Why reservoirs in the USA were covered with black balls, and whether it helped save them

The US state of California is widely known for its extremely arid climate and frequent forest fires, which often span residential areas. In connection with such climatic features, the state leadership faces a difficult task: how to provide high-quality fresh drinking water to the multi-million population of California in conditions of frequent droughts. One solution to this problem was almost 100 million plastic balls.

In order to provide the region’s population with fresh water in the state of California, many reservoirs have been built. But even this could not completely solve the problem of water supply: during prolonged droughts, water from reservoirs evaporated and was spent on the needs of the population, and the level in some of them dropped to critical levels. But if saving water is an extreme measure, then you can try to reduce the amount of evaporated water. It was for this purpose that some of the state’s ponds were covered with millions of plastic balls.

When the next dry season began in California in the summer of California, the authorities were ready to take measures to preserve fresh water reserves. The surface of several reservoirs was covered with plastic balls, which were supposed to prevent the evaporation of precious fresh moisture.

But for the first time, these balls were used to protect reservoirs in the summer of 2008, and then the reason for the appearance of balls was somewhat different. Environmentalists have recorded in the water reservoirs Aivengo, Elysian and Silver Lake increased levels of bromates - dangerous carcinogens. Bromates appear in water when a number of factors are combined. It should contain bromides and chlorine, which under the influence of sunlight react with each other and form bromates. Environmentalists and state leaders decided to try to solve this problem by restricting access to sunlight. Just for this, the so-called bird balls were used.