Guam Day 88 - Guam Water







5/11/2022 - How do you get fresh drinking water on an island that is surrounded by sea water? I hadn't thought very hard about this until hiking a few months back, one of the hikers that joined our group is a geologist and she shared what she knew. Guam is split into two different rock formation types, volcanic which is the more southern portion, and limestone in the north. The limestone is very porous and can hold ground water that is captured from rainstorms. The south with its high mountains produce enough water from storms to create streams and small rivers, thanks in part to that less porous volcanic rock. So to get fresh water on Guam, there are two sources, a southern man made reservoir from the mountain streams, and drilling wells in the north to through the limestone. Both of which can be attributed to storms that pickup that blue pacific water, and rain it back down on the island. Pretty cool. 

One experience that I didn't expect coming to Guam was the need to buy purified water. This is something that as Americans we take very much take for granted, turning on the tap and being able to just drink the fresh water that comes out. While we get fresh water from the ground or from the aquifer in the south, there is still concern over infrastructure as well as the hardness of the water. That limestone adds quite a bit of calcium and additional deposits. 

So, a weekly activity of buying bottled water is part of many of the lives that people live here on the island, including Joan and I. We refill these big 5 gallon bottles each time we go to the store and pick up food. At each store, and some small businesses, sits a huge RO water filtration system (image 1), I have never seen a filtration system of this scale before in a supermarket. People walk in with these 5 gallon jugs to refill and take home. It is a bit cumbersome to carry these up-to the register, a strong task that funny enough has become mine. :) One major perk of this system is the dispensers like the one we have in the tiny house. I love having ice cold water at a touch of a button, or warm water for a cup of coffee. Hmm, maybe something we will have in the future even back home....

There you go, public service announcement for the day, if you come to Guam be ready for bottle water. 

Comments

  1. Dave S.May 29, 2022 at 12:02 PM

    Such a blessing. The water, when we were in Romania, if drank from the streams or ground water had organisms in it that wasn't good to folks from the US. Glad you both cam stay hydrated.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cars of Guam (COGs) - Ep 2 - New Vehicles

Image
  3/29/2022 - I know what you are thinking, if this ep is titled new vehicles, why of all the photos to choose from did you take a photo of a Prius? This one in fact as I stated from a previous post is our host families new car, and to drive for ride hail you need a fairly new car based on expectations of the stroll service.  The thing that has stood out to me here on Guam is most of the vehicles on the island are in US terms an import. Technically all things are imported on the island, as no vehicles are made here, but lets use the term "import" to mean external to the United States manufactures. This is a trend I see in both used and new vehicles, a large majority are from Japan. This has led me one to ask the question why is this the case, but also is there a way to get some data to back up what I am seeing? (what does a good engineer do to back up a claim, build a database) The next few images below are data tables, maybe less fun to read, but bear with me as I believe th...
Read more

GD 55 / Cars of Guam (COGS) ep 3 - Godzilla

Image
4/8/2022 - This car is so cool is gets both a COGs ep and a Guam Day (GD). If you haven't heard of the Skyline GTR before, let me tell you, you have missed out on a an amazing part of automotive history. This is an R32, built somewhere between 1989 and 1993. These vehicles were never designed to meet American road requirements, so these fall into that import law of the vehicle must be 25 years or older to register in the USA. One more sign of a cool Guam import culture from Japan, that's my learning of who live here on this vehicle.  The R32 Skyline GTR was made famous for its racing prowess right at the turn of the decade in touring car races.  It excelled so well, it received the moniker "Godzilla" as it beat any other manufacturer in its class during this time. The heart of this race car starts with its 2.5L inline 6, twin turbocharged engine, that produced a spec rating of 276 hp. Where this gets interesting is the Japanese automakers had an agreement that they wo...
Read more

Guam Day 48 - Return to Asan Beach

Image
  4/1/2022 - Can you believe its April? Where is the time going, Joan and I are just having too much fun on Guam I guess, the time is really going quick. I started out the morning getting a run in at Asan beach, still one of my favorite running spots on the Island. This time I read the history signage a little closer, Im not sure I have ever run anywhere where the signage literally says to keep an eye out for unexploded ordinance. No, this isn't an April fools joke. Luckily the main areas of the beach are well traveled and the national park service has done a great job over the last 70 years cleaning up and taking care of the preserve. If I see any white phosphorous I will be sure to leave it in the water. Eye opener though, even in a place where war has not been present for close to a century, this place continues to see the after effects of those events. We have more diving to come, but many of the sites will exhibit just this evidence as well, lots of discarding objects from WWI...
Read more