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Old 10th February 2017, 11:57 AM
John King John King is offline
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Default What is in your water?

Following on from the thread about testing fixer.

There have been many stories about water quality in UK with varying tales about water suppliers and quality.

I live in North Durham and the water here is provided by Northumbria Water. It is usually very soft, occasionally tinted a very pale brown because it comes from surface reservoirs in areas where the rivers supplying the water flow through areas with a high peat content.

It doesn't taste like some I have drunk in some areas and as far as I know until today there may be something in the water which is not quite what I would have expected.

I keep a bucket in the darkroom because I have no running water, so keep some nearby for topping up. I loaded a number of cassettes with bulk film (FP4+) a couple of days ago and accidentally offcuts dropped into the bucket. I went to refill the bucket this morning ready to work later on and these off cuts were completly clear as if they had been through a fixing bath! The bucket is a normal black plastic type generally sold in DIY shops and builders merchants.

Is it worth reporting this to the water supplier? - I don't know. I have drunk it for most of my life and it hasn't done anything detrimental to me - YET! I have not grown another head or another set of legs, plus I am over 70!

On a similar line, I also recall reading a report some years ago where students conducted a test on water quality in the Thames. They wrote that after leaving undeveloped, but exposed film in flowing water near central London. When it was retrieved, the film had partially developed with dark grey/black emulsion instead of light grey. Careful analysis of the water showed that there was a measurable amount of Hydroquinone disolved in the water.
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Old 10th February 2017, 03:10 PM
JOReynolds JOReynolds is offline
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The same characteristic was reported for water drawn from lake Michigan in 1982. 'A few hours at room temperature' in a stainless-steel reel and tank produced a pale negative from Plus-X Pan film. I seem to remember mention of some conversion of the silver halide - much-diluted fix?
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Old 10th February 2017, 04:10 PM
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GoodOldNorm GoodOldNorm is offline
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Very hard water in Derbyshire its full of limescale. I use de-ionised water to mix film developers, and to give my negatives a final rinse. If people realised how hard it is to make water safe to drink I am sure they would think more about water pollution. A friend of mine worked for the water board he told me the worst thing to get out of water was diesel or engine oil. People have been caught pouring used car engine oil down the drain. Another big problem is cooking oil and fat, it clogs up the system.
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Old 10th February 2017, 04:28 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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When I was growing up on Teesside in the 1950s I wasn't into photography but someone told me that water dipped from the River Tees downstream of ICI Wilton would develop film better than D76. The only problem was that if you tried semi-stand development, the film would melt. And if you tried the full one hour stand development, the tank would melt.
These days the river is so clean that salmon swim up it...or so they say.

Alan
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Old 10th February 2017, 04:43 PM
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GoodOldNorm GoodOldNorm is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Clark View Post
When I was growing up on Teesside in the 1950s I wasn't into photography but someone told me that water dipped from the River Tees downstream of ICI Wilton would develop film better than D76. The only problem was that if you tried semi-stand development, the film would melt. And if you tried the full one hour stand development, the tank would melt.
These days the river is so clean that salmon swim up it...or so they say.

Alan
We are not very environmentally friendly in the UK
https://www.newscientist.com/article...ams-in-europe/

Don't get me started what really annoys me at the moment is people who throw rubbish out of their cars and leave it all over the roadside, people who throw rubbish in rivers and people who snack or picnic in the countryside and leave behind all their rubbish, sorry for the rant but people who drop litter really annoy me.
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Old 10th February 2017, 04:47 PM
John King John King is offline
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Default Cleaner rivers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Clark View Post
When I was growing up on Teesside in the 1950s I wasn't into photography but someone told me that water dipped from the River Tees downstream of ICI Wilton would develop film better than D76. The only problem was that if you tried semi-stand development, the film would melt. And if you tried the full one hour stand development, the tank would melt.
These days the river is so clean that salmon swim up it...or so they say.

Alan
Indeed. There are salmon and trout caught all the way up the Tees as far as High Force. They have not yet got around to constructing a fish ladder to get up the side of the waterfall or they may go even further.

Likewise the Tyne and the Wear. The Tyne has taken over from the Tweed as the foremost salmon river in England. You could almost say it has 'developed well'!

Last edited by John King; 10th February 2017 at 04:52 PM.
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Old 10th February 2017, 05:57 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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We do not have rivers over here, but last year we had to close a resovoir due to high levels of weedkiller, we used to get a fair bit of streams poluted with oil, spillage from heating oil, that is now very rare, in a small island it is very easy to trace the offenders,snd s few fines in the thousands has hit offenders in their pockets, we need to be very careful, our drinking water comes from the streams, get a couple badly hit and resoivoirs have to be shut, but on the whole the water is pretty good and very soft,Our current biggest problem, and one that makes me madder than hell, is fly tipping, everything from asbestos to white goods, you name it and it is tipped, in the countryside, if they are caught then the ultimate deterant is a spell in the nick, but it is harder to catch them.
Richard
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Old 10th February 2017, 06:17 PM
John King John King is offline
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It had crossed my mind where the water supply came from in Jersey when we were over there 2 years ago. I actually cannot remember seeing any running streams and that was in May.
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Old 10th February 2017, 06:53 PM
big paul big paul is offline
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W.C Fields said I don't drink water ,fish XXXX in it ,so I drink my scotch neat .. as for tap water, I tried distilled water but it just added to the price and another thing I needed to buy ,I have a Paterson filter on my water tap and it picks up some big and smaller bits of limescale ,and it works well for me .


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Old 10th February 2017, 07:39 PM
Lostlabours Lostlabours is offline
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I worked closely with water boards at chief chemist level as part of my job in the early 200's, related to photochemical disposal. Levels of commercial effluent were so low by then there were no issues.

Locally here in the UK my water is hard from a couple of local boreholes, we have to filter it before boiling, it's fine for genaral darkroom use but I de-ionise it for mixing stock developer and final rinse.

Our other local issue is Anthrax spores in some bore-holes, came from the fleeces used in the Carpet industry.

Our rivers have trout and salmon again for the first time since the height of the industrial revolution.

When I'm in Turjey the tap water isn't drinkable, it has a very high salt (all types) content as we live on the coast and it comes from a borehole. I use bottled water (15 litre) to wash films.

Ian
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