Prologue: Abysmal Book Introductions and Dismal Water Problems (feat. Corey Hartman, Steve Camp, Don Bills)

My fingers rest on the keyboard in anticipation. My mind races. Lucas... Get. Yourself. Together.

My days doing research related to water often start out like this: sitting at a desk on my laptop, giving myself little mental pushes to figure out what I'm doing on that particular day. It's not that water isn't an interesting topic of research; in fact, it's quite the contrary. The problem is that water has so many different aspects that need improvement that it's difficult to find a point to start at that: water desperately needs to be conserved in households, saltwater desperately needs to be desalinated, wastewater desperately needs to be more effectively decontaminated, reservoirs desperately need to be better at preventing evaporation, water transportation needs to be made more efficient, water, water, water, water, water (in the most RJ-from-Over-The-Hedge-style possible)!

But one issue with water is, by far, the most important: treating our usable water. Yes, water needs to be saved; yes, we need to fix the problems of our man-made water storages and aquifers; yes, all of these issues are important. But they don't matter if we don't have access to clean water in the first place! In so many places around the world, the only water issue that matters is getting clean water.

That's why so many people have done research on how to provide clean water for people in third-world countries that have no access to clean water on their own.

The "Lifestraw," created in 2005 to give people in countries recovering from natural disasters, contains a filter inside a straw that lets people drink straight from any body of water you want! And by any body of water you want...

I mean ANY body of water you want.

And that's cool - people coming together to work for the good of others in places worse off than their home countries.

But a problem with all of this arises. While so much research is (and should be) being done to help with other countries, there's still some problems at home that get little exposure. I'm not saying this to take a punch at the people who are helping with water in developing countries - their efforts are incredibly inspiring and commendable; I'm saying that we have to know about what's going on in America today and fix those problems too. And in America, there are evident problems. 

One major time that water problems amounted that we all know about is the Flint Water Crisis. In 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan, looking for a cheaper way to provide clean water to its citizens, switched its water supply to the Flint River. Within the following year, the water was found to be toxic to humans due to high concentrations of lead, E. coli, and disinfection byproducts called total trihalomethanes (TTHM).

Yet, water problems come in all shapes and forms - not just in major crises, but also in surprising places, like Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff, often considered for having some of the cleanest water in Arizona, was forced to shut off Lake Mary as a water source in October 2015 due to the toxic levels of TTHM and haloacetic acids (HAA5) - another disinfection byproduct - created when chlorine gas from initial chlorination of the water reacted with decomposing algae. The City of Flagstaff uses both chlorine gas treatment - during winter months, when the formation of organic pollutants is reduced - and chlorine gas plus chlorine dioxide treatment - during the summer months, when the formation of organic pollutants is increased. However, during the period of time that the toxic levels of disinfection byproducts were identified, chlorine dioxide treatment was not being used, causing the byproducts to continue to build up. After the violation, Flagstaff is now using chlorine dioxide treatment year-round, an $25,000 increase in spending on chlorine dioxide.

Essentially, the situation in Flagstaff now is that we have a major trade-off: cleaner water, but more expensive treatment. But what if there was a different method Flagstaff could use that was specific to Lake Mary's chemical makeup at different times in the year so that the benefits from treatment would highly outweigh the costs - not just water quality, but monetarily as well?

And that's what my research is on. I'll be doing an evaluation study that, unlike much research on water treatment methods, looks at budgetary concerns as well as water cleanliness. My internal advisor is Corey Hartman, PhD, and my external advisor is Steve Camp, Compliance Manager in the City of Flagstaff's Utilities Department. I'll also be getting some help from Don Bills, Hydrologist at the United States Geological Survey.

I'm looking forward to see how the research process plays out and what my final conclusion is!

End of Prologue.