As I sit here drinking my eleventh cup of tea of the day, I just heard some health expert on the TV talking about the importance of drinking water and exercise. In fact, they actually said, and I quote, “We should really drink around eight to ten glasses of water per day to replace the fluids we lose daily through perspiration, excretion, and other bodily functions”. They then went onto say that teas, coffees, and sugary soft drinks are no replacement for the daily recommend intake of fluids, as many of these flavored beverages have caffeine in them and caffeine actually dehydrates and not rehydrate our bodies.

Of course, there’s nothing new in the above facts, as drinking lots of water and exercise are perhaps the most commonly-known basic health tips going, but if we all know this, then why is half the country walking around overweight and in a state of constant dehydration?

Well, a lot could be to do with our addiction to caffeine based drinks which actually prompt the body to lose water rather than retain it, but my guess is that most of us find drinking water so darn boring! I mean, who the heck wants to drink water when they’re not thirsty? Especially when we have all these wonderfully flavored hot and cold drinks to choose from. But here lies the problem. Many of us have sugar and caffeine in our drinks, we dehydrate when we should by hydrating, and we don’t exercise enough. On the face of it, there could be no simpler health tip than to drink water and exercise. We don’t need any fancy diets or complex health plans, just move more, and drink a lot of water.

In fact, if we cut through all the hype, water and exercise are perhaps 2 of the main components we need (notice I said ‘need’ and not ‘want’), in our everyday life. Anyway, I’ve decided to do what I did a couple of years ago, which is to keep a simple little chart handy and get into a regime. There’s something gratifying about ticking off the items on a list that keeps one away from procrastinating and slipping into bad habits.

I used to do 3 power walks a day, keep a simple food diary, and eat only things on my list at the designated times. At the end of each day, I’d look at the list with a little pride as all the things I was supposed to do, I did, with nothing more, and nothing less. I’m going to start a new list for water intake, exercise, and diet. It’s crazy when you think about it, because to be honest, I have never felt better both physically and mentally when I’m taking care of my health, which makes me wonder why so many of us so often chose to slip back into old unhealthy eating patterns, stop exercising, and return to drinking all the wrong stuff. And for what? So we can feel fat, miserable, and ugly again!

Another important reason for monitoring water intake is that we quite often don’t even know when we’re dehydrated. We shouldn’t only drink water when we’re thirsty, because at this stage we’ve already become dehydrated to a degree. One of the early signs of dehydration is the color of your pee. The more yellow it is, the more dehydrated you are becoming. I’ve had piddle the color of mustard before and still not drank because I didn’t feel thirsty. So that’s it, I’m about to re-embark on a regime of health eating, water and exercise. I love simplicity so will be mindful of that old acronym KISS - which stands for Keep It Simple Stupid!

I’ll be wring a future piece about how the water and exercise has helped me to become fitter and healthier and whether drinking lots of water has helped to wean me off the quantities of unhealthy beverages that I’ve become so accustomed to. Stay tuned.

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The most common water problem can clog of your pipes, cause malfunctions of your washing machine. It also makes you use larger portions of washing powder and soap.

What we’re talking about here is hard water.

So what is hard water to begin with? Hard water is caused by dissolved mineral traces of primarily calcium and magnesium in the water.

The level of hardness can vary greatly from location to location. If for example you live in an area where the groundwater is taken from wells where the water have been moving through deposits of limestone you will have very high levels of hardness in your water. If your water on the other hand comes from lakes with low ph levels then you will have a low hardness level in your water and you will have little water problems.

It is relative easy to measure the water hardness with a test sample. It is important to do this as the buildup of clogged piped can happen even if you are not aware of it.

Water softener equipments are an often used solution to lower hardness of the water as it will limit or completely eliminate any damage.

The most common form of water softener for home users is based on ion exchange.

It works on the following principle. The calcium and magnesium ions are replaced by sodium ions. This ion exchange is made in a resin bed.

The construction of the water softener is made in three parts. Resin Tank - This contains the resin bed.

Resin Bed - This is made up of tiny bead-like material often made of styrene and divinylbenzene. The beads attract and hold positively charged ions such as sodium, but will exchange them whenever the bead encounters another positively-charged ion such as calcium or magnesium.

Brine Tank - This tank contains a dissolved solution which is necessary in order to regenerate the resin. This regeneration is for the reversing of the ion exchange, which otherwise would become depleted. The calcium and magnesium ions are removed off from the resin beads and replaced with positively charged sodium ions. The regeneration happens when the resin beads are washed by a strong salt water solution. The calcium and magnesium ions are forced by the salt to be released, and are then discharged as waste in the backwashing cycle. The beads are now once again ready to be used to lower the hardness of your water.

Modern water softeners are fully automated. Some of them are regenerated at a preset clock. Other systems use electric sensors and are regenerated when the beads are becoming less effective.

Because the calcium and magnesium are replaced by sodium some consumers are concerned by the additional intake of salt in the drinking water. However this additional salt intake from drinking the tapped water is so small that the adverse affect is minimal compared from salt intake gained from ordinary diet.

Copyright 2006 Per Strandberg

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Often we worry about our fresh water drinking quality due to pollution and contaminates. We know it is critical to have clean water in our civilization. We also know that it is important that our shorelines and oceans are clean, as it affects the eco-system, food chain and our local and regional sea life. We must worry about industry, sewer treatment plants, non-point source discharges to storm drains as well as the fertilizers, chemicals and debris which runs off into our water supplies and/or flows to the ocean.

We must pit these needs of our civilization against the environmental costs associated with them. We indeed cannot afford to make trades, which might cause dead zones of sea life or pollute our oceans. Luckily for us Mother Nature is quite resilient in handling mankind’s pollution, however we must continuing monitor the types of pollution we allow and prevent 99.9% of it whenever we can.

In Industry oil and gas drilling rigs often take hits from Hurricane Storms and occasionally one is completely destroyed, causing an unfortunate release of chemicals, oil spill or other pollution. These rigs are coated with very high-tech coatings to prevent rust and corrosion from the constant salt spray of the never forgiving ocean. I propose using such coatings and adding in a coating which would turn color when water is contaminated. If an oilrig is tipped over or destroyed these coatings would mix with the water and release oil and gas-eating bacteria, which would attach to any spill and start feasting on it. Bio-remediation is a science, which has come very far very fast in the past decade.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we find the mighty Lake Ponchartrain full of unnecessary crud and pollution. This is unfortunate indeed as the lake is a place for boaters, fishing and a fun lifestyle. The waters pumped back into the lake were polluted with e.Coli bacteria, chemicals and debris, which is going to be tough on the lakes eco-system. Lake Ponchartrain was making a strong comeback in the years prior to Hurricane Katrina, as nature always does find a way to clean itself and renew. The environment is proving to be quite resilient indeed. I would therefore like to propose that we coat the bridge over pass support structures with a special coating which will clean the lake as slow tide brushes up against it. Attracting the floating chemicals now present and then through bio-remediation rapidly break down those chemicals. We have modern coatings and environmental dispensers, which can do this.

I further propose that the support structures of the bridge contain spongy bio remediation pellets, which will be released each day when the streetlights on the bridge turn off. These pellets would be made of spongy material, which would not hurt the boat hulls of vessels, which might bump into them as they float. The spongy material would also be made very distasteful to birds, fish, sea life and wildlife; yet would clean the Lake. Timed released biological and environmental remediation is nothing new, many environmental engineers use this to help reduce large algae blooms which threaten drinking water supplies, affect water quality or are a danger to sea life. Once depleted the sponge would decay and become one with the lake.

If we consider our infrastructure which often crosses our important water ways, inlets, bays, rivers, lakes, wetlands and coastline; we may be able to coat these infrastructures with a coating which will alert us to any problematic contaminants, dispense bio-remediation solutions and protect our environment. I propose here and now that we work to develop a comprehensive strategy to accomplish this goal to put sensors, monitors and solutions on every piece of infrastructure that comes in contact with our water. Think on this.

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