A view of the floods so far
March 19, 2010

Here are a couple of views of the flooding in downtown Des Moines today: The river is very high, but no serious damage appears to have occurred (at least not yet).







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.


Saylorville Dam might not be overtopped
March 18, 2010

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.


Environmental activist groups plan press conference to attack gas chlorination
March 17, 2010

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.


A local case for rate conditioning
March 16, 2010

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.


Why portable water-quality monitors and fixed-point monitors sometimes read differently
March 15, 2010

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.


First floods of the season reach Des Moines
March 12, 2010

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.


Former plant owner to pay $350,000 in Clean Water Act penalties
March 11, 2010

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.


New UV system delivers household-scale water disinfection
March 10, 2010

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.

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"What you should know about vapor intrusion"
March 9, 2010

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.


Bad news: Iowa's flood risks are even larger than before
March 8, 2010

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.


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