Flying over Sumatra as Mr Jacob

In my work with water, lots of interesting stuff happens. The following is one such episode. The book project (Providing Water) contains many more. 

After the 2005 Christmas Tsunami, I got a contract to supply 200 slow sand filters to decimated villages along the west coast of Sumatra. We assembled these filters in a week working 12-15 hour days in the shop in Santa Rosa California. Fedex flew the filters to Indonesia for free, several pallets worth. There was also an urgent need for training of the people in Indonesia who would be setting the filters up in the villages. So, I went. If you’ve never flown from the US to south east Asia, let me tell you, it’s one long trip. 24 hours after getting on the first flight in Seattle, I disembarked in Medan, Sumatra. A  little worse for wear, I was met by the US team that was handling the filters and informed that they were grabbing a puddle jumper flight to Banda Aceh to speak with members of the team there. They wanted to know if I wanted to come with them, or go on to the hotel to recover from my long flights from the States. Banda Aceh was off limits to everyone due to the conflict between Islamic Jihadists and the government, but a truce was in effect because of the public health catastrophe that was the Tsunami. I didn’t even have to think about it, of course I wanted to go to Aceh. The departure “lounge” was in a state of pandemonium with people trying to get in to effected areas. There was no way to get a ticket to the flight which was leaving in 30 minutes. That’s when one of the Indonesian team members held up his finger indicating for me to wait a minute. He disappeared into the crowd and returned a few moments later with a boarding pass for me. I looked incredulously at the document as we all started heading through the queue to board when I noticed that the document was in the name of Mr. ES Jacob. My turn in the line came, the woman took the boarding pass without a second glance and sent me  on my way up the steps. What followed was an adventure for another time. 

Want Access to my 25 years in the field experience?

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Take a look around, then support the project, according to your desire and requirements. For $10, you will get an ebook copy when it publishes in April 2014. Other options include a paperback copy and even a discounted rate on a water system design fitting your requirements. I will be regularly posting progress, and I highly encourage feedback from all of you regarding content and what you would like to see in the book.
My intention is to make this book a relevant resource for development workers, disaster planners, relief workers, as well as engineers, and do-it-yourselfers.

Making Water Treatment Consumers Dependent on Technology

or, why you don't see more slow sand filters out there

The traditional water treatment industry has done a great job in promoting their products as the only alternatives to your water treatment issues. This has led to a marketplace full of products that have attached revenue streams. Not so much planned obsolescence as planned dependency on replacement components and mystery chemicals and media blends that require you to have an ongoing financial relationship with your supplier. It's a business model, not a water treatment model.

But, it doesn't have to be that way. In recent years, membrane filtration has been all the rage for basically any  problem you can imagine with water. Ultra-fitration, a membrane technology, is pitched as THE solution to surface water treatment. If you look up the regulations though, ultra-filtration isn't listed as one of the approved technologies- it's an alternative technology along with bag filters, cartridges etc. One technology that IS listed as an approved method for treating surface water according to the Surface Water Treatment Rule is also one of the simplest and easiest to maintain- slow sand filtration. And no revenue stream. Once you put ssf in, you maintain it yourself, or hire someone to do it, but you're not joined at the hip indefinitely  with your supplier. It's easy to understand why the water treatment industry has not been so interested in slow sand or related more natural systems- no ongoing revenue stream.
Simple biological and physical processes are also great for wastewater treatment and removing metals from groundwater.

Membranes are good at treating brackish waters and seawater, but that is the only area where they excel  except in creating a gee whiz factor for engineers and a positive ongoing revenue stream for chemical manufacturers who need to supply all the chemicals required to maintain the membranes. Membranes also waste a lot of water, a problem in an age of shrinking water availability. Membranes should not be the go-to technology for all uses.

The present situation will remain until industry changes the business model which requires an ongoing revenue stream in their designs. There is plenty of need out there. A company selling slow sand filters or related technologies could be selling globally and never run out of new business. The other change agent- educated consumers expecting technology to be more sustainable and less wasteful.

above: a fancy shmancy ion exchange unit.

Hard water? You're in luck.

Several times a year, I receive requests from people to do something about their hard water. The softener companies have done a good job at making hard water a real bad thing in people's minds, unfortunately. Check out the quote below from EPA, and you'll see why this perception is unfortunate. This is not a lone or maverick report. There have been dozens of studies looking at hard water and cardiac health over the years, and they all say the same thing- hard water is good for your heart. don't let anyone tell you different.

"Lower cardiovascular death rates were found in populations where the water supply contained relatively high levels of water hardness or calcium and magnesium compared to populations in areas with low levels. This protective effect was found for populations throughout the world, especially when country-wide studies were conducted."

Calcium and Magnesium may be annoying in pipes, boilers, and water heaters, but they are essential for the human body. Be careful about taking them out of your water and replacing with Sodium, which is what happens when you use a softener that uses rock salt to regenerate.

source- 
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap10.pdf
WATER HARDNESS AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE:
A REVIEW OF THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES, 1957-78 
Rebecca L. Calderon 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory 
Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

International Water Day

It's International Water Day, and  World Walks for Water events are happening all over the world to make people conscious of the fact that in many many parts of the world, people, mostly women, have to walk for kilometers every day to get water. It's a time to contact representatives and demand action to make safe water available to everyone, no matter who they are or where they live.

In the US this applies also. Contact your Congressional or Senate representative and express your concern that everyone in the United States should have access to safe water and sanitation.

Sequester

According to a study by the Association of General Contractors,  (http://www.agc.org/galleries/news/AGC_Sequestration_Report.pdf) the sequester mandating mandatory reduction across the board to discretionary spending will remove over 100 million dollars from rural water and waste-water funds.

These funds take the form of state loans to small utilities trying to make their water and waste-water systems meet federal regulations. Taking the funds away makes rural citizens less safe from the threat of water borne disease.

The EPA, in establishing rules such as the total coliform rule and the surface water treatment rule as well as supporting research into affordable water and waste-water treatment technologies, has attempted to address the discrepancy between access to safe drinking water for rural citizens on par with residents of cities.
Even for small systems, a rural water treatment system to ensure potability can easily cost over $100,000. In these days of almost impossible loan availability, these small systems have had only one recourse, repayable loans from the states. The sequester takes that availability for many communities off the table, denying them access to necessary improvements and upgrades.

It's very disappointing that there are elected officials in Congress willing to put these rural citizens at risk because of a political agenda.

The perfect is the enemy of the good- Voltaire

I  cringe whenever I read about somebody talking about or promising “pure” water. Pure water, H2O with nothing else in it, is hard to make. it requires lots of energy, usually chemicals, usually has a waste stream, or in the case of solar distillation, requires lots of real estate. Pure water is necessary for a few chemical processes, some industrial applications where any contamination is a problem. Drinking water? No. I repeat, no. Our bodies do just fine with some calcium, some magnesium even many other things commonly found in water. What we don’t want are pathogenic organisms and certain specific compounds that we know to be dangerous. 

So what is wrong with producing “pure” water? It can only be good right?, Well, no. Here is the problem. Most developing country communities, and in fact most rural communities in the US, don’t have the resources, either human or financial to operate the complex systems required for “pure” water. So when we tell these people we think they should aspire to “pure” water, we are in essence telling them they can have nothing at all, because “pure” water systems are beyond their reach.

We should be assessing their abilities both financial and human and suggest water and wastewater treatment that meets their needs, not our expectations or neurotic fantasies about purity and perfection.  In this way, we give them service- safe water that they can maintain and afford. This is not compromise. This is relating to the world that is.