RECLAIMED WATER REQUIRED ADVISORY

Dave Israel

RECLAIMED WATER FLOW - SCADA READINGS

As you can see from the readout above, we have a 30 day average delivery rate in excess of 1 million gallons. The trailing average for 365 days exceeds 800Kgallon, some 50,000 gallons daily over our contract cap.

Dave Israel
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Drought

This is the Water Co. ex pond at the corner of Sussex. Nice crop of hay but not a drop of water. They are giving us all the reclaimed water they can. How annoying is it to see the forecasts of rain every day for 2 weeks. We need another rain dance Lanny. Rainy season coming soon, Aha Aha!

WATER - HERE WE GO AGAIN

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Hi all,
Much discussion about water, the drought season brings out all sorts of "information" about things that lack one essential element; facts!!!

In case you all have not noticed, we are in the midst of a very significant drought which has persisted for some time. Believe it or not, one of our Associations has actually engaged an Attorney to threaten UCO, for "not providing adequate water in a canal" to allow for proper irrigation.

I have examined all UCO documentation, and nowhere does it say that UCO can make it rain!!!
Now for some facts;  below you will see the latest Reclaimed Water flow for Century Village; as you can see, we have been receiving a 30 day average flow in excess of 900 thousand gallons per day. We are fortunate to receive that, because our contract only allows for 750 thousand gallons per day.

UCO is doing the best we can, but my best advice is to pray for rain.

Dave Israel

ABOUT THE WATER TANK.....

Thanks to explanations by Dave Israel and Dom Guarnagia, I’ve become a lot clearer about how our lakes and canals and irrigation systems work. We get RECLAIMED (partially purified, not potable) water from that water tower at a bargain rate to augment what is in our lakes. We get it at a bargain rate for us because it costs the Palm Beach Water Utilities Department (PBCWUD) more to produce the water than what they sell it to us for. Our contract with them allows them to sell it to us up to a certain amount, but they don’t have to sell us any. And yet I read recently that they have been selling us BEYOND what the contract calls for. This is very nice, but why are they so generous, I wondered.

I may have gotten my answer this morning in talking with a man who works for the PBCWU at breakfast. He said, first of all, that the law requires them to fill the water tank. It is a part of the reserves of water the PBCWUD has. IT CANNOT JUST SIT THERE, HOWEVER. It must be discharged either to a facility that can use it (such as Century Village) or discharged back into the aquifer underground. It costs the PBCWUD more to discharge it back into the aquifer than it does to sell it to us.

The man told me more than this, and it was fascinating. Some it I remember and some of it I don’t. I think I’ve got the above right, but Dave or Dom (or anyone else knowledgeable about this) can correct me if I’m wrong. The man made the same point that Dave and Dom have made repeatedly and which doesn’t seem to be understood in the Village by some: WATER DISCHARGED INTO OUR LAKES WILL ONLY AFFECT THE WATER LEVEL SLIGHTLY, AND A GOOD DEAL OF IT WILL BE LOST TO US BECAUSE WATER IN THE LAKES PERCOLATES DOWNWARD INTO THE AQUIFER, WHERE IT GETS SHARED WITH NEARBY DEVELOPMENTS THAT MAY NOT BE PAYING ANYTHING FOR SUCH EXTRA WATER.

The PBCWUD (and other water companies) are required by law to save reclaimed water, my friend said. They save it in tanks, but sometimes also save it by “injecting” it into the SALT WATER AQUIFER, which is located much nearer the land surface than is the pure water aquifer. Somehow this reclaimed water, when injected into the salt water aquifer, stays pretty much (though not 100%) intact, so it can be pumped back out when needed and be in pretty good shape.

It’s pretty amazing what’s going all around and under us, isn’t it?

SCADA Data on CV Reclaimed Water flow

Thanks to Hassan Hadjimiri ( •Director of regulatory Compliance at Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department) , we have the SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) readout on Reclaimed Water flow into the Century Village lakes, canals and lagoons.

Hassan has directed the local processing plant to provide Century Village 22 million gallons of Reclaimed Water per month, until furthur notice.

This equates to approximately 723,287.6 gallons per day. The cost of this commodity is approximately $28.83 per day.

Dave Israel

RECLAIMED WATER - GET THE FACTS - STOP COMPLAINING!

Despite all of the complaining and the flat refusal of some folks to research and learn the science behind water level reduction in our lakes and canals; we are in fact, in the current time frame,  receiving Reclaimed Water at a flow rate well in excess of contractual limits of 750Kgallons per day.

The chart above shows that over the last week, we are receiving 2,458,000 Gallons per day! Over the last 30 days, our average volume is 1,540,000  Gallons per day; twice our contractual limit.

Do you notice the slight increase in water level? This means, for the moment, the inflow is just ahead of Percolation loss and Evaporative Transpiration losses combined.

Instead of complaining, look at the guage, do some arithmetic, only at these accelerated rates can we keep just ahead of natural losses, don't expect the County to keep this going for any extended time, and please take the time to learn the facts before  bombarding the County Office with nonesense calls; which have no effect whatsoever!

Dave Israel

WATER AGAIN

Hi all,
Yes, it is the dry season again and the lakes are dropping. This subject has been hashed and re-hashed in the old BLOG, please see the following URL:

http://davesblogandchat.blogspot.com/search?q=reclaimed

The bottom line is simple, The Reclaimed Water contract allow "up to 750k-gallons" per day; that could be zero up to the maximum or anywhere in between.
The idea that this amount of water could maintain our lake levels is, and always was,  a pure fiction. It takes 1.7 million gallons to raise our lakes 1 (ONE) inch.

Furthermore, the levels drop in response to drops in the water table; the only answer to water table maintenance is Rain, which we are not getting.

The process of pumping Reclaimed Water into the lakes was not properly researched from day one! The Reclaimed water should be used exclusively for irrigation. This means it should have been pumped into a closed loop for irrigation only; thus exempting us from any water restrictions. To reconstruct the system now would be incredibly expensive.

This is a classical example of the saying:

"Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas"

Dave Israel
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