The Irish Aquifer
Jerry Jacuzio
So this directed to Terry or perhaps other lurkers with the expertise..
Two questions:
1)How healthy if the aquifer(s) in Ireland.
I had a friend who was a water conservationist and did his graduate work
on the state of the aquifer in upper NT state.. it near-depressed him
out of the discipline.. He went on after college to designing wetlands
to accomediate the run-off caused by large developments...and that saved
him.
AND:
2) what percentage of the population gets their water from surface or
artesian wells.... vs reservoir?
Thanks,
Jer 'i'm not the like the rest of these maniacs - i'm actually a total
different sub-species of maniac' Jacuzio
tom mcvey
In article <33AA6C...@mindspring.com>, Jerry Jacuzio
<jac...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> So this directed to Terry or perhaps other lurkers with the expertise..
> Two questions:
> 1)How healthy if the aquifer(s) in Ireland.
What d'ye mean by "healthy". Are we talking about productivity here, or
pollution in terms of nitrate or organic chemicals, other water quality
parameters (color, hardness, alkalinity), or consumption of fossil water
(i.e., draining the aquifer faster than it is replenishing).
>
> I had a friend who was a water conservationist and did his graduate work
> on the state of the aquifer in upper NT state.. it near-depressed him
> out of the discipline.. He went on after college to designing wetlands
> to accomediate the run-off caused by large developments...and that saved
> him.
Hah. Come to California. Round Silicon Valley trichloroethylene is
considered a *background* chemical, the aquifers are that bad. Actually
heard some of the semiconductor firms decision to build plants outside of
Silicon Valley was affected by water quality (they use ultrapure water for
cleaning, it's purity affects the quality of chips they produce, so the
purer the feed water, the better).
BTW, the wetlands regulations in the US really suck. In the UK, there is
(or was, before I left), a lot of interest in using constructed wetlands to
treat wastewater. Nice, simple systems. The US regulations pretty much
discourage companies from doing this, as there's insufficent distinction
between artificial and natural wetlands.
> AND:
>
> 2) what percentage of the population gets their water from surface or
> artesian wells.... vs reservoir?
> Thanks,
Umm...the figure that comes to mind for the UK (no source except a dim
memory), is that 70% of the water supply comes from surface water (it's wet
there). I think the comparable figure in the US is 45-50%, obviously
depending upon geographical location and history (such as having been smart
enough to steal someone else's water, like LA did).
Obviously surface water quality is a bigger deal in the UK than groundwater
quality. AFAIK, there's no retroactive liability legislation (like
Superfund) in the UK to force responsible parties for groundwater pollution
to remediate it. There was a case that went to the Law Lords about four
years back between Cambridge Water Company and a tannery, trying to force
the tannery to pay for pollution to groundwater they caused. The Lords
ruled in favour of the tannery. (I took an interest, as I did my master's
thesis on the system to treat the pollution). Other factors where the
relative weakness of environmental agencies in the UK relative to those in
other countries (e.g. the US, Germany and the Netherlands).
Other issues current in UK water supply (before I left): atrazine (a
pesticide) in groundwater, nitrate (from fertilizers) in surface water (and
in ground water, to a lesser extent).
BTW, at an IWEM meeting (Institute of Water and Environmental Management) I
attended, someone from Thames Water showed that the water in some rivers in
the UK can be recycled through the water/sewage system six times before
reaching the sea.
No source for UK figures, but a good book on water resource policy in
Western US is "Cadillac Desert" (I forget the author).
> Jer 'i'm not the like the rest of these maniacs - i'm actually a total
> different sub-species of maniac' Jacuzio
--
Tom McVey
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