Putting Black Balls in the Water Supply Not Such a Hot Idea

LA ‘black ball’ reservoir rollout potential ‘disaster’ in the making, say experts: Experts differed over the best color for the tiny plastic balls, with one saying they should have been white

My little engineers mind perked up when I read the original story about the announcement of the “Black Balls”.   “That’s wrong”, I thought.  My second thought was that if I lived in that water district I’d run a little home experiment and chart the increases in the temperature of tap water over the next few weeks, and stock up on bottled water.

I sure hope that someone in LA is stepping up the testing for bacteria in the pipes, the holding tanks and anywhere the water is drawn off.   Followup stories indicate that reducing evaparation wasn’t the prime reason for the project, but an EPA mandate (there’s that word again) to cover water storage and holding tanks from contamination.   Even for that purpose the little round balls are wrong, they spin.  Bird shits on top, ball is no longer in balance, ball rotates to fecal matter downwards into the warm water now shielded from the UV rays that tend to sanitize.

When there are better ecological disasters made, the EPA will be behind scenes with a mandate.