Week 2: Ozone

I decided to use this opportunity to learn how our Ozone system works to clean our water, something I have been wondering about for awhile. So, I contacted Larry Desmond from Mendocino Water Works, who designed the system for our well to explain how it worked.
Larry explained to me that our water system is one of the more challenging that he has had to deal with. It seems that we have some really ‘nasty’ water due to the high amounts of naturally occurring manganese and iron that need to be filtered out…which is why he recommended we use (2) 5,000 gallon tanks, each with it’s own Ozonator unit.

With our non-filtered water, if we tried to use bleach (not that we do) to wash out clothes, the bleach would react with the iron in the water, cause the iron to precipitate out of the water, using our clothes as a filter, leaving behind orange stains (which is not really the look you were going for with your white clothes!).

Larry said he really likes using Ozone for this application, since it is a much stronger oxidant than bleach with none of the toxic side effects to us or the environment. The way our water purification system works is that we have an atmospheric ozone unit; the pump of which draws in Oxygen from the atmosphere, exposes it to Ultra-Violet light which changes the O2 to O3 -or- Ozone, an unstable, free radical.

Next this free radical Ozone is bubbled out of the filter in each tank. Because it is highly unstable and is looking to combine with something else in order to become more stable, the Ozone bubbles create a positive flow toward the filter of any minerals, bacteria or viruses in the water.
The idea is that when these particles combine with the Ozone it creates an even larger particle (iron and manganese particles are too fine by themselves) that precipitates out of the water and can then be removed. The reason we need the (2) tanks, Larry explained, is that the 1st tank removes the iron and the 2nd removes the manganese.

Because we are on well water, this system is sufficient to purify our drinking water. However, if our source were a spring or some other surface water system, Larry said it would require an additional Ultra-Violet purification and filtration process be added to the system. The way the Ultra-Violet rays work is that any bacteria, E. coli, Giardia, that are exposed are sterilized at the DNA level, so they just die off and don’t reproduce in our bodies.

In our case, we are seriously considering drilling a deeper well, say maybe down to 200 feet or so (the current one is only 90 feet deep) to get out of the pocket of naturally occurring iron and manganese that we are in. For several reasons: #1 is our health. Manganese is a trace element and necessary in small amounts, but Hair Mineral Analysis has revealed that myself, my partner Martha and our land partner Carolyn all have 3,000 times more Manganese in our bodies than we need!! At these levels, excess Manganese lodges in the Liver and Kidneys, where it causes myriad health problems while being difficult to remove from these important organs. Not to mention, that because of the extraordinary amounts of precipitate in our water, we have to clean out the tanks every 2-3 months, versus once a year like with most other water purification systems. The labor costs for this are very high and we even burned out a pump with the excessive precipitate last year. And, we not only use this water for household use (bathing & cooking), we also use it to water in the vegetable and lavender gardens and for our distillation process. So, no matter how you look at it, we need good water…and whether we pay for it sooner (by drilling a new well) -or- later (multiple cleanings/replacement pumps), ultimately it’s a wash.