Taken at Waterblogged.info's short-lived celebration

On American Rivers’ annual list of America’s 10 Most Endangered Rivers, that is. Dang! The editorial staffers here at Waterblogged.info–headquartered in Northern California–were all momentarily florid in the face from that ferocious rush of adrenaline-laden pride that engorges all Americans who learn that their country, state, municipality, area code, school, team, car, child, patchwork quilt, or pet rabbit has been ranked No. 1. Then we read the fine print.  From AlterNet’s coverage of the announcement:

The nation’s most endangered river is actually an entire river system threatened by outdated water and flood management policies. California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, the largest watershed in the state is on the verge of collapse, American Rivers warns. The risks are numerous – climate change, population growth, water supply demands, and endangered species listings.

OK, we get it. California got owned by American Rivers, and this No. 1 business is an ironic tribute to the Big Bad-assed Bear’s relentless race to the bottom ranking in every category. (We were recently named No. 1 on the list of the least amount of money spent per student in our K-12 system! Below Mississippi. Really.)

But yo, other states! You runner-ups, no-shows, and wanabees have to admit that we do everything big in the Golden State, including fail! This isn’t that little trickle you call Flint River, second-place Georgia! This is an entire friggin’ system that we’re neglecting at our own peril! We’re talking major watershed, suckahs! Deal with it!

As Not Seen on TV: The Water Channel

From Abigail Brown’s blog via Alternet, we give you The Water Channel, which boasts 200+ and counting films about water from around the globe. Says Abby:

Already today, I have been able to visit people and places in Yemen, India, Mexico, Niger, and Kenya to learn more about local and global water issues. How, you may ask? Easy, I reply — The Water Channel.

Easy, and fun! Well, as much fun as learning about global water problems and local solutions can be. We’ll let Abby bore you with the details about the Water Channel’s founders and mission. Do visit Abigail’s essential blog, Water for the Ages. And it’s difficult to exaggerate the importance of Alternet’s water coverage. So, because I’m late for work, I won’t try to exaggerate, I’ll just urge you to check it out for yourself.

Ohio's Cuyahoga River, sporting blue water that only existed in the fevered imagination of the painter

(Background information on the Cuyahoga River here.) In the mid 1950s, a very young and very excited resident of Cleveland, Ohio (and future waterblogger) took a ride in an elevator to the observation deck of the city’s 52-story Terminal Tower, then on the short list of the world’s tallest buildings.

Decades later, the not young and less-than-excited man that the boy became has only one vivid recollection of the distant afternoon: A river gone terribly orange. From the deck’s 700-foot vantage point, the winding Cuyahoga River–instead of the limpid bright blue flow that inspired his crayola riverine renderings–was a ghastly rust-orange soup that didn’t seem to be moving at all.

The 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River that served as a catalyst for the passage of the Clean Water Act

He remembers that his younger self was appalled, confused and feeling his childhood innocence slipping away. His father responded to his frantic questions with his usual impatience. “Stop worrying about the river,” he snapped. “It’s just dirty from the factories. Look,  you can see our neighborhood from here.”

Dad could just as well have said, “Hey kid, at least it’s not on fire!” Three or four years before, in 1952–when the boy was five–oil and other volatile industrial pollutants dumped into the flow ignited to produce the largest of many fires that had plagued the curvaceous Cuyahoga since the late 19th century. As this Wikipedia article notes, there were several more fires after 1952  before the 1969 conflagration that gained wide public attention and inspired Randy Newman’s  “Burn On” and R.E.M.’s “Cuyahoga.”

From Wikipedia, a 1968 excerpt of a Kent State University study of the river, one year before the fire:

The surface is covered with the brown oily film observed upstream as far as the Southerly Plant effluent. In addition, large quantities of black heavy oil floating in slicks, sometimes several inches thick, are observed frequently. Debris and trash are commonly caught up in these slicks forming an unsightly floating mess. . . .The velocity is negligible, and sludge accumulates on the bottom. . . . Animal life does not exist. . . .The color changes from gray-brown to rusty brown as the river proceeds downstream. Transparency is less than 0.5 feet in this reach. This entire reach is grossly polluted.

The difference between all the previous fires–essentially ignored outside of Ohio–and the 1969 event was that burgeoning environmental consciousness meant that a river catching fire was finally newsworthy.  Again from Wikipedia:

Fires erupted on the river several more times before June 22, 1969, when a river fire captured the attention of Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as the river that “oozes rather than flows” and in which a person “does not drown but decays.”

The fire was one of many ecological calamities that woke people up to the need for regulation and led to the eventual passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The New York Times recently ran an article about the so-called rebirth of  the Cuyahoga River (registration may be required), touting it as an example of sound environmental practices gone right. Yes, the fact that there are actually fish or any other life form in the formerly totally toxic stew is an achievement of sorts.

A river reborn, gushes the New York Times. I suppose. But come on, it’s been forty years. The river is by no means healthy, and I doubt that a pristine Cuyahoga will be a high priority  for the cash-strapped municipal and state governments.

Philosopher Massimo Cacciari, the mayor of Venice, is pushing tap water

Ah, Venice, The City of Water, intricately interconnected by a network of picturesque canals replete with sleek black gondolas piloted by boisterous men sporting ridiculous hats–an idea they apparently stole from Las Vegas.

In reality, only tourists hire gondolas; any self-respecting Venetian prefers to catch a vaporetto,  or hail a speedy water taxi.

As you can see from the photo in this 6/12/09 New York Times article, some Venetians apparently walk on water as well and–with that charming and disarming Italian insouciance–blithely toss empty plastic water bottles into the nearest canal along their merry-assed way.

Collecting the  growing flotilla of transparent trash has become so expensive that the city has launched a campaign to turn the populace on to tap water.

Lest you’re concerned that the first stage of  Venice’s tap water delivery involves sucking canal water with a pipe, the article states that the municipal water supply is drawn from the same aquifers being profitably drained by Italian beverage giant San Benedetto, the bottlers of Italy’s most popular toxic-plastic-encased thirst quencher.

The campaign is an uphill battle. According to the article, Italians imbibe more overpriced, overrated, and overhyped*  H2O per capita than any other country on the planet. Instead of the usual guilt-tripping (or the ranting ridicule favored by Waterblogged.info), Venice wants to get people to switch by making tap water trendy: Pubbliche relazioni venezia has rebranded tired old spigot juice as hip and sexy Acqua Veritas (real water?). The new beverage senzacione sweeping la nacione is aggressively marketed through a playful promotion that features the city’s mayor, Massimo Cacciari, who looks very much like a bookish philosopher because he is one.

The core shtick of the campaign plays off the phrase l’acqua del sindaco, the mayor’s water, which is how Italians ruefully refer to tap water. “I drink the mayor’s water, too,” proclaims the tweedy dignitary from billboards throughout the region.

I hope it’s an effective effort. But, hey, we’re talking Italy here, and it’s more likely we’ll soon be reading about a scandal involving a photo of the mayor schmoozing with a San Benedetto exec, grasping a bundle of lira in one hand and tipping a bottle of San Benedetto’s best to his hair-lined lips with the other. You read it first at Waterblogged.info.

*Italicized matter is interpolated invective from the editorial staff of Waterblogged.info

The Big Nickel in the Nickel City

Pop quiz: What’s the “hidden metal”? If you answered “nickel,” you’re right, but how did you know, and what the heck does it mean? Based on its web site’s banner, The Nickel Institute knows–and I bet they’d tell you for a nickel.

The banner also states that the modest mineral is the “ubiquitous metal” and the “enviro-metal!” The trade organization’s online journal, creatively named Nickel Magazine, is a treasure chest spilling over with nickel nomenclature and knowledge, including this article about nickel’s profitable place in the future of desalination technology.

The article is targeted at nickel industry insiders who can’t get enough comparative data about nickel alloys, so it’s really not for anyone who’s read this far and still thinks a nickel is just five cents and what’s the fuss. Not surprisingly, the writer concludes that currently available data “. . .confirms nickel-containing alloys as both essential and in growing demand for the complex industrial process of making potable water from seawater.”

The image is of the aptly named Big Nickel, a landmark of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, nickelnamed the Nickel City. The city of 160,000 or so inhabitants modestly traces its history back 2-billion years, when the area it occupies was ground zero for what is possibly the planet’s largest and most catastrophic meterorite hit. But there’s always a silver lining, or in this case nickel plating: The meteorite kicked up massive amounts of subterranean minerals–including one that the reader is possibly tiring of–kindly leaving it for the fine folks of Subbury to mine, once they evolved, became civilized, and developed technology.

A brief NPR segment from August 2007, that discusses the state of desalination in the state of California. A basic–maybe too basic–introduction to the concept of reverse osmosis.

An article about desalination in Australia on Aboutmyplanet.com, by Sherry Obenaur.  Good because it presents a pretty comprehensive list of both the pros and cons.

Desalination cartoons. Really.

A Channel 4 (British public television) anti-privatization documentary. I linked to the Vimeo page because the Channel 4 page has no link to the video. I think it was created in 2002, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 2006.

It’s a must-see if you are interested in global water problems and the best way to solve them. It’s anti-privatization, but you free-marketeers and economists are hiding your heads in the sand if you don’t watch it.

It struck me today that I’ve been writing a blog on water and haven’t considered the possibility that some readers might not know what water is, thus rendering the entries incomprehensible. To remedy this oversight, I’m providing this helpful definition from the Kitchen Dictionary, where it was posted, I believe, for the sake of completeness, not humor. A handy nutrition fact table follows for those counting calories.

water
Pronounced:wôtr

Water is a clear, odorless, tasteless, inexpensive and versatile liquid made by combining two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It is a principle component of every fruit and vegetable as well as making up a large portion of living things. It can be used in a wide variety of dishes, can be a beverage on its own and can be used as a cleaner and even a solvent. Water freezes at 32°F (0°C) and boils at 212°F (100°C). When frozen, it takes a solid form called “ice”, which can also be used in a variety of ways. When boiling, can be used to cook pasta and eggs.

Ingredient

Season: available year-round

How to select: Water comes in a many forms: distilled, spring water and tap (or municipal) water. Usually, you can get it right out of your faucet in your kitchen. Judge it by the smell; if it is odorless it is fine, if not, boiling may be required.

Figure 2: Electricity consumption of various California water sources

As promised, yet more additions to our ever-growing compendium of desalination-related links, the entirety of which can be found on this page: Getting serious with Waterblogged.info: desalination. There you’ll find a madcap multimedia mashup of links to articles, papers, pdfs, videos, and audio on an often discussed but little understood topic.

Too many among us believe that desalination is the answer to current and future water shortage issues–an attitude which Waterblogged.info attributes to a blind faith in technology and a desire to get on with the day without having to think of anything depressing.

While we certainly want you to have a nice day, we also want to help spread the word that deploying desalination on the scale necessary to even partially mitigate our dwindling water resources is a tremendously complex, expensive, and environmentally risky undertaking.

Why take Waterblogged.info’s word for it? Check out a fantastic article (also listed in our resources below) by Debbie Cook, water and energy expert, and former mayor of Huntington Beach, CA. (The barely readable graph above that compares the energy requirements of desalination to other water sources is from the article–where it is legible.) She says: Turning ocean water into municipal drinking water:

. . .Sounds great until you zoom in on the environmental costs and energetic consequences. It may be technically feasible, but in the end it is unsustainable and will be just one more stranded asset.

Other Resources (full list here):

A February 2009 article about the current state of desalination in California. As of 2007, 20 water agencies have been considering and/or developing desalination options. The article is a good introduction to the arguments put forward by proponents and opponents of large-scale desalination plants. There is a bonus nifty diagram, complete with map of proposed California desal facilities.

A HowStuffWorks video,  a good basic introduction except that it never mentions the drawbacks to desalination and makes it all seem very simple. Interesting segment about the Santa Catalina island desal facility, which makes desalination appear to be nothing but an upgrade to paradise.

From Water-technology.net, “the website for the water and wastewater industry,” a comprehensive look at the (drum roll) Global Water Awards’ 2006 ‘Desalination Plant of the Year’ : the Ashkelon Desalination Plant in Israel. While  a PR piece created to get potential customers and investors all hot and bothered about desal’s potential, the article also reveals the mind-boggling technological complexity behind the dream of  desalination and drives home the fact that we’re talking about massive, power-hungry, environment-threatening, ugly-assed industrial complexes–and can thus be cited by opponents as arguments against themselves.

A Google video about the Ashkelon Desal Plant. An upbeat report with nary a negative word about industrial-scale desal plants. A highlight is a visitor to the facility,  the 88-year-old Sydney Loeb, who partnered with another student researcher in the 60’s to “perfect” the reverse osmosis process. I don’t know what “perfect” means in this context. If they’d perfected the process, it would be in wide-spread use by now.

Desalination: Energy Down the Drain. The title of this data- and link-rich article by Debbie Cook, former mayor of Huntington Beach, CA, kinda gives away her position on the topic. In 2003, she was invited to serve on the California Desalination Task Force, a legislatively mandated effort by the Department of Water Resources to study desalination facilities and “report on potential opportunities and impediments…” Her experience from then on turned her into a self-confessed water-obsessive, deeply concerned about the relationship between water and finite energy resources.  She’s unequivocal: “It is my knowledge of our energy and resource constraints that leads me to reject ocean desalination as the water of our future.” This is posted on The Oil Drum, the stated mission of which is “. . .to facilitate civil, evidence-based discussions about energy and its impact on our future.”

[For background, please read my 3/16 post, Desalination: No silver bullet in the Middle East and the comment by Desalter--John Tonner of Water Consultants International (WCI)--and my response: Breaking news: Company that builds desalination plants defends desalination! Therein I childishly mock the several syntactical and grammatical errors in Tonner's post and tout Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute as a foremost water expert. This is a small excerpt from Mr. Tonner's long and generally error-free response--except that oversimplification is one word. Sorry, I can't help myself. Anyway, after apologizing for his errors and blaming his iPhone, he says:]

. . .You clearly are a follower of the Pacific Institute and Peter. Yes I get to call Mr Gleick by his first name, it makes the dinner and National Academy of Sciences conversation more informal. I agree with much of what Peter says but disagree on many items, including the over simplification of desalination and the role it can play in a balanced portfolio of water supply options.

Hey, Waterblogged.info, want fries with that crow? You just got owned! Tonner, unlike you, is on a first-name basis with Peter Gleick!  So. . .what? Guess what, Mr. Tonner, as a devout “follower” of Mr. Gleick, I can call him Peter whenever I want, and after several glasses of wine, Pete! Or Petey, even! The only restriction is that–due to what I consider a violation of my free speech rights–I can only do it from 500 feet in public areas and one mile from his home and office.

So, unlike you, I have never broken bread with the master–despite my repeated and now prohibited invitations–yet I somehow feel so close to him, especially after viewing videos of his talks, such as his recent presentations to the U.S. House and Senate on the urgent necessity to establish a national water policy.

That is the crux of Waterblogged.info’s reservations about desalination–instead of devising a comprehensive water policy, we as a nation have left it to state, county, and municipal governments to cobble together and maintain their own often antiquated and underfunded water management systems. This has lead to massive inefficiencies and shameful waste–and unproductive squabbles among many states that the media excitedly and thoughtlessly trumpet as “water wars.” It has also created a vacuum of leadership into which the Tonners of the world rush in, babbling corporate-speak mantras like “balanced portfolios of water supply options” and smug, soothing, and irresponsible dismissals of the very serious and easily demonstrated drawbacks of large-scale desalination plants.

[Below, following this absurdly long note, is a comment on Waterblogged.info's 3/16/09 post, Desalination: No silver bullet in the Middle East, which links to a National Geographic story that is essentially a skeptical--and reasonable--look at desalination as the solution to the constant droughts and the shortage and maldistribution of water in the Middle East. The email address of the person who left the comment indicates that he/she works for Water Consultants, Inc--a company that can hardly be considered a disinterested party when it comes to debating the pros and cons of industrial-scale desalination.

The editor in chief of Waterblogged.info realized that our response was so incisive, informative, wise, and witty--not to mention self-important, defensive, derogatory, snide, and judgmental--that it could easily be repurposed as a Waterblogged.info entry! Cut and paste and take the rest of the day off! See end of post for more exciting desal info!]

Thanks to the Pacific Institute, http://www.pacinst.org/

The corporate shill says:

Your link to the referenced NatGeo article is broken. Pity I would have loved to read who the so-called “experts” were that think that way about desalination plants. Most desalination plants are good environmental citizens, properly regulated and diligently operated where ever they are needed to be a valuable asset to a communities balanced portfolio of water supply options.

Thanks to the PR flak from Water Consultants International, Inc–a company whose business is, per its site, “planning, design and implementation of advanced water treatment (AWT), and membrane and thermal desalination projects”–for pointing out the broken link, which I fixed.

Thanks also for the breathtakingly perfect example of corporate-speak–marred only by garbled syntax, a misspelling, and at least one punctuation and one grammatical error. Not bad for 60 words.

It would be fair to take Waterblogged.info or any other blog to task for referring to “experts” without citing anyone specific. But, National Geographic? Cut me a break.

Hey dude, you want “experts” without the quotation marks? Well, I’ll give you experts without the quotation marks: the fine folk at the Pacific Institute (PI), headed up by Peter Gleick,  one of the nation’s foremost authorities on water. In the institute’s recent report, Desalination, With a Grain of Salt: A California Perspective, the researchers’ take a moderate and cautious position on desalination, one most likely held by the experts dismissed by our pen-pal from WCI. From PI’s site:

The potential benefits of ocean desalination are great, but the economic, cultural, and environmental costs of wide commercialization remain high. In many parts of the world, alternatives can provide the same freshwater benefits of ocean desalination at far lower economic and environmental costs. These alternatives include treating low-quality local water sources, encouraging regional water transfers, improving conservation and efficiency, accelerating wastewater recycling and reuse, and implementing smart land-use planning.

For a humongous amount of information on desal–both fer and agin’–go to Waterblogged.info’s page Getting serious with Waterblogged.info: desalination. There you will find links to papers, articles, videos, and pdfs, that will help you be the center of attention at the next beer-bash when desalination inevitably comes up. A good beginning is a mutimedia presentation by journalist and water expert, Cynthia Barnett, A Tour of Tampa Bay’s Desalination Plant.