Kind: captions
Language: en
these are shade balls
they're being dumped into this water
reservoir in los angeles
and contrary to what you may have heard
their main purpose is not to reduce
evaporation
so what are they really for
to find out i'm visiting the largest
collection of these balls anywhere on
earth at la reservoir
96 million shade balls that's correct
96 million
it's it's very rare for you to see 96
million of anything
this is your life vest which you are
required to wear all right
throw a leg over and climb on in any way
you can
there you go thank you
[Music]
looking at this i had so many questions
like why are they black are they safe to
have in drinking water
how much do they cost do they actually
reduce evaporation
and what is their real purpose
is it hard to drive in shade balls it is
very hard why is that
these are actually partially filled with
water and the reason they're filled with
water is that at la reservoir we have
some really high winds and so uh you
know if we didn't put water in these
things there'd be balls down to bouncing
on the five freeways people drive down
they'd be all over the place so uh so
these keep the balls in the reservoir
and if they do start to roll they kind
of wobble because the water makes them
uneven but that makes them significantly
more difficult to push out of the way
especially when they form close packed
crystal-like structures
behind the boat the balls quickly come
together in our wake
and some close to the motor are pulled
along with the boat
wow
did you what did you think the first
time they suggested doing this or when
it when it first came in
yeah it was a little out there
did you think they were nuts
no not nuts
well it just it like it looks absurd
it's like we're in the world's biggest
ball pit right yeah that's what it looks
like yeah you would you can't tell by
standing here that we're actually
floating
over i think it's probably
40 40 feet right here 40 50 feet deep
below us
and we could you can't even see any
water
you'd think it was a joke right like if
you didn't know you'd be like no you're
not that's
you're a green screen or something right
yeah it's fake so like when i switch on
my tap at home
is the water coming from here yes
sometimes
or always most of the time most of the
time the water is coming from here
absolutely nuts so why is la reservoir
covered in shade balls well the problem
all started with bromide bromide is a
naturally occurring substance it's
associated with salt water and so
normally places like the california
aqueduct that comes down from the delta
you get some salt water intrusion she
has some bromide in the water bro bites
harmless and it's almost impossible to
remove
um but when you when you disinfect the
water with ozone
that bromide becomes bromate and
bromate's carcinogenic and so around the
year 2000 they wrote regulations uh
regulating bromate and the regulations
basically said if you have a treatment
plant that uses ozone then you have to
watch your bromate formation be careful
not to form too much so the only place
we ever measured bromate was at our
filter plant and the results were always
within the 10 micrograms per liter limit
set by regulators so they were confused
when they got a call from one of their
customers a beverage company in la they
said we have some really high levels of
bromate showing up are you aware of this
and we said well we don't show anything
but between the filtration plant and the
customer was the reservoir
so they did some tests almost
immediately upon coming into this open
reservoir
the bromate levels jumped it turned out
that bromide with chlorine which was
supposed to be safe in bright sunlight
formed bromate even more than ozone did
and so we made this unfortunate
scientific discovery that actually was
not part of any regulatory scheme and so
here we are at the reservoir
we have water source that's got bromide
and harmless
we have chlorine we have to have the
disinfectant water and we have sunlight
because it's open the only choice we
have is to remove sunlight so we looked
at all sorts of things we looked at
floating tarps across the water and
normally you put a floating cover on the
water but that's a multi-year project
and so we said well can we manufacture
these kind of trampolines with poly like
pvc pipe and we said well i think it's
going to become bird perches it'll have
a big water quality problem and so then
we we knew we had uh high-density
polyethylene pipe which is used in the
water industry and and we know that it
floats we at one point thought about can
we just float a pile of pipe across the
surface well that's
hard to do and very expensive because
there's a lot of material so maybe we
could take some pipe and run into a
chipper and we can make a debris field
across the surface like the back corner
of a lake somewhere but then you have
all this mushy warm water with plastic
floating on the top that sounds like a
petri dish
and so lo and behold dr brian white did
some research and he and he found
the shade ball
except they weren't called shade balls
at the time
this product existed and they were
called bird balls and they used it on on
ponds that had mine tailings where they
didn't want waterfowl to go in and get
poisoned and also around airports where
there were ponds and they wanted to keep
the waterfall off so that they didn't
take off and get into jet engines
you know they've actually done wind
tunnel testing and they had you know
blew you know 50 60 mile an hour winds
across as you see how they behave but
they're really made to deter birds and
wildlife from from sitting on the water
did there used to be birds landing here
more like absolutely yes yeah once we
deployed these balls all the birds were
gone they used to just hang out
right loiter at the curbs yeah they'd be
all over the
top of the dam
they'd be down at the the outlet tower
they'd be everywhere but we don't get
them anymore like we used to
but before being added to the reservoir
the shade balls had to be tested would
they actually reduce the formation of
bromate and we bought three kiddie pools
three little inflatable kiddie pools
and we filled them all with the
reservoir water one was in the sunlight
when we put a tarp on when we put shade
balls on
and amazingly the shea balls knocked out
the problem immediately so the reason
shade balls are black is to block all
light from reaching the water and
triggering the bromate reaction the
black pigment is also safe for contact
with drinking water and it's stable even
exposed to the elements for years
they're black for a reason so you know
they're made out of high density
polyethylene it's the same material that
like a gallon milk jug is made out of
it's a food grade plastic and and they
would be clear like milk carton except
that they wouldn't last in the sun and
so they have a material called carbon
black in them and that's what makes the
the plastic last for at least 10 years
out of the sun we did test to see if
there's any other colors we could use so
we actually had the company make uh
three different shades of blue but the
dyes were so unstable they said we can't
guarantee it's gonna last more than a
year and so it's that carbon black this
is the magic powder in this that really
makes this product last in the sunlight
one of the concerns that that people
raised to me when we first put these on
uh was that are they going to get hot
and the leech material out and they
don't they're totally a nerd i mean
theoretically you could cut off a piece
of this ball and you could chew it no
harm come to you this is this is totally
food grade nothing wrong with it
whatsoever what's it like driving
through these things
it's difficult as you can see we've been
sitting here for well i don't know how
long
quite a while and there's a breeze and
we haven't moved i mean anybody that
knows that's been on a boat in a lake if
there's a slight breeze and you're on a
boat you're drifting right
not here this thing that they're just
stable that you
it's interesting when you try to pilot
the boat through these things it's
difficult it's like driving through
peanut butter or something something i
guess yeah
not that i've ever done that but
blocking sunlight from the reservoir
also provided additional benefits you
know one of the reasons we put so much
chlorine in was to control the algae
growth but sometimes you still couldn't
control it there were times years ago in
the summer where if we had an algae
outbreak you might actually if you fill
the bathtub up it might have a slight
tinge of green i mean it may be healthy
to drink but it might have a slight
change of cream from the outside of yeah
and it's just discoloring the water that
no longer occurs so uh with the sunlight
gone um the algae problems gone we put
in basically no chlorine we've only had
a few times since the shade ball has
been on la reservoir that we've added
any chlorine at all and we used to do
half the chlorine of the whole whole
water system went into that reservoir
just to control algae growth but the big
concern i had was evaporation when i
first heard about these black plastic
balls reducing evaporation it didn't
seem to make any sense i mean wouldn't
they absorb more energy and so heat up
the water leading to faster evaporation
it turns out the answer is no for a
number of reasons in an open reservoir
there is more exposed surface area where
water molecules can escape into the air
plus there is greater airflow over the
water surface continually removing the
layer of moist air and replacing it with
drier air increasing evaporation
now the shade balls do absorb more
energy and get hotter on top but the
bottom of the balls stays cool plus the
balls contain mostly air which is a good
thermal insulator and so not much of the
heat is transferred through to the water
it's almost like a double pane window
you get that air gap in there and the
air acts as an insulator and so the sun
never hits the water matter of fact
we've actually done some measurements
and it's actually cooler under the shea
balls even though they're black than it
is without the balls just with the sun
itself so so the balls actually have a
slight cooling effect so for all of
these reasons shade balls reduce
evaporation by 80 to 90 percent that's
pretty significant for a dry climate
like los angeles how much do they cost
these run about around three for a
dollar i think we paid 33 34 cents a
piece something in that range so and
they and they actually have a salvage
value not that much but if we go to
remove them they're they're recyclable
material so
but but we figured that over the life of
the balls
between the savings and chlorination and
the chemical savings and the savings and
evaporation probably at least half the
cost of the balls will be paid for and
so i mean of course the water quality
benefit is immeasurable but even the
balls themselves will save money doing
what they do
do you ever bring people out here for
tours or you're the first one why am i
the first one to get to go on a tour
here to get this uh level of detail tour
yes this is so cool i've heard something
about hexagonal balls have you heard
anything about hexagonal balls oh my
gosh so we had the shade balls and of
course everyone in the world came up
with another product i have ones i call
this the ravioli it's a small hex we had
large hexes we had all sorts of pieces
and people say well they locked together
but the problem is they need to not
stack up and they need to not sit on the
bank of the reservoir the reservoir is
going to go up and down and so it's
really the shape of the ball
that that makes them not not perch on
the side because we need to make sure
that these when the water goes up and
down that they spread up or they you
know it's been spread out completely to
cover the water as best possible i mean
i just can't get over what i'm seeing
it's just so nuts i'm waiting for you to
say it looks like a pull of boba
i feel like that's the line that'll go
in but you you got it
that's awesome
do you like bobo i love boba
i might get some after this
you