The article by Todd Lochmoeller, an environmental engineer, referenced in the pdf link above is duplicated here so you don't have to go looking for it. We on the Colorado Plateau, and indeed in much of the West/SW, have water that flows through limestone layers - so, in my experience the use of lime is sometimes helpful but typically unnecessary. Here is the article by Todd, which contains some useful background for clarifying water:

      I recently took my first Grand Canyon Raft Trip. It was near the end of August and recent thunderstorms had added a lot of sediment to the river. This condition created a water supply problem for our group. The water filter system was becoming plugged too rapidly to produce the volume of water we needed. The guide was prepared with some of the correct materials, alum and lime, but was not certain of the best application methods. Earlier in my career I spent six years as an applications engineer for water treatment chemical companies. I visited dozens of water treatment plants and tested different treatment schemes using techniques that could be applied to treating river water by the bucket anywhere. Here are some principles and tips.

      What determines the rate at which particles settle? The equation that describes settling of small particles is known as Stokes’ Law. Gravity pulls particles down but the viscosity of the water resists. The speed of settling is proportional to the diameter of the particle squared. That is, if you can triple the particle size the settling rate will be nine times faster.

      How can we increase the particle size? The traditional treatment chemical has been aluminum sulfate, known as alum. Alum is usually thought to work through two mechanisms. Clay particles have negative surface charges that, like two south poles of a magnet, cause the particles to repel each other rather than lump together. The triple positive charge of the aluminum ions of alum act to negate this repulsion. Alum also forms a sticky aluminum hydroxide precipitate that sweeps the clay particles out of solution. Some researchers think that the precipitate formation is the most important mechanism.

      How much alum should be used? It varies with the water. The concentration of particles, the type of particles and water temperature can have an effect. The best approach is to do a small test on each sample and go by experience. Before discussing test procedures we need to discuss pH and alkalinity.

      Alum has a disadvantage as a water treatment chemical. As it forms the aluminum hydroxide precipitate it pulls hydroxide ions out of the water which lowers the pH.

      What is pH? pH is the measure of positively charged hydrogen ions in the water and is measured on a scale of 1 to 14. A pH of 7 is considered neutral, that is the positive hydrogen ions are in balance with the negative hydroxide (OH) ions. A pH less than 7 is acidic and pH greater than 7 is basic. In natural waters the pH is usually between 6 and 9.

      Why is pH important? The precipitate that makes alum an effective treatment only forms between pH 5 to 8. As the addition of alum itself lowers the pH it is entirely possible to add so much that the treatment will not work for pH reasons. Adding more is not always better. (It is also possible to overtreat by adding too much alum even if the pH is in the right range. The negative repulsive charge of the particles can be reversed, causing them to repulse as positive charges.)

      What can be done about pH? In some cases the problem may be solved for you through natural Alkalinity. Alkalinity is a natural buffering system that resists pH change due to carbonates in the water. Any water that has been in contact with limestone should have some of this buffering capacity built in. If there is not enough alkalinity to hold the pH in the right range the pH can be adjusted upwards with lime. Remember that the upper limit for alum treatment is pH 8. Adding too much lime can hurt treatment also. Testing is the best approach.

      TEST PROCEDURES: Equipment Needed:
      2—4 oz widemouth jars
      1—500 ml or 1 liter bottle
      1—1 gram scooper or pre-weighed alum and lime samples
      1—large spatula or spoon for mixing in 5 gal. buckets
      1—1 ml syringe
      1—10 ml or 25 ml syringe

      This is the test procedure that I would recommend. Either pre-weigh some 1 gram samples of alum and lime or find a small scooper that will reliably give you an amount close to 1 gram. Mix the one gram with 100 ml of already clean water in a 4 oz. jar. This gives you a 1% or 10,000 ppm test solution. Add 500 ml of river water to a mixing bottle. Each 1 ml of 1% solution added to 500 ml of water will provide a dose of 20 ppm (1ml)x(10,000ppm)/(500ml)=20ppm). Start with a low dose, say 10 ppm (1/2 ml). Mix vigorously for 15 sec3. then swirl gently for about 1 min. and observe for coagulation. Increase the dose gradually until you have a good result. If the alum dose gets above 50 ppm try adding increasing lime doses. Without a pH meter you won’t know where you are and will have to go somewhat by feel. Feel free to try several tests. Eventually you will zero in on the correct dose.

      To scale up to bucket sized batches you can still use your 1% solutions. Ten ml of your 1% solution will give you about a 25 ppm dose per gallon. (10ml)x(10,000 ppm)/(3785 ml/gal)=26.4 ppm.

      You could thus treat 5 gal. with 50 ml of 1% solution if the dose was about 25 ppm. Scale the dosage up or down as needed.

      Mixing is nearly as important as getting the dosage right. A water treatment plant will normally rapid mix for 30-60 seconds and provide slow, gentle mixing for up to an hour. The rapid mix disperses the treatment chemical so that all the water is treated with no localized overtreatment and the slow mix brings the particles together so that they will grow in size and settle out quicker. In a bucket treatment situation I would recommend at least 15 sec3. of rapid mix and 3 minutes of slow mix. The slow mix should be more back and forth across the bucket rather than swirling. Using these techniques it should be possible to produce well clarified water in less than an hour.

      Are there alternatives to alum and lime treatment? Yes. Many industrial plants treat river water using Ferric Sulfate. Ferric Sulfate works across a wider pH range than alum and would normally eliminate the need for lime. There are also some organic coagulants that are collectively known as polymers. These are clear viscous liquids that do not effect pH at all and work at much lower doses. They would be tested using the same techniques as above. Mixing is particularly important when using polymers. The major suppliers of polymers include Betz Laboratories, Nalco Chemical Co. and Calgon Chemical Co. They might be willing to send you a 2 or 4 oz. sample that would last a long time.

Selway Somewhere Serenade?
Wildness, Lochsa ramblings?
Exchange for money? No, no trade!
Where in the Selway? You ask
Bitterroot Mountains? Trammeling?
I will not tell, lest wilderness spirit take me to task!

Hotsprings capers, known by few
So lovely, so hot you'll poach
Ranger Sarah, George and llamas, here's to you.
Blackberry, Service, Thimble too
Loads of berries, on trails they encroach
Selway country, here's eating you.

Round the circle, shade of Redcedar
At happy hour, we burble
No tent poles, and who cares to be the leader?
What's that, a boulder in the lake?
Sounds of gurgle
It's Ms. Moose, and she's no fake!

Black Bear prints, deep in the dust
Eating berries, I assume
On a 15 mile tent pole quest, a mind is free of rust.
Moose guzzling from the hotsprings
Wild experiences bloom
In the Selway, wildness is a love thing!

Click here to see: Hiking the middle section of the Ruby Mountains Crest
Click here to see: the Consummate Rubaiyat Crestival

        Note: The ruba'i, plural rubaiyat, is a two-lined stanza of Persian poetry. Ruba'i is an Arabic word meaning "four-some." It was a very popular form of poetry in the 11th and 12th century in Persia. The first, second and last of the four hemistiches must rhyme, while the third does not need to rhyme with the other three.

Timoring Towhee (Day 3; Haiku)
(the haiku poem breaks at five syllables, seven, and again five)

Timoring Towhee
Kicks out bugs within our sight
"Towhee!" said with glee
Murmuring - "Wildness delight!"

Ancient Way

Hard boot, hard trail
it's not the Ancient way.
Hiking through graupel and hail
We dream we could, yet will not stay.

We see etched petroglyphs, pictographs,
exploring pueblos, ancient ones.
Perhaps, this might be our epitaph
today, our wilderness moniker is "having fun!"

Pictos, petros, rambling art?
At first, just squiggles.
Where's a story, not just a part?
Perceptions comical, we revert to giggles.

Lines so pure
and handprints slapped.
Chiseled features, by hands sure,
atheistic, artistic, inscriptions rapt.

We hike into and then out of
canyons cluttered, middens of yore.
Pausing, we languish, relish songs of Mourning Dove,
canyon bend, more ancestral work by those who trod before.

Adobe fingerprints
arching alcoves.
Broken shards glint
in ancient treasure troves.

Scurrying reptiles
and lizards leaping.
Broken matates in piles,
near granaries, for corn keeping.

Four friends packing
reflections reticulated.
Clear water not lacking,
we won't end up desiccated.

Ravens spiral,
floating buzzard hawk too.
Sun slips, after awhile
giving canyon colors a wondrous hue.

Coursing dust devil, Redtail too
sacred cows make the best hamburger
I'll relish in wilderness, will you?
vegetarians rejoice, share the Limburger.

Wondrous things we see,
and ancient way beckons.
Comrades are we,
returning, we reckon.....

Shallow End Of The Gene Pool

Ode to gw bush-leaguers...
from the shallow end of the gene pool.
Our public lands they rape, they beleaguer
doing industries' bidding, an oil man's, miners' tool

The West ain't where you're bound
but where you play, work and stay.
Wall Street Journal in New York. Paris. Moab?
the geographically challenged, sipping eastern lattes.

Every day is Earth Day
when you're dabbling in the dirt.
Contrast corporations, full-spread marketing array
while coating cyanide with money, the future becomes inert.

Everywhere's a boom town
because we're hurtling to 7 billion.
Technology's facade crown
genetically modifying foods, us? Seems vaudevillian.

Is life quality important?
Or is money, power, all!
With greed, population corpulent,
as a species, we're due a long fall.

Bigger homes, families, coffers?
Can economists learn to subtract?
Imagine what a sense of space and place offers
wildness has no value, if not in a stack?

Make kindness our religion!
replace "faiths" that marginalize?
Which urge overpopulation as mission
all this amounts to genocide?

Ultra conservative with the compassion!
Corporate "religion" shoved down throats?
Star wars frenzy, our futures look ashen.
Humans starve while republicans bloat.

ORVs, the blue smoke hoard, scourge to our public lands
these, if gw was a conservative, he would prohibit.
These wasteful chainsaws on water, snow, dirt be banned,
air, water, sound, visual pollution he would inhibit!

Coyote canyon, raucous raven, spiraling buzzard hawk too?
keeping Mother Nature pristine is not a wall street aspiration.
gw folk will take the resources, money, give future toxic brew,
Sentient citizens fear the result will be an aberration.

Take my advise I'm not using it
imply the rich, supply-side cabinet
Big SUV, big family, big oil, big hypocrite
If a citizen of earth, please be a big reticent!

Is the glass half full?
could it be a matter of perception?
Dormant pawns of right-wing pull?
Consider the here, the now, the next election!

The shallow end of the gene pool?
Money around republicans' waists is a green belt?
Over wilderness, open space, oil men do drool
and accumulating social/ecological impact felt. :-(

Too soon we are climbing;
Out of the canyon, I am rhyming.
A report of our adventure, I sing the refrain;
About that wondrous Esplanade terrain.

     During the eleventh century, a high desert valley in northwestern New Mexico named Chaco Canyon became the cultural center for a people we call the Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans. Their culture encompassed over 115,000 square miles and included approximately 100,000 people. The Anasazi built five-story buildings with over eight hundred rooms in them; they charted the solstices and equinoxes, the cycles of stars, even the 18.6-year cycle of the moon; they established far-flung trade routes that brought them scarlet macaws and cast copper bells from Mexico, seashells from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf Coast, the buffalo hides from the northern plains; and they engineered a road system that would be unequaled in North America for seven hundred years. But by A.D. 1400, they had all but vanished.

    Perhaps the two questions archaeologists are most often asked are: "What happened to the Anasazi?" and "What do they have to teach modern people?" Though both questions are linked, the latter is the more important, because the answer bears directly upon the survival of our own civilization.

    Around A.D. 1130 the climate began to change. In Europe it would become known as The Little Ice Age, but the Anasazi knew only that a new drought had begun. Not in their wildest imaginations could they have guessed that the period of deep cold and reduced rainfall would last for more than three hundred years. The count of tree pollen in the archaeological record drops dramatically during this period - meaning they cut down every tree they could find to clear fields for crops, to build their homes, cook their food, fire their pottery, light their kivas, and keep warm during the bitter winters. When the trees ran out and the soil became depleted, they imported many of the basic items of their lives - wood, pottery, food, and animal hides. But, in the end, not even that would save them.

    To understand what was happening to the Anasazi, we need to look no further than our own lives. Since the arrival of Europeans in North American we have cut down 90 percent of our forests. Most of the wood we use to build our houses comes from forests hundreds of miles away. We import a great deal of our meat, fruits, and vegetables, often from distances like South America and Hawaii. Much of the oil that fuels our automobiles and heats our homes is shipped from the Middle East. Why? Because we, too, have over-utilized our resources and are now relying upon trade to provide us with many of our most basic needs. But the parallels to our own time do not end there.

    In 1900, 80 percent of the people in the United States lived in rural areas. Today, 80 percent live in cities. In the 1200's, as the shortages grew and the climate deteriorated, the Anasazi abandoned their small towns and moved to large pueblos. Let us make this point clearly, before A.D. 1150 there were hundreds of Anasazi settlements, small and large, scattered across the Colorado Plateau. By A.D. 1400, there were three: the Hopi villages in Arizona, and the villages of the Zuni, and Acoma, in New Mexico. The rest of the traditional Anasazi homeland was a vast no-man's-land.

    How could such a thriving and sophisticated culture be reduced to a mere handful of survivors? Despite the romantic image that the Puebloan peoples were peaceful farmers, we have abundant archaeological evidence to demonstrate that during the thirteenth century the Anasazi were engaged in brutal annihilation-oriented warfare. Massacres, scalping, slavery, torture, and even cannibalism occurred.

    The vicious cycle that led to the rise and fall of their civilization has become clear as a result of excavation of hundreds of their towns: the rise began with a warm wet climatic episode that resulted in a period of affluence and scientific achievement. With the affluence came swift population growth. In the process of feeding their people, they exhausted the soil, cut down the trees, over-hunted the animals. Then the climate changed. When their crops wouldn't grow, they expanded their trade routes. When their trade routes were cut, they turned to warfare to keep them open. When they couldn't keep them open, they took what they needed from their closest neighbors. They must have fought to protect their homes from their victims' wrath, then the fight became a struggle to stay alive.

    We leave it up to you to decide where in that cycle our modern civilization stands, but several things are clear: we've over-utilized our resources, the climate is changing, and we've already begun to "fight."

Despite what king george says or demonstrates, please show some restraint - Click here to see the effects of and what you can do about reckless population growth and consumption.

And, Click here for a link describing the relationship between population growth, consumption, and the death of nature.

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Wild Vagabond Main	Trip Report Index	Caveat

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Rob contemplates his prior (or is that future?) life, yikes!  Click here to see the result (23K)

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