Mule Skinner

I have spent a lot of my careeer working with water suppliers for water quality issues as it relates to agronomy and growing grass. I know nothing about radiation tainted anything, but was pondering the situation in Tokyo, any water gurus out there in DTR Land know if RO will filter and improve the water for the folks in Japan? I know that there are processes for stripping certain elements from water but - Can the tainted water be filtered and then be healthy for human consumption or are they screwed?

cincydiesel

I know it can be done but I'm not sure how fast nor the volume amount. There is a local company here that makes bio-chemical housings for military operations. The housings are capable of surviving a nuclear disaster. The housings filter air and water from outside sources.

Mule Skinner

Wonder what that filter process includes.

cincydiesel

If I knew that I wouldn't be building crates for a living


Kidding aside, I have no clue.

ktpauley

I know lime softening and ion exchange can remove most of the regulate Rads. It depends on what Rads they are dealing with and the concentrations. I can find out more when I get into the office later. Oh, yea I regulate drinking water in Pa. Keith

bigfoot

The short answer to your question is yes full RO treatment can reduce and in many cases remove radiation completely.

The long term is another matter and I most likely do not have the ability to explain in writing. Also Jack does not have enough band width to explain this in its entirety.

Disclaimer : I treat drinking water at a 12 million gallon per day plant in Texas , and have for the last twenty years. The only training I have had in treating radioactive water was shortly after 911 and it was only the basics .

ktpauley

Bigfoot, you using direct filtration? I've been working for the State for 12 years. I don't know everything about water treatment but am willing to learn something/anything new everyday. Keith

bigfoot

In Texas direct filtration is not allowed except in membrane treatment.
For the last 20 years (1991) and before that working in the distribution and collections (read CACA) department’s I have operated and now manage a conventional water plant.
We use rapid mix followed by flocculation and followed by 6 hr settling time. We use aluminum sulfate as the primary coagulant and a cationic polymer as a secondary. With the above process and some of the best operators in the state (I really mean this, I love to brag on the operators that I have) we have been able to consistently produce water at or below 0.10 NTU with at least 95% of the readings at or below 0.05NTU, the national maximum is 0.30
Now I am in the process of building a membrane (micro filtration) plant with everything the same but with using membranes in place of conventional duel media filters .By using the sedimentation we should be able to extend the life of the membranes for at least 15 years and most likely 20.

Mule Skinner
Sorry to highjack and discuss US water treatment on your thread.

Shovelhead

Radioactive water?
Ohhhh-Nooooo.





Seriously though,
Those folks are going to have a long, expensive journey to come back from this mess.
I hope our country can learn a valuable lesson from this.

ktpauley

Sounds like a plant near my house. Their plant is rated for 20MGD was producing 12MGD. All of the industry moved out of town. Now they put VFDs on the pumps and have them throttled back to 4.5 -6MGD.

Yea sorry Mule Skinner for highjacking the thread.

bigfoot

I have done a little more reading on this subject and the good news( if you can call it that) seems to be that the radiation will effect the pathogens in the water rendering them unable to reproduce, stopping or slowing the spread of water born illness.
Then again this could cause some bugs to mutate and be harder to control.

I have heard thought the grapevine (sales reps) that the major RO manufactures are gearing up to help with this.

ktpauley
If you get down this way some time give me a call and I’ll arrange for you to have the full dollar tour.

ktpauley

Bigfoot, thanks for the offer. If you ever get up this way near Philadelphia I'll try arrange a tour at either Philly's largest plant or one the uses membranes and ozone. Philly's largest plant makes 120MGD and generates its own hypochlorite. Keith

ktpauley

Bigfoot, are you taking any Rad samples at your plant? I collected a sample at Philly's 1 plant on Monday for specifically Iodine 131. I don't have the results back yet. When I get them I can send them to you. Keith

bigfoot

We are not taking anything specific at this time we do have background results from years past. I have this written down for next week to call and talk to the TCEQ and get some guidance. But at the present time I feel that any extra sampling would be a waste of money. The feds are doing enough air samples to give me a heads up when/if I need to be concerned with the water.
My thoughts are that we will get though this, just look at what we did to ourselves with all of the above ground testing of the A-bombs back in the 50s. But all the same I’m not taking things lightly, this is an area of concern.

We are not taking anything specific at this time we do have background results from years past. I have this written down for next week to call and talk to the TCEQ and get some guidance. But at the present time I feel that any extra sampling would be a waste of money. The feds are doing enough air samples to give me a heads up when/if I need to be concerned with the water.
My thoughts are that we will get though this, just look at what we did to ourselves with all of the above ground testing of the A-bombs back in the 50s. But all the same I’m not taking things lightly, this is an area of concern.

On a lighter side of things we have what is called a “Top Ops team” that competes during the AWWA conference in Texas, they won Second place and only missed going to Washington DC for the ACE show by one point. We also took second place in the best tasting water contest out of 11 entries. We must be doing something right.

ktpauley

Some people here are going overboard in my opinion. The samples I collected from Philly probably weren't the best are upstream is a cancer treatment place. Some of the Rads detected were what is used in the treatments. Startint on Monday for who knows how long I'll be sampling at a surface plant that doesn't have a WWTP upstream. Keith