Where water
Where does it come from?
So where does Davis water come from, and what’s inside the water?
Where Davis get’s its water: The City of Davis as well as UC Davis gets its source of water at depths 210 to 1,800 feet below ground surface, or in other words, from groundwater. Groundwater is located where water is beneath the surface of the ground and deposits are within the pores and spaces of soils. Naturally, this water will flow through and discharge in lakes, rivers, wetlands etc., but many times we build aquifers to collect the water and then build wells to pump water from these aquifers. Groundwater is naturally and geologically filtered out by sands and clays the water passes through.
In 2008, the city of Davis pumped from 20 municipal wells and private wells. The City has a total of 22 wells and the aquifer the university uses is a bit deeper with fewer contaminates.
How the water is treated: The City of Davis treats the water at a “designated chlorine tank that injects a 12.5 percent solution of liquid sodium hypochlorite at the well site. The City targets a 0.3 parts per million dosage prior to distribution.” (http://cityofdavis.org/pw/water/pdfs/2008_waterqualityreport.pdf)
What’s inside the water: The Davis water meets the California Code of Violations. The contaminations found are in ppb (parts per billion). According to the City of Davis, the two primary substances in the water are aluminum and nitrates and according to the primary standards specified by the state of California, the substances found were aluminum and nitrates (as stated above), Antimony, Arsenic, Barium, Chromium, Dibromochloropropane (ppt, parts per trillion), Fluoride (ppm, parts per million), Gross Alpha Particle Activity, Radium 226, Radium 228, Selenium, Total Coliform BacteriaTrichloroethylene, Uranium, Copper, Lead. Most of these contaminants are from erosion and runoff. Water drawn from intermediate wells is generally very hard with high amounts of Calcium and solids.
Please note that the majority of these contaminates are in parts per billion, are common to most cities in California, and are safe according to the California Code of Violations. However, who doesn’t want cleaner water? This requires better water management, but more importantly it requires us to do our part by polluting less and it requires our willingness to put forth the technology and research to better manage the water.
Why should I care? It’s important for us to know what’s in our water, the fact that the country’s public supply of water is 37% groundwater which also provides water for agriculture and is important because we use this water to drink and for our daily practical needs.
Information provided by:
http://cityofdavis.org/pw/water/WaterQuality.cfm
http://daviswiki.org/Tap_Water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwater
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090505061838.htm
http://cityofdavis.org/pw/water/watersupply/?topic=4
This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 12:23 am and is filed under Water. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.