96 million plastic balls dumped into LA reservoir.

[ZenOps]

Wait, whut? Its a good thing?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...r-environment/

[TYMSMNY]

pretty sweet. so do they scoop out all the balls afterwards?

"probably won’t release any toxic materials into the water supply"

Probably.... probably.

[mazdavirgin]

Cool idea but I would be quite concerned about having plastic floating in drinking water. In all likelihood though the amount of water in the reservoir will dilute any leaching down to immeasurable levels so it's likely safe?

[revelations]

Long term? Definitely not safe, but then again its supposed to reduce the amount of treatment required .... so the chemists here might be better able to answer the NET toxicity.

[roll_over]

Still only half of the black balls that have been inside of lisa lampanelli

[Sugarphreak]

...

[roll_over]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Can I ask the obvious question here.... why are the balls not white?

(White being the most heat reflective colour)

Had the same question... But figured id cut the tension with a joke

[Gart]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Can I ask the obvious question here.... why are the balls not white?

(White being the most heat reflective colour)

was curious too. This is what google told me:

"...So why are those shade balls in the Los Angeles reservoirs black instead of white? Because their purpose is to be a cheap, durable, safe way of providing shade, but not to keep the reservoirs cool...."
some more info via the link:

http://space.io9.com/why-are-drought...ite-1724040253

[Brent.ff]

Black also absorbs light, so will limit Algae growth vs reflecting

[Sugarphreak]

...

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


Thanks for posting that

I think they would be better off putting the cash towards a desalination plant instead.

This.

The future world's economy is going to be in desalinization plants and water pipelines.

With climate change, the amount of fresh water supplies are dwindling as snowpacks and glaciers are getting smaller and smaller.

These plastic balls are a short sighted goal as they don't address the supply issue, rather trying to slow down the loss of what they already have.

[JRSC00LUDE]

How can you say that immediate conservation efforts don't help address the immediate issue? They should just let waste run wild till a mythical plant is built in twenty years to help this year's problem?

[spikerS]

Originally posted by JRSC00LUDE
How can you say that immediate conservation efforts don't help address the immediate issue? They should just let waste run wild till a mythical plant is built in twenty years to help this year's problem?

No, but think about it. By stopping the evaporation, they are probably causing more harm than good. Evaporation of water causes rainfall somewhere else. In doing this in times of drought, it could make it worse...

So, IMO, I think this was a short sighted move.

[Rocket1k78]

Originally posted by TYMSMNY


"probably won’t release any toxic materials into the water supply"

Probably.... probably.

This was my first thought too. Hot plastic in the cali sun can not be good

[atgilchrist]

Originally posted by spikerS


No, but think about it. By stopping the evaporation, they are probably causing more harm than good. Evaporation of water causes rainfall somewhere else. In doing this in times of drought, it could make it worse...

So, IMO, I think this was a short sighted move.

Slowing evaporation from the reservoir would have an immeasurably tiny amount of lessened condensation.