The truth about bottled water

Two brands of alkaline water were introduced at the Sheng Siong supermarket chain last year.
$134m The amount consumers here spent on bottled water in 2015, nearly 24 per cent more than in 2010, according to data from research firm Euromonitor International 1,000 How many times cheaper tap water is, compared to bottled water, according to national water agency PUB In fact, as brands come up with new ways to make their products stand out, the question is: Do their marketing claims hold water?
Experts say there are differences in the sources and treatment process, but it is difficult to say if one type is better than another.
They are natural mineral water, packaged drinking water, mineralised drinking water, distilled water and spring water.
Despite some studies affirming the benefits, experts told The Straits Times that more conclusive results are necessary to support claims for alkaline water and oxygenated water.
When it comes to the taste of water, most people cannot tell the difference, The Guardian reported in 2011.
"So, while it’s good to have natural minerals, it is also important to check the contents," she added.
But Mr Goh’s children do drink tap water when they are out.
Experts say the level of chlorine in Singapore’s tap water is within acceptable limits.
In 2016, chlorine levels in all the waterworks ranged from 2.04 to 2.98mg per litre, well within the World Health Organisation’s limits of 5mg per litre.

What’s the difference between a Water Quality Advisory and a Boil Water Notice?

What’s the difference between a Water Quality Advisory and a Boil Water Notice?.
To add to that, there are three types of alerts, a Water Quality Advisory, a Boil Water Notice and lastly a Do Not Use Notice.
What is turbidity?
Measuring Water Quality Good quality water (<1 NTU) – No alert Even when the water measures low turbidity levels, it is still recommended that newborns and people with compromised immune systems drink boiled water or a safe alternative if they are served by an unfiltered water source.
Poor quality water (>5 NTU) – Boil Water Notice When turbidity levels surpass 5 NTU, all users should drink boiled water or a safe alternative like bottled water.
A Water Quality Advisory is issued in situations in which the public health risk posed by the water supply system is modest or when the turbidity is between 1 – 5 NTU.
Status of the major water purveyors in the Central Okanagan The South East Kelowna Irrigation District (SEKID) – use this link to see who services you within City of Kelowna boundaries.
Within West Kelowna there are several systems.
Killiney Beach – Boil Water Notice Westshore Estates – Boil Water Notice Falcon Ridge (Part of the Regional District) For updates on their systems click here.
Peachland has three water sources and is currently on a Boil Water Notice.

How El Niño forecasts can help prevent cholera deaths in Africa

How El Niño forecasts can help prevent cholera deaths in Africa. The Conversation, May 14, 2017. Since it first emerged from the Ganges River delta 200 years ago, cholera has killed tens of millions of people around the world. It causes acute diarrhea that can kill quickly without proper treatment. Before the 1970s it was not unusual for healthy adults to die of dehydration within…

Ignored farmer protests and the biggest drought in 140 years- why Tamil Nadu must concern us all

Ignored farmer protests and the biggest drought in 140 years- why Tamil Nadu must concern us all.
With all the 32 districts being declared as drought hit, livestock too have failed to provide farmers financial support as the districts does not even have any drinking water left for any living organisms.
Water mismanagement and scanty rainfall are the prime reasons for farmer crises In the past four years, Tamil Nadu have witnessed the wrath of nature in varying forms— it saw the devastating floods in 2015, touted as the worst heavy rainfall witnessed in over 100 years; followed by the cyclones and in the present year, the failed monsoons have has resulted in drought.
Tamil Nadu depends largely on the North-East monsoon, from October to December, for its water requirement.
These alarming figures have rendered the farmer helpless with widespread crop failures, and rising debt has resulted in a wave of farmer suicides.
However, lack of rainfall alone cannot be blamed for the current crises.
Science has to connect with the society,” says B Jayashree, Head of the Media Resource Centre at MS Swaminathan Research Foundation Technological safety net needs to be adopted With the increase in farmer suicides, the state can no longer afford to blame poor monsoons for failed crops year after year.
“We, also, request the BJP government to fulfil the promises it made during the elections— implementation of the MS Swaminathan Committee report,” says Ayyakannu who led the farmers protest in New Delhi.
A provision of proper risk assessment system will benefit both the insurance companies and the farmers.
Through satellite, big data, cloud computing and IoT technology, the farmer can assess the crop stress level and cultivate crops according to the resource available.

Solar Powered Condenser Turns Ambient Humidity into Drinking Water

Solar Powered Condenser Turns Ambient Humidity into Drinking Water.
MIT and UC-Berkeley Scientists recently demonstrated a new device designed to collect water straight from ambient air using only solar power.
This water harvester can even pull moisture in desert climates where humidity is as low as 20 percent.
At any moment, it’s estimated that atmosphere contains about 3,100 cubic miles of water vapor, which is enough to cover the entire surface of the Earth with one inch of water if it fell all at once.
In addition to its most visible form, clouds, atmospheric water is also present in clear air and the entire system is recycled every nine days.
Solar Powered Condenser; Off-Grid Water Harvester Researchers at MIT, in collaboration with the University of California Berkeley, have developed a prototype for a device that pulls water from clear air using solar power.
The device, reported in the journal Science, is an open air chamber containing a lattice-like structure made from a metal-organic framework (MOF), produced at the UC-Berkeley.
By the same year, two-thirds of the global population could be living under water-stressed conditions.
Developing solutions to sanitize water and produce it where it is scarce is a major challenge for many countries.
And there’s no resource more accessible than ambient air.

Suit blames well contamination on Dominion’s Possum Point ash ponds

A pair of Dumfries homeowners have filed suits seeking millions in damages from Dominion Energy, claiming heavy metals seeping from coal ash ponds at the Possum Point Power Station contaminated their drinking water wells. The power station’s coal ash ponds, where the remnants of burnt coal were kept, are the scene of a clash among the utility, residents, and state and local officials over the company’s closure plans. The lawsuits — filed on behalf of Daniel Marrow and his family and Brian West, both of whom own homes on Possum Point Road near the power station — allege that concentrations of hexavalent chromium, lead, boron, cobalt and other metals found in their wells came from the nearby power plant, which burned coal until 2003. “The defendant knew or should have known that placing multiple unlined coal ash ponds near a residential community that relied on well water would cause groundwater contamination that would then contaminate the nearby properties and potable wells,” the suits say. Marrow’s suit claims damages of $6 million while West’s claims $3 million. The Virginia Beach lawyer who filed both suits, Mark J. Favaloro, referred a reporter to Annapolis, Md., attorney Roy Mason, who could not be reached Friday. “Dominion is aware that the lawsuit has been filed in Prince William County,” company spokesman Robert Richardson said. “However, the company has not…

Vikram Solar teams up with Israel’s WaterGen to source drinking water from air

Vikram Solar teams up with Israel’s WaterGen to source drinking water from air.
Kolkata-based Vikram Solar has teamed up with Israel’s WaterGen to manufacture a harvester to address safe and clean drinking water issue.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has already been signed between the two firms to form a joint venture for manufacturing solar-powered water harvester using the Israeli technology that will suit the Indian conditions.
The technology is relevant to countries like India where a large part of population still does not have access to safe and clean drinking water.
Hopefully, the deal will get through in the next few days," WaterGen Business Development officer Maor Zrahyahu said.
A product with the unique water solution technology will be developed in a such way that is energy efficient and cost effective, he said without disclosing about investment.
This would help provide drinking water access to people in remote places making best use of easily available natural resources — air and humidity, he added.
According to WaterGen, the water harvesting device can be of different sizes depending on the extent of water to be harvested from atmosphere.
WaterGen said it has systems that can produce up to 7,000 litres of clean drinking water a day depending on temperature and humidity conditions.
The drinking water harvested from atmosphere is safe and can be tested for the quality.

Partnership provides access to safe and affordable drinking water to 50,000 people in Kenya

A two-year project to bring safe, affordable drinking water to more than 50,000 of the poorest residents in Nairobi, Kenya, has now been inaugurated after successful completion earlier this year.
The initiative was co-funded by OFID (the OPEC Fund for International Development), the UK Government’s Department for International Development and Borealis and Borouge through their joint corporate social responsibility programme Water for the World™.
The Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company has in the past found it difficult to invest in these services because of the haphazard design of the settlements, inadequate resources within the utility and a perception that residents would be unwilling to pay for services.
Residents without access to piped supplies therefore buy water from private street vendors, at much higher prices.
The five partners came together to improve drinking water supplies in Nairobi’s Korogocho and Kahawa Soweto informal settlements.
We are proud to have been part of this project and will continue to support sustainable development across the globe.” “WSUP works with local providers to help them deliver the water and sanitation services and infrastructure that are so desperately needed by low-income urban communities,” explains Bill Peacock, WSUP’s Director of Programmes.
In 2007, Borealis together with Borouge launched Water for the World, a partnership programme to advance solutions, expertise and know-how to address the global water challenge.
The programme spans a full range of activities at global and regional levels, in science, industry and for local communities, and focuses on three key areas: Improving access to water and sanitation through local projects Preserving water resources through sustainable water management practices Advancing best practices and raising awareness in communities and across the value-chain Watch this movie or go to waterfortheworld.net to learn more about this project.
For further information please contact: Borealis: Virginia Mesicek External Communications Manager tel.
: +43 1 515 64321 (Vienna, Austria) e-mail: f.elshhati@ofid.org WSUP: Steve Metcalfe Head of Communications tel.

Civic chief silent on water woes

Even as the new Mayor is yet to take a grip over municipal affairs, the Collector is expected to release ad hoc assistance soon to mitigate the problem Chittoor: Drinking water is being sold at Chittoor and private tankers are minting money.
The existing bore wells have become defunct and their yields have also receded abnormally.
People of the city crave for getting the normal water apart from drinking water.
The newly elected Chittoor Mayor K Hemalatha is yet to understand the miseries of the public on this issue as she is said to be quite new to the politics as well as the issues of the city.
Asked to comment over the prevailing scarcity of drinking water in the city Chittoor Municipal Commissioner G. Subramanyam admitted that there was consistent demand for more drinking water supply in the city since several decades “The water levels in NTR Jalasayam are receding very fast due to unbearable heat and adverse seasonal condition.
Transportation of water is only the alternative for the municipal administration to ensure the water needs of the city to a little extent.
But paucity of funds makes the civic body incompetent to tackle the water management “he added.
District Collector Pradyumna is expected to review the prevailing drinking water scarcity in all the Municipal towns and corporations with in a couple of days.
It is expected that he would release the adhoc assistance to Chittoor Municipal Corporation for resuming the transportation of water in the city.
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Drinking water from air to soon see the light of day

Drinking water from air to soon see the light of day.
New Delhi, May 14 (PTI) Imagine an appliance that pulls out water from air!
Kolkata-based Vikram Solar has teamed up with Israels WaterGen to manufacture a harvester to address safe and clean drinking water issue.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has already been signed between the two firms to form a joint venture for manufacturing solar-powered water harvester using the Israeli technology that will suit the Indian conditions.
The technology is relevant to countries like India where a large part of population still does not have access to safe and clean drinking water.
"We are working seriously to finalise the joint venture.
Hopefully, the deal will get through in the next few days," WaterGen Business Development officer Maor Zrahyahu told PTI.
A product with the unique water solution technology will be developed in a such way that is energy efficient and cost effective, he said without disclosing about investment.
According to WaterGen, the water harvesting device can be of different sizes depending on the extent of water to be harvested from atmosphere.
WaterGen said it has systems that can produce up to 7,000 litres of clean drinking water a day depending on temperature and humidity conditions.