Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir? | Veritasium | Published on May 10, 2019 | Researched and Produced by Casey Rentz
Posted on 05/11/2019 10:00:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
I took a boat through 96 million black plastic balls on the Los Angeles reservoir to find out why they're there. The first time I heard about shade balls the claim was they reduce evaporation. But it turns out this isn't the reason they were introduced.
Huge thanks to LADWP for arranging this special tour for me. Next time let's put the GoPro on the submersible!
The balls are made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) which is less dense than water so they float on the surface of the reservoir even if they break apart. They are 10cm (4 inches) in diameter and contain about 210ml of water. So the main reason they are on the reservoir is to block sunlight from entering the water and triggering a chemical reaction that turns harmless bromide into carcinogenic bromate. This effect occurs with prolonged exposure to bromate so regulators insist that levels be kept below 10 microgram per liter on average over a 12 month period.
Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Stan Presolski, Terrance Shepherd, Penward Rhyme and everyone who provided feedback on an early draft of this video.
Thanks to:
Las Virgenes Reservoir for footage of initial shade ball dump
Euro-Matic for bird into jet-engine footage
Researched and Produced by Casey Rentz
Animations by Maria Raykova
Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Colorful Animation 4" "Seaweed"
And from Kevin MacLeod "Marty Gots a Plan"
This is an educational video about the science of water quality.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir? | Veritasium | Published on May 10, 2019 | Researched and Produced by Casey Rentz
Watched this a few minutes ago, before getting out of bed. :^) Seems like a great idea for Lake Nasser.
Makes water skiing tough though.
Fishing would be just weird.
Easier to hide bodies though.
Hmm...where's this reservoir again? Asking for a friend.
More evidence why all plastic must be banned on the planet!!
Racist!
(Just ask John Wiley Price.)
It pisses me off that Dwaine Caraway is in jail and Price is not.
Why are there four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire?
Nope,it’s evidence that stupid people who do things like this clearly lack adult supervision.
What happens when they wind up in the Pacific Ocean?
The sun is poisoning the water! The sun is poisoning the water!
I call for a meeting of all scientists and baseball managers to discuss this and find an immediate solution!
Right off the top of my head, I’m thinking maybe a big blackout curtain.
Does it help lower the evaporation rate, i think it would be good for that also.
For some reason a 48 million man march came to mind......
Huell Howser did one of his California Gold Shows about this years ago.
Watch the video. For a change, this one is very informative and science based. Kinda funny too along the way.
Yet another reason to avoid Los Angeles water.
I can taste the plastic in PEX waterlines, so I am pretty sure I would taste the plastic from these things.
Not enough nopes in all of Nopeland!
It’s a result of the environazi delusion that the ability
to detect something equals the ability to prevent it.
Oddly enough, it does. When I saw the vid title pane, I wondered why the balls weren't white, turns out there are two reasons, reduced evaporation apparently wasn't a consideration, just a bonus.
I wonder how many it would take to fill the Albert Hall?
Since this just happened, did Huell have a time machine?
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