Waterworks Blog
10 Things You Might Not Have Known About Water
October 29, 20131.) Water is known as the Universal Solvent because it is capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid — including acids. Over time, water will dissolve almost everything, including: stone, metals, other liquids, gases, plant material, salts, minerals and more. 2.) Pure water, which is practically impossible to find in nature, does…
National Drug Take-Back Set for Saturday
October 22, 2013Dispose of your unwanted and unused medication safely this Saturday, Oct. 26. It’s the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Initiative. Leaving unused pharmaceuticals in the medicine cabinet creates a public health and safety concern because these drugs are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. According to the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health,…
Put those remaining herbs on ice
October 14, 2013If you planted any herbs this season, they’re not going to last much longer as the days get shorter and the nights longer and colder. To get the most out of what’s left, you’ll want to store them so you can enjoy them all winter long. The traditional method is to dry them out. This,…
Turning Fog into Drinking Water
October 3, 2013We’ve written before about Star Wars-like technology that can pull water from the air. Now a team of MIT and Chilean scientists have found a way to efficiently harvest fog. The technique is based on plants and bugs that rely on air-borne water for their hydration needs. In most cases, these plants and bugs rely on…
Clean Water Pioneer Ruth Patrick dies at 105
September 27, 2013The environment lost a great friend this month. Ruth Patrick, a botanist and limnologist who essentially changed the way scientists study water by taking the focus off the water’s chemistry and placing it on its biodiversity, died on Sept. 23 at 105. Patrick created a system to appraise the health of a body of water…
Don’t send problems down the drain
September 24, 2013The next time you pick up a package of “flushable” personal wipes, think twice: they’re not as flushable as their manufacturers imply. Truth be told, they’re clogging up wastewater treatment plants across the country — including those operated by Lehigh County Authority. A story from the Sept. 7th edition of The Washington Post illustrates just…
‘Water Supply’ signs denote LCA’s watershed areas
September 19, 2013You’ve probably seen “Drinking Water Supply Area, Spill Response Call 911” or “Water Supply Area” signs throughout the Lehigh Valley area and beyond. In fact, LCA recently teamed up with the Wildlands Conservancy, Lehigh County Conservation District, Upper Milford Township, Lower Macungie Township, Allentown and Emmaus to install signs throughout Lehigh County. The signs designate…
One woman’s inspiring quest for clean water
September 11, 2013For most of us, access to clean water is something we don’t need to think about. Turn on the tap, and out it flows. It’s something we take for granted until there’s a power failure or water main break. In many places around the world, though, people aren’t so lucky. Drought, infrastructure problems and a…
Dry farming for a dry land
September 4, 2013There’s more than one way to grow a tomato. In arid, drought-stricken areas of the country, they’re using a technique called “dry farming,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “farming on nonirrigated land with little rainfall that relies on moisture-conserving tillage and drought-resistant crops.” According to the Oklahoma Encyclopedia of History and Culture, “Dry farming originated in the…
A river runs through it
August 29, 2013The Lehigh River is one of our region’s great natural treasures. It’s also a water source for some of our customers. It stretches more than 100 miles from Wayne County in the Poconos until it merges with the Delaware River in Easton. Its name comes from the Lenape word “Lechewuekink,” which meant “where there are forks”…