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I recently read about a project in the Hudson Valley, where United Water would use desalination to draw water from the Hudson river. Most of the negatives / co

I recently read about a project in the Hudson Valley, where United Water would use desalination to draw water from the Hudson river. Most of the negatives / cons I have heard before (impact on wildlife, where to discharge brine, energy, etc) ... but one thing stood out: "Haverstraw Bay is polluted with contaminated sediments, sewage and urban runoff, and the plant’s intakes would be approximately 3.5-miles from Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear power plant, which releases radionuclides to the Hudson." I guess many people are concerned that (1) the technology to remove these pollutants either does not exist, or is very expensive and (2) being a privatized water company, it may put profits over water quality. My question then, is what kinds of things are in sea water that should ideally be removed beside salt? What is more contaminated source.. sea water, or water from land based sources?

maratd 11y ago
Just as aside, I've dealt with quite a few utilities and United Water is by far the best among them. They are an excellent company.
vilhelm_s 11y ago
I was curious how much radionuclides are in the water. Apparently, "nuclear plants typically release between a few curies and one thousand curies per year of tritium in liquid effluents; releases of mixed fission and activation products are much smaller (in the range from 0.001 to 0.01 curies per year)."[1] For comparison, it seems a glowing tritium keyring contains 0.4 curies.[2] One thousand curies would be 0.104 grams of tritium. Also, there is an online database for this! [3] E.g., if I read it correctly, in 2008, Indian Point 1,2 released 0.09 Ci of liquid effluvents. (No tritium in the table?) [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201991/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201991/ [2] http://depletedcranium.com/my-attempt-to-import-tritium-key-chains/ http://depletedcranium.com/my-attempt-to-import-tritium-key-... [3] http://www.reirs.com/effluent/EDB_Main.asp?l=n http://www.reirs.com/effluent/EDB_Main.asp?l=n
PhantomGremlin 11y ago
That's just crazy. Rewind 130 years and you find a handful of reservoirs, some tunnels and viaducts, and gravity. That's all you need to provide some of the country's finest drinking water to 8 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_city_water_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_city_water_supply People were smarter then, because the technology didn't exist for them to be so stupid.

maratd 11y ago

Just as aside, I've dealt with quite a few utilities and United Water is by far the best among them. They are an excellent company.

vilhelm_s 11y ago

I was curious how much radionuclides are in the water. Apparently, "nuclear plants typically release between a few curies and one thousand curies per year of tritium in liquid effluents; releases of mixed fission and activation products are much smaller (in the range from 0.001 to 0.01 curies per year)."[1] For comparison, it seems a glowing tritium keyring contains 0.4 curies.[2] One thousand curies would be 0.104 grams of tritium. Also, there is an online database for this! [3] E.g., if I read it correctly, in 2008, Indian Point 1,2 released 0.09 Ci of liquid effluvents. (No tritium in the table?) [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201991/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201991/ [2] http://depletedcranium.com/my-attempt-to-import-tritium-key-chains/ http://depletedcranium.com/my-attempt-to-import-tritium-key-... [3] http://www.reirs.com/effluent/EDB_Main.asp?l=n http://www.reirs.com/effluent/EDB_Main.asp?l=n

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

That's just crazy. Rewind 130 years and you find a handful of reservoirs, some tunnels and viaducts, and gravity. That's all you need to provide some of the country's finest drinking water to 8 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_city_water_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_city_water_supply People were smarter then, because the technology didn't exist for them to be so stupid.