Archive for 2006
Pesticides Possibly Linked to Cancer Occurences
If anybody has heard about the smallest Canadian Province Prince Edward Island, very likely it is due to its extensive potato farming (“McCain“). As the Globe and Mail reports today, occurrences of cancer might be linked to pesticide usage that goes hand in hand with current potato farming practices. The article suggests that direct contact with pesticides on farm fields is the pathway to get cancer. It does not mention any issues related to leaching of pesticides into groundwater.
Groundwater Problems in China
China has typical groundwater-related problems: contamination from surface sources, saltwater intrusion from the ocean in coastal areas, and land-subsidence due to overpumping. Who would have guessed?
Videos of Water in Space
This is a cool video of a couple of cool experiments with a big water bubble in space.
Videos of Water in Space
This is a cool video of a couple of cool experiments with a big water bubble in space.
Vancouver Out of (Bottled) Water
What do you do, if you’re supposed to boil (and cool) all tap water that you want to drink? You buy bottled water. What happens if 2 million people want bottled water? Demand gets bigger than supply. I guess, before it can get more expensive, stores run out of bottles. Run out of bottles of water, milk, juice, everything. No more coffee either. Starbucks shot their coffee brewing business pretty much down, and everybody else followed suit. Is this not a clear sign for how important drinking water is? Is this not a clear sign how much people are willing to pay? Does this mean that companies that sell one liter of drinking water for ten dollars are doing the right thing? And does this mean that drinking water coming out of the tap is too cheap? Hotels announce that they put extra bottled water into rooms so their customers can use that for brewing their coffee. Where do those hotels get those bottles from? What do people do who can’t go to supermarkets to get bottled water (because they’re ill or have to work or are too poor)? I guess in crises like this the necessity of drinking water for every human being becomes crucially visible. All these sort of philosophical questions “boil down” to the one question if drinking water is a public good or not, with all its consequences.
Leaving the philosophical question, turning to a practical one: Why is all this happening? Vancouver relies entirely on surface water for its drinking water supply. This surface water (rivers) is collected in reservoirs, and from there transported in pipelines directly into the distribution system. Usually, this is pretty nice in Vancouver, because the rivers start in the mountains with lots of snow-melt water. So usually, the quality is good and the water feels “fresh”. In the last couple of days, it rained a lot, the rain triggering mudslides into the reservoirs where the water is being collected. The material of those mudslides is often very fine, so the particles are small, and do not settle down in the reservoir, but stay in the water and hence might get transported through the pipes and appear at the tap. If those particles are inorganic and really small, this is not a problem. However, if organic, or viruses or bacteria are coming with / are attached to the particles, this might lead to health problems. It is hard to predict if this happens and to what extent. So this boiling water advisory is a cautionary measure. First it was issued on thursday for about 2 million people, and since friday afternoon it is still valid for about 700,000 people
Pollution Shield to Protect Earth?
Another interesting Globe and Mail article today… Dr. Crutzen of Germany’s Max Plack Institute for Chemistry suggests a human made “shield” of pollution that should protect earth from incoming radiation…
Intensive Rains Lead to Boil-Water Advisory in Vancouver
Precipitation of 10mm to 15mm per hour for a duration of up to 15hours (about one fifth of SW Ontario’s annual precipitation) lead to extreme flow in surface waters, and is according to the Globe and Mail’s Article cause for turbidity and sediments in the water supply in the greater Vancouver area. Intense precipitation was one of the causes leading to the contaminated water supply in the town of Walkerton in 2001, where seven people died and thousands are still sick (see also CBC’s archives).
The article also talks about extreme weather conditions (storms with rain) in Toronto and the USA. Is this an example of “increasing occurence of extreme weather conditions” due to warmer average annual temperatures?
Update: See also CBC
Sanitation is Important
According to André Picard in today’s Globe and Mail bad drinking water quality is still the main reason,for half of the world’s population, for disease.
How can we take seriously the promise of the Book of Life (the genome) when we cannot, or will not, provide our fellow man with the most basic element required for life, a few drops of water daily?
I think a pretty good article from a non-engineering perspective.
More on Water
I noticed recently that “water” is getting some attention in media.
- The NY Times has a series (1, 2, and 3) of articles of water related pressure in india. These articles go with some multimedia content (movies 1 and 2)
- The Globe and Mail has two articles. One points out that Ontario’s water related infrastructure, including groundwater wells, are not state of the art. The other one describes the case of a gravel pit next to a water supply well in Milton, Ontario. This article has a very friendly view towards the gravel pit operator (who recently died).
- The german Telepolis has an Israel friendly article titled “thirsty world”
- JWalk has found a new tip on the bottled water iceberg. Wow!
Water at Mexico–USA border
The NYTimes has an interesting article on cross-boundary water issues