[PLUG-TALK] Ash in Bull Run Water (source for Portland and West Slope)

Russell Senior russell at personaltelco.net
Tue Sep 29 04:45:20 UTC 2020


>>>>> "tomas" == tomas kuchta lists <tomas.kuchta.lists at gmail.com> writes:

tomas> On Mon, 2020-09-28 at 18:02 -0700, Russell Senior wrote:
>> What you were seeing in your wash cloth might have been regular
>> sediment that forms in the pipes, and that is regularly dislodged
>> when they do hydrant flushing. My sister, who works for the Portland
>> water bureau, says that "black" == manganese or scale or something
>> and said to call your water utility to get a diagnosis. Portland has
>> a water quality lab, and if you were their customer you could ask
>> them to analyze a sample for you.
>> 
>> "Additionally, our water system pulls water from the middle to lower
>> parts of the reservoirs, rather than the surface, for drinking water
>> use, further minimizing any potential impacts. One way to monitor for
>> impacts of ash on the water is to look at the turbidity or the number
>> of particles in the water. The Portland Water Bureau has been
>> carefully monitoring the turbidity of the water and has not found any
>> measurable impacts from the fires."
>> 
>> And, even if they are lying, it's got to be 99.99% activated charcoal
>> ;-)

tomas> I absolutely believe that the water is safe to drink - I cannot
tomas> imagine that you could see that small amount of <0.3um or smaller
tomas> particles in a cloth - sand filters are surprisingly effective at
tomas> filtering out really fine particles.

Currently, there is no filtration on Portland's water supply. Portland
has been ordered by the EPA to install them. All surface water sources
are required to be filtered nowadays, primarily for cryptosporidium. One
of the issues is that the Bull Run water supply is so clean, normally,
that normal filtration methods (adding a flocculant,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarifying_agent) don't work very
well. Because of the traditionally pristine character of the Bull Run
Watershed, Portland was able to get a variance from the federal
regulation for several decades, but the under continued pressure and a
certain amount of logic (we do get occasional detections of
cryptosporidium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptosporidium), which
could make someone sick and if particularly unlucky, might kill them),
they eventually caved.

Also, maybe Keith is seeing this?

  https://michaelkummer.com/health/black-slime-faucet/

tomas> That being said - are you sure that the smoke is charcoal and
tomas> activated one? I am genuinely curious.

No, just an ignorant joke. ;-)


-- 
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net



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