Quote :

"The Department of Water and Power workers in Los Angeles, as well as local officials and community activists opened a white tub from where they poured 400,000 black colored balls into the water. So, the question is: was this an artwork, some kind of statement or attempt to pollute the water? The answer on all fronts is no – absolutely and categorically no. In fact, it is an action intended to protect the quality of L.A. drinking water and preventing it from becoming a health hazard. The water needs to be protected and in the shade because of its composition of bromate and chlorine – if exposed to large amounts of sunlight, it could cause a chemical reaction and in high levels can cause cancer. Last year, abnormally high levels of bromide were signaled, but specialists claimed that danger levels were low because people had to drink the water for a lifetime - even so, the chances of contracting cancer were minimal. After the discovery of bromate, officials began to search for a method to shade the Ivanhoe and Elysian Reservoirs, but all suggested options would need time and a helluva lot of money. Instead, local government followed the advice of a DWP biologist who came with the idea to use these black plastic balls you see in the pictures. The reservoirs will be covered by 3 million balls for roughly 4 years."

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/400000-black-balls-save-la-reservoir-from-carcinogen/1278

6/12/2008 2:37:08 PM

racist

6/12/2008 2:37:48 PM

so why cant they just pull out the offending compound?

6/12/2008 2:38:08 PM

I haven't seen so many black balls since...

6/12/2008 2:38:14 PM

ngrplz

6/12/2008 2:38:14 PM

nigerians please!

6/12/2008 2:39:09 PM

WHY'S IT GOTTA BE BLACK BALLS

[Edited on June 12, 2008 at 2:41 PM. Reason : shit]

6/12/2008 2:41:47 PM

the black ones are bigger, dur

6/12/2008 2:42:14 PM

the million black balls march

6/12/2008 2:42:38 PM

and who said black balls never produce anything worthwhile

6/12/2008 2:43:34 PM

Al Sharpton Sr?

6/12/2008 2:45:12 PM

Quote :

"so why cant they just pull out the offending compound?"

i dono.....this sounds a tad bit cheaper than treating the water and properly disposing of the unwanted chemicals

what do you think they were gonna do, let 4 mexicans patrol the banks equipped with kitchen strainers?

6/12/2008 2:46:35 PM

I'm sure they did their due diligence before deciding on this, but I foresee unintended consequences.

With the balls being black plastic, I'm wondering if they'll absorb a lot of heat, raise the temperature of the water a degree or two, and encourage the growth of different kinds of algae... or something else odd like that.

And I'll be moving to Santa Monica in September. Good times.

6/12/2008 2:47:04 PM

I'm wondering if a big pile of dog shit would've achieved the same thing or not...

6/12/2008 2:48:02 PM

it'd be a good place to dump a body

6/12/2008 2:48:20 PM

i mean if anything its worth a shot, im glad they are trying things

we can always learn from it either way

6/12/2008 2:48:36 PM

the balls are black, yeah, so they should've been white or some other color that doesn't absorb light as well (i think that's how it works...)

however,

Quote :

"I'm wondering if they'll absorb a lot of heat, raise the temperature of the water a degree or two"

water has a very high specific heat. these balls are hollow and are made of plastic which undoubtedly have a very low specific heat. so while the sun will heat the balls to a high temperature, they won't have much effect on the water because they can't hold very much heat at all. Also, the part of the ball that will be heated will be the upper hemisphere that points towards the sun, and since the ball is hollow it will rely on transferring heat to the water through the thin plastic walls...so basically the bottom of the balls won't get affected that much by the top heated portion of the ball since there isn't a good way to transfer heat to the water, plus they're filled with air which is a good insulator against heat...

i'm off, i hope that's right anyone thinking anything different?

6/12/2008 2:52:01 PM

interesting. I'll look out for black balls in my water

6/12/2008 2:52:44 PM

this thread has so much potential

6/12/2008 2:54:18 PM

OMG I JUST LOOKED IN MY WATER AND FOUND SOME

6/12/2008 2:54:38 PM

i got black balls on my computer chair

dey naked

6/12/2008 2:59:00 PM

6/12/2008 3:00:03 PM

nigger toes

6/12/2008 3:01:14 PM

Quote :

"water has a very high specific heat. these balls are hollow and are made of plastic which undoubtedly have a very low specific heat. so while the sun will heat the balls to a high temperature, they won't have much effect on the water because they can't hold very much heat at all. Also, the part of the ball that will be heated will be the upper hemisphere that points towards the sun, and since the ball is hollow it will rely on transferring heat to the water through the thin plastic walls...so basically the bottom of the balls won't get affected that much by the top heated portion of the ball since there isn't a good way to transfer heat to the water, plus they're filled with air which is a good insulator against heat... i'm off, i hope that's right anyone thinking anything different?"

I agree to an extent; water does have a very high specific heat, but we're talking about leaving these balls on the water for years. Also, unless they're very densely packed across the surface of the water, the balls will be able to roll, so there's no constant "upper hemisphere" to speak of--wind and waves can just turn the heated "top" into the water, where the water will take on that heat. And then, a lot of the heat that does get transferred to the water will get trapped.

We would need more details to be certain about how this would work; for instance, it may be that the balls have a small weight affixed to one spot on the inside, which would effectively anchor that spot in the water as the "bottom," preventing rolling. We don't know.

But it certainly seems like there's potential for this to be like putting a giant hot tub cover over the reservoir, trapping heat inside and heating things up a few degrees over the course of an entire summer.

6/12/2008 3:04:14 PM

you guys!

6/12/2008 3:06:26 PM

well the volume of water influencing the temperature of the area of the thin plastic will have a greater effect than vice versa

since the water has a high specfice heat i doubt it will change the temperature much outside of within like a 1 inch range

plus the balls will roll and shift, and there is day and night i doubt any surface will be exposed to the sun that long anyway

its nmot like that pond is there to support aquatic life, its a reservoir they dont have to worry about it as long as it aint polluting anythign or somehow killing migratory birds

[Edited on June 12, 2008 at 3:08 PM. Reason : d]

6/12/2008 3:07:22 PM

I'd rather have poonaner

6/12/2008 3:09:36 PM

AHAHAHA ALL OF LA HAS BLACK BALLS DIPPED IN THEY DRINKING WATER

6/12/2008 3:09:41 PM

lol 200000 niggas wit attitudes

6/12/2008 3:11:56 PM

Quote :

"Bird confusion, likely coming "

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/06/balls_out_ivanh.php?o=11

some of the responses people have are retarded (of course) but there are some cool pictures.

6/12/2008 3:14:57 PM

yea that looks pretty cool

like onf of those pin art things that you stick your hand in and the pins slide out and make your hand impression

6/12/2008 3:16:42 PM

[Edited on June 12, 2008 at 3:17 PM. Reason : so slow]

6/12/2008 3:16:48 PM

True, it's just a reservoir, which I'm sure gets treated before going into the pipelines. I'm just making a purely speculative argument that since they're doing this to decrease levels of certain chemicals, they'd better have studied the possible consequences. No need to worry about endangered birds or things like that, but if ambient temperature changes promote different species of algae, those algae could produce different chemical byproducts that would then go into the water. So they might be reducing the bromate while increasing something else (probably nothing undesirable like bromate, just sayin').

The hot tub cover effect is just what first sprang to mind for me... I didn't run the numbers or anything, and I'm sure the reservoir has a much smaller surface area to volume ratio so it would be less pronounced. But if it amplifies the heat absorption of the reservoir, even in only the inch around the ball, and has a net effect of trapping some amount of heat... that would add up when we're talking about three million balls over an entire summer. Even if it's only a degree, ecosystems are fragile, and that could have a pronounced effect on the water going into the system.

Like I said, though, I'm sure it's been studied. If internet nerds can think of these things in five minutes, I'm sure the environmental impact specialists have taken it into consideration. My sister-in-law is actually an environmental engineer in Los Angeles, but she does air quality work for Northrop.



So, in summary...

3 MILLION BLACK BALLS?!?

6/12/2008 3:18:07 PM

^^yea lookin at the picture the reservoir is alot less shallow than i pictured it being

6/12/2008 3:20:05 PM

algae needs light to grow homie

6/12/2008 3:20:49 PM

Quote :

"3 MILLION BLACK BALLS?!?"

yeah...it would be more, but the rest have been shot off

6/12/2008 3:22:18 PM

nah many kinds need very little light

6/12/2008 3:24:08 PM

^^^certainly a valid point, I'm not a biologist.

But that would just be another thing to consider, then. Some light would still get through, I'm sure, but maybe the change in ambient light levels would also have an effect on the biological health of the area.

[Edited on June 12, 2008 at 3:25 PM. Reason : carets]

6/12/2008 3:24:38 PM

Someone post an "after" picture. I want to see what it looks like when all the balls are in the water.

6/12/2008 3:26:13 PM

It's not all full yet. They started this week with 400K, but will eventually be 3 million, with new balls being delivered at a rate of 200K per week.

6/12/2008 3:27:31 PM

Quote :

"i got black balls on my computer chair"

i didnt "lol" but i definitely smiled!

6/12/2008 3:28:01 PM

6/12/2008 3:28:03 PM

they gonna need more boats to africa

funny because i figured they wanna ship us back, not bring 1.5 million of us to LA

6/12/2008 3:29:00 PM

ps for all you mutant algae theorists

Quote :

"-The balls are non-toxic and UVA-stable (the sun won't affect them)."

[Edited on June 12, 2008 at 3:30 PM. Reason : BUT WAT ABOTU TA WATA]

6/12/2008 3:30:00 PM

MY BALLS IS TOXIC AND UV PROOF HOOOOMIE

6/12/2008 3:34:00 PM

i GOTZ STEEL BALLZ G

6/12/2008 3:42:23 PM

I guess this thread died..

no talk about balls huh... not even white ones....

6/12/2008 3:47:36 PM