the intersection of emergency preparedness, public health and environmental policy
Their focus, of course, is different from ours, but Toolmonger is an incredible site - often showing emergency response/reconstruction tools we’d never hear of otherwise. Here’s one the Rol-La-Tank: (or Fol-Da-Tank, which might be the company name, or the name of the product line). They’ve got both URL’s Foldatank.com and Fol-Da-Tank - this should give interested readers enough to find them.
Thanks to Benjamen Johnson of Toolmonger.
MetaEfficient reports that starting in 2010, Hawaii will require solar hot water heaters in new residential construction
Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.
The new law prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Some exceptions will be allowed, such as forested areas where there are low amounts of sunshine.
State Sen. Gary Hooser, vice chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee, first introduced the measure five years ago when he said a barrel of oil cost just $40. Since then, the cost of oil has more than tripled.
“It’s abundantly clear that we need to take some serious action to protect Hawaii because we’re so dependent on oil,” Hooser said. “I’m very pleased the governor is recognizing the importance of this bill and the huge public benefits that come out of it.”
Other Resources
Makezine - several recipes for DIY solar hot water heaters
From the Sietch - a solar water heater also suitable for distillation, purification, and possible boiling/cooking. Thanks to Sustainable Design Update for the link
On Wired.com, Dave Bullock has an article and image gallery in New Purification Plant Answers California’s Water Crisis, which uses microfiltration and other technologies to treat sewage and pump it back into aquifers. Here are a few of Bullock’s excellent photographs:
Liz Borkowski at The Pump Handle has an interesting discussion of sewage systems - she points out that
While most of sewage systems do a great job of making the water look clean and getting rid of bacteria and viruses, they often aren’t designed to remove synthetic chemicals. With so many of us dependent on daily doses of pharmaceuticals, we’re excreting lots of drugs (or their metabolites), and they’re sticking around in treated wastewater. Researchers are now starting to discover what that means for the environment.
And then, typically for The Pump Handle, follows up with well-sourced, calm discussion which will leave you better informed.
There may be long-term planning implications with respect to how we design sewage and filtration systems. We’re also reminded of the toxic soup post-Katrina - composed not only of sewage - but of every opened bottle of household cleanser, paint, insecticide, etc. which was on a floor low enough to have the water pass through. (I’ll try to update later with links to the post-Katrina water issues).
In mid-2003, the World Health organization reported on cholera in Iraq:
rom 28 April to 4 June 2003, a total of 73 laboratory-confirmed cholera cases have been reported in Iraq : 68 in Basra governorate, 4 in Missan governorate, 1 in Muthana governorate. No deaths have been reported.
From 17 May to 4 June 2003, the daily surveillance system of diarrhoeal disease cases in the four main hospitals of Basra reported a total of 1549 cases of acute watery diarrhea. Among these cases, 25.6 % occurred in patients aged 5 years and above.
By Ian Austen in the Times on November 9th, “Study Find Carcinogens in Water Near Alberta Oil Sands Project,” more evidence of one of the myriad costs and risks that come with the use of fossil fuels:
OTTAWA, Nov. 7 — High levels of carcinogens and toxic substances have been found in fish, water and sediment downstream from Alberta’s huge oil sands projects, according to a new study.
The 75-page report, written by Kevin P. Timoney, an ecologist with Treeline Environmental Research, was commissioned by the local health authority of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, where many residents say they believe the oil sands developments to the south are damaging their health.
Oil sands developments are generally vast open-pit mines that recover a form of tar mixed with sand. That tar, which is formally known as bitumen, is later separated and processed to produce oil. Most of the oil from the Alberta developments is sent to the United States.
Earlier studies by the province of Alberta had dismissed health concerns. And Dr. Timoney’s report, while highly critical of the government, does not make a specific link between the toxic substances and the oil sands. But many Fort Chipewyan residents did on Thursday.
“For years the community has believed that there’s lots of cancer,” said Donna Cyprien, health director of the Nunee Health Authority. “When they drank from the water, there was an oily scum around the cup. We now know there is something wrong.”
Mrs. Cyprien said that the local health board hired Dr. Timoney largely because it had lost faith in Alberta’s provincial health department.
Like Dr. Timoney, scientists who have reviewed his report say further studies are necessary to determine the cause and extent of the problem. But they also expressed concern about what his research had already found. “This could actually be worse, in some respects, than the Exxon Valdez,” said Jeffrey W. Short, a research scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center who has studied the tanker accident that spilled 11 million gallons of oil off the Alaska coast in 1989.
Most disturbing, said Dr. Short, was the finding that from 2001 to 2005, concentrations in sediments of a group of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons rose.
“These are substantial increases over and above the natural levels,” said Dr. Short, adding that the hydrocarbons “are notorious carcinogens,” found in tar and tarlike materials. In some cases, they were more than four times recommended limits in the United States. (Canada has no guidelines.)
Dr. Timoney concluded that the town’s treated drinking water was safe, but found high levels of arsenic, mercury and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in fish, which many people in Fort Chipewyan, especially members of its Native community, rely on for a substantial portion of their diet.
In an e-mail message, Howard May, a spokesman for Alberta’s Department of Health and Wellness, said that the government could not specifically comment on the report because it had not received a copy.
“There is nothing really new in these allegations, we have been looking into them for some two years now,” Mr. May wrote, adding that the government investigation has found “no higher incidence of cancer in Fort Chipewyan than the rest of the province, and we stand by that analysis unless and until we are provided with further evidence.”
Oil, then -unless it’s being used at the well head - after extraction, it needs to be moved somewhere for refining - a process which carries its own risks - stored - and then transported down the supply chain towards end users. And in each stage of this process, there are risks: in production (the article above provides an illustration). And in each mode of transportation, risks - of trucks overturning, pipelines accidentally or intentionally being ruptured, boats spilling their loads.
We don’t mean to make an argument against any and all use of petroleum - but that one of the many benefits of reduced consumption (reduced greenhouse gases, reduced cost, reduced air pollution), is a reduction in risks and costs connected to production.
From Frank Shorter’s October 12th Op-Ed, “Running Into Trouble,” in the Times:
AT the 16-mile mark of a very hot and humid marathon at the Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia, in 1971, I looked over at my good friend and teammate Kenny Moore and noticed something. “You’ve stopped sweating,” I said, trying to sound calm. Kenny looked at his dry forearms, and then his eyes got very big. Ten minutes later he was in an ambulance, incoherent with heat stroke.
• Make salt packets available at the start of races that are dangerously hot. In this context, salt is a good thing.
• Strip down. At the expo before the Chicago race, I advised men to go shirtless and women to wear as little as possible in order to maximize the refrigeration effect of wind against sweaty skin. (Unfortunately, this time there would be no wind.) The elite runners have learned this. In Chicago, I would have gone shirtless, and explained to my sponsors later.
• Have showers and misters at every aid station. In Chicago, drinking water ran out after runners poured hundreds of thousands of cups over their heads.
• Change the standard ambulance procedures so that only those truly in danger are transported. Doctors will tell you that dehydration can often be initially handled on the scene, but many ambulance protocols call for sufferers to be transported automatically to the hospital.
Dr. Kimberly Bates and her students (or her students in the class of 1998, it’s not clear how often it’s been updated), have a helpful set of parasitology images, including this one [singlepic=53,320,240,,] of Naegleria Fowleri (see previous post).
According to Chris Kahn, of the Associated Press, (Yahoo! News article here):
A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”
According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.
Effect Measure reports and comments on cholera in Iraq. One of the main weapons against cholera is chlorine; chlorine is also usable as, and has in Iraq been used as, a weapon.
Cholera is expected to make its way to the capital by late September or early October. There is a shortage of chlorine because insurgents have used it as a weapon. Chlorine is extremely toxic and was used in World War I. as a poison gas. Since even rudimentary protection of water supplies doesn’t seem possible, the solution was to curtail chlorine imports. Instead we have cholera.
Cholera is primarily a waterborne disease that kills by sudden dehydration of its victims from a profuse, watery diarrhea. It can be prevented by simple disinfection of the water supply with chlorine and treated with oral rehydration. That neither of these can be readily accomplished in US occupied Iraq, where the occupiers expend $300 million a day to kill people, speaks volumes.
