LA drops 400,000 black balls in local reservoir

Articles — By forcechange on June 11, 2008 12:05 pm

On Monday, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) dropped 400,000 black balls into the Ivanhoe Reservoir in Silver Lake.  The Los Angeles Times describes the purpose behind this as:

“The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe’s water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP’s director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix.

The DWP drop was designed to stop the three from mingling in the 10-acre, 58-million-gallon Ivanhoe Reservoir. The 102-year-old facility serves about 600,000 customers downtown and in South Los Angeles.”

Apparently the black balls soak up the sun’s rays, preventing most of them from entering the water, thereby preventing the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogen bromate.  The black balls are also known as “bird balls” since they are used by airports to keep birds from congregating in nearby wetlands.  For some reason, these images make us think of this commercial.

Photo credit.