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Halloween Edition: Scary Water Facts and Why Water and Wastewater Treatment Matters

10/28/2011

Happy Friday everyone! In honor of Halloween, I wanted to do a "scary" post. After a little googling of various combinations of "wastewater" "water treatment" "Halloween" and "scary", I realized I'd have to be a little more creative. Apparently there's not a lot of haunted wastewater treatment plants out there (except for this one...click for link).

Halloween is about being a bit scared, so I thought I'd share some of the more "scary" water facts. A lot of times we're all caught up in the every day treatment processes that we're not thinking about why we're doing what we're doing - why we show up for work and make sure everything is working properly. Here's a reminder of the scarcity of water and the importance of it's treatment.

884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people.
The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. (www.water.org)
Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil. (CBS News)
California's water supply is running out - it has about 20 years of water left in the state.
(Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant and co-author of Blue Gold, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians)
There are over 116,000 human-made chemicals that are finding their way into public water supply systems.
(William Marks, author of Water Voices from Around the World)
There is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead, which was created by the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River, will go dry by 2021 because of escalating human demand and climate change. By 2017, there is a 50 percent chance that the reservoir could drop so low that Hoover Dam could no longer produce hydroelectric power.
3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.
More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas.
The UN estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined population of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater “stress” or “scarcity”.
Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
1.6 billion live in areas where there is water, but they can't afford to drink it.
"A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future. Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon." (current Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon)

Water is the most important human necessities. We need it to live, and there's a finite amount of it available. The work that we all do in water and wastewater treatment plants is one of the most important processes that continues to sustain human life. With the potential water crises that lie on the horizon, this will become more and more apparent. If we don't clean it, we can't use it, and we need it to live. Scary, but true.

Sources:
http://www.multipure.com/blog/node/19
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9925900-54.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9870349-54.html?tag=mncol;txt
http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-facts-about-the-coming-water-crisis-2010-3

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Bellagio Fountains: How Do They Work?

10/21/2011

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A couple months ago, I visited Las Vegas for the first time and (no surprise) the Bellagio Fountains were amazing. After the awe of it all wore off a bit, I started wondering how it all worked. They're moving a lot of water, so I figured a pretty big and unique water system would be involved. So after I got home, I did a little googling.

The fountains were designed by WET Design, and was five times larger than anything they had ever done before. According to this article, "Bellagio's attraction consists of white lights, a fog system and four types of devices that shoot water into the air at varying heights. One of those devices -- basically robots called oarsmen -- is the only one that can make the water change directions." The exact cost isn't public knowledge, but it's estimated to be somewhere between $40-$75 million. To keep it up and running, there are approximately 30 engineers working every day. The engineers come from varying backgrounds, but all of them have dive training.

I wanted to know how exactly the water was shot up so high, so I kept looking. This is the best description I found of the equipment they use: "The system consists of four kinds of devices that shoot water. The oarsmen, all 208 of them, make the water "dance" up to 77 feet high. Each is individually programmable so the direction of the water can be changed anytime. There are 798 minishooters that shoot water 100 feet high; 192 supershooters that shoot water 240 feet into the air and 16 extreme-shooters, capable of projecting a wall of water as high as 460 feet. The "fog" is made with softened water that is fed at a high pressure through pipes that lead out to the lake" (source).

The equipment was specially invented and designed for the Bellagio fountains, so it's pretty unlikely that we see much of the same equipment used in our water and wastewater systems. But check out the pictures (I can't paste them here because of ownership issues) of the pumping equipment room, control room and panels here (click on the first picture to make it bigger and then click the arrow to make sure you view each of the seven pictures at the top of the article). Some of that sure looks familiar! I think we'd be right at home working on the Bellagio fountains. Except perhaps for those dive training requirements....

I also found the video below that talks about some of the specific technology that brings the show to life.

Your pumps and control systems might not have to send fountains of water into the air synchronized with music and lights, but we think they're just as hardworking and important. That's why we pride ourselves on our pump service. We perform pump checks, troubleshoot, repair, rebuild, and replace pumps - always understanding how important they are in your system. Check out some of our pump projects here and then afterwards let us know how we can help you out taking care of your pumps here.

P.S. I just can't get enough of big water fountains. Check out this article to check out The Best Fountains in the World.

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