To the list, I was pondering some facets of well water contaminants. For the purposes of this discussion, I want to limit the factors that make up the scenario. First, lets presume that there is nothing malicious inherent in the problem, nor are there human factors that can be mitigated. Second, we will presume that the treatment options have been vetted and are selected for their optimum potential. Third, Chip, you're responses are limited to under 10,000 words ;)
The scenario is this: There are naturally occurring chemicals in some well water that can be harmful to humans. Lets say we are using one of these wells and we know, as stated above, that the contaminants are simply a cause of the water coming into contact with high concentrations of lead or zinc, etc. We have a few possible alternatives to treat the water like a solar still or through the use of home made charcoal. In all cases, we will be left with the pollutants in a more concentrated form. In an ideal situation, we would be able to use these byproducts in a useful way, and that would, of course, depend on what we have left over. What do we do with this stuff in a non-ideal situation? Lets presume, for the sake of this discussion, that our water supply is located in a hard rock region and we have small amounts of arsenic but enough to warrant concern. If we filter with carbon, we have arsenic in the carbon, if we distill we're left with arsenic in the bottom of the still. I'm sure the list can come up with grander and better ways to clean the water, but if we're still left with the arsenic then we need not discuss the processing (remember, it's presumed to be optimal). So, what do we do with this arsenic aside from simply not using the water (which may be the only choice)? This quandary was prompted by some pollution cleanup efforts for old mines. They plant reeds that consume the mercury from water discharge but then... what happens to the reeds? Remember though, we are not discussing mine waste, this is a naturally source of arsenic. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
