Puroserve No Salt Water Softener Blog

You might not have been informed of the fact, but just this past year Los Angeles was found to have the lowest rate of per-capita water consumption among U.S. cities with populations larger than 1,000,000 persons.
Don’t celebrate too soon, though, because according to an LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) news release, water usage has seen a slow but steady rise since the beginning of the year, and with summer nearly here, the call is out once again to remind water customers of the fact that water is a scarce resource in a desert region like ours.
Since 2009, when LADWP established mandatory water conservation measures, including restricting sprinkler use to less than half an hour a week, improvement was steady and heartening. But with only a barebones force of “water cops” to enforce the new restrictions, people seem to be catching wind of the lack of vigilance and going back to their old water-wasting ways.
Unlike the last couple years, data shows that L.A.’s traditional water sources are at below-average levels: the Colorado River, Lake Mead, even the Sierra snowpack is at only 55% of normal levels for this time of year. And whenever the city’s water sources are low, we buy the remainder from the Metropolitan Water District, which, coincidentally, just upped the price it charges L.A. by a few percent.
If you, like yours truly must confess, have fallen back into bad habits when it comes to conserving water, it’s a good time to redouble your efforts and encourage friends and family to do the same. After all, we’re all in this together. So don’t forget to turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth, let it mellow if it’s yellow, and if you must, water your lawns on only the days and times designated for your area. Also, with the type of climate we live in, it’s best to always maintain a drought mindset. WIth positive thoughts and actions, Los Angeles can get itself back on the side of smart water usage.

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WQA’s Aquatech exhibition in Las Vegas earlier this month can easily be labeled a success, with an increase in attendance from last year of 26 percent.

The Aquatech show offers water industry business owners, manufacturers, and dealers a chance to look over the latest in water technology, as well an opportunity to look into what the future holds for the industry as a whole.

Aquatech also increased its number of exhibitors by a respectable 5 percent, while the number of exhibiting companies represented grew by 8 percent.

The exhibition began with an overview of a new WQA five-year strategic plan presented by WQA members that presented the main objectives and challenges facing the water treatment industry, including water scarcity, sustainability, and industry regulation, as well as the latest technological advances.

For those unable to attend the show, recordings can be ordered at softconference.com

The Water Quality Association is a non-profit international trade organization that represents the residential, commercial, and industrial water treatment industry. Its membership consists of both manufacturers as well as dealers of equipment. the WQA is a voice for the industry, an educator of professionals, a laboratory for product testing, and a communicator to the public

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(above) Upland, CA "Madonna of The Trail" statue

The ordinance passed by the Upland City Council bans the future installation of water softeners that use salt in an attempt to reduce the amount of sodium deposited into the city’s wastewater. The ordinance, however, does not fully ban the use of existing water softeners, leaving residents who currently have water softeners free from action for now.

The Inland Empire Utility Agency, on the other and, has since 2008 made rebates of up to $2,000 available for those residents who wish to remove their currently installed unit. Included in the rebate is the cost to have the softener removed.

For those residents who are aiming to replace their softener, suggested alternatives include Portable Exchange (PE) water softener tanks, or potassium-based water softeners, although other technologies, including Whole-House reverse osmosis, are available.

Upland’s action banning future salt-based softener use is in line with the powers granted to the city via 2009 State Assembly Bill 1366, which gives municipalities the ability to regulate or prohibit such softeners.

Puroserve, and its HT series of reverse osmosis-based solutions (including the flagship HT2000 model) are an ideal solution to the problems faced by residents, businesses, and many others in areas that are plagued by both hard water and salt restrictions. Puroserve machines are able to eliminate hardness from water while at the same time improving the look and taste of your water, all while using proven low-pressure Reverse Osmosis membrane technology to eliminate the need for troublesome salt discharge. By creating two separate streams, product water and rinse water, Puroserve is able to divert the rinse stream, which would normally go down your drain, to productive uses around your property, including watering your lawn or garden, or refilling your pool.

If you’re like more information on how Puroserve can solve your water woes, feel free to visit our website at www.puroserve.com or call us at (888) 647-8650

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency has been working with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and three local school districts to successfully lower lead content in campus drinking water to values below the EPA-recommended maximum.

Initial testing by the EPA found that 28 of 343 schools evaluated presented elevated levels of lead. Lead is a toxic metal that can cause damage to a child’s ability to learn and a range of health damage in adults. Even low-level lead poisoning can affect I.Q., contribute to reading and learning disabilities, and bring on a variety of other illnesses and conditions.

Lead is often a factor when older piping comes into contact with water, which means schools are especially susceptible to its danger.

Since the late 1990s, The EPA’s 3Ts program (Training, Testing, Telling) has been working with school districts to implement lead reduction strategies.

if you don’t know what type of piping runs through your residence, you could be exposing yourself and your family to the dangers of lead. A great way to stay safe would be to invest in something like a Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System. Not only can it reduce your exposure to lead, but it makes water with a taste and clarity that exceeds regular tap water, which will make drinking more water–one of the healthiest things you can do for your body–a more enjoyable lifestyle practice.

For more information on available (and affordable!) water quality solutions for all uses and locations, or to schedule a Free Water Quality Test, feel free to visit Rayne Water Systems and Puroserve, both of which are RWS Corporation companies, and discover the water solution that is perfect for you!

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University of Arizona scientists are looking for ways to improve the current method for testing water in public swimming pools.

With nearly 9 million public and private swimming pools across the country (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), finding better ways of detecting poor water quality conditions before they end up making people ill would be of obvious benefit to the public health system.

An approximately $65,000 grant from the National Swimming Pool Foundation, as well as the Research Foundation for Health and Environmental Effects, has been awarded to the University to create a standard questionnaire that can be used while conducting a general health impact study on pools and spas.

Several notable inquiries have hinted at a link between swimming pool environments and an increased risk of asthma, cancer, and other serious diseases, although these studies often omit how the facilities tested were treated or managed. They also don’t provide clear data on individual exposure to the water, which further complicates the matter of being able to replicate the study’s conclusions in separate testing.

Current testing survey tools lack the ability to test a variety of factors that might contribute the the incidence of swimming-related illnesses, including time spent in the water, amount of water ingested, and number of times a swimmer’s head goes under water. The anticipated result of the the project is a battery of questions that can be taken advantage of in future disease outbreak and epidemic research, enabling comparison of solid data, which should advance the mission of improving the health of both public and private swimming pools.

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A metals recycling firm is facing charges from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency for contaminating San Francisco Bay with toxic substances like lead, mercury, copper, and zinc, among other pollutants.

Sims Metal Management, in Redwood City, was issued a notice of violation by the EPA. As stipulated in the Clean Water Act, the firm could see itself being dinged with fines of up to $37,500 a day until the problem in solved.

Sims Metal Management disposes of around 300,000 automobiles per year, which translates into quite a bit of metal waste. the cars are dismantled and shredded and packed onto ships to transport the waste to Asian countries, where the materials are used to fabricate new products.

During March 2011 inspections, EPA agents detected elevated amounts of harmful contaminants in soil and sediment samples taken where the Sims facility meets Redwood Creek, a body of water which eventually empties into San Francisco Bay. As an example of the extent of the contamination, mercury was detected at levels 110 times federal safe levels, lead was present at five times greater concentration, and copper appeared at 86 times federal safe levels. Most alarmingly, polychlorinated biphenyls (or PCBs), which are common in older cars, were found in amounts that were a whopping 10,000 times over the government safe limit.

Needles to say, the level of soil and sediment contamination so close to a body of water poses a significant risk to many animals, as contaminated fish will be eaten by other animals, like birds and seals, which will spread the problem.

A spokesman for Sims Metal Management has stated that the company is already working with the EPA to bring the property into compliance, however, as recently as 2007, the company tangled with the EPA over a fire at the same facility, which led to a $20,000 fine for the company.

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When most of us think of snow, we instantly recall pleasant winter scenes of ski slopes and sleds. What most of us don’t think about is how much of our drinking water is derived from snow-based sources, typically via mountain runoff. The truth so far, is sobering. As of yesterday, snow covered ground on less than a quarter of the country, which, when examining snow measurements from the past several years, indicates that ground snow coverage is at a lower level than has been recorded since 2007.

The Sierra and Rocky Mountain ranges in the Intermountain West currently show a drastic snow drought, in light of past years’ snowfall levels. Other regions with decreased snowfall include the northern Plains region and the upper Great Lakes area.

According to a California Department of Water Resources snow survey in the first days of this year, snow levels measured approached the lightest snowfall levels on record for the measured days, while snow pack water content measured at far less than the normal levels. The snowpack is usually its most swollen towards the end of April, before melting in late spring.

About a third of California water for home, agriculture and industrial use is provided by the snowpack. One of the few things in our benefit, however, is the fact that our winter isn’t over yet, meaning there’s still a chance we can catch up to normal levels.

Additionally, the fact that the last few years were good to us in terms of water supply, we have been able to stockpile a good amount of water, so even if the winter turns out to be underwhelming, we can ride a drought out with what we currently have, if only for one year. In fact, if the disappointing snowfall levels stay consistent this year, only to recover next year, the only real losers will be the ski industry, who relies on the powdery stuff to stay in business. Well, there’s always water skiing.

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According to an Associated Press report, Seismologists say a well drilled to deposit wastewater from fossil fuel drilling is nearly beyond a doubt the cause of a rash of earthquakes that have been felt near the Youngstown, Ohio area since last spring, and it could be as long as a year before seismic activity calms down.

The assessment is made by John Armbruster with Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY, which is run by Columbia University.

The brine, or salty wastewater, that is pumped into the well comes from drilling to extract more product from a find than through traditional drilling. the type of well, an injection well, has been used in other states, including Arkansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma.

From the time Northstar Disposal, the operator of the well, started it up, thousands of gallons per day of the brine wastewater were injected into the rock below. Pumping has stopped while authorities examine the data for any links between the pumping and the unusual earthquakes.

The most recent of the temblors measured a relatively tame 4.0, but for Youngstown, a novice when it comes to dealing with shaky ground, the heightened tectonic activity is an unwanted new interloper.

Shortly after the quake, state officials announced their beliefs that the well was causing the disruption, as the injection well is located within the vicinity of a fault line. Currently, four dormant wells within a five-mile radius of Youngstown’s well are currently shut down as a precaution. They were quick to stress, however, that the well involved does not use the technology known as “fracking,” which has seen a backlash in other areas because of possible water contamination concerns.

It is expected, unfortunately, that more earthquakes will take place, even as the well is inactive.

The earthquakes began last March, and the most recent quakes, taking place on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, each happened within 100 meters of the well.

Local Democratic Representative Robert Hagan has called for a examination of the well and a continuation of drilling, but only if it is proven that the well is not the central cause of the quakes.

However, a spokesperson for Ohio Governor John Kasich has said that related interests shouldn’t be pulled down by the negatives that one segment of the drilling industry have presented.

Injection wells, according to the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, have been used safely and reliably since the 1930s.

Environmentalists, in the meantime, are very critical of the fracking process, citing its high pressure blasts of chemically-polluted wastewater into the rock as exposing surrounding groundwater sources to potential contamination.

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India’s burgeoning population and increasing economic muscle are threatening to overwhelm its national water supply, says a report by the independent India Infrastructure Development Finance Company.

Revealed in the study is their assertion that 14 of India’s 20 river basins are considered under stress. The report states that roughly one quarter of the country’s people live in areas that support per capita water levels of less than 1,000 cubic meters per year, while another three quarters live in areas that sustain less than 2,000 cubic meters of water per year.

Officials connected with the study stressed that the issue also risks expanding into possible social and regional conflicts centered around the issue of access to water, in addition to magnifying potential environmental burdens relating to water availability.

As of this year, the report states, agricultural uses account for approximately 85% of the water used in India, followed by industrial and energy demands, at a distant 9% and 6%, respectively.

If patterns continue as they are, the report predicts that the availability of water for industry and energy in the country will fall, by 2025, to less than 200 billion cubic meters, from almost 500 billion cubic meters now.

A World Bank report, released separately, also warns that about 200 million people in India are at risk to natural disasters linked to the matter of climate change and increasing urbanization.

The World Bank is joining up with the Indian government to more closely examine migration rates from rural to urban areas and the subsequent impact on the domestic infrastructure and potential natural disaster exposure levels.

Concurrently, the World Bank and the Indian government are working together on several disaster management projects approaching $900 million.

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The City of Glendale, California, has found itself in a bit of a money pit with a never-ending study into the removal of carcinogen chromium-6 from ground water.

Last week, the Glendale City Council approved an additional $400,000 to keep two testing areas running. This was only two months after the council had already approved $550,000 in combined state and grant money on yet more research. With nothing definitively revealed as of yet, some city officials are beginning to feel uneasy.

Waste left behind by the aerospace companies that once flocked to the region, including chromium-6, have left many San Fernando Valley cities struggling to figure out the best way to clean up the mess. Glendale by itself has spent nearly $8 million on the analysis of chromium-6 removal, most of which came from the state/grant funds mentioned earlier.

But apparently the research takes time, according to officials at Glendale Water & Power.

Also complicating things is the fact that the state of California might even end up further tightening restrictions on chromium-6. Currently, Glendale’s method of removing the contaminant from the water and mixing it with clean water from elsewhere leaves its chrome-6 levels at below even the possible future standards.

Peter Kavounas, assistant general manager for water services at Glendale Water & Power, said the research began with a tight focus, but gradually expanded as the chromium-6 removal field grew. State officials, though, have said that they will take Glendale’s findings into account when they make moves to increase limits on the chemical in drinking water.

One of the two facilities currently testing water will be closed this coming spring, and the other facility will be taken over by a group consisting of companies responsible for the initial chromium-6 contamination.

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