In·ter·est·ing /ˈint(ə)rəstiNG/ : Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?

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• Patvann May 13, 2019, 11:20 AM

  Cool! Science!!!
  It just takes everything I have to “tolerate” the voice and inflections of the Modern “Man” narating this….GAWD how it feels like a bad rash in my ears….and soul.

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• Marica May 13, 2019, 12:24 PM

  That was the first thing that came to my mind, as well. They all sound the same. Always the same lilt (is that a word?) and cadence. NPR, PSB, Discovery (not that I watch or listen to these). I guess it’s mimicry. They only listen to each other so how would they know how stupid they sound?

  I wish I knew enough chemistry to poke holes in this ball thing, because I’ll bet a few years down the line we’ll be hearing about some cockamamy scheme to fix whatever the experts didn’t fully appreciate about their solution at the time.

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• MIKE GUENTHER May 13, 2019, 4:57 PM

  As a kid, we fished the resovoirs around San Diego county. Those lakes were the main source of water for the city.

  I wonder if there are fish in that impoundment and how they feel about their light being blocked out.

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• steve walsh May 14, 2019, 3:42 AM

  Why didn’t they relocate the filtration system to the other side of the system, between the reservoir and the distribution point?

  Pretty cool solution.

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• ghostsniper May 14, 2019, 4:27 AM

  Lot’s of ponds and lakes around here, we don’t have one, wish we did. The folks across the road have a pond, about 150’x150′, I’m gonna suggest they put a couple hundred thousand black balls in it. The grey herons will like em, so will the fishes.

  Plastic comes from oil. In nature all things go back to what they were eventually.

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• jwm May 14, 2019, 2:34 PM

  Every plastic ball has a seam. They are black, which means they absorb heat from the sun. So half of each ball will be warming, softening, and expanding in the sunlight while the bottom half of the ball remains cool from the water. Sooner or later they will crack, leak, and begin taking on water. Sooner or later someone is going to have to dredge out the reservoir.

  JWM

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• John the River May 14, 2019, 6:39 PM

  Interesting, the first use of black spheres floating on the top of the water was (I believe) was for making the movie “The Abyss (1989)”. They needed to create an Stygian darkness as would exist a mile deep in the ocean. No light source other than the observable lights on the vessels or held by the actors/divers. For safety reasons simply covering the tank with solid sheet of black plastic wasn’t allowed. But a diver could surface into the black balls and breath.
  First use I’ve heard of since then.

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• Susan May 15, 2019, 8:01 AM

  These people make a mess of EVERYTHING. Then they celebrate their mess with a film narrated by a soulless, feminine-sounding man who condescends to explain to us, the idiots, why the mess is beautiful and good for humanity. And there is nothing you can do to stop them.

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• Suburbanbanshee May 16, 2019, 7:35 PM

  I don’t care how annoying the presenter is.

  It is a neat solution. It solves several problems at once. It is a passive system, and it works for about ten years; and then you just fish out the old balls and dump new ones. (Preferably before they split.) And it is even scenic, in its own strange way.

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