Daniel Salzler No. 1246 EnviroInsight.org Four Items March 22, 2024
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1. What To Do If Your Car Is Submerged In Water. Approximately 400 people die annually in North America in a submerged vehicle. Certainly, we hear news reports all too often of a car driving into an Arizona canal or a lake. What do you do to save your own life?
There are no federal regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to protect people inside the car during these dangerous scenarios. Here’s what you need to know if you are ever in this situation.
How much time do I have to act?
Drivers have about one minute to get out of the car before it fills with water. In those 60 seconds, it is necessary to have the clarity of mind to act decisively, said Gordon Giesbrecht, a senior scholar at the University of Manitoba who studies vehicle-submersion safety.
“Sixty seconds is a long time,” Giesbrecht said. “You can do a lot in 60 seconds.”
Still, it is important for drivers to know what to do in advance because decisions have to be made quickly.
“No one is reading an owner’s manual while submerged,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.
What should I do?
Try to stay calm, unbuckle your seat belt and lower your window down. Exiting through the open window is preferred above anything else. If there are children in the car, get them out first.
It is important to act swiftly before the water level rises too high and the window can no longer be opened because the pressure on it becomes too great.
“Until the water gets halfway up the window, you can open it,” Giesbrecht said.
One misunderstanding of cars in water is that a vehicle will short out and lose its electricity instantaneously. Giesbrecht said some vehicles he has tested had their electronics remain on well after landing in water—enough time to give the occupant time to exit within that 60-second window.
If the car has a sunroof, that could also be a way out because it should remain operable if the power is still working, experts say.
What if I can’t open the window?
The situation gets much more complicated.
In this case, a window-breaking tool could be useful for drivers to have—as long as the windows are made of tempered glass, said Greg Brannon, American Automobile Association’s director of automotive research. Laminated glass used for cars is almost impossible to break.
Generally, the type of glass is indicated on a window label or can be found by contacting the manufacturer. Knowing what kind it is and how to possibly break it is critical. These tools can also be used on the sunroof if one is available.
“You better be ready whenever you break that glass, because you will be flooded with water,” Brannon said.
What about opening the door?
It is risky. Escaping through the door is possible once the car’s interior fills up with water and the pressure is equalized inside and out.
“Technically, that’s true,” Giesbrecht said. “But by that time, you’ll drown.”
If you can manage to open the door, water could then rush inside the vehicle, causing it to sink more quickly and leaving others inside more at risk.
For that reason, the best way out the door is through the vehicle’s windows. “Anything to do with the door is a red herring,” he said.
Should I buy a window-breaking tool?
Vendors sell numerous car window-breaking tools on Amazon.com and elsewhere, and the instruments often come with razors to cut the seat belt in the event it becomes tense from the collision.
But their ability to bust through glass underwater isn’t clear, according to researchers who have studied these incidents.
Laminated glass, which has specific safety qualities to protect people from being ejected during a crash, is nearly impossible to break underwater, AAA found after testing various tools. Such window-breaking devices can be used on tempered glass, but still, it would be difficult to get through. A spring-loaded tool that drives a metal cone into the glass is preferable to a hammer-style mallet, according to AAA.
“It’s got to be used as soon as possible,”
said Gerry Dworkin, an expert and consultant on vehicle-submergence incidents.
SUV careenss into Tolleson canal
Does it make a difference if it is an EV or gas-powered car?
No, the occupant response should be the same for both types of vehicles.
A vehicle in water will normally sink first based on where the engine is located, as it is the heftier part of the vehicle. While an electric car lacks an internal combustion engine, it will sink in whatever direction the car is the heaviest.
“The bottom line is it’s going to sink, water is going to come in through the vents, and until the water gets up to the windows, you can open the windows and get out,” Giesbrecht said.
Electric vehicles are also designed to protect against the risk of a shock once they hit the water. That is because the high-voltage battery is isolated from the frame, according to the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit organization that develops fire-safety codes and standards.
“The water isn’t being energized,” said Andrew Klock, lead manager of emerging issues at the NFPA.
In some instances, small bubbles might appear from the battery in water, but this doesn’t indicate a shock hazard nor does it energize the surrounding water, the organization said.
What are the industry and regulators doing?
In short, not much.
In 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration denied a petition from an individual to require every vehicle be equipped with an “emergency window breaker.” The individual cited a vehicle-submersion death in urging the federal regulatory agency to take action.
Part of NHTSA’s rationale for the denial was that the effectiveness of such a tool during a submersion isn’t known, and that consumers can buy one if they feel it is necessary. Plus, the auto-safety agency said, in some submersion accidents, the driver might not be able to act based on what preceded the car going into the water.
In Europe, a widely regarded nonprofit group that tests and rates cars for crash safety updated its program in 2020 to better address the dangers of people stuck in vehicle submersions. It introduced new requirements to ensure that, in the event of a submergence, side windows could still be operated long enough for an occupant to exit from the vehicle, according to the website for the voluntary program.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many automakers have started to incorporate technology to meet such a standard.
Source: Ryan Felton at [email protected] Appeared in the March 18, 2024, print edition as ‘How to Get Out of a Submerged Vehicle’.
2. Town of Prescott Valley Awarded $2.1 Million In Federal Funds For PFAS Mitigation. The Town of Prescott Valley received notification last week that it has been awarded $2.1 million from the federal Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill for its PFAS Treatment and Recharge Well Project.
Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema announced that the money awarded to Prescott Valley is part of $125,887,493 in federal investments for Arizona priorities and projects that support local law enforcement, flood control efforts,
western rural water, “forever chemicals” removal, military installations, transportation, and more. These were passed as part of the first annual government funding bill for Fiscal Year 2024.
The Prescott Valley appropriation will allow for direct injection of high-quality, PFAS free, treated wastewater into the aquifer. This will support recharge efforts while protecting water quality within the aquifer.
“The Town of Prescott Valley is grateful and excited to receive this funding for our aquifer recharge project. This money will allow us to remove PFAS compounds from our effluent before returning it to the aquifer. This is a great thing to help protect the water quality and will also promote advancement of technologies for removing PFAS from wastewater,” said Neil Wadsworth, Prescott Valley Utilities Director.
Mayor Kell Palguta said, “We’d like to thank Senators Kelly and Sinema and their staffs for championing this project on behalf of Prescott Valley. Water is a priceless commodity in Arizona, and this funding will go a long way to ensure our effluent water is treated to a high standard and to help the Town recharge its aquifer.”
The recharge well is one component of the Town’s water management efforts, which also include in-stream recharge facilities, recharge basins, stormwater management, and enhanced conservation policies.
3. Out In The Field: ADWR Hydrologists Conducting “Basin Sweep” In Vast Northwest Region Published March 14, 2024 by ADWR.
For the next several months, ADWR’s Field Services team will be out “sweeping” for groundwater-level data in an enormous area of northwestern Arizona.
Starting March 11, the team began collecting water-level measurements in the Virgin River, Grand Wash, Shivwits Plateau, Kanab Plateau, Paria, and Coconino Plateau groundwater basins.
This survey of wells – or basin “sweep,” as it is known – was last conducted by the USGS in 1976 for the Grand Wash, Shivwits Plateau, Kanab Plateau, Paria Basins.
ADWR last conducted a sweep in the Virgin River Basin in 1991 and Coconino Plateau Basin in 2004.
Geographically speaking, this northwestern Arizona basin sweep covers an area generally from the Virgin River and Virgin River Mountains, including the Grand Canyon – Parashant National Monument, north and south rims of the Grand Canyon National Park, extending east to Paria Canyon and southeast to the Colorado River region west of Page, and, finally, south to the San Fransisco Mountains just northwest of Flagstaff, including Williams.
The “Arizona Strip” area of the sweep has been identified as a critical area that has not had a basin sweep conducted recently. A basin sweep is an intensive effort to measure as many wells as necessary in a specific basin or subbasin in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the groundwater system. ADWR’s objective on this mission is to measure water levels at hundreds of wells in these groundwater basins.
The data collected will be analyzed and used to obtain a comprehensive overview of the groundwater conditions and used to support scientific and water management planning efforts. Data collected will be used for several purposes, including:
• Analysis of water-level trends
• Groundwater modeling
• Water-level change maps
• Hydrologic reports
• Water resource planning and management
The department’s Field Services staff, part of the Hydrology Division, is responsible for collecting the data. This includes measuring water levels in wells, collecting water quality samples, measuring discharge from pumping wells, and conducting well inventories. Staff from the Field Services Basic Data Unit, as it is formally known, conducts basin sweeps to measure water levels for all accessible wells within a specific basin or sub-basin.
Basin sweeps are conducted throughout the state on a rotational basis with priority given to Active Management Areas (AMAs), Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas (INAs), and other basins based on ADWR data-collection needs.
The department uses the information from the basin survey to develop water level maps to support scientific, planning and management studies of the basin’s aquifer system. Data collected also support hydrologic studies such as groundwater modeling and water budget development.
4. March 24 Is Pam Sunday. What Is Religious Holiday All About? Palm Sunday is now just days away, with the annual Christian commemoration marking the start of Holy Week.
Observed on the last Sunday before Easter by Christians of many denominations, Palm Sunday is one of the most important dates in the Christian calendar.
Palm Sunday is a major Christian feast day and one of the most important in the Christian calendar. It marks the last week of Lent and the start of Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday when Jesus is said to have risen from the dead. Source: Evening Standard
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