Tag Archives: Water

Bad Water Part Two

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Ft. Collins CO City Park Lake

Let’s continue with stories about what happens when pathogenic organisms get into a potable water supply.  Usually the causes of disease outbreaks are caused by no treatment or failure of the treatment process.  This one, however, is because of a cross connection.

Cross connections are when a treated water system is contaminated by water coming into it downstream of the treatment plant.  Garden hoses are a good example.  If the sprinkler head is in a puddle while in use and a negative pressure occurs, contaminated water can be sucked  Into the piping system.  Opening a fire hydrant in the area is a common cause.  Flow in the water main increases and the venturi effect can pull water from the garden hose into the main.  In big buildings, bad plumbing can let boiler or air conditioning into the building plumbing system.

Fort Collins, Colorado had a major cross connection event before I went to water-wastewater school there.  The lab people at the wastewater plant got a phone call one weekend.  The caller said several people in her neighborhood around City Park had gotten sick in recent days.  They went right out and sampled in several places.  Sure enough, the drinking water had coliform bacteria, a sure indicator of fecal contamination.   Much fire hydrant flushing ensued and a boil order went into effect.  All the testing indicated the water was still bad around City Park.  It occurred to someone to check with the Parks Department.  The park was irrigated with water from City Park Lake.  There were times when irrigation demand exceeded flow onto the lake and city water was used to supplement the ditch water.  This is from memory.  No online references.

There are backflow preventers to keep the systems separate.  You have seen those big brass devices in parks in your area.  Another method is an air gap.  City water drops out of a pipe above a tank where the water is collected and pumped out.  The air gap keeps things safe.  Well, the old tank had rusted out and someone just put in a piece of pipe. Lake water into city water.  There are lots of wild geese in Fort Collins using that lake.  Fecal-oral.

If you have been to New York, you have seen all those old water tanks on the top of buildings.  City water is pumped into the tank then the water is contaminated by sediment accumulated on the bottom of the tank or a hole allows birds and animals to enter the tank.

The worst example of a tank getting contaminated occurred many years ago in a water district south of Colorado Springs.  The maintenance people entered the hatch in the top of a several million gallon storage tank and discovered a dead body floating there.  No diseases had been reported, verifying the old water adage “The solution to pollution is dilution.”  I did a Web search on this event.  For some reason, there is not a word online.

Years later, the city of Alamosa, Colorado found coliform bacteria in the city water.  A boil order went into place and the search began.  The local water department was overwhelmed and Denver Water sent a team to help.  Much searching led to discovering the bad stuff was coming from a big storage tank that had seen no maintenance in years.  Usually storage tanks are regularly taken out of service and cleaned.  With Denver Water it is an annual practice.  That Alamosa tank had a lot of sludge on the bottom and a hole just under the roof where birds were entering.  Again, fecal-oral.

My experience along this line was when I was working at the Greeley, Colorado wastewater plant in the spring of 1979.  The Cache La Poudre had a huge spring runoff.  The flood washed out a pipeline in the plant that moved raw wastewater across the river.  The city’s untreated sewage went into the river for several days until an emergency pipeline was built.  The solution to pollution was in effect because flow in the river was at record levels.

Early in the twentieth century, many cities built primary wastewater plants to provide some treatment.  The wastewater went into big settling tanks where a lot of the solids were removed and the remainder went to the river.   Greeley did that.  There was an old pump that handled the sludge that went into service in 1926.  Secondary treatment came in, but during World War II, many systems shut the secondary systems down to conserve electric power.  Partly treated sewage in the river all over the country.  When the Poudre flooded, we had to wear hip boots around the plant.  The door to that old pump station was sandbagged to keep the river out.  The whole thing got rebuilt just as I left Greeley for Manitou Springs and away from wastewater plants.

Raw Sewage Into Stream

Growing up in Fruita, Colorado in the 1950’s,  my friends and I roamed all over the town.  Just southwest of town we were exploring a natural wash and discovered the sewage outfall for the town of  Fruita, population 1800.  Raw sewage went into the wash and to the Colorado River a mile downstream.  Gross.  There were lots of what we called in the wastewater trade “white trout” hanging from the bushes.  Some years later, the town built a sewage lagoon to treat the wastewater.

Well, I  think I have given you enough horror stories

 

Posted in Chlorination, Cholera Outbreak, Cryptosporidium, Fecal-Oral, Flint Water, Giardia, Stories, Water, Water Treatment, Water Treatment Plants, Waterborne Disease

Bad Water Part One

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Giardia Lamblia Cysts

I spent thirty years in the water business, both water and wastewater.  During that time I learned about or saw many examples of what can go wrong.  There are the big ones such as Flint, Michigan where process and raw water changes sent corrosive water into a system with lots of lead pipes.  In Milwaukee, 1993, runoff from manure-laden agricultural land contaminated Lake Michigan water, the source for Milwaukee’s treatment plant.  Lots of people got sick from cryptosporidium,  a single cell organism resistant to chlorine.  The water was within standards, but that didn’t matter to the 400,000 people affected.  The big ones are the headline makers but there are many other outbreaks, usually in small water systems.

First, I must point out that water treatment starting around the start of the twentieth century is the single greatest public health advance in history.  Chlorination along with a good sedimentation and filtration process are the weapons.  We can be grateful we almost always have clean, safe water coming out of the tap in most of the developed world.  This is not so in much of sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti, and now Puerto Rico.

In 1854, the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London was traced to a single well which was contaminated by a nearby cesspit.  Taking the handle off the pump ended the outbreak.  This was the first scientific validation of the germ theory of disease.  The main theory at the time was that disease was borne by miasma, bad air.  Later, chlorine was introduced as the main barrier to waterborne disease,  along with filtration.

Things mostly went well.  Government regulation insured drinking water would be treated.  Here in Colorado, however, there is a confounding variable.  Our pure mountain water can transmit Beaver Fever.  The technical term is Giardiasis, caused by a single called organism called Giardia Lamblia.  These little critters, like Cryptosporidium, have a cell wall tough enough to resist chlorine in the concentration which reliably kills  bacteria and viruses.

Like most waterborne diseases, transmission is fecal-oral.  People drink water containing feces from warm-blooded animals.  The reliable way to eliminate the pathogens is a well operated complete treatment process which removes the cysts.  Ultraviolet light also kills them.  Denver, for example, has never had a Giardia outbreak, even while treating more than 400 million gallons per day in summer.

There are pitfalls, especially in small water systems.  Plant operators are required to have certification from the state health department, but many rural operators have a weak science background and passed the written tests by studying test questions collected by pervious test takers.  The head of the water department may be the mayor’s brother in law or a good old boy who does what they have always done and may cheat on the lab tests and paperwork.

A good example was in 1979 in Estes Park, Colorado.  People started getting sick, often tourists who had returned home before becoming ill.  Giardiasis is a nasty disease.  Cramps, raging diarrhea, and a violent headache.  After a few days, the symptoms subside, only to return a couple of weeks later.  The cause? The old guy running the plant saw the water from Rocky Mountain National Park  was so clear in late summer he turned off the chemical feed used to trap Giardia cysts so the filters can remove them. The cysts went right through the filter.

I had a partner I worked with in the Greeley wastewater plant who got Giardia.  She was a bit doctor resistant and didn’t go in until after the third bout.  There is a medicine called Flagyl that cures the disease in a few days.  She had gotten so weak her immune system didn’t recover fully for a year.  She came down with every little disease that came along for that year.  The county health department tested all the staff.  I was positive for amoebic dysentery, but symptom free.  We worked around big open tanks with mechanical aerators flinging the water in the air to bring up the dissolved oxygen level enough to grow the beneficial organisms that ate the bad ones.  We breathed that aerosol.  I didn’t occur to anyone to use masks around the tanks.

There is the reason for wastewater treatment.  The process removes or kills most of the bad guys before the water goes into the river.  Thus, people using the water downstream don’t have as much of a mess to clean up.  Think about Mississippi River water in New Orleans.  Safe drinking water can come from the river if treated.

For many years, many systems relied solely on chlorine to insure safe drinking water. New York City  still does.  Seattle used to do chlorination only, but now treats the water (one of the plants using ultraviolet disinfection.).  I was one of the first persons hired by the City of Manitou Springs, Colorado to operate their new treatment plant.  Prior to building the plant, All they did was chlorinate.  The water was from the north side of Pikes Peak and of high quality except after summer thunderstorms.  Then, people got sand and pine needles out of the tap.  Risky, and the health department demanded a treatment plant.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Posted in Chlorination, Cholera Outbreak, Colorado, Cryptosporidium, Fecal-Oral, Flint Water, Giardia, Health Issues, Stories, Water, Water Treatment, Water Treatment Plants, Waterborne Disease

Water

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Colorado River Basin

I spent thirty years in the water business.  I was one of the troops, not a manager or staff person.  I did, however, do what I could to keep up with developments in the water and wastewater business.  With the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, rivers no longer catch fire, and our fresh water. Supply is in much better shape than, say, the 1950’s. 

I worked at the Greeley, Colorado wastewater plant for three years.  The water we sent to the river met EPA standards until the Cache La Poudre flooded and washed out the pipe carrying water from one side of the river to the other for final treatment.  Lots of raw sewage went into the river for about a week until an emergency pipeline was laid on the highway bridge next to the plant.   

An old adage in the wastewater business goes, “The solution to pollution is dilution”.  That saying is mostly obsolete, but during that flood there was plenty of water for dilution.  We had to wear hip waders to get around the north side of the plant, flooded with almost three feet of water.   

The Denver Water System

Here is a big part of the water story in the American West.  There is either too much water or not enough.  Here on the Colorado Front Range a water crisis is slowly developing.  The available water is starting to run out.  Half of Denver Water’s water supply comes under the Continental Divide from the Colorado River.  There is little more water available from the river for the Denver Metro population except from spring runoff, when there is more water than can be stored.  Most years.   

Other years, the snowpack is down, spring runoff is low, reservoirs drop, and worry starts.  Water supply fluctuates, but demand only increases.  Oh, wait, during a big drought recently,  the Denver Water Board shifted its priority from dam building and water diversion to conservation.  It worked, and continues to work, not just with Denver.  Another water source is also coming into use.   

Water law says if you use water from your nearby stream, you must return what you didn’t use to the stream.  Water users downstream get lots of their water from return flows from irrigation or wastewater plant outflows.  Water law also states that water you divert from another basin does not have to be returned.  You can use it to extinction.  So what once went downstream is being captured in new reservoirs downstream made from old gravel pits and used for water exchanges, where downstream users trade their upstream water rights for return flow water from Denver.  The potato and corn fields don’t seem to mind.   

The other thing happening is taking that foreign water, treating it, and pumping it upstream for reuse.  At this point it is mostly for irrigation of parks, golf courses, and the like, but it is also being treated to drinking water standards.  Yes, you might be drinking water that once was sewage.  Not to worry, think about Omaha, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans.  What are they drinking? 

Eventually this will all end.  The water will run out.  At some point, tap fees for new housing or industry will soar and development will go elsewhere.  The growth cannot continue indefinitely.  The same thing will occur in the entire Colorado River Basin.  Despite every effort to conserve or store more water, it is going to run out.  The new growth will then go to Cincinnati and Birmingham, all those wet places back East..  They have lots of water.

Posted in Stories, Water, Water Treatment, Water Treatment Plants

Flint Water

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Flint Water

Flint Water

After 30 years in the water industry, I thought I should give my take on the Flint, Michigan water crisis.  There is a misconception that the water from the Flint River the state emergency manager switched to is poisonous.  Not true.  Properly treated, the Flint River water is fine, and would meet all safe drinking water standards.   

The problem is that the water was not properly treated.  As it comes from the river, the water is corrosive and attacks metals in the distribution system pipes.  To be safe, it must be treated to make it less corrosive.  There are chemical additives (phosphates) that coat the pipes and prevent lead and copper from leaching into the water.  Here in Denver, lime or soda ash are added to raise the pH  of the water, making it less corrosive.  In addition, over time a thin film of calcium carbonate forms on the inside of the pipes, effectively sequestering the toxic metals. The phosphate chemicals do the same thing. 

How can you tell if your water is safe?  The corrosive water also attacks the rust that forms in an old system, such as in Denver or Flint.  If your water is red, it has rust, but also lead and copper.  The lead and copper come from the pipes, not the river.  The rust won’t hurt you, just stain your fixtures.  The lead comes from lead solder (now outlawed) used to join copper pipes and from lead pipes once used to bring water from the main into the house.  The lead service lines are slowly going away, but many houses have galvanized steel pipes into the house.  These are safe, but that steel pipe won’t bend to attach to the tap on the main, which is high on the pipe to keep sediment out of the service line.  The solution, a flexible lead loop bending from the tap to the service line.   

Corroded Pipe

Corroded Pipe

In Denver some older houses have lead service lines, but the lead loops are more common.  My entire neighborhood in South Denver with houses dating from the Victorian era to the 1940’s has lead loops.  Most of them are replaced when the old galvanized pipes rust out and there is a leak.  Our house has a copper service line now.  Several houses on the block have had their old service lines replaced since we have lived there.  Look where the water line comes into your house.  If it is copper, you are OK.  Flint has the same situation. 

Aggressive water leaches lead and copper out of the pipes and renders the water toxic.  Lead is the most dangerous, as it is a neurotoxin especially dangerous for developing fetuses and young children.  Copper is also toxic, but copper pipes are more resistant to corrosion than lead. 

If you have red water in your house, it is possibly dangerous and needs to be tested.  The Flint water is not just red, it’s red mud.   Before the Safe Drinking Water Act, many small water systems had aggressive water.  As a kid, I watched red water flow into our bathtub, especially in the spring, when the water was mostly runoff.  Maybe that is why I am nuts, as well as the rest of us from Fruita.

How did this happen in Flint?  Flint has a treatment plant, but was using water from Detroit which has good corrosion control.  Flint has plans to switch from the Flint River to Lake Huron  as their water source.  Lake Huron water is higher quality than river water, making it less expensive to treat.  Detroit water is from Lake Huron.  The Michigan emergency manager for Flint ordered the switch to river water to save money.   

Flint is broke.  The demise of much of the U.S. Auto industry hit Flint hard, a General Motors town.  The result, white flight, leaving a population mostly poor and black.  The city couldn’t pay its bills and the state took over with a team appointed by the Governor.  Here is the root of the problem.  The federal Safe Drinking Water Act establishes standards for drinking water.  The law gives the states the option to administer the law, usually by the Health Department or the Environmental Quality Department.   

So, the State government is running the Flint government and water treatment process and is also charged with insuring the water is safe, a clear conflict of interest.  A wild card?  Racism.  Those poor black people did not have much political clout and were essentially ignored and belittled when they complained about their water.  It took a brave pediatrician seeing high lead levels in her patients to finally get action. 

Four governmental entities are involved.  The Flint city government was rendered superfluous when the state assumed control.  The federal EPA was passing the buck to the Michigan Environmental Quality Department and not doing due diligence in making sure the department was doing its job (the EPA administrator lost his job).  The state environmental quality regulators knew there was a problem, but were influenced by the Governor’s emergency management.  The result, a perfect bureaucratic storm, with the people of Flint as victims. 

The cost?  A public health crisis that will cost millions to fix.  It takes a long time for the calcium carbonate or phosphate coating to form in the pipes.  In the meantime the water is unsafe.  The people of Flint will have to be provided with bottled water for some time.  Lots of bureaucratic fingers are being pointed.  There is plenty of blame to go around.  Will anyone go to jail?  Probably not, even though there is now a special prosecutor.  If the local Flint city government had been simply subsidized by the state until it got its house in order, the whole thing could probably been avoided.  Instead the emergency managers put money ahead of the public health.     

Many conservatives want to reduce the size of government, and return to the nineteenth century, before there was water treatment and people died of waterborne disease.  Government built a system to protect public health.  If government does not have the money do do its job, the public health will suffer.  Do you want safe water?  Don’t move to Flint.

 

 

Posted in Environment, Flint Water, Health Issues, Lead Poisoning, Money, Politics, Stories, Water Treatment