en-us http://www.gongol.net News on water, wastewater, and the environment, especially in Iowa, Nebraska, the Upper Midwest and Great Plains Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:11:01 CDT http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/19/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/19/ Visit our website for some views of the river flooding in downtown Des Moines today. The good news is that the latest prediction for the Saylorville Reservoir forecasts a crest lower than previously expected, giving the reservoir some additional expected freeboard (the difference between the water level and the berms, flood gates, and other walls keeping it in). We continue to receive lots of inquiries about Gorman-Rupp portable pumps for flood control, from all over the Midwest. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:39:01 CDT http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/18/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/18/ The latest model being used by Polk County Emergency Management and the US Army Corps of Engineers suggests that the emergency bladder atop the Saylorville Dam should provide about a foot and a half of freeboard above the high water level expected at Saylorville, which could prevent flooding in the city of Des Moines. The city is developing temporary levees as a secondary defense in case the reservoir is overtopped, but the complete set of efforts to upgrade flood protections in Des Moines isn't complete -- one major flood-control project just went to bids a few days ago, which places construction months away. Related products: We serve the flood-management sector with products ranging from portable pumps to temporary dams to flood-control gates. If you need information on any of those products, please feel free to contact us at any time. Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:47:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/17/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/17/ The American Water Works Association has issued an advisory to its members noting that Greenpeace and related environmental-activism groups are staging a press conference tomorrow to push for a prohibition on the use of gas chlorination systems in municipal water systems. Gas chlorination is one of several technologies available for water and wastewater disinfection. Other methods include tablet chlorination and ultraviolet disinfection. Chlorination has been hailed as one of the key milestones in public health of the 20th Century, and the American Chemistry Council highlights the dramatic results towards eliminating typhoid fever that followed the start of water chlorination in the United States. Today's opponents of the use of gas chlorination suggest that the gas canisters themselves pose a threat to public health since they can be ruptured by accidents or used as weapons in terrorist attacks. On balance, though, chlorine-based water disinfection has likely directly or indirectly saved thousands of American lives over the years, and the costs to switching disinfection methods could be burdensome for many water utilities, which are already finding themselves under difficult budgetary conditions just trying to keep their infrastructure updated. Any new regulations that might require changes should undergo a careful cost-benefit analysis first. Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:47:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/16/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/16/ Rate conditioning is a process by which public utilities raise their rates by small, incremental amounts year after year, rather than holding rates at a steady level for years and increasing them only in large amounts. The concept is meant to "condition" rate payers to small increases in their utility bills, just as they are conditioned to expect price increases with the other things they buy as a result of ordinary effects like inflation. The board at Muscatine Power and Water voted in November to approve an operating budget for 2010 that includes some 3% and 4% rate increases. The utility put off a lot of capital expenditures in 2009 and still faced a very difficult budgetary year. Since the utility is a municipally-owned entity, it's not designed to turn a profit -- but even with all of that in mind, customers are complaining anyway with angry letters to the editor about the rate increases. It's simply impossible to make some people understand concepts like "not for profit". Rate conditioning may not solve every utility's customer complaints, and it may be unpalatable in some places (particularly when politics are involved, since it's much easier to run on a platform of "holding the line" on rates than on a platform of "training customers to accept small increases as a reflection of the ever-rising cost of doing business"), but more utilities may find it necessary in the future, since capital improvements cannot be held off forever and a huge amount of infrastructure investment will be required across the United States simply to maintain today's levels of service, much less deliver improved service in the future to deal with emerging challenges to drinking water service, like pharmaceuticals and nanoparticles. Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:06:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/15/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/15/ ATI has issued a very helpful brief on the differences between the results given by portable water-quality monitors for conditions like turbidity and dissolved oxygen, and their fixed-point counterparts. Due to a mental bias in favor of answers that appear precise, people often favor the answers from their portable monitors over the ones from their fixed-point monitors -- because the portable monitors tend to give faster response times and to change quickly while in service. But those quicker response times tend to be due to the thinner membranes used in portable monitors, and they fluctuate more because fixed-point monitors are generally designed to give stabilized, averaged readings over a period of time. Knowing the difference between the two types of readings can give the user a better appreciation for the proper application of each. We can help you with water-quality monitors for a wide range of applications, including dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and pH. We also have portable monitors available for many of the same parameters. Please feel free to contact us with your questions. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:08:04 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/12/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/12/ Upstream ice jams broke and caused flash floods to pass through Des Moines over the last day or two, and though the flash floods have passed, the rivers are going to be on the rise for a while to come as snowmelt from the river basins makes its way from the tributaries into the main rivers. The Polk County emergency manager has alerted local media that they are planning for flooding throughout the weekend and into next week, and the Corps of Engineers has increased the amount of outflow at the Saylorville Dam to reduce the chances that the dam will be overtopped in the next couple of weeks. The spring flood outlook from the National Weather Service offers a lot of sobering news for Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Related products: Just today, we bid on a project using sluice gates to control floodwaters along a levee in Des Moines. Using stainless steel gates in a flood-control application has a number of advantages over conventional materials like cast iron. Since stainless steel gates travel within a UHMW-PE channel, there's no metal-to-metal contact between the gate's slide plate and the channel in which it travels; this does away with the need for gates to be exercised to keep them from freezing in place. Moreover, stainless steel gates gain their strength and durability from design rather than sheer bulk, which means they're easier to install and easier to actuate (that is, to raise and lower) than heavier cast iron gates. This makes them better for operation and installation alike. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:08:03 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/11/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/11/ The former owner of a dairy-products plant in West Point, Nebraska, is being assessed $350,000 in civil penalties by the EPA for violations of the Clean Water Act. The EPA says the violations lasted from the late 1970s through 2006, and caused the city to exceed limits for pollutants discharged to the Elkhorn River. Dairy plants have challenging wastewater requirements, since they often have very high BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) loads, among other factors. Our PTFE-coated aeration diffusers have proven useful in dairy-waste applications due to their ability to resist calcium fouling. Questions? Let us know and we'll be happy to help. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:08:02 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/10/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/10/ UV Pure is now offering a household-scale system for water purification, similar in style and performance to the larger municipal and industrial UV disinfection systems we presently offer from their lineup. The new "Cactus" system is designed for low flows -- 8 or 12 gallons per minute -- and for user-friendly installation. Contact us for more information on these systems. We can help you with [products]. Please feel free to contact us with your questions. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:08:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/09/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/09/ The EPA has a useful online fact sheet about vapor intrusion into homes and other buildings which illustrates how the vapors from chemicals like volatile organic compounds can seep from the groundwater and contaminated soils into habitable buildings. Vapor-intrusion hazards aren't particularly common, though they do occur frequently enough that many large cities have case studies and example sites nearby. In Waterloo, Iowa, for instance, the site of an old coal gasification plant has been identified as a location where vapor-intrusion controls will be required for future construction. Vapor barriers are an effective means of reducing the risk of vapor intrusion and can also be helpful for reducing the incidence of hazards like black mold. We are happy to answer your questions about vapor barriers -- just contact us at your convenience. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:04:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/08/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/08/ The National Weather Service office in Des Moines has issued its third spring flooding outlook, and declares: "The risk of major flooding has increased een higher since the second outlook on February 19th". Flooding is now expected from the middle of March into late April, with high risks for both ordinary river flooding and flash floods. The four river basins about which they are most concerned are the Des Moines, Raccoon, Iowa, and Cedar -- which, unfortunately, include the biggest population centers as well. The latest report from the Davenport NWS office is just as threatening, with very high probabilities for major flooding along the Mississippi River, for the Wapsipinicon River at De Witt, the Cedar River at Conesville and Cedar Rapids, and the Iowa River at Wapello and Columbus Junction. The Omaha office of the NWS, anticipating flooding in its region as well, is pointing residents to a brochure about flooding and levees offered by the American Society of Civil Engineers. In anticipation of flooding conditions this year, we're recommending that communities with floodwalls and associated water-control gates check those gates for ease of operation now (rather than waiting for a flood situation), and check their flood-control pumps to ensure that they're ready to start quickly when the need arises. We also have portable dams available for those communities expecting floodwaters. Portable dams offer an environmentally-friendly and quick-deployment alternative to sandbags. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:25:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/05/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/05/ The Lansing Valley Mobile City, located just west of Lansing, Iowa, is being closed down because its owners do not believe they can afford the $250,000 in improvements to the park's septic system that will be required by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to meet current standards. As stricter guidelines are enforced in the interest of better protection of our water resources, there will undoubtedly be other communities -- including municipalities -- that will be forced to take costly and sometimes drastic action in order to meet higher standards for wastewater discharge quality. Some will need to line existing wastewater lagoons, some will need to install disinfection systems like chlorination systems or ultraviolet disinfection units, and others will simply have to start pumping their wastewater to communities with better treatment systems. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:34:02 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/04/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/04/ UPS has settled a $54,000 civil penalty with the EPA over the alleged generation of hazardous waste at a facility in the southwestern portion of the Kansas City metro. Product spotlight: While we can't control the volume of hazardous waste generated at any facilities other than our own, we do offer a variety of spill-containment options, particularly including geomembranes for controlling spills of all types -- including for hazardous materials. A small investment in a good geomembrane barrier could save a lot of fines and cleanup expenses later. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:34:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/03/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/03/ The Iowa DNR issued notice to members of the Water Quality mailing list a few days ago indicating that the proposed revisions to the state's rules regarding the management of nutrients (like nitrogen and phosphorus) in the state's lakes and public waters were being put on hold. The nutrient study has been underway for years and a notice of intended action had been issued, but the DNR says that public hearings gave it new information that will require extensive revisions to the proposal. Thus the DNR is asking the Environmental Protection Commission to put the brakes on the approval of the rule at their meeting on March 16th. We naturally take great interest in the standards applied to water quality in Iowa, since those conditions are affected by (and affect) much of the work we do, especially in municipal wastewater treatment. We will of course be paying careful attention to the changes made to the lake-nutrient standards. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:25:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/02/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/02/ A seawall that supposedly dates to the Napoleonic era failed and led to at least 50 deaths in a coastal French town as 26' tall waves went into the community. It's the worst storm to hit France in a decade, and it overwhelmed dikes and produced winds of more than 100 mph at the top of the Eiffel Tower. We may be landlocked here in the Upper Midwest, but we do face flooding of our own. Among the tools we have available to manage and mitigate floodwaters along dikes and floodwalls: flap gates, sluice gates, and tide-regulated gates. Contact us any time with any questions you might have. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:31:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/01/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/03/01/ Flooding all over Iowa and the Upper Midwest is basically a sure thing this spring, due to really deep snowpack and the almost inevitable heavy rainfall that marks virtually every spring here. That means it's absolutely, positively essential that homeowners and business operators check their sump pumps without delay to make sure that basement flooding won't be an inevitable byproduct of the spring warmup. If your sump pump isn't working properly, we can help you find a new one. But now is not the time to delay. Find and fix the problem now, before it's too late. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:42:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/26/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/26/ Almost 2,000 properties are being moved into new flood-risk categories in Cedar Rapids in early April, thanks to revisions by FEMA. The city says that the new designations put about half of the homes and businesses into a higher-risk zone, and about half into a lower-risk zone. The city was hit by epic flooding in 2008, and the recovery is still underway. In preparation for the likely spring flooding we'll see this year, homeowners should be testing their sump pumps and cities should be testing their water-control gates for ease of operation. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:06:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/25/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/25/ An investor group called Ceres, which focuses on environmental issues in business, has issued a report saying that of 100 publicly-traded companies where water is a major factor in operations, many had little or nothing to say in their disclosures about the potential effects of water quality and availability on their businesses. As Bloomberg reported the story, the main problem may actually be that no useful standards exist for reporting on water resources in the same way that standards exist for many financial risks. That probably represents a field where improvements ought to be pursued; we have previously noted the trouble posed by water shortages on a global scale, as well as on a local one in places like the Republican River basin, the Platte River valley, parts of the Corn Belt, and some of America's largest cities. One of the ways in which water supplies can be better protected is to enhance the recycling and reuse of wastewater, which involves clarification and filtration products that we can help apply. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:45:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/24/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/24/ Nebraska state senator Mark Christensen, who represents District 44 in the Unicameral, says he wants the state to refund any sales taxes generated within 2.5 miles of any stretch of water in the Republican River basin to be directed to the local natural resource district for use in water management. It's meant to duplicate what Omaha has done to fund the Qwest Center, and though Christensen doesn't think the bill will pass, he argues that water resources in his part of the state are such a high-priority economic issue that they deserve attention equal to what is paid to urban economic-development projects. We work with communities all over Iowa and Nebraska to help make efficient use of their natural water resources, from pumps to extract the water from the ground to fluoride sensors and chlorine monitors to ensure its safety before it's delivered to the public, to the lift stations that carry wastewater away from homes and businesses, ensuring safe sanitation for all. Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:08:01 CST http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/23/ http://gongol.net/newsletter/2010/02/23/ Mama Lacona's, an Urbandale restaurant that has been around the Des Moines area since 1957, is likely to be closing because it can't get the financing it needs to install a grease trap to prevent its wastewater from clogging sewer lines downstream. The new grease trap would cost at least $60,000, according to the Des Moines Register, and financing options have run dry. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation Authority doesn't really have a choice, either, since it's legally required to manage wastewater flows and prevent backups and overflows. The fats, oils, and greases program managed by the WRA applies to all restaurants in the area. Related product: While the WRA's FOG program doesn't allow individual restaurants to use enzymes or other controls to manage their grease discharges, we do offer degreasing chemicals for use in lift stations and septic systems where allowable. And when hard-to-treat pollutants reach municipal wastewater treatment plants, we can help them operate more effectively with our PTFE-coated fine-bubble diffusers, which resist fouling and perform better than ceramic discs or plain EPDM rubber diffusers.