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Post by azalea on Nov 24, 2004 11:36:39 GMT -5
At the risk of being flamed, I'll offer a contrary opinion. . Show me the studies that show a measurable change in water quality. 1. Dumping some some soap into a lake is NOT like putting a drop of soap in a glass. It is more like something we do every day, washing a glass, then rinsing it out, then filling it with water and drinking that water. Even though you rinsed the glass, some timy amount of soap remains in the glass. If you were to dump soap out in open water, in a very short amount of time, that is the type of dillution you are dealing with. (Dumping close to shore or in an enclosed area is granted a bit more problematic with respect to sort-term effects.) 2. Virtually all soap these days is biodegradable. Whether it says so or not. But no harm in using the one with the fewest added chemicals. 3. These lakes hold acres of water and have tons of material dumped in them all the time (fish/animal waste, leaves, etc). The long term effect of a few canoers a day putting stuff in the water is unmeasureable. It is not doing anything to the food chain or Ph levels (in the amounts canoers could supply). 4. Soap that gets dumped into a lake is quickly dispersed (and acted on by bacteria). Soap that is dumped onto land is also acted on bacteria (and even faster) but it isn't dispersed very rapidly. So we are surrounding our campsites with all this smelly soap (at least smelly to an animal with a kean sense of smell). Long-term, no harm. Short term, we have drawn a bulls-eye smell-wise for the bears (and other critters). 5. All the chemicals from scratched canoes, paddles, certain fishing lures, leaching from boots and clothes as we wade ashore, from sun-screen and insect repellant rinsed off our bodies when we take a swim, etc is more harmful than soap. But the harm in either case is so negligible it is of little concern. PS: In a blind taste test of two glasses of water, one with a drop of household dishwashing detergent, the soapy one could not be identified reliably. PPS: I mostly follow the rules. I have not seen studies that show what the effects are of dispersing soap on either land or water (and which one is more adverse). So I go with the conventional wisdom. But in following the rules, my common sense interpretation of the science (backed up by the opinions of some with more expertise in bio/chemistry than I) tells me the rules may be inapproriate.
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Post by intrepidcamper on Nov 24, 2004 20:28:49 GMT -5
Very brave post, Azalea. I sort of agree. Everything in moderation, including politics, religion, obeying the laws, and BWCA camp rules. It is easy enough to wash off the majority of soap, shampoo, or in the case of dishes, dishsoap with a bucket, up on shore a ways. You are correct that a lot of other "junk" gets in the water, how about Acid Rain to add to that list. As far as not making a difference, there are sites which are full of campers on a daily basis all summer long, and yes, it probably would add up if we don't try to be carefull. The water quality board's mantra is "Dilution is not the Solution". IC
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Post by azalea on Nov 25, 2004 11:48:50 GMT -5
An interesting experiment. Take two points on comparable unused lakes. Everyday during the summer at 8am and 6pm, take a gallon of water with a half teaspoon of liguid soap and dispose of it. At one site, dump the soap-water into the lake say 20 feet off-shore (and not in a protected cove). At the other site, dump the soap-water in scattered locations on land about 100 feet from the simulated fire-pit. This would simulate very heavy use.
A day after doing this for a summer, do a thorough analysis of both the water and the land . Compare the results to an analysis taken before the experiment started. (Probably would need to do this multiple years at multiple sites, and sometime do the analysis without dumping any soap because there will be some changes that occur naturally given the progresion from spring to fall)
Would you see a greater enironmental imapct at the site where the soap was put in the lake or where it was put on the land? My guess, the land-dumping site differences would be higher. There is also the question of if there were a measurable effect, how much time would it take to "recover". My guess is the water-dump site would also recover to the point where you could see no measurable effect sooner than the land-dump site.
The other consideration is not just how large is the effect but also how much does the effect impact the camping experience. I do not see the water-dump site as having bigger impact on the camping experience. I suspect neither would impact the camping experience but the most likely negative impact would be if the soap scent attracted a bear to the campsite even just one time.
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Post by intrepidcamper on Nov 25, 2004 20:58:49 GMT -5
Azalea, I think you are worrying too much about the bears vs the soap smell. If the bears are around, just cooking will alert them to your campsite. Worse than soap is extra food scruds or fish cleaning remains around camp. These should be left on shore, somewhere away from your camp. After dinner send someone off with leftovers and fish guts by canoe, to a somewhat removed location and leave them in the open on a rock near shore. The birds, gulls and eagles, will quickly find them and clean them up and give you a fun show in the process. If you are washing dishes in the lake, you are getting food scruds in the water. IC
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TTC
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Post by TTC on Nov 25, 2004 21:15:26 GMT -5
Dumping the washwater on land is far better than dumping into surface waters. The available bacteria are in much greater concentration in soil vs. water. (Soils have billions of bacteria per gram...waters have millions of times less bacteria.) Also, tossing the water (scattering) on land is preferential to pouring it into one small hole you dug.
The lakes we canoe on up there are fairly sterile, meaning they are delicately balanced ecosystems. I think we should consciously minimize our impact at every opportunity. I agree that DEET probably has a much higher impact on the ecosystem (longer time to degrade, bioaccumulation?) than the residue from rinsing dishes directly in the lake. However, every little bit does contribute to an overall decline.
As for Azalea's thought experiment, one teaspoon of concentrated soap per day ends up to be well over a liter of soap per season. That's per site. Nearly all lakes have more than one site.
Biodegradable does not have a hard and fast definition. That a substance may take over 6months to degrade and still be labeled 'biodegradable' is a misnomer. Using 6 months as the residence time for the thought experiment, you will slowly accumulate soap until it actually does become detectible or a taste contaminant. Maybe not in your or my lifetime but one or two down the line for sure.
I have been an analytical chemist (looking for those elusive biodegradables in drinking water) and an environmental consultant for a couple decades. I could be wrong in some of the statments I have made in this post, but I doubt it.
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Post by GeoFisher on Nov 30, 2004 20:58:31 GMT -5
In regards to the Bonners soap......I have actually tasted it. The stuff is non toxic, and you can actually brush your teeth with it......Something I have actually tried in the past. Not the GREATEST taste, but not that bad either.
With regards to your post, and some of the other posts. I really wonder what actually does have more impact. Dumping soapy water in the woods in the same place, or dumping soapy water in the water.
HMM...........
Later,
Geo
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TTC
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Post by TTC on Dec 1, 2004 6:28:36 GMT -5
Geo, Bonners and other Castile soaps are made from saponifying vegetable oils (saponification=adding lye to the oil and cooking it, converting the fatty acids into sodium salts). These soaps are especially sensitive to water hardness and scum up in water with appropriate levels of Ca or Mg ions.
All the literature I've seen says that these soaps have limited biodegradability, especially those molecules that "scum out"...they are not bioavailable for bacteria in water.
Curiously enough, nearly all soaps that we now use in civilization are called linear alkyl sulfonates (LAS). LAS is completely biodegradable ('biodegradable' in this sense means "being able to be converted to carbon dioxide, water and salts in a commercial wastewater treatment plant".) Still, dumping that "biodegradable soap" into the woods is far from optimal conditions for biodegradability.
Geo, as for dumping into the water vs. the woods: you drink the water, you don't eat the dirt (at least, not intentionally, I hope.) Land offers a far greater capacity to degrade waste than any body of water does. Dilution does not make it better or go away, it just makes it look like it's gone.
Rinsing washed dishes in the lake wouldn't have much of an impact, even over decades of the practice.
However, the fragility of these lakes should not be discounted: there was a recent study that showed an Ontario lake that was the site of a temporary native fishing camp before 1000 AD was still affected by the offal that was dumped into the lake. The lake had become severely eutrophied and over 1000 years later was still recovering from the human impact. (I know where I read it, I just have to find it again...)
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Post by TTC on Dec 1, 2004 17:41:48 GMT -5
I found the article...luckily enough the magazine has an online archive (for subscribers). I'll let you decide just how right/wrong was my memory regarding the article and whether it still applies to our topic:
----------------------------- Early Americans spoiled their lake New Scientist vol 183 issue 2464 - 11 September 2004, page 14 IT IS not just modern farming methods that degrade the environment. Farmers living 750 years ago in Canada polluted a lake to such an extent that its ecology has not recovered to this day, a sediment core has revealed.
The study is the second to show the impact Native Americans had on their environment. Earlier this year, researchers showed that Inuit hunters polluted freshwater ecosystems by littering them with whale bones and carcasses.
Iroquois subsistence farmers arrived at Crawford Lake, Ontario, in 1268. In 1325 they built a village close to the lake. Their slash-and-burn farming methods soon changed the lake by increasing the run-off of nutrients into the water. Algal populations rose, along with levels of organic and inorganic carbon, and the lake bottom became deprived of oxygen, according to measurements made by Erik Ekdahl, now at the University of Nebraska, and colleagues (Geology, vol 32, p 745).
Nutrient inputs dropped after the Iroquois stopped farming in the area in 1486. But water at the bottom of the lake remained anoxic for hundreds of years, and the microbial ecology of the lake remains different today. Such lakes "are extremely susceptible to even small amounts of nutrients or disturbance", Ekdahl told New Scientist. He thinks it likely early farmers changed the ecology of many lakes and rivers.
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