Final grades have been posted

I have just sent your final grades the registrar. Your Final exam grades will be uploaded to Sakai momentarily. ...a few comments on our final.

1. The scores were, as a whole, very good. The mean score (after the "curve" was 87.6 and the post-"curve" median score was 88.7. The highest raw score was 96.6% which is the highest that any non-special forces student has achieved on any of my exams! Post "curve", 10 of you scored a 90% or higher which tells me that either y'all have worked very hard this term or I managed to make the exam too easy. Probably a little bit of both...

2. I chose to remove two questions provided by the Blue Covenant Group. A good exam question will have 1. a normal distribution that is weighted to one way for a more difficult question and weighted the other way for an easier question and 2. a performance that correlates positively with the overall exam scores. Scores from BCS 8 and BCS 12 showed neither and virtually everyone's exam scores were improved by their removal.

3. I analyzed the test scores taking into consideration group membership and question authorship. In doing so, I looked at group membership and compared the scores of each individual under three scenarios. 1. with all of the questions, 2. with communal questions (1-25) and questions from their group, and 3. with communal questions (1-25) and questions from the other group. With the exception of two outliers, their was shockingly little difference between your individual performances when the test was broken down as such. Question authors did not appear to have a significant advantage and, in fact, two of the question writers (one from each groups) would have actually scored higher if only tested on the other group's material! The two outliers are benefited from leaving the exam in tact and everyone else is not affected more than 1% either way (certainly not enough to affect their final grade(s)). While I really liked the rest of the Bottlemania/Blue Covenant project, I will probably not ever have students write final exam questions in the future...

4. On the final question, the majority of you (51.5%) chose to write about the water footprint of beef- specifically, the difference between corn-fed, and grass-fed beef. I am not sure if this is because I spoke most extensively about this in class or because, yes, the water footprint of corn-fed beef is really quite shocking!

5. On the second to last exam question, 62.5% of you chose to give Boston their reservoir and 37.5% chose to allow the inhabitant of the Swift River Valley to remain in place. Personally, I think that the Boston side is easier to defend from many practical angles. My favorite response typified the difficulty of resolving this issue by making an interesting turn partway through. Their response is below:

Filling the Quabbin Reservoir did allow millions of Bostonians to enjoy relatively clean, pure, and safe water. Normally, I would defend this decision because more people were allowed better drinking water but the constriction of the 3 Gorges Dam in China changes my argument. To defend Boston almost seems to defend the Chinese government for displacing millions of inhabitants with the construction of the 3 Gorges Dam. While more people may enjoy better water, the displacement of people in small villages only encourages mass urbanization and industrialization-two phenomena which have led to further damage to water sources. By filling the Quabbin Reservoir and constructing the 3 Gorges Dam, it seems that governments are steeping over the bounds of nature to solve problems with technological progress. Although technology gives us the power to divert water, it doesn't mean we always should. The original inhabitants of the Swift River Valley built a community around the reservoir and to destroy this seems to assert the idea that big cities, technology, and progress are more important than small communities. Technology and industrialization have benefited society but have also created huge problems which we are now dealing with today...

This was one of many good responses...

...a few comments on the semester:

1. Many of you performed exceptionally this term and the grades that I have submitted reflect that. The mean for the class is a 88.46% and in terms of grades comes out to a 3.33 which is slightly higher than the W&L university-wide mean GPA of 3.27. There were 14 "A's" and 8 "A-'s"; well done.

2. I had a great time this term teaching Water Resources, I wish that we had the time to cover everything that I wanted to get through but I think that we made a pretty good start...

3. Everyone have a great break and I welcome you to come by during the Spring term to pick up your final exams (and other assorted graded things.)

Summary for Friday April 9th

Topic 1: Filtration systems: ...such as those sold by Brita and pur owned respectively by Clorox and Procter and Gamble are good at removing highly polar molecules (the ones that make water smell and taste unpleasant) by attracting them to activated charcoal but not so good at removing microorganisms and toxic metals. ...although, pur now has a 3-stage filter where the third stage is a micro-porous filter that removes most (99.9%) of the most common harmful pathogens...

Topic 2: The 32% of Americans that "definitely know" where their water comes from is only slightly lower than our class at the beginning of the semester...

Topic 3: The political "debate" over perchlorate is largely "fueled" by those that use it...

Topic 4: Big Spring- Lexington almost had its own Poland Springs just NE of campus. Nestlé, had taken an option to purchase Big Spring with plans to consider building a major bottling facility in Rockbridge County (RACC- scroll down) back in 2003.

Topic 5: Bottlemania homework- brief discussion...

Topic 6: Reading for today 'How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?' 30 Million People Wonder Aside from the additional water that is required to produce bottled water (2-3 liters per liter of bottled water), and the energy that is required in its production (one liter of water requires about 0.25 liters of oil in energy), the another major environmental misdeed on the resume of bottled water is the waste generated by the packaging.
Though bottled water containers are recyclable, the fact is that the rate of recycling is quite low (around 12%). This means that the vast majority of bottles are ending up in landfills or worse. ...and this is aside from issues related to downcycling and a weakening market for recycled goods

The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.

There were no .ppt slides shown today in lecture.

Summary for Wednesday April 7

According to the taste test from Monday… Well water was the “least favorite” and water from the fountain water in the science center was the “favorite”.

Today in lecture, we discussed filtration processes behind different tap water sources, possible contaminants in water and how these contaminants are regulated. Drink wisely.

New York City has the largest drinking-water system in the country, providing NYC with the “most delectable water in the civilized world” from its upstate surface water reservoirs. The EPA doesn’t even require NYC to filter their water because it of such good quality and the watershed is so well protected. NYC has over 2,000 sq. mi. of watersheds, 19 reservoirs, 3 controlled lakes and 965 monitoring stations, which are checked 7 days/week for: microorganisms, harmful chemicals.

Kansas City receives water from the end of a river system, with no control over watershed—resulting in “chocolate Yoo-Hoo” water. Yet, Kansas City does a really great job cleaning its water:

1. Add Ferric Sulfate and a cationic polymer (neutralizes sediment electrical charge)

2. Add Potassium Permanganate (counteract bad tastes and smells)

3. Add Chloramine (soften water, raise pH)

4. Softening basin where organics and chemicals combine to form “floaties” of viruses and bacteria

5. CO₂ added to absorb Atrazine (harmful contaminant common in KC water)

6. Add Fluoride and send to filter gallery for distribution

Water can be contaminated with atrazine and excess nutrients from fertilizers used for farming. The production of ethanol can result in water with high sulfide, chloride, and iron concentrations. Also, arsenic and perchlorate have become growing threats to safe American drinking water. According to the Environmental Working Group, other unregulated contaminants found in tap water from 42 states do not have safety standards, but have known health effects.

Domestic plumbing issues include: outdated infrastructure (lead solders) and the accumulation of biofilms in water storage tanks, resulting in bacterial colonies.
Public plumbing issues include: 250,000- 300,000 water mains break per year, flooding can contaminate water systems and giant sinkholes from antiquated cast-iron mains.

Bottled water is popular. In 2006, Americans bought nearly $11 billion worth of bottled water, but as sales grow, so does the criticism of bottled water. 17 million barrels of oil per year are used to make US water bottles, which is equivalent to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year. In 2007, Poland Springs alone burned almost a million gallons of diesel fuel. If you add in the transport of 1 billion bottles per week and the energy needed to fill, chill, and dispose—the whole process is equivalent to filling each bottle produced ¼ full of oil.

The EPA monitors tap water:

-Allows certain levels of contaminants
-Required annual reports informing of contaminant presence
-Disinfects and tests for cryptogiardia and viruses
-Tests tap water constantly throughout the year, reports results

The FDA monitors bottled water:

-Allows same levels of contaminants
-Not required disclose contaminant information
-Do not need to test for cryptogiardia and viruses because it comes from “clean” sources
-Bottling plants self-test and can be inspected as rarely as once every 5-10 years

Third Option: Filtered water. Water filters contain charcoal and reduce certain chemicals (chlorine, lead), but do not remove pharmaceuticals or perchlorate. The disposal process of filters can be harmful to the environment because most people don’t return them to filtering companies to be recycled, so filters end up in landfills.

Bottled water is not all bad? The International Bottled Water Association argues that water is a healthy alternative to soda and juice and that bottled water uses just 0.02% of world’s groundwater. Bottled water is also an “Emergency Card” because when tap water isn’t an option, bottled water is the safest fallback.

Reading Assignments for today were:
China is facing widespread water pollution due to industrialization, economic growth, urbanization, and inadequate investment in water infrastructure. Only 5% of municipal wastewater and 17% of industrial discharge is treated, meaning 700 million people are drinking contaminated water.

Charleston, WV has severely contaminated tap water. About 1 in 10 Americans have been exposed to dangerously contaminated drinking water, but less than 3% of water violations are actually punished.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Slides shown in lecture today are available as a .pdf on Sakai.

The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.

For our final reading assignment of the term , please read 'How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?' 30 Million People Wonder and EPA Didn't Know Anybody Was Still Drinking Water, both from The Onion. If you are unfamiliar with The Onion, ask one of your classmates about it...

Outside Lecture Oppurtunity: Challenges of Tephrochronology

Bottlemania Homework Assignment

Over the last several decades drinking “fine waters” has become an emerging fad in elitist societies. For whatever the reason, people are paying up to several thousand dollars of water for a single bottle of water. After water has been filtered so many times and come from the most “natural” source, there has to be some other factors that differentiate one water company from the rest.

1.) Go to http://www.finewaters.com/Bottled_Water/index.asp and find the water that has been assigned to you. The water companies are separated by countries--click on the appropriate one.

CEB- Voss Water (Norway)
ACB- Equa (Brazil)
BAB- Aquadeco (Canada)
ASB- Island Ice (Australia)
CMCar- Aqua Pacific (Fiji)
CMC- Gota (Argentina)
GCA- Antipodes (New Zealand)
JBH- Te Waihou (New Zealand)
TJ- Hawaiian Springs (USA)
EAM- Berg (Canada)
DKM- Jana (Croatia)
TMM- Cape Grim (Australia)
JAP- Saint Geron (France)
TCR- Mondariz (Spain)
GSR- Tasmanian Rain (Australia)
RGS- Swiss Mountain (Switzerland)
VCS- Kona Deep (USA)
JWS- Bling H20 (USA)
CIS- Le Bleu (USA)
EAV- New York Springs (USA)
CV- Penguin Ice (Canada)
CMB- Walnut Grove (USA)
KAB- Iskilde (Denmark)
ACC- Peteroa 9500 (Chile)
JSD- Lelu (Micronesia)
DLG- Isbre (Norway)
SVG- DeVine (USA)
AMK- Malmberg (Sweden)
EGL- Icelandic Glacial (Iceland)
TSM- Himalayan Natural Spring (Nepal)—Google for web site
BGM- Vilas Del Turbon (Spain)
SMP- Karoo (South Africa)
CCR- Veen (Finland)
MARS- SoH20 (New Zealand)
RHR- Summit Spring (USA)
RBS- Sole (Italy)
CS- Cave H20 (Germany)
AHS- Blue Republic (South Africa)
MW- Etrusca (Italy)
ESY- Swisseau (Switzerland)

2.) View Fine Waters review of your bottled water company and then go to the company’s website.

3.) Answer the following questions in a word document and e-mail to Professor Low with Bottled Water Homework as the subject heading. You should be able to answer the majority of these questions from the company's website, but feel free to use google to find the answers you not listed on the site.

1.) Describe the source of the water? Is the water treated and how?

2.) What is their slogan? What is their hook/what are they selling? is it expensive, does it come from an unusually pristine environment? who drinks it?

3.) What is the virginality^TM of the water?

3.) What percentage of the people in the country had access to an improved water source in 2004?

4.) What is the minimum to maximum price range per 1-liter bottle cost?

5.) How many liters per year do they sell?

6.) How large is their company (in $)?

7.) Can you find any complaints by the local community about the company?

8.) Do they have a sustainability statement or use any other green-washing techniques? What are they?

9.) If you can find it, how much money do they spend on marketing?

10.) What is special about their water from taste to health benefits?

11.) Do they make outrageous claims about the taste or health or who recommends it?

12.) Use the information that you have gathered from the company website to write a 3 sentence promotional statement that would encourage someone to buy your specific brand of water?

13.) Describe the artistry inherent in the design of the bottle (if there isn’t a high level—just say it)

14.) Attach a picture of the bottle.

Paid REU at Critical Zone Field School

W&L Geology professor Elizabeth Knapp is looking for a student who is interesting in taking advantage of a paid REU opportunity this summer with the Critical Zone Field School at Penn State. This project is part of an ongoing multi-institution collaborative investigation of the critical zone* involving professor Knapp, Dave Harbor, W&L students, and researchers from many other universities. For more information about this great opportunity, please contact Elizabeth (knappe@wlu.edu) or talk to me outside of class.

Note from Elizabeth below:

All,
I wanted to remind you of this great student summer project (flyer below). It is the opportunity to be involved in a multi-institution NSF-funded research project. This REU is associated with the Critical Zone Observatory Shale Hills transect project http://www.czen.org/content/susquehanna-shale-hills-critical-zone-observatory

This work will be a continuation of the research done by Meredith Townsend and Dave Harbor this past summer http://www.wlu.edu/x33876.xml

This coming summer Penn State will host a student from W&L (and the other satellite schools) for 2 weeks to attend a summer Critical Zone field school (fully funded). This summer event will lead the students through a wide range of mostly field activities including measuring and sampling sedimentary bedrock sections, digging soil pits and describing soils, augering and sampling soils, installing lysimeters, drilling and building groundwater wells, studying forest canopy, surface water studies, and the installation and use of the meteorologic/soil moisture-temperature instrument package to be deployed at each of your sites.

The group also will develop a common field-based research project that the we can then implement here at W&L’s transect site after the field school (4-6 more weeks of paid summer work). This is a great opportunity and I look forward to working on it with you.

Please let me know if you are interested or have questions. Please feel free to pass on to others who might be interested.
Take care,
Elizabeth


*The critical zone is the area near the Earth's surface where the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere interact.

Summary for Monday April 5th

Today we discussed the first few chapters of Elizabeth Royte’s book, “Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It.” Discussing the history of bottled water and current trends in the industry, we gave a brief outline of the basics of the beginning of Royte’s book.

1. The History of Bottled Water

a. Royte emphasizes the fact that “the tap is alien to today’s youth.” Bottled water today is everywhere and everyone appears to be drinking it by the gallon. In fact, US sales of bottled water were 10.8 billion in 2006, a figure that surpasses both sales of beer and milk. Royte predicts soda will be next by 2011.

b. Water diversion has been occurring since the Roman times. By the 1700s water became popular for recreational and supposed medicinal purposes.

c. Royte traces the concept of “water chic” back to Perrier. Working with the British knight Sir Saint-John Harmsworth, Dr. Louis Perrier developed the water into an iconic brand at the end of the 1800s. Harmsworth started marketing the water as chic to British consumers, who appropriate the water as a status symbol. With the invention of the iconic green bottle, Perrier became a marketing wonder and starts the worldwide bottled water market.

2. Bottled water has become a status symbol/ fashion accessory/ and huge money maker

a. Bottled water is also a huge money maker for restaurants. It has the highest markup price of any item on a restaurant menu, and the restaurant industry makes between $200 and $250 million per year on bottled water sales alone.

3. Water Branding

a. In actuality, 44% of bottled water comes from municipal sources (25% according to the NRDC.

b. A new type of sustainable (bottled) water is emerging from Singapore: NEWater. This is reused wastewater. The popularity of this brand is yet to be seen. The success of this brand depends on excellent PR and marketing strategy.

4. The genius of the bottled water industry lies in its PR and marketing teams.

The discussion was then moved to specifically discuss a current water war in Fryeburg, Maine which Royte continuously refers back to in her book.

1. Fryeburg, Maine and the Ward’s Brook Aquifer

a. The Ward’s Brook Aquifer near Fryeburg, Maine can hold 8 billion gallons of water. Town and two commercial extractors pump out approximately 800,000 gallons per day from this aquifer.

b. Royte tells the story of Howard Dearborn, a local man who lives on Lovewell Pond, who accuses Poland Spring (a part of the Nestle corporation) of disrupting the ecosystem of the pond and of reducing the health of the pond. Because so much water is being extracted from the aquifer, there is a reduced amount of water flowing into the pond and this negatively affects the habitat. Hiring a hydrogeologist for his own investigative purposes as well as using his own well as an example, Dearborn crafts an argument against Poland Spring.

c. Local environmental costs are hard to define.

d. Nestle spends a lot of money hiring hydrogeologists to determine how much water can be used for spring water in the area. However, much of their research is based on computer modeling, which has its definite flaws. Nestle also has the money to hire hydrogeologists who will say whatever Nestle tells them to, causing Royte to refer to such hydrogeologists as “hydrostitutes.”

2. The Fryeburg Water Company was started in 1883 to supply the town with spring water. In 1995, the water infrastructure had to be updated and the discovery of the size of the Ward’s Brook aquifer led the heard of the water company to start making money off the aquifer. Starting the dummy company “Pure Mountain Spring,” the owners of the company began selling water to Poland Spring at incredibly high rates.

3. A number of ethical questions are raised: is it right to take a public resource and sell it? What does Nestle leave for the community? Et cetera…

4. Royte uses the situation in Fryeburg as a small example of a worldwide issue. Although the local community of Fryeburg was able to take measures against Nestle, it is still a David versus Goliath story. The privatization of water becomes a democratic issue and Royte insists we need to use stories such as the fight between Fryeburg and Nestle as an example of how large corporations can take advantage of local resources.

5. Royte emphasizes the fact that we need to resume drinking tap water!

We concluded with a small discussion of the assigned reading by Noel Gallagher, “Challenges Piling Up for Poland Spring.” This article reviewed a Maine state law enacted in 2007 which requires a more public review of extraction permit applications, regulates the impact of commercial extraction on the watershed, sets sustainability standards, and starts a new watershed and drinking water management program.

Also included in our presentation was a taste test of various bottled waters, tap water, spring water, and well water. Preliminary conclusions indicate that people notice very little difference between the two. Furthermore, FIJI water was specifically discussed. FIJI water is actually from Fiji, but this presents a sad reality that this expensive water is being extracted from a country with only a 48% rate of access to water sources. To see an example of “green washing” done by this company, just look at www.fijigreen.com.

Slides shown in lecture today are available as a .pdf on Sakai.

The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.

Please read Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering by Charles Duhigg and Water Pollution and Human Health in China by Wu et al.. for Wednesday.

Summary for Friday April 2nd

Topic 1: Blue Covenant HW assignment- We took an extended look at the homework assignment that was due today and learned that:

1. There is no relationship between the renewable water resource per capita in a country and the % of the population that has access to an improved water source.

2. There is a positive correlation between the per capita GDP of a country and the % of the population that has access to an improved water source that levels out such that almost all of the residents of countries with a per capita GDP that is twice that of the world average have access to and improved water source.

3. There is a stronger positive correlation between the per capita GDP of a country and the % of the population that has access to sanitation that levels out slightly later than the rate of access to an improved water source. The most recent numbers for access to sanitation are staggeringly low with 2.6 billion lacking access to regular sanitary services and 1.1 billion currently practicing "open defecation".

4. While there are countries throughout the globe that have 100% access to water, the regions of high water coverage are Anglo-America, Northern and Western Europe. The 30 or so countries with the worst water coverage are also spread throughout the globe but are concentrated largely in Africa with several in Central Asia.

We also looked at one additional plot of % access s to sanitation as a function to something called the corruption perceptions index and found that a score of 6 or more (out of 10 with the USA receiving a 7.5) virtually guarantees universal access to sanitation while sanitation availability in countries receiving a score lower than 6 cannot be correlated reliably with CPI.

Topic 2: …brief discussion on the role of population growth on water stress- particularly when many of the areas of high predicted growth are also areas of present and anticipated water shortage.

Topic 3: Water as a source of international conflict- We looked at why water has such a potential as a source of international conflicts and examined a few examples of past or potential international conflicts involving water around the globe.

Lake Chad (Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon) –draining of the lake due to diversion for irrigation in a very dry part of the world; excellent water-specific tragedy of the commons examples
Jordan River (Israel, Jordan, The West Bank) –excellent example of longitudinal (upstream-downstream) sharing issues
The Euphrates (Turkey, Syria) –another example of longitudinal sharing difficulties with possible biblical connotations
Brahmaputra River (China, India, Bangladesh)- tension over (possible) Chinese plans for diversion.
Okavango River Basin (Angola, Botswana, Namibia)-Proposed Nambian pipeline to divert water from the wet inland to dry coastal areas
Ganges (India, Bangladesh)- tension due to illegal emigration from Bangladesh into India due to seasonal flooding.
Six major international rivers (India and Pakistan)- more longitudinal sharing difficulties…

…and these are just a few of many examples…

Slides shown in lecture today are available as a .pdf on Sakai.

The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.

Please read The Truth About Water Wars by Maywa Montenegro, a collection of brief comments from water resource researchers about the role of water in conflict and Challenges piling up for Poland Spring by Noel Gallagher (no, not that Noel Gallagher).