( University of Waterloo via The Canadian Press )“Fires are particularly hard on water,” said Monica Emelko, a water treatment engineer at the University of Waterloo and a member of the Southern Rockies Watershed Project. Some are detectable hundreds of kilometres downstream from the flames and have serious consequences for urban water treatment. “You get much bigger swings in water quality,” Emelko said. “One of the biggest and most common challenges to water treatment is not water contamination, but large swings in water quality.” Nutrients that choke streams can also create microbe growth in water pipes and distribution networks. As water demand increases, water security has to start where the water comes from, she said.

Source: thestar August 19, 2018 18:11 UTC