While in Ethiopia in August to learn more about what they do about drinking water, I visited the Debre Damo Monastery.  About 1,600 years old, it is situated on a flat-topped outcropping of solid rock. The only way in or out is by climbing a sheer cliff using a 15 meter rope made from woven rawhide. The top supports a community of about 150 monks. Certainly the most extreme location I found people living in this most northern part of the country. Tufts of green in the landscape below reminded me that it was still their short rainy season.    

        

The question in my mind is that these men live on top of a solid piece of rock – what do they do for drinking water? The site has been in constant use for centuries, so they must have solved this essential question long ago. The answer is found in the rain catchment pools carved into the stone itself.

    

Although many consider the water here to be holy, the source is vulnerable to pollution. The pools are open to the sky so bird droppings can fall in, a resident troupe of monkeys use the same water source, and anything that lands on the bare rock surrounding the pools can be blown or washed in. The abundance of algae on the surfaces is an indication that nutrients are present. (Algae could easily be transported to this place on the legs of birds.) The water I sampled was positive for coliform bacteria. 

It would be interesting to return in the dry season. If I go again I now know to bring a wider range of water test kits. I would like to check water quality when contaminants are likely to be more concentrated due to evaporation.  Time and opportunity did not permit on this visit, but it would be interesting to talk to the monks about their perceptions of drinking water quality. Is there any evidence of illness caused by this water? Are they interested in treating it or even reducing evaporation? Maybe not. There were some very old men up there. Perhaps in this case the habits and traditions of centuries are as sustaining as the water itself. 

 

Contact Mark B.

 

Source: kinetico

In my February blog, I introduced you to a pretty serious situation which is taking place in many parts of the country and all over the world: algal blooms, cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins.  Well, it looks like last year’s problems are once again repeating themselves.  First a quick refresher…

Cyanotoxins are a group of toxic compounds produced by cyanobacteria.  They can be dermatoxins (affect skin) hepatoxins (affect the liver), or neurotoxins (affect the nervous system). Cyanotoxins have caused human or animal illness in more than 50 countries and at least 35 states, and can occur in both fresh and sea water.

Cyanobacteria are often referred to as blue-green algae but they are really bacteria that are photosynthetic.  They resemble algae but are really quite different.  Not all cyanobacteria produce toxins, and those that do can produce toxins that vary in potency and are therefore a health concern.

So, what happened over the last 12 months in response to this problem?  Well, a lot actually.  In May of this year, the USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) issued a “health advisory” for two cyanotoxins, microcystin and cylindrospermopsin (see table below).

USEPA 10 day Health Advisory Levels

Health advisories are not regulations, but provide guidelines to officials so that they can adequately protect the public health.  There is more than one type of health advisory. Below is a chart and description of the types. 

Harmful Algal Bloom Advisory Types:

Recreational Public Health Advisory – A Recreational Public Health Advisory sign will be posted at beaches where toxin levels exceed the recommended threshold, warning individuals who are elderly or very young and people with compromised immune systems that swimming or wading is not recommended.

Recreational No Contact Advisory – A No Contact Advisory sign will be posted when toxin levels exceed the recommended threshold and there are one or more probable cases of human illness or pet deaths attributable to HABs.  This sign will warn people that unsafe toxins are present in the water and to avoid any contact.

Drinking Water Advisory – Do Not Drink (bottle-fed infants and children younger than school age) – A Do Not Drink Advisory will be issued for bottle-fed infants and children younger than school age when the toxin levels exceed the recommended thresholds.  Alternative water should be used for drinking, making infant formula, making ice, brushing teeth, and preparing food.  Healthy school age children and adults may use the water.  Do not boil the water.

Drinking Water Advisory – Do No Drink (for all) – A Do Not Drink Advisory will be issued when the toxin levels exceed the recommended thresholds.  Alternative water should be used for drinking, making infant formula, making ice, brushing teeth, and preparing food.  Healthy adults may use the water for bathing, washing hands, washing dishes and doing laundry.  Do not boil the water.

Drinking Water Advisory – Do Not Use – A Do Not Use Advisory will be issued when the toxin levels exceed the recommended thresholds.  Alternative water should be used for all purposes.  Do not boil the water.

(Source OEPA)

Additionally, no less than five federal and numerous state bills have been introduced to address algal bloom monitoring, toxin levels and fertilizer applications.  Nearly every alphabet soup agency and organization is focusing on this problem.  Even NASA is getting into the act, joining forces with the EPA, the USGS (United States Geological Survey) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to implement a satellite early warning system.  In addition, 32 states established dedicated resources to answer questions and provide guidance.  The problem isn’t just here, but is international in scope.  As an aside, in April of this year, I attended the U.S. Algal Toxin Conference in Akron, Ohio.  Representatives from seven different countries, all of the government agencies, water utility representatives, engineering firms, professional organizations and academia all weighed in on this issue.  “Red Tides” in the Gulf, the “Blob” on the West Coast, and the coming of “El Nino” are all on the radar.

Closer to home, scientists are predicting that the western end of Lake Erie will see one of the most severe outbreaks of toxic algal blooms in recent years.  Late August through September is the critical time, and believe me, conditions are ripe.  Fortunately, this situation was taken very seriously since the events of last year and there are tools in the box to keep this from becoming a health threat.  To find out more in depth information on this subject, including the effectiveness of various technologies for treating it, go to:  http://1.usa.gov/1vlrJxe

Stay Smart, Stay Well

Ed 

 

Contact Ed R.

Source: kinetico

In August, I was able to visit northern Ethiopia to look at some of the drinking water issues.  As you might guess, there are many, ranging from polluted water to almost no water at all.  That made it interesting to discover the inhabitants of Adwa and Aksum rely on a reservoir.  The reservoir water is treated first by aeration to oxidize iron, then with a flocculant which attracts dirt like a magnet, slow sand filtration to remove the floc, and finally chlorination to disinfect.  This level of treatment is actually standard practice for many municipalities in more developed countries.   

 I brought with me a kit to test for coliform bacteria – the kind of bacteria normal to the human gut.  Most are not harmful, but you probably have heard of a bad one that  represents fecal coliforms: E. coli.  I tested multiple faucets where I was staying in Adwa and found no coliforms at that moment in time, including no E. coli.  This water is typically provided by a single tap to a group of households.  It is relatively unusual for Ethiopians to have fairly easy access to water, so what I observed might be considered a model for “best practices” in the country. 

                                                                                                        

Outside Adwa and Aksum, however, the situation was more like what I was expecting, which is to say dire. With the help of a guide, my two Kinetico co-workers and I took a half hour ride out of Adwa to Gendebta. As we hiked along paths through farm fields, we first passed a hand dug well and a manually pumped well, then another manually pumped well, and finally came to a muddy hole that water seeps up into. 

The first pump did not work, so the hand dug well was being used for livestock and humans to drink from. It tested positive for total coliforms and E. coli. Further away, the second pump did produce water, but only during the very short rainy season. 

The photo shows a barefoot girl filling and carrying a 20-liter container for her family.  The jerrycan is carried using a length of rope across her chest. While her journey home that day was fairly short, that water still weighs about 44 pounds.

After hiking for an hour, we came to the source of water people use when the shallow wells no longer produce.  As I watched, a mother and daughter filled their clay water jugs, skimming the less muddy water from the top. Livestock stand in the puddle to drink from it as well. In the 10 month dry season people travel by foot over great distances to collect their water here. They collect water early in the morning until it runs out. Then they wait until the afternoon when it has refilled a bit. This source tested positive for coliforms. 

While the people of Adwa and Aksum are fortunate to have a year-round source of water that is relatively safe to use, most of the country does not.  Those who collect for their households are primarily girls and women travelling long distances to carry heavy loads, perhaps more than once a day. 

When I returned home and opened the tap, I just stared for a moment, appreciating what I have and thinking further about how I can help. 

 

Contact Mark B.

Source: kinetico

My daughter loves watching Curious George. I’m not sure why, unless it is that she gets to see one of her stuffed animals come to life on the screen. In one of the recent episodes, George learned how to make maple syrup. He tapped a tree, gathered sap and then watched it boil down into syrup. George, of course, managed to do all of this in a 12 minute episode, but even the episode depicted it all being done in 8-10 hours. I found that a little far-fetched, but all in all it was pretty informative considering it was a cartoon.

Living in Northeast Ohio, the maple syrup process wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me. The basics were all covered in the Curious George episode. You need to tap the tree with some kind of spigot. Once it is tapped, you need to hang something that will collect the sap. Around here, blue bags are pretty popular. As George learned, sap from the tree doesn’t taste like maple syrup mainly because there is so much water in the sap. To transform it into syrup, you typically boil sap until most of the water is removed. One website I saw said that it took 43 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!!

So, by this point, I am sure you are wondering how this has any relevance to a water blog. Well many of the people that are in the industry actually use a reverse osmosis system to speed up the process of making syrup. They just use the system opposite of how I would typically think a system works. Typically, your well or municipal water goes through a prefilter and then into a reverse osmosis semi permeable membrane.  The membrane separates the water into two streams: a permeate stream (the water you drink) and a drain stream (filled with undesirable contaminants). The permeate stream goes through a postfilter and then to your faucet. If you want a more in depth explanation of reverse osmosis drinking water systems, you can read more about it here. To maple syrup makers, the purified water is actually the waste product! They want what I would typically consider the waste stream. In the “waste” stream, the product is already concentrated so it takes less work (boiling) to make it into maple syrup.

I love seeing people think of creative ways to adapt existing technology to meet their needs.

Contact Abbey R.

Source: kinetico