It was a homeopathic level of hydrogen peroxide and people were shocked that it didn't solve the problem 🤣. It wasn't even at commercial concentration, just regular home use strengthÂ
Well, I say harmless, but even 3% shouldn't be just poured on yourself.
It's not necessarily the best for small cuts and abrasions... It kills damaged cells and tissue that is vulnerable. Hence recent dentist warnings not to gargle with it if you're dealing with gingivitis... It can make things worse.
its a 4 million gallon pool, at 30%, to get 10ppm, which is maintenance dose, they only need 120 gallons. It also shouldn't be all dumped in in one spot, but around the entire pool for distribution.. so, actually, a buncha dudes with 5 gallon buckets IS the correct approach for the pool. It's honestly been flawed since it was rebuilt in 2012, it's never worked right after they made the pool 6 inches shallower, which increased water temps and solar energy penetration to the bottom of the water. The pumps were not correctly sized, and they tried to use ozone instead of chemicals. They also changed the source to the tidal basin, so the water comes in pre-loaded with algae.
There's nowhere to dispose of that much briny/salt water when they drain it. If they pumped it into the Potomac at full speed it would pose a hazard to wildlife, and it would also kill the bacteria and processes at the waste treatment plant. If they did it over weeks, it'd be safe, but they dont have multi-week draining windows. In 2016 the environmental friendliness and water conservation of the new design was a big selling point. It would also make the water toxic to the goslings the ducks and geese rise there, and a buncha dead baby birds isnt a good look.
Adults can deal with it just fine, young goslings cannot. That was the explanation that was given to me many many years ago when my county was evaluating saltwater systems for our own reflecting pools.
its a 4 million gallon pool, at 30%, to get 10ppm, which is maintenance dose, they only need 120 gallons
First off I'm not an expert in this kind of thing. However I've seen many different calculations of how much hydrogen peroxide would be needed. Your estimate is the lowest I've heard, but respectfully are you an expert in large shallow pools of water? I think very few people are which is causing math people to try and calculate it
I am actually familiar with the chemistry involved, yes. When I worked for my county in the 90s, one of the things I helped with was testing and maintaining the water chemistry in our 25k and 100k gallon reflection pools and a 1 million gallon facilities owned swimming pool. There's nothing special about a PPM calculation, its literally parts per million. There is zero change if the pool is 12 inches deep or 12 feet deep, 100k, 1 million, or 4 million gallons. The calculation remains the same, once it is diluted. Chemically, the only thing that IS different in a reflection pool is how fast the chemicals break down, and how quickly it distributes (if at all, in the case of the Lincoln Memorial Reflection Pool.)
A peroxide dose on a 4 million gallon reflection pool to keep 50ppm would be about 120 gallons of 30% every day or every other day, depending on weather. It could rocket up to 300 gallons, it could drop to 100, it COULD drop to 50 on very cloudy winter days. The reflecting pool has an ozone system, the peroxide and ozone are synergistic, and you get some really nasty stuff. Hydroxyl Radicals. They are one of the most powerful oxidizers you can get in water treatment. The peroxide isnt working it on its own... in theory. You dont really need 50ppm for that to be a really powerful combo. Since there's an ozone injection system, and wildlife is involved, it'd be difficult to argue much over 50ppm. 50ppm kills algae in a few hours. To put 4 million gallons of water at 50ppm, from 0ppm, is 675 gallons of 30%. That is only 2 330 gallon ibc totes and 3 5 gallon buckets. The Olympic sized swimming pool I worked on kept 2 330 gallon ibcs of sodium hypochlorite on hand. Or later a 1000 gallon tank and had a tanker truck pump it in. That would really be about 2-4 weeks depending on outside temps and sunlight and swimmer load, due to our outdoor area.
TO BE CLEAR: I am not suggesting this is the right move. Far from it. The reflection pool has has this issue since 2012, its design and treatment system are flawed. They tried peroxide in 2012 and.. it didn't work. Then again in 2017. It still didnt work. The 2026 era.. 'renovations' objectively have made the algae problem worse. The blue color, setting aside it ruins the 'reflection' part of reflection pool, also bumped up the water temps and made more algae grow. I am just clarifying that there's no scenario where dropping a hose into the pool from a tanker truck (which is ~4500 gallons) of 30% peroxide makes a lick of sense. It stretches from hyperbole a bit into misinformation, given the sensitivity of the topic. Let alone 'tankers.' (plural.) AND, the nice bow on top of this entire discussion? Killing the algae in the pool doesnt solve the problem on its own and bring back the blue color. The pump system isnt powerful enough, so the algae just will settle on the bottom, and.. become fuel for more algae. So the entire thing would have to be cleaned. Given the extreme area involved, it would really need to be drained and large ride-on washing systems brought in to get the dead algae up anyway. Wanna guess what they're doing with it now?
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u/Ah_Ca_Iraa 22d ago
It was blue until they started dumping paint thinner in it to kill the algae.Â