Monday, June 29, 2009

India: Water levels in reservoirs at 10-year low

In what promises to be a threat to the Kharif crop, water level in most of the reservoirs in India continue to stay below the ten-year average. While the weatherman has promised rains in the north in the coming weeks, pressure on state governments continued to build to look at contingency plans.

In the northwest, where the IMD has warned that monsoon may be the worst (81% of normal long-term average), the Bhakra Nangal dam recorded just 9% of the capacity of the full reservoir limit compared to 44% in the previous year and 25% recorded as the 10-year average. While the threat of hydropower generation being hit also remained a concern, the falling reservoir levels are bound to give a headache to governments in states like Punjab and Haryana where the dependence on irrigation network for agriculture is very high.

The Tehri dam, which is also the source for 300 cusecs water to the Sonia Vihar plant in Delhi, has seen water levels dipping to an all-time low at just 1% of its total capacity and one-eighth of the 10-year average. Data released by Central Water Commission showed the effects of monsoon failure in June even in the Deccan plateau with water in the Nagarjunasagar dam reservoir, meant to irrigate a whopping 895,000 hectares, at just half the 10-year average.

Water and agriculture officials from states had attended meetings in Delhi over the last couple of days where they apprised the Centre of the situation at the field level. The Cabinet has also constituted a committee of secretaries headed by the cabinet secretary to oversee the food, agriculture and water situation.

The government had claimed on Thursday that the situation was still manageable with the weatherman maintaining that monsoon was picking up thrust and July-August could see decent rains for most areas that would compensate for the dry June. Delhi is expected to get its first monsoon rains in the first week of July. Farmers in the food bowl of Punjab and Haryana would be hoping for the reservoirs to fill up before paddy sowing begins in right earnest.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

No Waste of Time No Water to Waste

San Diego will be in a Level 2 Drought Alert. Level 2 includes many mandatory water restrictions. In addition, all voluntary Level 1 conservation practices become mandatory. The Level 2 restrictions include:

Landscape irrigation is limited to no more than three assigned days per week from June 1- Oct. 31. Those days are:

  • Homes with odd-numbered addresses can water: Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday
  • Homes with even-numbered addresses can water: Saturday, Monday & Wednesday
  • Apartments, Condos and Businesses can water: Monday, Wednesday & Friday

* On your watering day, you may only water before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m.

* Landscape irrigation using sprinklers is limited to no more than ten minutes maximum per watering station per assigned day (does not apply to drip, micro-irrigation, stream rotor, rotary heads, hose end sprinklers with timers or valves operated by a weather-based irrigation controller).

* Trees and shrubs not irrigated by a landscape irrigation system may be watered no more than three assigned days per week by using a hand-held container, hand-held hose with positive shut-off nozzle, or low-volume soaker hose.

* Irrigation of nursery and commercial growers' products is permitted in the hours between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. or at any time when using a hand-held hose with a positive shut-off nozzle, hand-held container, or drip, micro-irrigation.

* Irrigation of nursery propagation beds is permitted at any time.

* Vehicle washing is permitted only in the hours between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. with a hand-held container or a hand-held hose with a positive shut-off nozzle for quick rinses, or at any time on the immediate premises of a commercial car wash. Vehicle washing required for public health and safety is exempt.

* Water use by commercial car washes which do not use partially re-circulated water will be reduced in volume by an amount determined by the City Council.

* All leaks must be stopped or repaired upon discovery or within 72 hours of notification by the City of San Diego.

* Bird baths, koi ponds and any ornamental water feature using a re-circulating pump and which does not shoot water into the air are allowed under Level 2. Water fountains which discharge into the air a jet or stream of water are banned under Level 2 restrictions. However, these fountains may be operated for maintenance purposes. Any water feature that does not re-circulate water is banned.

* Use of recycled or non-potable water is required for construction purposes when available.

* Water use from fire hydrants is limited to fire fighting, City meter installation as part of the Fire Hydrant Meter Program, and for public health and safety reasons.

* Construction operations will not use water obtained by a fire hydrant meter for uses other than normal construction activity.

In addition to these Level 2 requirements, all Level 1 voluntary restrictions are now mandatory. These include:


* City of San Diego water customers must prohibit excessive irrigation and must immediately correct leaks in their private water systems. The City's regulations now state that customers "shall not allow water to leave their property due to drainage onto adjacent properties or public or private roadways or streets or gutters due to excessive irrigation and/or uncorrected leaks."

* Customers cannot use a running hose to wash down sidewalks, driveways, parking areas, tennis courts, patios or other paved areas, except to alleviate immediate safety or sanitation hazards, unless that hose is connected to a water efficient device such as a commercial water broom.

* Overfilling of swimming pools and spas is strictly prohibited.

* Vehicles may only be washed at a commercial car wash or by using a hose with an automatic shutoff nozzle or with a hand-held water container.

* The City will not provide new water service connections for customers using single pass-through cooling systems.

* All new conveyer car wash and commercial laundry systems connections will be required to employ a recirculation water system.

* Restaurants and other food establishments shall only serve and refill water for patrons upon request.

* Guests in hotels, motels, and other commercial lodging establishments will be provided the option of not laundering towels and linens daily.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Debate rages over Moon Water

There have been raging debates over the years as to whether there is frozen water on the moon or not. Soon two NASA spacecraft, a lunar spycraft and a kamikaze probe, will help answer the question by peering into the permanent darkness of craters at the moon's south pole.

The new moon probes, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the LCROSS impactor, are set to blast off this week on NASA's first mission to the moon in more than a decade. Any ice they discover could not only be used to quench an astronaut's thirst, but also to help fuel rockets for adventures beyond the moon.

All moon rocks collected so far suggest that its surface is bone dry, with any water that might come from impacting comets baked off by the sun, except perhaps for a few water molecules trapped in volcanic glass beads.

Still, there are deep craters at the moon's poles that have received no sunlight for 2 billion years or more, and in the cold of these permanent shadows — minus 328 degrees F (minus 200 degrees C) — researchers have suggested ice might have survived, explained Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator on NASA's LCROSS, short for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.

NASA moved the launch the two moon probes from Wednesday to no earlier than Thursday to allow the shuttle Endeavour to lift off on June 17. The shuttle's launch has been delayed since June 13 due to a hydrogen gas leak.

Where is it?
Controversial evidence for whether there is water on the moon began appearing in 1996 with the Clementine probe, a joint Pentagon-NASA project. Radar scans of the lunar surface reflected back the kind of signals at the south pole that one might expect of ice and other frozen compounds.

However, later studies using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico revealed similar reflections "even from areas exposed to sunlight, places too warm for water ice to survive," Colaprete said. This suggested the reflections that Clementine saw might have come not from water but from piles of rocks.

But in 1998, NASA's Lunar Prospector also detected hints of water, this time at both poles. Its instruments analyzed neutrons absorbed by a variety of elements on the moon's surface, including hydrogen. With this device, Lunar Prospector discovered hydrogen concentrated at the moon's poles, which scientists conjectured might have come from water molecules, each of which contains two hydrogen atoms. Researchers speculated the moon's poles could hold as much as 3 billion metric tons of ice.

The problem is that Lunar Prospector could only measure hydrogen, and not what matter the hydrogen was in. Instead of ice, the hydrogen might come from water bound up in clays, or protons from the solar wind, or the kind of carbon-laden molecules from comets that might have been part of the organic soup that life developed from on Earth, "or a mix of all those things," Colaprete said.

The upcoming LCROSS will crash two probes into the moon. Its partner probe, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, will map the moon from orbit and work with other ground and space-based assets to scan the LCROSS impacts.

By analyzing the plume, scientists hope to answer once and for all whether there is water there.
The icy cold truth

Any ice there might be on the moon could be key to the future of humanity in space. Although it could supply water for colonists to drink or grow food, more importantly, it could get split up to make hydrogen and oxygen for fuel for rockets.

"It costs about $10,000 to $15,000 per pound to launch something in the space shuttle, and there are about 8 pounds of water to a gallon, so we're talking about $100,000 to bring a gallon of water to low Earth orbit," Colaprete said. "If we can use the lunar poles as a resource, we could use them as staging bases to go elsewhere on the moon, or beyond the moon, or beyond Mars or Europa or elsewhere we'd want to go. You wouldn't have to bring up millions of gallons of fuel, you could produce it on the moon."

In addition, lunar ice might have survived untouched for billions of years, so it could "serve as a fantastic time capsule into the past," Colaprete said. "This is ice that could date back just as the Earth and moon and inner solar system as a whole were evolving, what kind of organic molecules might have been delivered to Earth. What hits the moon also hits the Earth."

If there is ice there, LCROSS could also show what form it is in — whether it is smoothly spread out in small grains across the crater, or in chunky patches. This could make a difference in how the ice is mined — whether astronauts simply scoop it up anywhere or have to go hunting for patches.

Article Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Monday, June 15, 2009

Going Green: Drinking Water Purity

Safe drinking water is a high priority and for most of us our water comes through a filtration system but the city of Syracuse taps Skaneateles Lake and it's so pure no filtration system is needed.

"So that requires extremely high water quality and that requires a lot of vigilance to make sure that, that water quality is maintained. Building a treatment plant for filtration would be very, very expensive." Dr. Russell Briggs with SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry.

Dr. Briggs is leading a study of the Skaneateles Lake watershed. It's a mix of mostly forest and agricultural land and the risk, he says, is from the agricultural land.

"Of course, forest land is the primary source of the purest water and agricultural practices have a potential to degrade water quality from fertilization and runoff and a variety of things," Briggs said.

Which means the water quality is good because farmers are using best management practices such as keeping contaminated water out of nearby streams, treating contaminated water before releasing it, and using vegetation like shrub willows to filter the water before it reaches the lake.

The lessons and techniques we've learned protecting the Skaneateles Lake watershed can be replicated around New York State using nature instead of expensive water treatment plants to produce pure water.