Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?
Innovations in the field of science and technology continue to rapidly evolve thus cheaper and quality life solutions. Let's focus on the Los Angeles Water Reservoir department who in the recent past introduced spectacular solutions of water treatment and Maintenance using shade balls.
Over 96 million shade balls were dumped in LA’s water reservoir breaking the world’s record on such amounts of shade balls on an artificial water body. The scientist involved in the entire innovative process outlined a couple of solutions including ‘curbing excessive evaporation’ that would aid water problems in the entire region of California.
What Triggered the Shade Ball Theory?
A manufacturing company in the city reported excessive amounts of Bromate chemical compounds which significantly reduced the quality of their product. Afterwards they figured out the problem with the water where reports were made as an alarm to the water company. However, there were other reasons why the shade balls were introduced in this artificial water basin.
California at large experiences extreme sun which results in massive evaporation. The idea of introducing the shade ball was largely speculated as an evaporation mitigating solution but there was a lot more than that. The interested layman of the whole project and process had/have less to understand the science used on this plant until a professional explained the whole idea.
Actual Remedies of the Shade Ball
The strategy was a cost unravelling solution to the implementation of United States Environmental Protection Agency surface water treatment rule. The agency promotes consumption water safety by covering treated water where nearly all large water reservoirs have adhered to. From the day of shade ball implementation, a significant level of water has been saved from evaporation risks. 1.7 million cubic meters of water is the actual figure of the saved water.
Chemicals such as chlorine are used as water treatment remedies such as fighting water pathogens and so forth. Well, it can be an issue if there is excessive chlorine in the water while environmental factors such as direct sunlight are not reduced. Bromate is a chemical compound that is caused by direct sunlight reacting with chlorine to form bromine. The shade balls block direct sunlight significantly due to various engineering reasons.
The shade balls are half way filled with water before being dumped in the water. Bring about two layers i.e. a layer filled with water and the rest filled with water. The color of the shade ball is black and when all this engineering genius is combined together; evaporation is guaranteed, less water reaction is achieved due to the insulating material of the balls. Lastly, risk of contamination from birds is significantly dropped compared to other material.
