Posted on 08/11/2015 5:34:59 PM PDT by dead
With no apparent relief to California's record-breaking drought, Los Angeles has turned to more unusual methods to protect the city's water.
Officials recently released 96 million floating 'shade balls' into the 75-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California.
The black plastic balls are designed to help protect the water against dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife, as well as prevent 300 million gallons of water from evaporating each year.
The balls work by floating on the surface and blocking the sun's rays.
As well as protecting against evaporation, they also prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.
For most people, exposure to bromate - created from naturally-occurring bromide in water -is unlikely to be cause problems.
But some people who ingest large amounts of bromate have suffered nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.
The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out.
Dr Brian White, a now-retired Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP biologist), was the first person to think of using shade balls for water quality....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The article says the balls cost 36 cents apiece. Someones brother-in-law got really rich making 96 million plastic balls.
@BlackBallsMatter
Uuuummm, yeah...
my thoughts exactly.
libs. they can’t do anything right.
i’m just surprised the balls aren’t 1 mm across, thereby passing into the water system
Nice to have all that plastic leaching into the drinking water.
Oh no, the black and white argument.
Well that looks healthy! What could possibly go wrong?
If the balls cut evaporation then they are contributing to climate change.
A certain naval officer, one Capt. Kangaroo, must have thought of this.
I’ve left a bottled water in the car for just a couple hot days and the water already tasted like plastic.
[ Uuuummm, why are they black???? That absorbs heat adding to evaporation. Why not white? ]
“The black plastic balls”
That is what i though, white balls would reflect the light back, this will just heat up the water and increase evaporation...
Interesting approach if it works.
If it rains, the rain drops between the space between the balls to the water below.
And since some balls appear to be resting on top of other balls, as the reservoir fills with water, the balls automatically spread themselves out to maintain contact with the inclined wall of the reservoir.
[ I’ve left a bottled water in the car for just a couple hot days and the water already tasted like plastic. ]
They will just double the chlorine in the water before it makes it to the tap to hide the plastic taste....
I wonder if the plastic in those balls is a phyto-estrogen....
Sounds like a hell of a lawsuit one might be able to make of it...
I’ve read somewhere that the Israelis have been doing this for years and found that the black balls actually work best.
And warmer water will speed up plant/algae growth.
That would have bought one million tons of volcanic pumice, a natural rock that floats. Rocks survive outside for billions of years.
Good point. But reservoir is now arguably a hybrid reservoir / cistern.
Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. Black is just stupid.
And they are hardly going to stop dust, rain chemicals and wildlife.... although they WILL perhaps trap some wildlife underneath, and kill off any fish in there since the water won’t be able to aerate.
They’ll probably lst 3-4 years and cost as much as the purchase price to remove
Don’t be racist.
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