Water as Technology: Uses, Impacts, and Policy

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Water as Technology Uses, Impacts, and Policy

• Technology and the Environment
• Christopher Weber
• 4/12/05

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Goals

• After this lecture, you should understand
• The importance of water in our lives
• What water is used for in the US
• How water is made and disposed of
• Some basic issues of water quantity and quality
• The difficulty facing environmental policymakers
  regarding technology

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Water What is it?

• Liquid composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen
• Essential for all life
• Environment for aquatic plants and animals
• The reason were here today

Image from http//folding.stanford.edu/education/
water.htm
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The Water Cycle
Taken from http//www.yvw.com.au/newed/seniors/wa
ter_cycle.html
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Water Where is it?

• Question What percentage of the worlds water is
  present in rivers and lakes?
• Answer 0.27 !
• Wheres the rest of it?

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Water Where is it?
Taken from http//ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycl
efreshstorage.html
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Water Whats it good for?

• Of all the water humans use, how much goes to
  homes?
• To Industrial Use?

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Water uses in the US, 2000
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Whats in your cup?

• Water Quantity vs. Water Quality
• Public water supply generally comes from
• Surface sources (rivers, some lakes)
• Groundwater
• Processed by Water Treatment Facilities

Taken fromhttp//www.epa.gov/safewater/
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Typical Water Treatment Process
Taken from LA Drinking water plant website
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Down the sink. . .
Taken From http//www.city.toronto.on.ca/water/wa
stewater_treatment/process.htm
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Activity Water Pricing

• 3 contestants
• Water from 3 different sources
• Pour into bucket until you reach 1 worth of water

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Five Gallon Bucket
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High End Bottled Water
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Grocery Store Bottled Water
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Pittsburgh Public Supplied Water
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Answers to Water Exercise

• Evian- 0.03 of 5 gal bucket
• Grocery Store Water 1/3 of 5 gal bucket
• Pittsburgh Water 62 5 gal buckets

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Cost of Water Globally?

• Pittsburgh has one of highest costs for
  commercial water use in the country in 2000

(74,844 gallons for annual household use.)
http//www.provwater.com/worldclass.htm, RI
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Focus Issue Washing Clothes and Laundry
Detergents

• Both a water quantity and quality issue
• Affects everyone!
• QuantitySome washers more efficient than others
• QualityJust whats in your laundry anyway?
• Start with an exercise using water and
  electricity pricingcomparison of Life Cycle
  economics of two washing machines

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Normal Washing Machine
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Efficient Washing Machine
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Calculation of Actual Washer Prices

• 3 components
• Initial Cost
• Water Cost
• Electricity Cost
• Lifecycle costing spreadsheet

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Initial Costs

• How much would you estimate each of these washers
  to cost upfront?

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Initial Costs

• How much would you estimate each of these washers
  to cost upfront?
• Normal Washer 300
• Energy STAR front-loader 900
• Energy STAR washer costs 3X more!
• Other potential benefits of front-loader?
• Sound!
• See if we can justify just on water and
  electricity

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Estimating Discussion

• How much water does each washer use per cycle?

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Estimating Discussion

• How much water does each washer use per cycle?
• Normal Washer
• 37 gallons
• EnergyStar Washer
• 19 gallons

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Estimating Discussion

• How much electricity does each washer use per
  cycle?

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Estimating Discussion

• How much electricity does each washer use per
  cycle?
• Normal Washer
• 1.57 kWh per load
• EnergyStar Washer
• 0.65 kWh per load

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Life Cycle Costs (with some assumptions)

• Assume
• Electricity 5.5 cents/kWh
• Water 0.397 cents/gal
• Life Cycle of each washer 12 years
• Realistic?
• 2.5 loads per week

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Overall Life Cycle Costs
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Water Quality IssuesCase Study Eutrophication
Taken From http//www.umanitoba.ca/institutes/fis
heries/227_305.jpg
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageCaspian_Sea_fro
m_orbit.jpg
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Brief History of Water Quality and Eutrophication
in the U.S.

• 1930s-40sIndustry starts mass producing
  chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, TCE, etc.
• 1950sWater pollution truly starts to become
  evident
• 1962Silent Spring by Rachel Carson published,
  immediate public outcry against toxic chemicals
• 1964Eutrophication becomes evident all over US
  from nutrient pollution
• International Joint Commission formed
• 1969Cuyahoga River/Lake Erie catches fire from
  pollution in water
• IJC Commission Report suggests reducing Phosphate
  content in detergents
• 1972Clean Water Act passed (over veto by Nixon)
• Wastewater treatment becomes law
• 1974Safe Drinking Water Act Passed
• 1983 and 1987Chesapeake Bay Agreements on
  Nutrient reduction
• Early 1990smany states pass phosphorus bans for
  detergents

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EutrophicationWhat is it?

• Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) added to lakes or
  rivers
• Algae grow quickly on elevated nutrients
• When algae die, decomposition depletes oxygen
• Lower oxygen levels kill fish and aquatic life

Image taken from http//www.biologymad.com/Crops/
Crops.htm
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EutrophicationWhat Causes it?

• Caused by elevated levels of N,P in waterusually
  due to humans
• Many possible causes!
• Municipal wastewater emissions
• Industrial Emissions
• Crop Agriculture (fertilizer runoff)
• Animal Agriculture (animal wastes)
• The Big problem
• N,P are naturally occurring and non-toxic
• Hard to trace and hard to determine whos to blame

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EutrophicationWhat Causes it?
Pennsylvania Watersheds

• TerminologyPoint source vs. Non-point source
• Point source pollution occurs at one point
• Wastewater effluent
• Combined Sewer Overflow
• Non-point occurs over entire watershed
• Agricultural runoff

Image taken fromhttp//pa.water.usgs.gov/pamaps/p
a_basins.gif
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Link to Laundry . . .

• One of major suspected routes of P pollution was
  in detergents
• Detergents had a lot of Phosphates in them
  (20-35)!
• Phosphates not well removed in wastewater
  treatment
• Can comprise up to 40 of P in wastewater

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Laundry Detergent what makes it work?

• What does a laundry detergent need to do?
• Grab soil and other stains
• Pull the stain into solution
• Keep the stain in solution
• Brighten colors
• Make the clothes smell pretty
• Quite the technology, really!

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What makes it not work so well?

• Water hardness (Ca, Mg, Fe)
• Detergents require a builder to stop this
  interference
• Sodium Tripolyphosphate (STPP) works very well
  for this
• Nontoxic, extremely effective builder
• Until 1960s, the only builder used

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Whats a policy maker to do?

• Exercise its 1969, people want something done
  to save Great Lakes, Chesapeake
• You know
• Need to reduce P inputs to Lakes
• Some Phosphorus due to point sources, some to
  agriculture
• Detergents make up large portion of P in
  wastewater
• Wastewater removal methods available

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What could be done?

• The options
• Remove Phosphates from Detergents
• Remove Phosphates from Wastewater
• Work on Agricultural inputs
• Any combination of the above
• Several Questions
• Which is easiest?
• Which is safest?
• Which is cheapest?
• Which would be most effective?

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Where it gets a little complicated

• Easy ? Cheap ? Effective ? Safe
• Which is most important for an environmental
  policy?
• Who should decide?
• Who should pay?
• The public?
• The government? (another facet of the public)
• Industry? (PG, Colgate-Palmolive, etc)

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Option 1 Cut P levels in Detergents

• Advantages (from govs perspective)
• Easy1 piece policy
• Significantly reduce P load to wastewater plants
• Financial burden goes to industry
• Disadvantages
• Only part of part of P load
• Industry backlash?
• Still need detergentwhat would replace it?

Example Environmentally-Friendly Detergent
Taken from http//www.animalaid.org.uk/shop/house
hold.htm
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Option 1 Cut P levels in Detergents

• Potential replacements all had problems
• Citrate was safe, but not all that effective
• NTA arguably safe and effective, but questions
  about toxicity
• Zeolite A safe and somewhat effective, but
  expensive
• Industries already invested in NTA production
• Precautionary principle?

Example Environmentally-Friendly Detergent today
Taken from http//www.animalaid.org.uk/shop/house
hold.htm
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Option 2 Remove P from Wastewater

• Advantages
• Target all point source P
• Even then, fairly effective (much more so now)
• Can keep Phosphates in detergents
• Definite reduction after implementation
• Disadvantages
• Very expensivehave to retrofit several hundred
  plants
• Cost goes to municipalities
• Still only deal with part of P load (point source)

Precipitation unit for P removal
Taken from http//www.sewage-plants.de/en/technik
/tertiaer/tertiaer.php
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Option 3 Work on Non-Point sources

• Advantages
• In most watersheds, non-point are majority of
  load
• Best practices can be low cost
• Disadvantages
• Ignorance
• Where its coming from?
• Who and what is needed to fix?
• Difficult to implementneed cooperation from many
  parties
• Soft solutionimpacts not definite

Fertilizer runoff into a river
Taken from http//www.concordma.com/magazine/sepo
ct01/scummyseptriver.jpeg
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Tradeoffs

• Detergent substitution easy, cheap, and arguably
  effective
• But might be unsafe
• Wastewater Removal easy, effective, and safe
• But expensive for municipalities
• Non-point Sources safe and cheap and could be
  effective
• But certainly not easy, and might not do anything

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Long Story Short

• US focused on detergent substition initially
• Took 10 to 20 years to find a suitable blend of
  substitutes
• Some work was done on P removal in wastewater
• In 1980s, became evident that solution was not
  working
• Some highly improved waters, some not
• More focus as of late on agricultural practices
• Eutrophication remains problematic in many areas
  of the country
• Even worse now with growth of factory farming

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Summary

• Policy makers must account for several things in
  making decisions about technology
• Public Safety
• Environmental Safety
• Economic efficiency (for who?)
• Water quality issues can be difficult problems to
  fix!

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Questions?