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California Fights Drought With 96 Million "Shade Balls"
HughPickens.com writes: Katie Rogers writes in the NY Times that the city of Los Angeles is releasing 96 million plastic "shade balls" into the 175-acre Los Angeles Reservoir to help block sunlight and UV rays that promote algae growth, which would help keep the city's drinking water safe. Officials also say the balls will help slow the rate of evaporation, which drains the water supply of about 300 million gallons a year. The balls cost $0.36 each and are part of a $34.5 million initiative to protect the water supply. Shade balls are the brainchild of Brian White, a biologist with the utility who based the idea on "bird balls" that he observed in waterways near airport runways to prevent airfield bird strikes. The Los Angeles Reservoir, which holds 3.3 billion gallons, or enough water to supply the city for up to three weeks, joins three other reservoirs already covered in the shade balls. "In the midst of California's historic drought, it takes bold ingenuity to maximize my goals for water conservation," says Mayor Eric Garcetti who was at the Los Angeles Reservoir to mark the addition of 20,000 of the small balls to the lake. "This effort by LADWP is emblematic of the kind of the creative thinking we need to meet those challenges."
To the extent the point was to keep heat away from the water, I wonder why they didn't go for something with a high albedo instead of black.
But they are still made of plastic, would eventual weathering meaning plastic bits mixing with drinking water? (Kind of what happens in the oceans when plastic junk accumulates and weathers)
rubber duckies instead
96 million "shade balls" could only mean one thing right? and im sure you're just itching to crack that joke, but youre wrong.
We've only got 38 million residents, and currently theyre divided up between hollywood, totally insane homeless people, and startup tech firms.
Good people go to bed earlier.
A ball is a sphere. It casts a circular (ovoid) shadow at best. The overlap between balls probably means you're only covering about 80-90% of the surface at best. I suppose they don't mind losing that to allow the water level to rise and fall and have the balls move over each other.
But, to be honest, I can't imagine that's it's not cheaper to just buy a cover of some kind? Getting those things back out is going to be great fun - and expensive - if they get covered in algae, say.
We've been saying to leave a ball in your pond for decades to stop it freezing over completely, is this really such a shocking suggestion that it makes the news here, on Soylent, The Reg and the BBC?
If you'd asked how to shade a reservoir cheaply, I can't believe this would be more than 2nd or 3rd down the list.
So if the surface is completely covered with these black ping pong ball like things, doesn't that also reduce oxygen exchange?
Is there a risk that they just turn the lake into an anoxic wasteland (sulfides are quite toxic) if they do this ?
"In the midst of California's historic drought, it takes bold ingenuity to maximize my goals for water conservation," says Mayor Eric Garcetti
Or you could, you know, tell all those rich idiots who insist on acre-sized green lawns in the middle of the desert "tough luck".
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That is all.
Make that 2008: http://www.popsci.com/holly-ot...
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
At 0.36 $ each, 96 million balls are a pretty large part.
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but I'd rather see more desalinization plants. The trouble is shade balls were probably pretty cheap. If you think California lacks the political will to tell their 1% to back off on the water usage try getting the tax raises through needed to support desalinization plants.
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So more of our boys can grow boobs. That's just great.
A back of the envelope calculation (96M balls covering 175 acres) gives a diameter of around 3.4" per ball - So more like ball-pit balls, than ping-pong balls.
...every minute...
Sexconker, you do realize that your water rations are going to be cut, you silly Californian cow?
Ezekiel 23:20
The summary says the reservoir has enough water to supply the city for three weeks. So instead of spending millions to preserve the water, use it up. Let the other supplies have a break for a few weeks, and then you don't have to worry about the empty reservoir.
$100? If that figure is true, then considering that I'd pay almost $5000 for the same amount of water, in my not-so-humble opinion, any Californian whining about drought deserves to be properly slapped.
Ezekiel 23:20
Yeah, let's just fling any old kind of plastic on top of our water supply without checking that it won't rot in the sun and leach whatever chemical its made of into the water, or melt into a sheet that starves the water of oxygen, or chokes the local wildlife. Oh, and you'll have to get them painted black first.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Those who do not pay attention to the world around them, are doomed to reinvent the wheel (or in this case, balls covering water).
Thirty years ago, I was living in Sweden, where it was already nothing new that you cover an outdoor swimming pool with ping-pong balls to prevent heat losses and related evaporation. How come this was news, and a great stroke of genius, in California?
As an aside, they don't interfere with the use of the pool at all. You can dive in through them.
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Yes the article does state that: "The balls are expected to safely float in the water without emitting chemicals, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power told The Los Angeles Times."
Read the article not the summary.
Ping Pong Balls are typically nitrocellulose. Which makes them very flammable.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Ping Pong Balls are made of Nitrocellulose. Very fun to light on fire.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
They are creating an environment for an algae bloom that are starting to cause problems everywhere.
The algea blooms, which are not truly algae but are cyanobacteria, use less light(lower wave length) want low oxygen environments with lower water turbulence. And they are creating that.
Once cyanobacteria bloom starts, it's very difficult and costly to control. It' has very few natural predictors, I don't know of any freshwater ones, and worse yet, cyanobacteria can create toxins that have killed dogs running through it.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
For the 1989 Movie The Abyss James Cameron shot the underwater sequences for the film were shot at an unfinished Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant, situated outside Gaffney, South Carolina, which had been abandoned by Duke Power. Two specially constructed tanks were used. The first one held 7.5 million US gallons (28,000 m3) of water, was 55 feet (18 m) deep and 209 feet (70 m) across. At the time, it was the largest fresh-water filtered tank in the world. Additional scenes were shot in the second tank, which held 2.5 million US gallons (9,500 m3) of water. The filmmakers had to figure out how to keep the water clear enough to shoot and dark enough to look realistic at 2,000 feet (700 m), which was achieved by floating a thick layer of plastic beads in the water and covering the top of the tank with an enormous tarpaulin.
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There are no fish, the water has already been chlorinated which is why they are using the balls in the first place.
You have to love how they use gallons as a unit of measurement because it gives a really big number - 300,000,000. But in water terms, that's actually very little. That computes out to just under 921 acre-feet, which is the standard unit of measuring large quantities of water. Not so impressive-sounding now, so let's see what the actual costs are. Divide the $34,500,000 cost by the number of acre-feet and then again by the expected lifetime of the balls - say, 20 years. You wind up with $1,900 per acre-foot. This is a lot of money, but California residents and normal businesses normally pay around $1,000 per acre-foot. If you amortize the cost of these balls over the total water going through the system it's still a bit pricey but not insane when you consider the effects of droughts. For example, in Carlsbad, California they are building a desalinization plant with guaranteed annual sales at a cost of just over $2,000 per acre-foot.
Of course, real sanity would address the real causes of the "drought" - the fact that the two groups that use 85% of California's water pay nowhere near this much. Government pays $0 per acre-foot and wastes a breathtaking amount of water. Big agriculture pays around $10 per acre-foot (the small organic farms I buy my produce from still pay the two-orders-of-magnitude-higher residential rates). I'm all for agriculture - California is an amazing place to grow food and provides a huge percentage of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US - but the artificially low prices have been abused by some farms and orchards. There is still a lot of flood irrigation being used (and some farmers were actually growing rice in the desert). A massive amount of alfalfa is being grown in the desert and then shipped to China, because at the subsidized water prices this is actually cheaper than China growing their own hay. Sit back and bask in that insanity. The government has dumped as much as a third of California's water supply for various environmental purposes - you could argue the costs and merits of this except for the fact that none of these projects are having their desired effect, so all of that water is just pure waste (around 33% of state water usage). And then they threaten to fine us if we water our lawns more than twice a week (> 5% of state water usage).
So anyway, for once, the black balls are the government doing something expensive but not completely stupid. But the fact that this is even necessary due to government stupidity and a breathtakingly colossal mismanagement of a valuable natural resource sort of makes it all moot in the end. There is no shortage due to drought - there's a shortage due to bad policies.
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The rich entitled pricks continue to waste water by the millions of gallons because "they pay taxes", and therefore, deserve water more than poor people who want to drink it.
So you don't think the people paying to develop and extract a resource ought to have the first right to use it? Lets face it California could not sustain the populations it does without massive water infrastructure. Local availability in terms of aquifer and the naturally present surface water would not even come close.
If it was not for the people paying taxes, all your poor would be forced to leave! Deny the best their right to the top and you'll have no best left. That won't work out well for the masses.
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Why not use a thin layer of biodegradable oil as has been proposed to weaken hurricanes? That would prevent evaporation and cost a lot less, I'd imagine. I doubt the oil would cause problems since the water is likely drained from below the surface. The only downside is the possible damage to wildlife.
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Water is already a near-ideal absorber of sunlight, so the black balls shouldn't change much in that respect, except to keep much more of the heat on the surface. They are also quite likely much better heat radiators, which should be even more helpful since the heat will be more concentrated (hotter) and thus radiate far more rapidly.
I also don't know that wind would be a problem - it sounds like they're trying to pack these pretty tightly, so it's not like they're going to be able to freely roll around the surface and lift a film of fast-evaporating water. It'll take a heck of a wind to rotate them against each other, especially considering they're almost completely shielded from the force by their upwind fellows. So most of the time I would suspect they would remain relatively stationary, with their top surfaces getting very hot, and their plastic construction largely failing to conduct that heat down to the water's surface.
I do agree that white balls (preferably a beyond-visual solar white) would seem to be a considerably better solution at first glance, but I can think of several possible confounding factors:
- Longevity: As a rule plastic breaks down rapidly in direct sunlight. These are probably carbon-black, which I suspect is is about as good as it gets for both cost, UV protection, and non-toxicity. Alternate UV-protective dyes are likely to be more expensive, less effective, and more toxic. Plus the faster degradation would increase clean-up and replacement costs as the balls degrade.
- Costs: these balls are already mass-produced for other reservoir-related purposes: a new design would add at least some design and retooling costs
- Testing (money and time): these balls have already been used in reservoirs and thus (hopefully) the health and safety issues have received at least some study. Reformulate the balls and you'll need to do those studies again.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Oh, I should also add another wind-related benefit: All those balls will almost completely shield even the exposed surface of the water from the wind - which should dramatically reduce evaporation rates. Wind being one of the major contributors to evaporation rates.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You say that like the point is to save money rather than water. You can't drink money. Crops don't do too well on it either. And California is rapidly losing their traditional imported water sources since surrounding states are mostly faced with the same drought and are increasingly unwilling to sell their own water.
So, the options are:
Conserve water
Buy more water at prices sufficiently elevated to tempt surrounding states to sacrifice their own dwindling water supplies
Start building desalination plants (generally $2-$3/1000 gallons, or about $650-$1000 per acre-foot)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I wonder what we'll do with 96 million plastic balls when we're finished with them...bury them in some landfill, or ship them to China? Also, won't they break down from sunlight and UV exposure and then affect the water quality? My point here is that, sure it's great that we're possibly mitigating a drought, but at what future environmental cost?
I should at that, once again, this is a great example of humans avoiding addressing the ACTUAL problem, and instead devising a solution that will in time only become an additional problem. Are they have a serious conversation about the amount of water being used for farming ni CA, especially things like almonds? That seems to be one of the underlying causes (that and trying to squeeze millions of people into what amounts to an arid desert).
Rich people watering lawns is not the problem. Residential water use, ALL residential water use in California, accounts for about 4% of our annual use. It is unrestricted use by big agricultural concerns that use OVER 80% of our water. They still flood fields for christ's sake!!! Their is no incentive for them to use modern water wise farming practices since they have "senior rights" going back centuries. We can't even pass a law restricting them so now we grow rice in flooded fields. Just stupid.
Oh noes! They could set the lake on fire!
Have gnu, will travel.
I know nothing, but when I put a ball into a bowl of water, it naturally rolls around in the gentle current. Like a ball-point pen, the ball picks up some water, spreading it over the ball.
Wouldn't that thin layer over a sunny ball evaporate faster? And would the over-all wet-ball surface simply be a larger surface area than the otherwise planar surface -- also contributing to greater evaporation?
And if the entire body of water is only good enough for 3 weeks of water, then isn't this kind of "conservation", by reducing the evaporation of water into the atmosphere just completely insignificant? Should they be focussing on getting more water -- i.e. rain?
Lake of FIRE! It's catchy.
Throwing that much shade.
In other news, thousands of Golden Retrievers have been observed hitch-hiking to Los Angeles to participate in an event described by one traveller as, "a canine Burning Man festival". "It's like somes guy just kept throwing balls and throwing balls, but der was no dog to go get 'em," said Max, a 7-year-old neutor from Chicago.
BUT ping pong balls are less than 1 inch in diameter, so you'd have to use about 20 of them to replace each one of the larger black balls. Now the cost savings doesn't look quite so dramatic.
In the Cordwainer Smith book Norstrilia , the protagonist buys Earth, and is astonished when he comes to visit that the rivers are not covered, that evaporation runs rampant -- unlike back on his home world of Norstilia. Over the three decades I've lived in California, and especially over the last few years, that part of the book seems more and more like reality.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Evaporation rate is proportional to surface area. Floating anything on the surface reduces the exposed surface area. Individual floating balls work much better than tarps, coverings, etc, because they are self-supporting and do not obstruct access to the surface (fish, boats, swimmers, etc). This is a simple and clever idea.
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Apparently, plastic can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a possible human carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a possible hormone disruptor. What are endocrine disruptors? "Endocrine disruptors and man-made chemicals that alter, mimic or block hormone production or the system that carries them. You can call these external stressors, while your internal stressors that affect the system are rooted in negative emotions, fear, trauma and stress." "Some of these disruptors are surprisingly abundant in your internal and home environment. Here are some of the most common ones, along with the products that often contain them: Bisphenol: BPA, BPS in *plastics* and in the lining of canned goods. " http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0...
So, "acre-foot" is now the standard unit for measuring water quantities? Last time I checked, the standard unit was cubic metres...
The balls are good for 10 years, at which point they will be collected and recycled.
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China and the EU have some of the most restrictions, but their standard of living is FAR below the US which has no child count restrictions or consumption regulations.
Float solar cell rafts on top to shield the water from the sun and limit evaporation somewhat. And generate power at the same time.
Not my idea: someone proposed that we do this on Lake Powell, which loses enough water every year to fill the water needs of a pretty large city, maybe even Phoenix.
--PM
Dam up dry valleys and pump water up hill during rainy season for storage.
N Cal has lots of water in a typical rainy season. Nobody has anyplace to store it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The northern half of the central valley floods naturally pretty much every normal year. It's not as insane as you make it out.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm not talking about natural flooding during our 3 month rain season. The AG companies are flooding fields year round! Normally you would drip irrigation for certain crops, direct heads or similar with weather based controls for others. These jokers just crack a valve open and flood the whole field. A huge percentage of the water just evaporates. They are not using efficient irrigation techniques at all. It would cost them money to install efficient systems or to even fix leaks and broken pipes but since their water is nearly free they don't. That is absolutely insane.
Depends on what you're measuring. Since you're mainly using the water for agriculture, and the fields tend to need so many inches of water and are measure in acres, the natural unit would be "acre-foot". Kind of like using "board-foot" for measuring lumber.
Los Angeles, where swishing millions of black balls in the water actually improves the water quality.
Yeah - they're going to have to do that anyway as global warming completely replaces their snowpack with winter flooding over the next several decades. But that takes *real* money, and they're already feeling the pinch. Not to mention engineering and environmental impact analysis, political lead time, etc. I seem to recall that building a dam typically takes 20 years from proposal to finish, so it won't do the any good for the current drought.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
This being California, Prop 65 must come into play.
"...known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm..."
Good luck being rich in place with no poor people. Your luxury lifestyle is very labour intensive.
Of course, that's ignoring the other obvious outcome: if I'm dying of thirst and you're watering your lawn, bloodshed will ensue.
Oh wait, these balls are 4-inches in diameter. Ping-pong balls are currently 1.57 inches.
That means for the same surface area, you'd need almost twice as many balls.
You suck at maths. Even in one dimension you'd need more than twice as many.
In 2D you'd need more than 6x as many balls.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Which only bolsters my general case against to much government and market manipulation. Why do think land values are so insanely high on the west coast in the first place. Precisely because that labor intensive life style is possible. The folks watering that lawn don't want mow it themselves, make their own coffee, or butter their own bagel.
Stop voting to subsides these folks by making a labor force available below market rates. Welfare does not take from the rich to give to the poor it steals from the middle class to ensure the very wealthy have a perpetual servant class that the middle class by and large can't afford to utilize either. If you want to fix the wealth gap in America this is the policy answer:
1) Stop illegal immigration, period make sure nobody gets over the boarder and if they do they are quickly found and returned to the other side.
2) No more subsidized housing in any municipality where the cost of living exceeds the national median; bus tickets to the square states instead where folks who can't afford to live where they are can get the agriculture jobs the illegals were doing. These will be citizens with legal recourse so minimum wage will have to be paid. You can live on minimum wage in the square states.
Places like LA where the service workers class can no longer afford to live will quickly re-align. The very wealthy won't like not having a Starbucks within 50 miles. They will start leaving themselves for places with a better wealth distribution and your giant lawns will no longer be a problem they McMansions will be left vacant and the lawns fallow. The other possibility is they will start paying wages that allow folks to live near them without subsides. If the only way get their coffee made is to pay someone $20 an hour to do it they will. At that point middle class workers will also see a lift because too will start leaving if they are being priced out of the life style they are accustomed.
We have and always will have some super wealthy that are so far removed from the rest of us they exist almost outside of society. The wealth gap has been growing though, that is correlated with the grown of government and the social safety net. You will notice the upper end of the middle class tends to side with the GOP, the true %1ers lean left. (though obviously there are exceptions) That is no coincidence. The folks actually getting the handouts also lean left that is obvious, the middle gets squeezed as we race toward a neo-socialist society that looks frighteningly like the USSR. Where at no point was anything resembling equality ever realized. Reason through the behavior an realize that is the lefts great lie they have you under the impression they are trying to solve these problems. They are really trying to create them.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I'm curious to know what material (plastic) the balls are made of and the mold release used during the production process. Sure, just one "toxic" ball is not enough to poison the folks drinking the water, but multiply that by 96 friggin million times... you might just have a real toxic problem.
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The first is being permitted/built (haven't kept track) today.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Given that I can get ping pong balls retail at $0.08/ball including shipping, I think they got ripped off.
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