210,000 households in Japan lost their water supply over the weekend when formaldehyde was found in the Tone River.

The Tone River is a major source of water for many cities along its 193 mile course. When water treatment plants detected formaldehyde in their intake, they shut down the water filtration. The contaminated water was not passed on to households.

Residents had to wait in lines at trucks that brought water in from uncontaminated areas.

The acceptable limit of formaldehyde is 0.080 mg per liter. On Friday, a filtration plant in Saitama detected 0.200 mg per liter. Concentrations of formaldehyde have receded and some water treatment plants along the river have returned to using the water.

A factory spill is suspected, but no cause has been found yet.

Formaldehyde is only the most recent contaminant found in the river. In April 2012, silver crucian carp caught in the Tone River had radioactive cesium concentrations of 110 becquerels per kg. Several fisheries were asked to stop shipments of fish caught in the Tone. The Tone River is 110 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Plant.

Tone River photo via Creative Commons

The Osaka Station City water clock displays time and other artwork with timed droplets of water.

The water fountain was designed by Koei Industry for the shopping mall in Osaka, Japan.  A computer controls the timing of the droplets and can display any 2-D image.

The video shows about four minutes of the water fountain with various designs.

I know I get tired swimming in the ocean, so it must be exhausting being a baby sea turtle.  Except that it’s not.  Just a couple of hours of swimming each day keeps newly hatched loggerhead sea turtles on course.

How to reduce the size of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?  Reduce the amount of plastic getting into the ocean.  Hawaii has just become the first state in the nation to ban non-reusable plastic shopping bags.

The recovery of the Barton Springs salamander is inspiring.  For a while, it looked like either Austin was going to lose a treasured swimming hole or an endangered species would go extinct.  A little bit of thought and effort went into the compromise, but now both people and salamanders are coexisting happily.

Finding a compromise might be a little more difficult in the case of Cook Inlet’s belugas.  Drilling and exploration is booming in Alaska and it seems to be wreaking havoc with the sea mammals.

The Keystone XL pipeline hasn’t been approved by the State Department, but the company that owns the pipeline, TransCanada, is taking farmers’ land by eminent domain.

The completion of the Gibe III Dam project in Ethiopia this year will bring with it both good and bad.  The hydropower produced by the dam is expected to bring electricity to 400 million people.  But the water stored up in the dam would have otherwise irrigated crops and fed rivers and streams full of fish, affecting the food security of 500,000 indigenous people.

If you find an interesting story centered around water that you would like to see here, let me know and I’ll do my best to include it in the next Week in Water.

U.S. bottled water sales in 2011 broke the record for sales in 2007, the previous record-holder. In 2011, 9.1 billion gallons of bottled water were sold in the U.S., topping the 8.8billion gallons sold in 2007.

Overall beverage sales dropped during 2008 and 2009 because of the lagging economy, but picked up in 2011 by about 0.9% over 2010. Bottled water sales also dropped during the recession, but the increase in 2011 was 4.1% – five times as fast as all beverages and twice the amount the economy increased.

The sales increase is surprising because of the many initiatives against bottled water. It’s been banned in national parks, college campuses, and even entire cities. Still, many people believe that bottled water is healthier than tap water. The convenience is also listed as a prime reason people buy bottled water.

ValeStock / Shutterstock.com

Zebra mussels are an invasive species in the U.S. and many other countries.  Attempts to control them have proven futile.  They’re apparently here to stay for a while, but what use are they?  One innovative Lake Michigan resident has an idea – use them to make beaches.

Zebra mussels are prolific.  They push out other species and take over large areas of fresh water.  They also leave behind a large amount of shells when they die.  These shells wash ashore and can form piles four feet high on the beach.

The sharp shells mean that anyone who wants to walk on the beach needs to wear shoes.  When R.J. Elsing’s son cut his hands on sharp-edged zebra mussel shells, he decided to do something about them.

He invented the Beachmaker.

The Beachmaker vacuums up the shells from the shore and grinds them up into sand that takes up about one-third the space of the original shells.

Elsing’s prototype grinds up seventeen cubic feet of shells per hour.  That’s about one dump truck load.  He’s working on tripling that speed.

The sand that’s created is a calcium sand.  Other possible uses might be as a soil additive, bedding for livestock, mortar sand, or anything else that uses sand.

Initial environmental tests show no adverse impacts on the environment.  The Beachmaker sits above the high water line and does not stir debris.  Tests will continue through the summer.

A consumer version might be on the market as soon as January 2013.

Source:  Zebra mussels may have met their match

Zebra mussel photo via Creative Commons

How much water is available on Earth?  A surprisingly small amount.  This visual from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute really brings that home.

If all the water on the planet were gathered into a ball, the radius would be only 700 km (420 miles).  The amount of freshwater available is even less than that.

Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Howard Perlman, USGS

When the mining companies left, they shut down pumps that kept the mines from filling with water. The water filled the underground caverns and flushed heavy metals onto the surface. Flowing water erodes the mines and causes sinkholes.

The government is buying out the properties left in Treece, but the water from the mines goes into drinking water systems for the surrounding areas.

The New York Times article includes some photos. These three videos are a series on the site that was done in 2000. You can see the orange water flowing and some of the sinkholes. Also, the high chat piles that loom over a landscape in an area that is naturally flatter than a pancake.

Part 1, Lead Poison

Part 2, Subsidence and Cave-ins

Part 3, Political Morass

NOAA released their annual report this week, which shows that U.S. fisheries are improving.

The fifteenth Annual Report to Congress on the Status of the Nation’s Fisheries documents the agency’s efforts towards ending overfishing and rebuilding the nation’s fisheries. Key findings in the report:

• 258 stocks were reviewed
• 36 stocks are subject to overfishing
• 45 stocks are overfished
• 27 stocks previously overfished have been rebuilt
• 51 stocks are in rebuilding plans

Of the twenty-seven stocks declared rebuilt, six are new to this report. Those are Gulf of Maine haddock, summer flounder, widow rockfish, Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and Bering Sea snow crab.

Fisheries and related businesses generate $183 billion per year in the U.S. economy and generate more than 1.5 million full and part-time jobs. Keeping the fisheries healthy through sound science-based management is an important task.

Snow Crab photo via Creative Commons

Grey water is the wastewater in your home that does not come in contact with your toilet waste. This comprises of the water from your washing machine, washbasins, shows, bathtubs. This does not include water from soiled diapers, sinks of photo labs or even kitchen sinks. Of late, grey water filtration is considered as an environmentally responsible effort, which turns out to be lucrative to the user as well. By choosing grey water filtration over sending your wastewater down the drain, you help in the global effort of saving water.

Grey water filtrations are a cheap and easy way of filtering the water and making it ready for reuse. These filters help in sieving through the wastewater and removing impurities like soaps, detergents and chemicals, which could be present in shampoos and conditioners. Filters help in collecting and storing the grey water. This water can be used for watering your plants and mundane jobs like cleaning your car or cleaning household items. The same water can also be used for flush your toilets. Moreover, the same water can also be diverted to your washing machine as well.

Various types of filters are used for filtering the grey water.

• Distillation: In this type of filtration, the impurities are segregated as per their level of volatility i.e. how soon the impurity can transform into gas. A good example of this would be the solar powered distillers that do not even use fossil fuels.
• Constructed wetland: Also known as, wet-parks these types of filters are in actuality a kind of marsh or swamp that can be generated for myriad reasons like discarding grey water. Both manmade and natural wetlands can be utilised for other reasons like eliminating various objects and articles from water. This includes water pollutants and gravel.
• Reed-Bed filtering: Reed-bed is found in natural habitats like estuaries and flood plains. These type of system need four reeds every sq.mt. Excluding the shipping part of it, the reed-bed is very cheap. The reeds must be submerged one meter under water.

Other than the above mentioned, the filter basket also works as an ideal filter than can be cleaned and used. It has a spray system that constantly cleans the basket and also assists in maintaining the unobstructed flow through the basket

Just as Idea design studio serves as an answer to design needs, the grey water filtration method serves an answer to water recyclability.

Joel Cordle is the Marketing lead at Idea Design Studio. Idea Design Studio is a product development firm that specializes in top-of-the-line design work for inventors. If you have any question on how to get invention help just contact Idea Design Studio.

With the 2012 Farm Bill moving through the U.S. Congress right now, it looks like conservation programs will be slashed significantly. So it’s good news to hear the USDA is funding a program separate from the conservation programs in the farm bill. The Water Bank Program is aimed at reducing flooding and enhancing wildlife habitat.

Flooding of agricultural land is a problem in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. To provide an alternative use for flooded or frequently flooded lands, participants will receive annual payments.

Protection of wetlands gives migratory birds a place to rest and feed and also recharges aquifers. Wetlands also reduce flooding by slowing down the flow of water during heavy rains.

Minnesota wetland photo via Shutterstock