week.  The typical water truck carries 6,000 liters, so for just one family it would cost two water trucks to make a round trip to wherever it is that has the water.

  Consider then a city of 100,000 people.  In one week, a city of that size would require a visit by the equivalent of 46,666 water trucks just to keep the reservoirs full of water.

  Considering the needs of the rest of the cities that may be low on water, and you can see that the task of hauling or piping water from long distances is just not feasible. There aren’t enough trucks, diesel fuel, pipeline, or electricity to meet the demand of today’s water consumer.

  This would, however be feasible for a short duration of emergency, say after war or natural disaster, when water would be used only for drinking and medical purposes.

  The above model also does not take into consideration industrial water use, water wastage during the treatment process, and the inefficiencies of infrastructure (small losses from water mains are typical).

  As you can see, your teacher is correct. It is indeed not feasible to transport water over large distances at the current rate of consumption and at the current population.

  Better alternatives would be desalination if you live near an ocean. However, because of the current technologies available to remove salt from water, producing a liter of drinkable ocean water costs thousands of times more than a liter of fresh water.

  A more realistic approach would be to drastically change the way we as a society uses and wastes water in general.  This combined with proper recycling techniques, rain water collection and more efficient treatment practices would solve many problems.

  I hope I’ve answered your question. If you would like further clarification, don’t hesitate to ask.

  

  Tags: pipeline, shipping water, water, water consumption, water trucks

• 10Dec

  FLOW – The Film

  Conservation, Drinking Water, Other 1 Comment

  Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.  It may not feel like it now, to you and me. It may feel like water is cheap, and plentiful, and we’ll never run out. But nothing could be further from the truth.

  Water is the planets most precious resource, and we are running out of fresh water faster than the planet can replenish it.  As such, more and more people with power and authority are tightening their grip on this most precious recourse, at the cost of the people.

  Nobody knows this better than Irina Salina, who produced an award winning documentary on the topic. From the website:

  Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century – The World Water Crisis.

  Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

  Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”

  Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround. – Source

  I urge all of you who are reading this to watch this movie. Check out Irina’s website, participate in her blog, and take action.

  People like Irina and others who speak out on the water crisis are speaking the truth. We all must take action to protect the resource for ourselves and future generations.  Please check out this movie, and do your part to help.

  

  

  Tags: Conservation, Flow the Film, water

• 24Nov

  Use of recycled water

  Conservation, Drinking Water No Comments

  Chris from Toronto writes:

  Hi there, I am doing a research project on the viability of implementing some rural water saving solutions in the city.  The one idea I had was to use rain barrels on top of larger buildings to supply the occupants with their water.  I figured that anything we can do to reduce the load on the city reservoirs the better, especially to conserve the electricity that our pumps use.  I was wondering if you could give me some input…Aren’t apartment buildings built with an internal reservoir system already that purifies the water and distributes it onsite?  If not, do you think it could be practical to just tie into systems that don’t require purifying, like toilets and washing machines?  I’d really appreciate your help.  Thanks

  Hi Chris, thanks for your question.

  There are two truths happening right now:

  1. An increase in population
  2. A water supply steadily decreasing in availability

  As our population goes up, our ideas of housing is changing.  In larger cities, more and more condominiums are rising to the sky, housing more people in a smaller area.  In smaller cities, new housing developments are severely cutting the land around houses, packing them in closer and closer.

  Working in the water treatment section of a municipality, it always amazes me how much water is being treated to tough potable standards, and how little of it is used for potable uses like drinking and cooking.  Most of it goes to washing and industrial purposes.

  Currently most water is used as a once through application.  It goes down the drain and dissapears to the waste water treatment plant, for treatment and release to the environment.  But as water becomes more scarce, water will have to be recycled if we would like to continue to use water as we are.

  I don’t know the current status of most apartment buildings. However, sustainability projects such as you propose are feasible.  The infrastructure on older buildings would be expensive, but it would be relatively cheap to integrate into brand new apartment buildings.

  Potable water from the city could still be piped in.  However, you would have a tap or taps designated as potable in your apartment, such as the kitchen sink and the bathrooms. Your drinking, cooking and other miscellaneous uses (such as brushing your teeth) would come from these taps.  To ensure that the potable water does not get cross contaminated from any other water source, the piping would have to be completely separate from other sources.

  Separate from your drinking water, showers, laundry facilities and outside hose bibs could be recycled grey water mixed with rain water collected on the roof.  Simple centrifugal separators, filtration and light disinfection (U.V. and/or chlorination) could make this water clean, clear and useful for such washing applications.  The water sent to your waste water treatment plant would be a more concentrated form of the contaminants removed.

  Using a system like that would mean existing water treatment plants would be able to supply cities far into the future with their potable water needs without the need for further and further expansion.

  I hope that gives you a direction for your research project, Chris.  If you have any further questions or would like further detail, please do not hesitate to write in again.

  

  Tags: future water use, recycling, water conservation

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