Los Angeles Has Got Some Balls. No, Really.

File this under Are they serious? At first glance, I thought the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) plan to unload plastic balls into the Ivanhoe Reservoir was beyond bad. We're trying to keep plastic out of the water supply, not dump it straight in! But the LADWP had to come up with a way to protect an open-air reservoir that serves 600,000 people in the Los Angeles area. When the treated water is exposed to light, there's a risk that a harmful reaction will occur. The water naturally contains bromide--a recent discovery--and then there's the treatment chlorine, so when sunlight is added to the mix you could get a carcinogenic disaster.

In a ceremony yesterday, the LADWP unloaded 400,000 black plastic "shade balls" into the 58-million-gallon reservoir to protect it--nearly one for every customer. According to an article in the LA Times today, other protective measures would have either been too expensive or taken too long. But it still leaves me with questions: What kind of plastic are these balls made of? Why did they choose dark ones? And is there any precedence showing that this is going to work?

LADWP spokesman Brooks Baker brought me up to speed: "The balls are made of high-density polyethylene," he wrote in an email. He says the National Sanitation Foundation certified the purity of the balls’ ingredients and their safety when in contact with drinking water. "Also, the balls are black for a reason: testing showed that other dyes could potentially leech out over time. Black was the only color that did not leech out."

Baker says that testing over the past eight months showed that the balls did effectively provide shade. Now the plan is to keep adding them to the reservoir, and the neighboring Elysian Reservoir...as soon as the ball manufacturer can churn out the rest of the six million needed.

Photo Credits: LADWP

Comments

[Tracy]

What a crazy friggin' idea! Isn't there any way to remove the bromide? Also, are there not organisms IN the water the NEED sunlight? Like harmless, potentially good organisms? It seems like one bad serving another. Weird-O