Category: Drinking Water

 

By Syver, Kristoffer and Magnus

The main source of water on Nesodden is Blekslitjern.  

 How secure is nesoddens water sources? 

Nesodden and Norway has very clean and safe tap water wich is available at all times.

This is mostly because of nesoddens evenly tested kommunal waterworks wich asures that the tap water is safe. Altough, Nesodden have had to limit the usage of water by prohibiting  citizens watering their gardens with sprinklers and water hoses, in most summers though especally last summer.  

Does the water supply get affected by climate change and why doesNesodden have a lack of water in the summer?

In recent summers Nesodden have had a lack of rain and a problem with drought. Climate change can be one of the reasons for this, but we can’t be sure if climate change is the direct reason why we have so much drought in summer times. But we know the temperature of the wheatea

r just get warmer and warmer due to climate change and pollution. Because of the drought problems we have in the summer, our commune Nesodden have forbidden people to give water to their flowers and garden with water hose. 

Our local council also have to use millions of Norwegian kroners every summer to get water from our neighbouring council,  Bærum, because we don’t have enough water ourselves.    

 

By: Nora Hafsteen and Ada Rydhagen

Right now, we’re working on the project “water” in school. Our group got the assignment to find out about our drinking water. In this article you’ll learn about that.

To find out more about this, we had to get some answers about;

• where we get our drinking water from,
• who transports our drinking water,
• how the population here on Nesodden can be sure that our drinking water is clean,
• where the water becomes clean,
• what kind of obstacles you could face against clean water and
• what kind of process the water goes through.

We’ve contacted someone from our municipality to get the answers to this. We’ve also done some research online and found out even more through those sources. Now we’re going to take a closer watch on some of the information we got from the interview with Reidun Isachsen, who is working with our drinking water in our municipality.

Where do we get our drinking water from?

Nesodden’s population get their water from either their own wells or from three municipal waterworks. The main source to the drinking water is Blekslitjern and consists of surface water. The two other water sources we have is smaller and consists of groundwater. Nesodden has also added a waterpipe from a place called Bærum to Nesodden (where we live) as a backup plan. This waterpipe runs along the bottom of the fjord and gives water to the main watersystem, for those who don’t have their own well. This makes us have double securing, so if something happens, we will always have drinking water.

Who transports our drinking water?

For the water to go into our faucets, it has to go through some waterpipes. For it to come out of our faucets, they use pumps to make pressure. We also have elevated basins a lot of places. If we would need some reserve water, these elevated basins are big water reservoirs that lays high in the terrain and is enough for several days.

How does the water become clean?

The water is purified in the water treatment plants that are adjacent to the water sources. It is so-called full purification, with the addition of chemicals to make particles of any contaminants which are subsequently removed in sand filters. In addition, the water is disinfected with both chlorine and UV radiation to remove any bacteria and parasites. This cleansing process fails to remove smell and taste, so for some periods the water may taste a little murky.

What kind of obstacles can you face on the way to clean drinking water?

Obstacles on the way to clean drinking water can be that the raw water itself is polluted or that the treatment of the water doesn’t work in an optimal way. It’s made strict claims about protection of the raw water sources and it is done careful follow-ups in the water treatment plants. This is both done by operating personnel who daily works at the environmental control, camera surveillance of parameters and tests of the water around the waterpipes, before and after cleaning of the water.

Sources:

https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/vei-vann/vann-og-avlop/vannkvalitet-og-forurensning/vannkvalitet-drikkevann/

https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/siste-nytt/det-kommunale-drikkevannet-i-blekslitjern.183786.aspx

Interview with Reidun Isachsen

Thank you for reading our article!

 

By: Amina and Sindre

We did some research and asked some people who we thought would give us answers on the questions we made.

The different questions were about where we get our water from and what happens if we don’t have water anymore. Our plan was to send a mail to some experts, but they didn’t answer our e-mails, so we had to og on google and ask someone we thought could answer.

In 2019, we got new and better cleaning methods. That was because it was going to reduce flavour in the water. Sometimes the water can be a little bit smelly as well, and then we can’t drink the water in a few days. This occurs very rarely.

This is what we found out after our research:

Nesodden gets their drinking water from Bleksli, and some of the water comes from a lead from Asker or Bærum.

The water gets cleaned through a water purification plant that is at Bleksli.

It is limited drinking water sources here on Nesodden, but luckily, we have leads from other places. Summer 2018 was a really hot summer and then we had less water than usual.

From a scale of 1 to 10 of how clean the water is, we would say that our water is a 9. Because it’s very clean, but it can’t be perfect. Sometimes it has been bacteria in our water, and then we had to boil it. But that is very rare.

We will have a big problem if Nesodden ran out of water, but we would be able to import form other places.

 

By Maia and Elsa

On Nesodden we have a lot of good drinking water, however there are still a lot of problems that can arise without us knowing. Nesodden has a lot of problems with bad water quality and a lot of polluted wells. One reason for this is that we have many cabins at Nesodden. The cabins are old and often don’t have connected water. This adds to existing challenges with the quality of our water. As all the other municipalities in Norway, Nesodden tries their best to make the water as clean as possible for the people living here. On the Nesodden Council’s website, our citizens may find information about their focus areas for water quality. One aspect they find important to focus on is sustainability.

Where does the citizens at Nesodden get their drinking water from?

There are 4 municipal waterworks on Nesodden. The residents of Nesodden get their drinking water from Bleksli pond, Kirkeåsen, Jaer school and Fagerstrand.

picture: https://www.google.com/maps/@59.8148841,10.7041486,12z

How secure are these water sources?

These water sources are secure and safe to drink according to Eurofins. Eurofins is the company that does all the tests of the drinking water, in all the different municipal networks. For example, on Bleksli pond, one of the water sources, they use UV-treatment. During UV-treatment the water is disinfected for, parasites, bacteria and viruses. But before the water is sent out to the residents, it is added little chlorine. The chlorine is not dangerous, it is simply just added so we can be sure that the water is totally clean and disinfected. You cannot taste the chlorine.

What can threaten the access to clean water?

Something that can threaten this access is oil and liquid/water. Oil and grease can cause operational problems in the sewer system and in cleansing processes, that again can cause to pollution in the water. Grease can clog the wires in the sewer system, and clogging can again cause to basement flooding and overflow in the system. This grease that sometimes can occur in the system, is also food for the rats that live in the sewer pipes. So to summarize, the grease in the system can lead to problems like clogging in the pipes, channels and in heat exchanges.

Picture from: https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/handlers/bv.ashx/i783dad2c-0226-4d70-887b-bcd55bfe00f9/w800/h534/k9761b3224c5d/img_17002.jpg

 

 

We sent a mail to these companies to see if we could get some more information:

Nesodden vannvellforbund: They oversee the drinking water here in Nesodden.

VA: You can call VA if there are any problems with your drinking water.

Norva24 Aqua Power Sandnes: They are a water filtration company.

Haug Entreprenørservice AS: They build pipes for the drinking water to get the water to your tap.

Our questions were:

1. We read an article written on Nesodden´s own website were it said that you were going to build a new filtration machine by 2018 but it got delayed so it was not finished before 2019. Why was it delayed and why did we need a new filtration machine?

This is the article:

https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/vei-vann/vann-og-avlop/vannkvalitet-og-forurensning/vannkvalitet-drikkevann/

2. Where do Nesodden get their drinking water from?
3. What drinking water problems could Nesodden possibly get in the future?
4. Have we ever been in a situation were we had a lack of clean drinking water?

We got an email back from 2 of the companies they both said that these questions were hard for them to answer, and that we should send an email to our own commune to get the answers we want.

We then sent a mail to Nesodden Kommune and waited for their answer.

When you try to send an email to the commune it first goes through a help senter. They will write you an automatic mail where it says that your mail has been delivered to the right person. After this you must wait another hour, maybe even days to get an answer.

The 26.03.2020 we got an answer from VA

1. It has been a hard process to build the water filtration in Nesodden and even though it said in the article that the system would be finished by 2019 it is still not finished, and they think it will be finished this year. We have had so much trouble with our water that we had to order water from Bærum in the summertime. This is very expensive, so we try to not do it that often, but when the filtration hasn’t been working properly, we haven’t had any other choice. The reason why Nesodden needs a new filtration is because, in the spring and summertime the water from Blekslitjernet has had a weird taste and smell. The water isn’t dangerous to drink, however its not very appetising.
2. The places Nesodden gets our water from is Blekslitjernet, Damenga, and Bærum if we need to, but as said this is expensive and we try to avoid buying from them.
3. So right now, we don’t have problem with our water, however Nesodden is vulnerable if one of our water systems brake. We know that in a few years we will not be able to have enough water for all the people living in Nesodden. The reason for this is because the population is going to grow massively here the next few years. They have had this thought in the back of their heads for quite some time now, so they will have another water solution in not to long. The solution that’s been the best so far is to build swimming pools that they load up with drinking water.
4. We once had a huge problem where we were very vulnerable to our drinking water. It was summer 2018 and a lot of communes in Norway had the same problem. It was so hot that it dried up a lot of our water. This concluded with us ordering water from Bærum. This water is expensive as already mentioned, so the population in Nesodden had to use water only when they really needed to.

Sources:

https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/vei-vann/vann-og-avlop/vannkvalitet-og-forurensning/vannkvalitet-drikkevann/

https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/vei-vann/vann-og-avlop/kommunal-vannforsyning/

https://www.nesodden.kommune.no/_f/p1/i359a7210-225a-467a-aa46-63ccbb4573f3/hovedplan_va_20091029.pdf