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'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town
- JohnStrange 10y agoIt's because of the electrolytes. It has electrolytes in it, which is good.
- zzazzdsa 10y agoA lot of the posts here seem to be missing something important: permanganate is an EXTREMELY vividly colored ion in solution. The bright colors of the water in the pictures is about in line with what a 20 ppm permanganate solution looks like. Considering manganese is an essential trace mineral (although it is neurotoxic above a certain point, the amounts in the water are minimal), I doubt there is any real toxic effect caused by drinking the water. Permanganate is a very strong oxidizer, but it is not much stronger than the commonly used chlorine and chlorine dioxide to be of concern (and it's weaker than ozone anyways). The whole reason permanganate is added in the first place is twofold: it oxidizes simple organics all the way to carbon dioxide (think nail polish remover, denatured alcohol), and it oxidizes soluble ferrous iron to insoluble ferric iron. The byproduct of the oxidation, manganese dioxide, is insoluble and if balanced correctly the treatment does not increase manganese levels in the water.
- oxide 10y ago>The whole reason permanganate is added in the first place is twofold: it oxidizes simple organics all the way to carbon dioxide (think nail polish remover, denatured alcohol), and it oxidizes soluble ferrous iron to insoluble ferric iron. The byproduct of the oxidation, manganese dioxide, is insoluble and if balanced correctly the treatment does not increase manganese levels in the water. Whenever I learn something like this, I always appreciate chemistry a little more. That is absolutely fascinating IMO. The first thing that comes to mind is what the person who came up with the idea was doing at the time. Sometimes when we are intending to do one thing, we invent a solution to another problem, maybe one we didn't even know we had, along the way.
- sametmax 10y agoThere is probably not "any real toxic effect" with a small dose taken over a few months in an isolated study. But what about a small dose taken over years, and interacting with the thousands of small doses of synthetic chemicals we have in our body because of processed food, hygiene products, clothes, surface treatments and medicine ? This we have no way to know. There are already so many reasons to get in contact with synthetic chemicals. I think it's sane policy to limit them a much as we can when we can, especially in something as ubiquitous as water. Yes having drinkable water is essential, but some cities manage to have it with much less additives. It should be the default goal for anything related to public health.
- empath75 10y agoThey didn't add it to the water on purpose.
- sametmax 10y agoI get that but I find strange that in 2017 in modern countries water quality should still be a debate. It should be in the "problem solved" category.
- greenshackle2 10y agoIt is a solved problem. A benign mistake happened at one sanitation plant. The city is working to resolve it. How does that make water quality a 'debate'?
- literallycancer 10y ago>There are already so many reasons to get in contact with synthetic chemicals. Such a pointless distinction. There are many chemicals that occur naturally and will kill you.
- sametmax 10y agoAnything can kill you. You can kill somebody with a piece of wood, a nuclear device, gaz, light, shock waves, a baby, a golden coin... And any matter is a chemical. Using "synthetic" as a qualifier allow me to distinguish "fructose" from "paracetamol". You will less likely see important traces of cobra venom in the water. It's not perfect, but I fail to find a better term.
- jghn 10y agoOh thanks. When I was a kid I was visiting my aunt who lived outside of Denver. I was walking around their property and on the other side of a fence was a stream which was exactly this color. I've always wondered what the deal was
- coldcode 10y agoWe used permanganate when I was in grad school to clean glassware of organic residue. Concentrated it is extremely good at it. At such minimal concentration its not an issue.
- ekianjo 10y agoIt's also widely used (in chemistry labs) as a titration indicator. Because of its vivid color, you can very easily determine when you cross the boundaries of a specific reaction.
- jordanb 10y agoFor reference: http://www.caruscorporation.com/resources/content/7/5/images/remediation6.png http://www.caruscorporation.com/resources/content/7/5/images...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Bockit 10y agoWe used to gargle water mixed with potassium permanganate as children after cleaning our teeth to see if we did a good enough job. It would colour plaque pink, so it was very obvious if you hadn't cleaned properly!
- huhtenberg 10y agoA shot of its stronger solution was also routinely used as an anti-diarrhea remedy back when I was a kid. Tasted awful.
- jguimont 10y agoAm I the only one thinking about the slime river under NYC in Ghostbuster 2 ? Same colour, but not the same texture
- xexers 10y agoWhy is this on Hacker News? it seems irrelevant.
- cypherpunks01 10y ago"She said the water is clear coming out of her cold water taps, but not the hot water taps." Do people really not know where their hot water comes from?
- evandev 10y agoThey said "adding property owners may need to run their water for a few minutes to clear their service lines." I would think that their hot water tank got some of the pink water into it and unlike the cold line the pink will slowly dissipate.
- squozzer 10y agoAt least it's not phenolphthalein -- https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/phenolphthalein https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/phenolphthalein
- m3kw9 10y agoSomeone trying to give them the Koolaid
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- senectus1 10y agoYikes! Apparently its been used (Vaginally) to cause abortions... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate#Other_uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate#Other_u...
- Coincoin 10y agoFrom your link: "These incidents only result in damage to the vagina from the corrosive action of the chemical, since potassium permanganate was proven to be ineffective in producing abortions."
- quakeguy 10y agoYikes, what the hell?!?
- sdenton4 10y agoBasically a textbook reason for having abortion services available for all...
- quietmonkey 10y agoOr just... education?
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoWhy not both?
- darpa_escapee 10y agoDesperate people are going to do desperate things, things that they know are bad or won't work. Especially if the only option that does work is taken away.
- Fomite 10y ago"Don't try to flush out your vagina with potassium permanganate" is...very specific education. And horrific folk remedies like this show up all the time where abortion isn't legalized - "educating" would be a game of whack-a-mole.
- askvictor 10y agoAlmost completely unrelated, except for the pink water bit: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lake-in-melbournes-westgate-park-turns-bright-pink-20170308-gutp26.html http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lake-in-melbournes-westgat...
- beedogs 10y agoHappens literally every year, and someone writes some clickbaity news article about it every year.
- refurb 10y agoNot the end of the world. You can buy potassium permanganate tablets to purify drinking water.
- kafkaesq 10y agoYeah, right. Try living off water like that for a few months (or years). And then report back to us.
- stagbeetle 10y agoAre you saying this from a point of experience or a point of caution? PP-treated water is safer than chlorine-treated water.
- wwer 10y agoAlready been done. Along with alum, tons of it used in India for decades to purify water. Various case studies that list benefits of it.
- AstralStorm 10y agoToo high doses of manganese are clearly linked to Parkinsonism. (If you want, I can list the sources.) That however pertains to acute intake, not chronic. To get manganese ions, you'd have to acidify the water somehow too.
- mulmen 10y agoAre you saying the water will remain like this for a period of months or years?
- gpm 10y agoWhat's the concentration of that vs the concentration here. Note that we also use chlorine to treat drinking water (e.g. on canoe trips), but you don't want to be drinking that unless it's very low concentration. A quick google search suggests that they are used to "improve water clarity" [0], so at a guess you don't use enough of it to turn the water pink. There's also the fact that they think it's concentrated enough that you should avoid bathing in it if you have sensitive skin. That certainly doesn't inspire confidence that you should drink it (exposing some very important skin, that's usually more sensitive). [0] http://www.livestrong.com/article/71333-use-potassium-permanganate-water-treatment/ http://www.livestrong.com/article/71333-use-potassium-perman...
- mee_too 10y agoCool :)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mirimir 10y agoNot a big deal. But it does underline the need to trust public water systems. Worse mistakes have been made.
- toodlebunions 10y agoLooks healthy.
- mudil 10y agoI love potassium permanganate. Growing up in Soviet Union, we used to add potassium permanganate to bath, supposedly to clean your skin. But I love it for its oxidizing properties. Mix potassium permanganate with magnesium shavings, and you have a pretty powerful explosive mixture. Put a drop or two of glycerine into potassium permanganate and glycerine spontaneously burns. There are tons of interesting experiments you could do with potassium permanganate... So many wonderful memories...
- zzazzdsa 10y agoWhen mixed with sulfuric acid, it forms manganese heptoxide, which does lovely things like ignite paper on contact and detonate if heated above 50 C!
- xtreme 10y agoOr make chlorine by mixing it with hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. Or mix it with glycerine to get a fire from "water" (it used to be a common trick performed by godmen). Pottasium permanganate is wonderful.
- algesten 10y agoOr mix with aluminium powder (from arts/crafts-store) and get fun flash explosive mixture.
- booleandilemma 10y agoIf they did it for International Women's Day they were a little early.
- sunnyhacker 10y agoI have always wanted to buy a countertop water distiller for home use. Guess I found another reason to justify the purchase =)
- asafira 10y agoPiggybacking on this a bit: does anyone have a good recommendation for learning more about home water distillers and RO systems? Both for just certain faucets and maybe even the whole household? I know filtering all the water at home is likely overkill (in most places!), but I'm curious.
- wanderr 10y agoUnder sink RO is not a big deal, you can buy a system for relatively cheap at Sams or probably Costco, and there's not much that you have to know, just change the prefilters when you are supposed to. Depending on the bladder and how much usage the RO system gets, it can take a while to fill a glass, 15-20s maybe? Filling a pot of water is infuriatingly slow. RO systems waste water as that is how they work, expect your water usage to go up (how much depends on a lot of factors, for us it did not impact our water bill). Whole house RO systems are probably a non-starter, keeping the water pressure up high enough seems like it would be very expensive.
- random3 10y ago> “Could the town have done a better job of communicating what was going on yesterday to our community? Absolutely, without a doubt,” This must be from Zootopia =))
- emsy 10y agoI don't care if I get downvoted for this: Who you gonna call?
- yAnonymous 10y ago+++ I don't care if I get downvoted for this +++ Would have upvoted if not for the disclaimer. PS: I DON'T CARE IF I GET DOWNVOTED FOR THIS.
- quakeguy 10y agoIt will regulate itself, as always. Right? Right?!?
- NumberCruncher 10y agoHave you seen the other articles on this site? It should be called dailymisery.com. Who reads trash like this?