
'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town - chris_chan_
http://www.citynews.ca/2017/03/08/pink-tap-water-residents-alberta-town-tizzy/
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zzazzdsa
A lot of the posts here seem to be missing something important: permanganate
is an EXTREMELY vividly colored ion in solution. The bright colors of the
water in the pictures is about in line with what a 20 ppm permanganate
solution looks like. Considering manganese is an essential trace mineral
(although it is neurotoxic above a certain point, the amounts in the water are
minimal), I doubt there is any real toxic effect caused by drinking the water.
Permanganate is a very strong oxidizer, but it is not much stronger than the
commonly used chlorine and chlorine dioxide to be of concern (and it's weaker
than ozone anyways).

The whole reason permanganate is added in the first place is twofold: it
oxidizes simple organics all the way to carbon dioxide (think nail polish
remover, denatured alcohol), and it oxidizes soluble ferrous iron to insoluble
ferric iron. The byproduct of the oxidation, manganese dioxide, is insoluble
and if balanced correctly the treatment does not increase manganese levels in
the water.

~~~
sametmax
There is probably not "any real toxic effect" with a small dose taken over a
few months in an isolated study.

But what about a small dose taken over years, and interacting with the
thousands of small doses of synthetic chemicals we have in our body because of
processed food, hygiene products, clothes, surface treatments and medicine ?

This we have no way to know.

There are already so many reasons to get in contact with synthetic chemicals.
I think it's sane policy to limit them a much as we can when we can,
especially in something as ubiquitous as water.

Yes having drinkable water is essential, but some cities manage to have it
with much less additives. It should be the default goal for anything related
to public health.

~~~
literallycancer
>There are already so many reasons to get in contact with synthetic chemicals.

Such a pointless distinction. There are many chemicals that occur naturally
and will kill you.

~~~
sametmax
Anything can kill you. You can kill somebody with a piece of wood, a nuclear
device, gaz, light, shock waves, a baby, a golden coin...

And any matter is a chemical. Using "synthetic" as a qualifier allow me to
distinguish "fructose" from "paracetamol". You will less likely see important
traces of cobra venom in the water.

It's not perfect, but I fail to find a better term.

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mudil
I love potassium permanganate. Growing up in Soviet Union, we used to add
potassium permanganate to bath, supposedly to clean your skin. But I love it
for its oxidizing properties. Mix potassium permanganate with magnesium
shavings, and you have a pretty powerful explosive mixture. Put a drop or two
of glycerine into potassium permanganate and glycerine spontaneously burns.
There are tons of interesting experiments you could do with potassium
permanganate... So many wonderful memories...

~~~
zzazzdsa
When mixed with sulfuric acid, it forms manganese heptoxide, which does lovely
things like ignite paper on contact and detonate if heated above 50 C!

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Bockit
We used to gargle water mixed with potassium permanganate as children after
cleaning our teeth to see if we did a good enough job. It would colour plaque
pink, so it was very obvious if you hadn't cleaned properly!

~~~
huhtenberg
A shot of its stronger solution was also routinely used as an anti-diarrhea
remedy back when I was a kid. Tasted awful.

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refurb
Not the end of the world. You can buy potassium permanganate tablets to purify
drinking water.

~~~
gpm
What's the concentration of that vs the concentration here. Note that we also
use chlorine to treat drinking water (e.g. on canoe trips), but you don't want
to be drinking that unless it's very low concentration.

A quick google search suggests that they are used to "improve water clarity"
[0], so at a guess you don't use enough of it to turn the water pink.

There's also the fact that they think it's concentrated enough that you should
avoid bathing in it if you have sensitive skin. That certainly doesn't inspire
confidence that you should drink it (exposing some very important skin, that's
usually more sensitive).

[0] [http://www.livestrong.com/article/71333-use-potassium-
perman...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/71333-use-potassium-permanganate-
water-treatment/)

~~~
stagbeetle
I would not use livestrong as a source.

If the pictures are true to the situation, the concentrations are tiny. You
can look up videos of people putting less than a teaspoon into water to get
the same result.

IIRC, PP can be a precursor to chlorine. But, you're comparing two different
chemicals here and what applies to one likely doesn't apply to another.

There is a chance your skin will feel like it's burning if it's not fully
dissolved in water. I wouldn't advise touching the dry powder. The shards will
embed into your skin and it will feel like an open wound filled with Tabasco
for a long time.

Fun-fact: If you mix it with glycerol it combusts, so don't use any lotions
with it if you get some on your skin.

ETA: I don't know what's going on, but there's a lot of low-effort responses
in this thread. Is it the hours?

~~~
jcranmer
> IIRC, PP can be a precursor to chlorine.

Converting KMnO₄ to Cl¯ would require a nuclear reaction. Chlorides are
generally soluble, so it's not going to cause an insoluble salt to slowly
dissolve as a permanganate salt precipitates instead. It does appear to be a
stronger oxidizing agent than Cl₂ (and Cl¯ and ClO¯ and ClO₂¯), but there are
likely better reducing agents in most water than dissolved chlorine ions.

~~~
zzazzdsa
For what it's worth, permanganate is an extremely strong oxidizer (probably
the second strongest stable solid oxidant known, after persulfate), but at
neutral pH it is unable to oxidize chloride to hypochlorite and beyond. (The
electrode potentials are too close, and anyways the maganese dioxide byproduct
turns hypochlorite to chloride and oxygen.) Instead of reacting with a
reducing agent in water, (the main possibilities are simple organics and
ferrous iron, and these turn to carbon dioxide or insoluble ferric oxide
[sidenote: this is why permanganate is added to water in the first place])
permanganate tends to break down to oxygen and manganese dioxide, which
settles out.

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askvictor
Almost completely unrelated, except for the pink water bit:
[http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lake-in-melbournes-
westgat...](http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lake-in-melbournes-westgate-
park-turns-bright-pink-20170308-gutp26.html)

~~~
beedogs
Happens literally every year, and someone writes some clickbaity news article
about it every year.

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mirimir
Not a big deal. But it does underline the need to trust public water systems.
Worse mistakes have been made.

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squozzer
At least it's not phenolphthalein --
[https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/phenolphthalein](https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/phenolphthalein)

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cypherpunks01
"She said the water is clear coming out of her cold water taps, but not the
hot water taps."

Do people really not know where their hot water comes from?

~~~
evandev
They said "adding property owners may need to run their water for a few
minutes to clear their service lines." I would think that their hot water tank
got some of the pink water into it and unlike the cold line the pink will
slowly dissipate.

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random3
> “Could the town have done a better job of communicating what was going on
> yesterday to our community? Absolutely, without a doubt,”

This must be from Zootopia =))

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jguimont
Am I the only one thinking about the slime river under NYC in Ghostbuster 2 ?

Same colour, but not the same texture

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JohnStrange
It's because of the electrolytes. It has electrolytes in it, which is good.

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sunnyhacker
I have always wanted to buy a countertop water distiller for home use. Guess I
found another reason to justify the purchase =)

~~~
asafira
Piggybacking on this a bit: does anyone have a good recommendation for
learning more about home water distillers and RO systems? Both for just
certain faucets and maybe even the whole household? I know filtering all the
water at home is likely overkill (in most places!), but I'm curious.

~~~
wanderr
Under sink RO is not a big deal, you can buy a system for relatively cheap at
Sams or probably Costco, and there's not much that you have to know, just
change the prefilters when you are supposed to. Depending on the bladder and
how much usage the RO system gets, it can take a while to fill a glass, 15-20s
maybe? Filling a pot of water is infuriatingly slow.

RO systems waste water as that is how they work, expect your water usage to go
up (how much depends on a lot of factors, for us it did not impact our water
bill).

Whole house RO systems are probably a non-starter, keeping the water pressure
up high enough seems like it would be very expensive.

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senectus1
Yikes! Apparently its been used (Vaginally) to cause abortions...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate#Other_u...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate#Other_uses)

~~~
Coincoin
From your link: "These incidents only result in damage to the vagina from the
corrosive action of the chemical, since _potassium permanganate was proven to
be ineffective in producing abortions._ "

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quakeguy
Yikes, what the hell?!?

~~~
sdenton4
Basically a textbook reason for having abortion services available for all...

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quietmonkey
Or just... education?

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Fomite
"Don't try to flush out your vagina with potassium permanganate" is...very
specific education. And horrific folk remedies like this show up all the time
where abortion isn't legalized - "educating" would be a game of whack-a-mole.

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quakeguy
It will regulate itself, as always. Right? Right?!?

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NumberCruncher
Have you seen the other articles on this site? It should be called
dailymisery.com. Who reads trash like this?

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booleandilemma
If they did it for International Women's Day they were a little early.

