My Water.....Where does it come from?

This week I am going to take a closer look at our drinking water; both tap (water supplied by the city), and bottle water. It is my impression that bottle water will be cleaner and thus safer than the water that comes out of the tap. My experience tells me that bottle water taste better anyway. First I need to examine where my city tap water comes from and what governmental agency is responsible for insuring its quality. Also I need investigate what standard does the water have to meet to be considered "safe" for public consumption. Then I will compare it to bottle water and the agency's standards regulating it.

To find out where my water comes from and the standards it must meet I referred to Riverside's Annual Drinking Water Report at http://www.riversideca.gov/utilities/water-wqr.asp. According to the site my drinking water is provided by the Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) and the water is drawn from groundwater sources located in the San Bernardino Bunker Hill Basin and the Riverside Basin. RPU treats some of its wells and all water sources are blended at a central location before entering into distribution. The thing that I found the most interesting is the allowable chemical and particulate contamination that is allowed in tap water, but this allowable amount is measured in parts per million (ppm), so we are talking really really slight amount of contamination. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in charge of setting and enforcing the standards of drinking water.

The information about the "allowable" contamination was reinforce my preconceived notion that bottle water is better. Then I examined whom is responsible for regulating bottle water. It turns out that, unlike tap water, it is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that over sees bottle water. The standards set by the EPA are far stricter than the FDA. The list of regulatory gaps is long so I will only high light a few that I got from National Resource Defense Council website at http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/exesum.asp:

• FDA's rules completely exempt 60-70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States from the agency's bottled water standards, because FDA says its rules do not apply to water packaged and sold within the same state. Nearly 40 states say they do regulate such waters (generally with few or no resources dedicated to policing this); therefore, about one out of five states do not.
• Bottled water plants must test for coliform bacteria just once a week; big-city tap water must be tested 100 or more times a month.
• Repeated high levels of bacteria (i.e., "heterotrophic-plate-count" bacteria) in tap water combined with a lack of disinfectant can trigger a violation for cities -- but not for water bottlers.

What's more is the FDA says they have only one person assigned to writing and reviewing the standards they set forth and less than a person assigned to enforcement.

I personally was blown away. There is no guarantee that the bottle water is safer. This information does not say that bottle water is unsafe, but it does say no one is monitoring it  most bottle water to insure that it is safe. After this information I think it may be better to filter my own tap water. That way I know my water meets EPA standards then filter it further to get the rest of the contaminates out. This would also eliminate all the plastic bottle pollution.

 

My Visit to the Riverside/Corona Resource Conservation District

This week my environmental science class and I went on trip to Riverside/Corona Resource Conservation District (RCRCD). RCRCD is a small governmental agency that helps land users conserve soil, water, wildlife and native landscapes in western Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. They work with private land users, nonprofit organizations, and public entities to sustain natural resources by providing a verity of services including but not limited to; technical services (such as evaluations of irrigation systems), habitat services (3 areas: Restoration, Management  and Preservation) and educational programs.

The site had examples of plant and wildlife of 3 Southern California habitats; the Oak Woodland, Chaparral, and Riparian. They also had examples of four landscapes suitable for urban areas. The Habitat Garden; which is good to provide food, water, and shelter for urban-adapted wildlife. Then the Native and Cultivar Garden is comprised of only native plants and/or cultivated verities of natives. Third is the Mediterranean Garden. This garden uses plants that do require more water, but made up for it by have a larger hardscape area (Hard surfaces such as concrete patio), thus reducing the amount of plants to be watered. Lastly, is the Sustainable or the "Edible" Garden. This garden is made up of trees and plants that give fruits and vegetables.

Asian Citrus Psyllid

Tamarixia radiata

Close up of Tamarixia radiata

The things I have mentioned above alone would have made for an interesting field trip, but the last service I'm going to talk about really put the trip over the top. Although most of us are unaware; it seems that California has been invaded by a foreign enemy, the Asian Citrus Psyllid. This tiny pest carries a disease that is absolutely devastating to the citrus crop. Fortunately for us the good folks at RCRCD along with UCR and Cal Poly Pomona are raising and releasing a tiny, stingless wasp called Tamarixia radiata that is a natural predator of the Asian citrus psyllid. They only feed on psyllids. It is their hope that this will at least control these invasive pest.
In all this was a fascinating experience. I am glad that I had the opportunity to go there and look forward to utilizing this resource when I have land that needs to be managed.

Everything We Use Comes from Earth Somehow

These days it has become difficult to see that all things come from the Earth one way or another. In today’s world, especially in the urban environment, everything is highly processed and combined with other things so much that it has become difficult to recognize it as being from nature and  that nature still plays an integral part in our day to day lives. This week’s assignment is to keep track of all of the Earth’s resources that I use in a 24 hour period. Because of all the technology and other modern comforts it will be difficult at times to see how they come from nature, but I will just create the list first then go back and break each item down to its parts after the fact. The completed list with revisions are as follows:

A) Food and drink- eggs, potatoes, chorizo, tortillas, milk, chips, salsa, guacamole, beer (all domestic; some locally brewed micro-brew), whiskey (fireball), tri-tip (beef), hotdogs (made of ???), hamburger, salad (prepackaged), corn (frozen), peas (frozen) and birthday cake.

B) Housing and other buildings- My house is a wood framed condominium, with dry walled (gypsum plaster and paper) walls and a ceramic tile roof. All homes also have a verity of metals for fasteners (iron), wiring (copper), piping (copper or galvanized steel) and glass windows (silica).

C) Transportation and roads- Car is made of metals (iron, copper, silver, nickel, aluminum, ect.), plastic (petroleum), rubber (synthetic; therefore it is petroleum based) other fabrics for upholstery (cotton, leather or vinyl). Road is made of gravel and tar (petroleum). Gas and oil in the car of course is also petroleum.

D) Clothing- Tee shirt, denim jeans, and underwear (all made of cotton), shoes (cotton, and synthetic rubber.

E) School supplies- It was my birthday, so I tried not to think about school. I tracked my list with the voice memo on my cell phone (made copper, nickel, zinc, copper and cadmium, mercury, plastic)

F) Personal care products- Shampoo (sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine in water), soap (lye), toothpaste (Sodium bicarbonate, fluoride and a bunch of other crap), deodorant (aluminum-based compound other ingredients vary)

G) Leisure activities- Watching TV (made of silicon, tin, zinc, gold, silver, plastic, and steel) electricity (provided from coal), dominoes (plastic), playing cards (paper with wax coating), beer (hopes and barley), and whiskey (rye)

H) Other (not listed in categories A-G) - Bed (made of cotton, steel springs), sheets (cotton) and sleep ware (cotton). Pans, silverware, and other cooking utensils (made of iron, nickel and other alloys) 

For the next part of this assignment I was asked to research one of the items on my list. I created this list on my birthday (which was last Saturday), so this day involved two barbecues with two different groups of friends and a whole lot of drinking (don’t worry I had a designated driver). In keeping with the theme of the day the item I shall highlight is beer. I choose beer for a couple of reasons: First of all beer doesn’t get the proper respect it deserves for the integral part it has played in the advancement of human civilization. The second reason is… well, I like it.

 According to the History Channel website, the dawn of beer goes hand in hand with the dawn of cereal agriculture than began about 12,000 years ago. They go on to say,

“As hunter-gatherer tribes settled into agrarian civilizations based around staple crops like wheat, rice, barley and maize, they may have also stumbled upon the fermentation process and started brewing beer. In fact, some anthropologists have argued that these early peoples’ insatiable thirst for hooch may have contributed to the Neolithic Revolution by inspiring new agricultural technologies.”

During these ancient times these nutrient-rich suds were a cornerstone of early man's diet and was considered safer than drinking water from local streams that was often contaminated with animal waste. For the reason of sanitation and nutrition it is easy to see why beer was an important part of ancient life and was defiantly a necessity to these people; however, in modern times it is looked at as a “want” not a “need”. In fact it is likely a source of unneeded calories and with modern water treatment plants it isn’t necessary for hydration.

These days beer is usually made from barley and malted wheat and seasoned with hopes. It can be made with any of the cereal grains though. Beer is made in just about every part of the world. Beer production in the United States is mostly done by Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors, and Pabst Brewing Company; however, there has been a micro-brew revolution going on. Every year local micro-breweries have been gaining a larger and larger market share.

Many of the downsides of too much alcohol consumption are widely known. Just like all things in life moderation is the key. Just about everyone has seen real live examples of the peril of overconsumption. The same can be said of many things that people have been known to over indulge in. As far as environmental impact; it can be minimized by drinking local brew or brewing your own, but often (especially the big corporate breweries) the ingredients are brought in from far off places and then the finished product is shipped back out to far off places. As you can imagine this can cause a big footprint of greenhouse gases.

What I have learned from my research is my beer drinking has a larger ecological footprint than I thought. As far as my list goes I didn’t learn so much. My list does highlight the fact that petroleum is in just about every product there is, but this was no surprise to me. Through other reading and other course work I was already aware of this. The one thing that I could and I am willing to do is to increases the amount of locally grown food (and beer) that I consume. Shopping at farmers markets and perhaps making my own microbrew is the prescription for me.