Horticulture

Any one of these factors might drive migration to Israel from Iquitos; together, they are a powerful motivating force. Between 2016 and 2019, I interviewed 52 adult members of the Iquitos Jewish community, a number that, according to the synagogue records, represents all but seven of the adult affiliated members of the synagogue during that time period. In that time, the average age of my respondents dropped from 45 to 38, and almost all the 2016 interviewees made aliyah. Although I interviewed 19 people in 2016 and 35 in 2019, I am sure that these averages represent a notable demographic shift, because during both visits I was assured I had spoken to the majority of adults in the community, having arrived in a habitual lull between the exodus of the recent converts and the entry of prospective converts. I was able to re-interview only three adults in 2019, as all the rest had either died, moved to Lima, or moved to Israel. Notably, in 2016, almost 90% of my interview subjects claimed Moroccan Jewish ancestry, while only half of my 2019 subjects did: the other half were the spouses of community members who did claim descendance. In general, there has been almost complete turnover in Iquitos, and the main body of congregants in 2019 was made up of younger adults, most with children below the age of 13. Individual/community-level dynamics explain this turnover.

Those that I spoke to in 2016 were either old-timers who have practiced all their lives, or in large part,potted blueberries those still dwelling in Iquitos after the 2011 conversion. Encompassing 280 children and adults, 2011 saw the largest conversion in Iquitos, almost three times the size of the conversion of 2018, which included 94. According to the Abramowitzes and my oldest respondent in 2016, who was 76 years old, almost all the converts from 2002 and 2004 made aliyah as outlined in Rabbi Bronstein’s plan. They left behind younger siblings, parents, and in some cases children. “Before 3G [cellphone networks] it was hard to stay in touch because calling was expensive, but by 2009 or around then I think we all had it, and I started calling every week,” said Angélica12, explaining how she used her cellphone to maintain contact with her older sister and eventually niece, who moved to Beersheba in 2003. She was not alone in taking advantage of technology to keep in touch with friends and family in Israel. 33 of my 35 2019 interviewees mentioned using the Internet and/or their cell phones to communicate with past olim. These technological connections make passing information between Iquiteños in Israel and in Peru much faster, cheaper, and easier. Most people use WhatsApp to message and video call, and three families showed me WhatsApp group chats that included members living in both countries, while others told me that it was common practice.

Facebook is another thread connecting the two halves of the community: individuals use Messenger and their personal pages to communicate. Some people do visit in person, especially after a death in the family. In 2016, two young women were visiting Iquitos for that reason, and one in 2019. One man maintained business interests in Iquitos and returned in person every few years to attend to his enterprises. Children will also return to visit their parents while alive: in 2019, the Abramowitzes and two other older individuals informed me that they had received at least one visit from their adult children since those children’s aliyot. Nevertheless, air travel between Israel and Peru is prohibitively expensive for most, so overwhelmingly, modern communications technology permits familial and friendship ties to persist across distance in Iquitos. These transnational ties inspire those who originally stayed behind in Iquitos to become active in the community themselves. Respondents told me that hearing family members’ and friends’ stories of their experiences with Judaism and aliyah inspired them to come to the synagogue to learn for themselves, feel closer to their distant relations, or to seek a new spiritual experience. Those who stayed universally told me that they felt that Judaism fit them or called to them in some way. The most common responses were that respondents valued Judaism’s perceived emphasis on family and education, that it made them feel closer to their family history, and that they appreciated what felt like a personal relationship with God. These responses came in response to my request that they tell me the story of their relationship with Judaism.

As conversion narratives, they may not reflect the actual course of events, but they are very real to their respondents. It also supports Lofland and Stark’s “affective bond” and “intensive interaction” steps, which Snow and Phillips accept as perhaps the most important and universally applicable steps in the model. This part of the narrative demonstrates how commonplace, practical transnational influence blends with a sense of spiritual calling for many Iquiteños. It also indicates that Lofland and Stark’s insistence that converts must sever “extra-cult bonds” , in keeping with general portrayals of conversion as intensely individual, is quite incorrect in this case. Considering that other large portion of my interviewees from 2019 were the spouses of those with Jewish ancestry, some 14 adults, 10 of whom were women, without such bonds, most of my 2019 interviewees would never have entered the synagogue. Once in the synagogue, these young families are educated about Judaism following the syllabus described earlier, which hews closely to the topics of education first suggested by Rabbi Bronstein. Students begin with lessons in elementary Hebrew, using children’s primers,square plastic pot which take place alongside classes taught in Spanish on Jewish history and culture — essentially, Ashkenazi Jewish history and culture. Moroccan Jews or Latin American Jews are not included. When classes in conversational Hebrew and the history of the modern state of Israel are required alongside classes in liturgy, the very syllabus of conversion indicates that Israeliness and Jewishness are the same, and that both those identities have little to do with Iquiteños’ own pasts. Moreover, as each wave of new converts leaves, it reinforces the idea that graduating, if you will, into Jewishness also involves leaving the Diaspora for Israel. Once again, the practical and the religious converge, each necessary to endorse the other.In 2019, 25 of 35 respondents had children under the age of 18 still living in Peru. Universally, those 25 mentioned a desire for their children to “get a Jewish education” and “grow up Jewish.” The best way to do this, they thought, was to allow them to grow up in Israel. Parental concern about children’s Jewish educations, opportunities, and identities if they continue to live in Iquitos are the primary motivating factor I found in adults’ narratives about their migration choices. Most of these children are quite young: only two sets of parents had children above the age of 15. It is indeed difficult to practice Judaism in Iquitos: seven parents told me of their children facing antisemitic taunts from their peers, and every parent mentioned that they had to choose between a higher-quality education at a Catholic school and an inferior one at supposedly secular public schools, which nonetheless often ask students to practice writing via copying prayers. There is only the one synagogue, no access to kosher food, and little in the way of Jewish life for teenagers. “I worry that my daughter will just be confused,” one mother told me. “She comes home singing these Christian songs just as much as she sings the [Jewish] prayers.” In this way, education and religion are tied together. To Iquiteño-Jewish parents, getting a “good education” has as much to do with getting an education that teaches their children how to be good Jews as it does with academic practicalities.

There is no division. If being a good Jew means being in Israel, then it stands to reason that learning to be a good Jew should take place in Israel. Some might consider this mindset purely rationalist, desiring a “better” life for one’s children. I, however, cannot help but see the inseparability of practical education and spiritual education for the parents of Iquitos. The two eighteen-year-olds I interviewed in 2019 were the most candid about the material benefits they expected to receive after migrating.Another felt that his chances of achieving enough stability to financially support his younger siblings would be better working in Tel Aviv than in economically depressed Iquitos.Both also told me that by making aliyah and becoming successful Israeli citizens , they would be proving that they were Jews, something they had felt sure of since they were young children, but which also felt like something that could be taken away from them, whether by the strictures of Iquitos’ Catholic rhythms or by the lack of recognition of their Conservative/Masorti conversions. One, who mentioned acquiring an expedited Orthodox conversion in the military, said that he wanted to be financially successful so that he could meet a Jewish Israeli woman and support her. Even these young adults, then, blended their economic interests and their spirits. However, it is vitally important to note that, although these benefits might accrue to the youngest members of the community, or perhaps their children, they will probably not accrue to the majority of Iquiteño migrants. Being middle-class in Perú is not the same as being middle class in Israel, and the hit migrants take from being unable to speak Hebrew fluently, not being certified in their professions in Israel, and other hindrances, severely hamper them. This is dealt with more thoroughly in the next chapter, but it is clear that in the absence of material benefit, some sort of religious benefit becomes a more convincing argument. When these young adults and young parents with their children migrate, they will not leave behind the rest of their families as earlier waves of converts did. The transnational social field between Israel and Iquitos, which has been self-sustaining for almost two decades, may continue in a diminished way, but it is running out of potential converts, and therefore potential migrants. Sra. Abramowitz does not believe there will be another conversion anytime soon, and does not wish to continue classes aimed at emigration. She wants to build a community, if possible, in Iquitos, though she doubts there are enough people to make it viable long-term. Sr. Abramowitz told me, in his jocular way, “Eventually there simply aren’t any more Levy’s out there in the jungle to find.” Rather than a give-and-take or circular model, the migration dynamic in Iquitos is one of suction, where people leave and do not return. As families reunite in Israel and stay there, and as fewer people with Moroccan-Jewish heritage exist in Iquitos to rediscover their roots, migration to Israel may peter out along with the base community. I could, of course, be incorrect. Perhaps this latest wave will begin to pull more, previously unaffiliated people without Jewish ancestry towards Israel, but there is no evidence of such a dynamic yet. It is inaccurate to describe Iquiteño Jews as solely motivated to convert by practical or religious concerns. Iquiteño Jews are motivated by both practical and religious concerns, and often do not see a difference between the two. Individuals may fall differently on a spectrum between material and religious interests, but all exhibit at least some blending behaviors. Because of this blending, the choice to emigrate is often seen as simply a part of the choice to convert. This fusion is a result of early state/institutional-level influence on the Iquitos congregation in a global atmosphere that has all the hallmarks of standard migration. Given a situation that is ripe for migration in general, and offered a way of learning Judaism that emphasizes the role of Israel and once even required aliyah, it is unsurprising that recent converts continue to migrate to Israel at such a high rate. This transnational activity is both a sign of and a reason for the changes to Iquiteño self-identification as Jews and as members of a diaspora.

Through the view of agricultural systems as ecosystems, agroecology combines these disciplines and has subsequently incorporated further disciplines of cultural, human, and social sciences in a wider systems approach. It has existed as an explicit concept since the 1930s, evolving through the 1970s by increasing awareness of practices, focusing on indigenous knowledge and emerging social movements. These tenets position agroecological paradigms as both an alternative to chemical, mono-cultural or industrial farming, and as a catalyst for conventional agriculture to adopt more sustainable approaches. Agroecological systems are considered to be built on the principles of natural ecosystems and are seen as multifunctional and functionally integrated systems of complementary and dynamic relations between livingorganisms and their environments. In Table 1, some well-explored key characteristics related to agroecology are listed. The functions of natural ecosystems, in terms of energy and nutrient flow, as well as the dynamics of adjusting and being resilient to constantly changing surroundings and regulating populations,dutch bucket for tomatoes clearly are different from an agroecosystem.

The latter are altered by and reacting to human dominance, or at a more extreme end, are disconnected or isolated from pre-existing energy and nutrient flows. Over the past decades, many academic agroecologists have increasingly stressed the importance of considering the human and social systems as integrated parts of the agroecological system. Building complex systems involves extensive human knowledge, experience, and community collaboration. Blay-Palmer and co-authors point to how the benefits of sharing place-based knowledge and good practices can help in joining forces for transforming food systems at a wider scale. The scale of an agroecological system can be large or small, but the scope of agroecological farming activities is wide; the majority of the population of smaller-scale family farmers are often considered to be applying agroecological farming approaches, and are currently estimated to produce food nourishing 50–70% of the global population, and supply up to 80% of the food in Sub-saharan Africa and Asia. With regard to human livelihood and scale related to agroecological systems, Walter Goldschmidt found that rural communities with more, smaller farms saw higher human well being than those with fewer, larger farms in settings of North-American farming in the middle of last century. This has been questioned by modernist scholars, but has also seen numerous studies supporting its conclusions over time, and it certainly has never been strongly refuted. As the example above on research in New York’s Chinatown produce economy showed, the diversity of production was found directly related to the proximity of supply and lower cost of healthy food.

Another argument for how the resilience of an agroecosystem includes environmental elements as well as social and institutional elements is raised by Gonzales De Molina who refers to Holling, Berkes, and Folke and Holt-Giménez : “The resilience of an agroecosystem does not depend solely on its productive arrangements. State institutions, responsible for managing natural and socioeconomic disasters, can create favorable or adverse conditions for the recovery of the productive capacity of an agroecosystem. In this respect, there are institutions that favor the resilience of an agroecosystem more than others. In contrast to private or simply state property, communal forms of ownership, characteristic of traditional rural cultures, result in management approaches that adapt more easily to surprises or changes experienced by ecosystems.”This emphasis on institutions and the resilience dimension suggests stronger links between agroecology and fundamental environmental, ethical, political, and governance related questions and issues about the right and access to land and other natural resources and ecosystem services, such as water, soil, forests, and pollinators. It also underlines the importance of wider disciplinary and practical perspectives, such as landscape agroecology and the process of landscape planning in rural as well as linked rural–urban settings. Wezel and co-authors emphasize the relevance of working with “agroecology territories” in a more holistic framework combining sustainable agriculture and food systems as well as addressing biodiversity conservation, as places actively engaging in transition to sustainable farming and food systems.The agroecosystem concept and the science of agroecology provide a foundation for examining and understanding the interactions and relationships among the diverse components of the food system. 

How can a food system be characterized as agroecological? There is a clear and undisputable link between how food is produced and how it goes into the food system. Stassart and co-authors emphasized ways in which agroecological systems could expand to a broader level, suggesting greater valorization of agrobiodiversity and the underlying diversity of knowledge found in both farming and food system, while providing broader perspectives of agroecology both in farming and food systems. Logically, food cannot be claimed to be “sustainable,” even when being produced in a “sustainable way,” if it feeds into and contributes to food systems which are fundamentally unsustainable, for example, are contradicted by the use of huge amounts of fossil fuels or packaging material, or increase social inequity, or are wasteful of other tangible and intangible resources.The linkages between agroecology and food sovereignty receive wide acknowledgement and detailed explanation by agroecological and food sovereignty movements , viewing agroecology as a major catalyst for enabling the realization of the agrarian reform called for by the food sovereignty movements. These movements focus upon principles of low-input use, resilience,blueberry grow pot sustainability as well as its prioritization of smallholders or peasant farmers. Food sovereignty and agroecology are also strongly united through their agency for and common defense of what are claimed as the common inheritances of humanity in terms of natural resources. Altieri and Nicholls demonstrate how different dimensions of sovereignty including food, energy, and technological sovereignties are all critical to agroecology and contribute to its resiliency. Table 1 suggests how linkages between key features of agroecology on a wider scale can be brought into important functions and structures of entire food systems. Multi-functionality and resilience are highlighted by numerous agroecological scholars and address agroecological systems’ capacities and aims. These scholars assess system properties such as ability to absorb shocks, and other inherent capacities to undergo relevant transformations, transitions, and processes of stabilization under changing and new conditions through feedback loops and iterative development processes. Resilience is a relevant key concept which potentially informs the design and maintenance of an agroecological food system, which can build upon local structures of markets, linking reciprocal flows, for example, between urban and rural landscapes, preserving food cultures and nourishment, and opening new possibilities for processing, storing, and retailing. In an agroeco logical farming system, “health” is crucial at all levels of the system. This holistic understanding of health and the importance of maintaining a high-immunitylevel is also relevant for food systems, where the juxtaposition of feedback loops, like immune system response, are imagined to help regulate the resource flows and stimulate the social connectedness in the food system, and emphasize the nourishment aspect of the food which is produced, exchanged and eaten in the food system.Potentials in the agriculture and food systems that link urban and rural areas need to be maximized as a normal part of a balanced development process. 

In this article, we understand a city-region context for food systems as a landscape which includes rural, urban, and peri-urban areas, the two latter varying from a few thousand persons to many million people , which of course will call for widely different place-based and context relevant solutions. The increasing and partly unplanned urbanization has led to significant changes in diets, consumption patterns, and food trade , and in many urban areas, food markets are detached from local or domestic food production. In addition,huge amounts of so-called waste are produced, both in terms of food waste from processing and ensuring availability of a wide range of food at all times for eaters, as well as waste based on non-renewable resources. The fact that we talk about “waste” underlines the detachment from food production and farming, soil management, animal keeping, and resource cycles which were not present just 100 years ago These issues are addressed by the first two points in Table 1, which are strongly interlinked and enforce minimal external inputs and recycling of resources and biomass. In a city-region context, this clearly calls for a reorganization of resource cycles and avoidance of losses of energy, water, and nutrients in a combined rural–urban landscape. Where the linkages between rural and urban areas in some cases are facilitated by local governance systems in terms of markets linking, for example, smallholder farmers with urban markets , creation of full resource cycles including, for examples, compost material from cities to the soil and the rural areas, seem to be rarely addressed. Such cycles could involve human food waste being converted into animal feed and compost, energy in terms of biofuels produced from what normally would be considered as organic waste, minimization of plastic and packaging, and systems involving human urine and feces being composted and/or recycled in safe and responsible ways. Indeed, such agro-waste-recycling systems enabled Paris to rely on its local foodshed for over 1,000 years. The system boundaries in a city-region food system cannot be clearly defined, and a “completely closed food system” would be unlikely, even a contextualized food system, shaped, and iteratively co-created by multiple involved actors, and based on recycling and closed loops principles. Referring to the four-dimensional sustainability concept including environmental, social, economic, and institutional levels, as described by Valentin and Spangenberg , Spangenberg and FAO , an agroecological food system in a city-region context will consist of a complex web of smaller food systems, for example, involving CSAs, urban, and peri-urban farming and a number of different supply chains and levels of organization, which interact and overlap internally as well as with surrounding landscapes and food systems. Most likely, products from other geographic and climatic zones, for example, coffee and spices, will be involved, and inclusion of surrounding marine or other landscape elements further blur apparently clear systems boundaries. Furthermore, vulnerability to local shocks raises the general idea of crisis-preparedness and will always call for a certain ability of all food systems to step in and assist others, in case of failing harvests or natural disasters, and make wider connections between food systems desirable. Trade and transport between different food systems can be organized in ways which are equitable and environmentally not burdening, and can supplement local food systems rather than displace local produce. These aspects need to be considered if the aims and characteristics of agroecological food systems are to be taken seriously. Mendéz and co-authors discussed transformative agroecology and stated that agroecology is explicitly committed to a more just and sustainable future by reshaping power relations from farm to table. In our contextualiza tion of agroecological food systems, we see the need to explore how the food system can be connected in whole cycles, that is, from table to farm as well. As mentioned above, Gliessman discusses what “our food system” would look like, if transformed so that it follows the basic thinking of agroecology. This is envisioned as the unfolding across five potential levels of transformation, where the first three address agroecosystem changes, and levels four and five target formation of more local and global food systems, respectively. Level four targets the local level food systems and creation of the above mentioned “food citizenship,” where food is grounded in a direct relationship between eaters and growers. Level 5, however, targets a wider change: “… build a new global food system, based on equity, participation, democracy, and justice, that is not only sustainable, but helps restore and protects earth’s life support systems upon which we all depend”. This vision for integrating webs of different food systems – whilst emphasizing the importance of fairness throughout the systems – becomes of high relevance in complex and multifunctional city-region food systems.There is much evidence of severe negative long-term environmental and social effects of our current globalized food system, for example, the feed and livestock production as one example. The ideas of agroecological food systems present alternatives to this, among others by contributing to local economic and resource circulation and inclusive, equitable food systems. Such systems should perhaps be described as “socio-agroecological food systems,” emphasizing the closely woven social, agroecological, and ecological interactions, for example, in terms of networks involving both farmers and non-farmers and between actors in the regions, no matter whether we talk ecological or political zones.

Based on this finding, and on the conclusions drawn from the data presented in Figures 3.1-3.3, it is likely that removal of these compounds was not markedly influenced by seasonal fluctuations in temperature or weather patterns and was more dependent on availability of sediment bindings sites, degradation in the sediment compartment, and, in the case of fipronil, rate of plant uptake. Sediment microorganisms responsible for biotic degradation likely appeared to be unaffected by seasonal temperature variations because temperatures are relatively high year-round in Southern California. In addition, the emergent macrophytes present in the PCW experience rampant growth due to the constant availability of nutrients in the Santa Ana River water. Therefore, aquatic macrophytes were always available for plant uptake and subsequent transformation of fipronil. In addition to concentration removal, another important metric for ascertaining the efficacy of the PCW is the mass flux of fiproles and pyrethroids. In particular, mass influx, mass efflux,nft hydroponic and change in mass flux were calculated from the chemical concentrations and water flow rates.

Fipronil, bifenthrin, and cyfluthrin were imported into the PCW at the highest rates, with mean mass influxes of 115-12700 mg d- 1 , 2.37-701 mg d-1, and 100-6090 mg d-1, respectively. Fipronil desulfinyl ,fipronil sulfide , and fipronil sulfone exhibited much lower import rates into the wetland. Changes in mass flux, which represents the net import or export of chemicals to or from the PCW, were also the highest for fipronil , bifenthrin , and cyfluthrin. The majority of changes in mass flux for these three compounds were statistically significant. In contrast, only one of the changes in mass flux values was statistically significant for fipronil desulfinyl , fipronil sulfide , and fipronil sulfone since the difference between the mass influxes and effluxes for these compounds was much smaller. Negative changes in mass flux values were found for fipronil and cyfluthrin in the months of November and December 2018, though only two of these four measurements were statistically significant. However, the export of these compounds during this time corresponded to higher outflow than inflow for the PCW , which likely resulted in resuspension of sediment particles as evidenced by the negative sedimentation rates observed during these two months. The flow of water through the entire Prado wetlands is regulated to optimize water quality and quantity, which leads to occasional net outflow from certain wetland cells, as was the case for the PCW in November and December 2018. Therefore, although net mass export of fipronil and cyfluthrin occurred during this time, it was compensated for by the high volume of water exiting the PCW, as indicated by the positive concentration removal values. 

Although no outflow, mass efflux, or change in mass flux values could be calculated for January 2019, it is important to mention that the rainfall that occurred during this month resulted in spikes of chemical mass influx and possibly additional resuspension of contaminated sediment particles. However, positive removal values again showed that dilution prevented an increase in outlet concentrations. To further highlight the importance of adsorption in the removal of fiproles and pyrethroids by the PCW, the relative presence of each compound on TSS obtained from water samples was calculated. With two exceptions, the % of each chemical on TSS at the wetland inlet was statistically similar to the outlet value. In August 2018, an average of 87.7% of the bifenthrin in the whole water sample was associated with TSS at the inlet, as compared to 100% at the outlet. In contrast, values decreased from 92.1% at the inlet to 71.9% at the outlet for cyfluthrin in December 2018. In addition, inlet, midpoint, and outlet values were anomalously low for fipronil and cyfluthrin in July 2018. It is likely that some cyfluthrin was associated with dissolved organic matter and included in the aqueous phase concentration. The lower values for fiproles may be attributed to their moderate hydrophobicity as compared to the pyrethroids. The overall results suggested that the fractions of these compounds on TSS were similar throughout the PCW and were also similar over time, with inlet and outlet values ranging from 60-100%.

Combined with the evidence for the importance of sediment binding in the removal of pyrethroids and fiproles, it may be concluded that adsorption to suspended particles and subsequent sedimentation was likely a dominant process governing the fate and transport of these contaminants in CW systems. Linear regression was carried out to identify additional factors contributing to the removal of fiproles and pyrethroids in the PCW. Two dependent variables, concentration-based removal and change in mass flux, and three independent variables, sedimentation rate, water pH, and water temperature, were considered. Statistically significant linear relationships were observed between fipronil removal and water pH , between change in fipronil mass flux and sedimentation rate ,nft system and between change in cyfluthrin mass flux and sedimentation rate. These results demonstrate that water pH and water temperature had minimal impact on the removal of fiproles and pyrethroids in the PCW, with the exception of the influence of water pH on the concentration-based removal of fipronil. This finding may emphasize the importance of pH in determining the ionization state of fipronil and hence its adsorption onto sediment particles under field conditions. In addition, the effect of sedimentation rate on the changes in mass flux for fipronil and cyfluthrin—the analytes detected at the highest concentrations and mass influxes— further supports the notion that settling of insecticide-laden particles played a major role in the removal of fiproles and pyrethroids. The evidence provided by this study therefore highlights that settling of contaminated particles and partition into the wetland sediment are crucial in achieving removal of these urban-use insecticides, which is in agreement with findings from an agricultural drainage wetland. Calculated TUs based on the concentrations measured at the PCW inlet and outlet are given in Table 3.4. Sublethal and lethal toxicity values for the amphipod Hyalella azteca were used to determine the change in potential pyrethroid toxicity between inlet and outlet measurements since previous research has demonstrated this organism’s sensitivity to pyrethroids. Mean sublethal bifenthrin TUs decreased from 0.704-19.4 at the inlet to 0-4.91 at the outlet, while mean lethal TUs decreased from 0.302-8.30 to 0- 2.10 at the inlet and outlet, respectively. All decreases were statistically significant except for the month of November 2018 when inlet TUs were relatively low with high variability and outlet TUs were 0 since no bifenthrin was detected. Cyfluthrin mean sublethal TUs were 26.0-240 at the inlet, and decreased to 7.27-68.0 at the outlet. The corresponding mean lethal TUs were 21.5-198 and 6.01-56.1 at the inlet and outlet, respectively. All decreases in cyfluthrin TUs were statistically significant. The midge Chironomus dilutus was selected for the calculation of fiprole TUs since it has been shown to be extremely sensitive to these chemicals. Mean sublethal TUs for fipronil sulfide decreased from 0-0.414 at the inlet to 0-0.00131 at the outlet in a statistically significant manner. Similarly, mean lethal fipronil sulfide TUs underwent statistically significant decreases from 0-0.0592 at the inlet to 0-1.88 x 10-4 at the outlet. Fipronil mean sublethal TUs decreased from 0.984- 11.4 at the inlet to 0.416-2.72 at the outlet, while mean lethal TUs decreased from 0.392- 4.53 at the inlet to 0.166-1.08 at the outlet.

All inlet-outlet comparisons for fipronil were statistically significant except for TUs corresponding to the month of January 2019 when variability in concentrations at the inlet was high. Mean sublethal fipronil sulfone TUs were 0-4.22 at the inlet, decreasing to 0-1.03 at the outlet. Mean lethal TUs for fipronil sulfone were 0-0.312 and 0-0.0761 at the inlet and outlet, respectively. Statistically significant differences for fipronil sulfone were only observed in the months of October 2018, December 2018, and January 2019, but TU values for the other months were all <1 at the inlet and 0 at the outlet. These results showed that removal of fiproles and pyrethroids by the PCW resulted in toxicity reductions for all urban-use insecticides, and the reductions were statistically significant in most instances. The TU values reported in this study represent hypothetical worst-case single chemical exposure scenarios for the most sensitive aquatic invertebrates. Furthermore, the TU values were derived from whole water concentrations and did not take into account bio-available concentrations. For pyrethroids, studies have shown that bio-availability in whole water and sediment is inhibited by DOM or organic matter. Therefore, it is likely that the TU values in this study overestimated the actual toxicity and would serve as a conservative assessment. The influence of bio-availability on fiproles should be less significant given their moderate hydrophobicity. Moreover, the TUs calculated from PCW data do not represent the Prado Wetlands as a whole, since it is composed of many interconnected ponds operating in series. The effluent from the PCW undergoes dilution as it recombines with additional treated water emanating from adjacent wetland cells, is subjected to further treatment, and is ultimately deposited into Chino Creek. As a result, the TU values for the entire treatment chain would very likely be further reduced. Constructed wetlands are a promising option for the treatment of water containing hydrophobic organic contaminants such as fiproles and pyrethroids. There is a great deal of evidence in the literature demonstrating the efficacy of CWs in the removal of nitrogen species, phosphorous species, metals, antibiotic resistance genes, total suspended solids , biological oxygen demand, and chemical oxygen demand. CWs of various designs have been studied, and it is clear that treatment is typically facilitated by some combination of abiotic degradation, microbial degradation, sorption, and phytoremediation, depending on the treatment endpoint. Existing data regarding select organic contaminants have demonstrated that CWs are effective in their removal , but detailed mechanistic information is largely lacking for many important classes of organic pollutants. There is evidence that sediment sorption and subsequent degradation is vital for removal of HOCs , and plant uptake appears to play a role as well. However, differences in HOC removal efficiency and the mechanisms responsible among CW types and configurations is not well understood, which prevents comprehension of the optimal conditions for their treatment. Unit process CWs are designed to facilitate treatment of a particular endpoint or set of endpoints by encouraging specific physical, chemical, and/or biological processes. Unit processes include open water cells, macrophyte-dominated wetland cells, and bivalve filtration wetland cells. These unit processes encourage degradation of their target contaminants via the following mechanisms: direct photolysis, indirect photolysis, sorption, and biotransformation in open water cells; denitrification, metal sulfide precipitation, plant-derived carbon biotransformation, and peat sorption in macrophyte-dominated wetland cells; and pathogen ingestion, particle-associated contaminant ingestion, and inactivation or transformation of ingested contaminants in bivalve filtration wetland cells. Some water treatment initiatives seek to leverage the unit process concept by installing distinct unit process cells in series to remove several classes of contaminants, allowing for optimization of CW size and isolation of necessary physical and chemical conditions. Previous work has demonstrated that unit process open water cells are effective for the removal of pharmaceuticals via photolysis and microbial biodegradation. It is unknown if UPOW cells are similarly effective for removal of HOCs such as fiproles and pyrethroids. To investigate the efficacy of UPOW cells in the removal of HOCs and begin to understand the mechanisms underlying said removal, water and sediment samples were collected from the Prado Wetlands from June 2018-January 2019 and analyzed for fipronil desulfinyl, fipronil sulfide, fipronil, and fipronil sulfone as well as the pyrethroids bifenthrin and cyfluthrin. The primary objectives of this study were to examine the spatial and temporal trends of fiproles and pyrethroids in the water and sediment compartments of a UPOW wetland cell, to calculate the percent removal of each analyte by the wetland as well as their mass fluxes through it, and to measure changes in invertebrate toxic units caused by UPOW treatment. It was hypothesized that sedimentation of contaminated particles and sediment binding would play a major role in the removal of fiproles and pyrethroids by the UPOW cell, causing significant reductions in sensitive aquatic invertebrate toxicity.

No surfactant production was observed in a ∆gacS mutant, and syfR and syfA transcription are nearly abolished. Additionally, we determined whether SyfR operates independently of SalA, or if SalA is upstream from SyfR function. Surprisingly, the ∆salA deletion mutant also exhibited abolished surfactant production and very low levels of syfR and syfA transcription. This suggests that these genes mediate the baseline expression of SyfR. It also suggests that these pathways are not responsible for the surface-dependent induction of syfA, but rather have an epistatic role in syringafactin production. We were surprised to observe that both ∆salA and ∆gacS mutants exhibited abolished surfactant production. We thus questioned if the strains are still capable of producing and secreting syringafactin or whether pleiotropic effects on cell metabolism that made them incapable of this metabolic process was operative in these mutants. To test this, we constitutively expressed SyfR by introducing plasmid p519n-syfR into both the ∆gacS and ∆salA mutant strains. These strains produced surfactant detectable both by the atomized oil spray as well as water drop collapse in both broth and plate cultures of these strains. 

These mutants, in which syfR is not normally transcribed, thus produce and secrete syringafactin when SyfR is supplied constitutively. This demonstrates that neither GacS nor SalA are necessary for syringafactin transcription,flood and drain table or for supply of necessary intermediates for syringafactin production, but rather exert their influence on syringafactin production solely through their control of the SyfR regulator. We initially suspected that secondary mutations might have been the cause of what looked to be a poorly growing or stressed strain. However, all independently isolated syfA– and syfB transposon mutants as well as the site-directed ∆syfA deletion mutant displayed this same phenotype, suggesting that it is a direct response to the absence of syringafactin. Nonetheless, in order to rule out the possibility of secondary mutations in our syringafactin-deficient strains, we created a syfR– mutation in a ∆syfA deletion strain. Surprisingly, this second mutation abolished the fried egg phenotype normally exhibited by the ∆syfA mutant, and the appearance of this ∆syfA/syfR– double mutant was indistinguishable from that of a syfR– mutant alone. This suggested that SyfR transcriptionally regulates more genes than just those enabling syringafactin production, specifically including genes encoding whatever trait triggers development of the fried egg phenotype.

We initially hypothesized that perhaps SyfR induced both syringafactin production and also a system involved in either its transport or its perception, and we further postulated that syringafactin served not only as a surfactant, but also as a signaling molecule. To additionally support the conjecture that SyfR controls more than just syringafactin production, we introduced the plasmid conferring the constitutive expression of SyfR into a ∆syfA strain. Curiously, this strain also exhibited a fried appearance, but one that appeared to be an exaggerated and earlier-onset version of the rough “white” from a ∆syfA strain. Thus, the strong visual phenotype of this strain provides further evidence that SyfR transcriptionally regulates more than just syringafactin production. In comparison, a wild-type strain capable of syringafactin production and that constitutively expresses SyfR develops a slightly matted appearance, but does not exhibit a fried appearance. Assuming that this rough fried egg appearance is indeed indicative of stress, we might hypothesize that syringafactin normally plays a protective role for the cell, and that its absence makes the cells somehow more susceptible to other factors induced by SyfR in P. syringae itself. In order to identify genes under the control of SyfR, we screened 2,000 transposon mutants in a ∆syfA mutant background for any that had lost the fried egg phenotype. Several such mutants were identified. Prominent among the mutants found were several insertional events in the syringomycin biosynthetic genes and an associated secretion gene , prompting further investigation.

In order to confirm the requirement for syringomycin to initiate the fried egg phenotype, we constructed a site-directed knockout of syrE in a ∆syfA mutant background.One of the most surprising aspects of this finding was the fact that syringomycin and syringopeptin are assumed to have overlapping roles as plant virulence factors, and are typically co-regulated by SyrF which is downstream of SalA. However, a site-directed knockout in the syringopeptin biosynthetic gene sypA did not lead to a loss of the fried egg phenotype. These results strongly suggest that syringomycin has a specific role in this phenoptype that is independent from syringopeptin. However, while syringomycin appeared necessary for the fried egg phenotype, this was not proof that it was a factor regulated by SyfR, which was posited to be required for this phenomenon. We postulated that the production of syringomycin in the absence of syringafactin is altering cell physiology in a way that leads to a production of the fried egg phenotype. In order to confirm that syringomycin expression is under the control of SyfR, we developed a plasmid-based transcriptional reporter of syrB expression. Indeed, the GFP fluorescence indicative of syrB expression was much lower in cells of a syfR– mutant harboring pPsyrB-gfp than in either a ∆syfA mutant or the wild type strain; expression in the ∆syfA mutant was similar to that in the wild type strain. In broth cultures,rolling bench expression of syrB was similarly low in all strains, as further proof that genes downstream of SyfR are not activated in broth conditions. This confirms that syringomycin is induced in cells cultured on plates and is under the regulatory control of SyfR.Because the fried egg phenotype is observed only in colonies older than 3 days, we investigated syringomycin expression in different mutant strains over the course of several days.

Surprisingly, although syringomycin was highly expressed in wild-type and ∆syfA strains after one day of growth, only very low levels of expression were detected at any subsequent time. To further explore this apparent temporal regulation, we measured the GFP fluorescence of cells of a wild-type strain harboring pPsyrB-gfp over the course of 48 hours of growth on plates. In agreement with our initial observations, syrB expression, and thus presumably syringomycin production, is limited to a short period during initial phases of colony development, peaking after about 24 hours and thereafter diminishing. This pattern of expression was seen in both the wild-type and a ∆syfA mutant strain, but not in the syfR- mutant, in which syfA expression was always low. This temporal regulation of syrB is contrary to that of syfA expression, which remains stably induced over this time period. Thus the role of SyfR in stimulating syringomycin expression is distinct from its effect on syringafactin expression. We hypothesized that the strong temporal, and hence cell density-related, regulation of syringomycin synthesis may be due to its suppression by quorum sensing in older cultures. To test this we measured syrB expression in a ∆ahlR mutant incapable of quorum sensing. The temporal expression of syrB in this strain was identical to that in a wild type strain, with peak expression at 24 hours. This suggests that quorum sensing does not mediate temporal regulation of syringomycin production. Also, these results also cast doubt on the model that syringomycin is directly responsible for inducing the fried egg phenotype, since the colony phenotype appears after about four days of growth, while syringomycin production apparently peaks after only 24 hours. Although the biosynthetic pathway for syringomycin and regulation of its expression has been extensively investigated, SyfR has never been implicated in its regulation. We thus questioned if SyfR was, in fact, an overlooked necessary regulatory element for syringomycin production. To test this we measured syrB expression in a wild-type and a syfR– mutant mutant strain on media specifically formulated to induce syringomycin and syringopeptin production. Although the levels of GFP fluorescence exhibited by a syfR– mutant harboring pPsyrBgfp were reduced compared to that in the wild type strain, we still see substantial expression of syrB in the medium conducive to syringomycin production. This suggests to us that SyfR is not absolutely required for the induction of syringomycin production in this medium that mimics the plant environment, but plays a more ancillary role in its production. This moderate effect on syringomycin production might explain why SyfR has not previously been identified as a regulator of syringomycin. By chance, it was observed that the fried egg phenotype in colonies of ∆syfA mutants appeared much earlier when they were grown near colonies of a ∆syfA mutant blocked in any of various steps in the AlgT regulatory pathway. When colonies of a ∆syfA mutant were grown on the same plate with those of a ∆syfA/algT– mutant , the timing of the onset of the fried egg phenotype was directly correlated with the distance from the ∆syfA/algT– mutant. The fried egg phenotype was induced in ∆syfA mutants after as few as 2 days of incubation when cultured near a ∆syfA/algT– mutant.

When cultured by an algT– mutant that was still capable of syringafactin production, this early-onset property was diminished. Premature induction of the fried egg phenotype occurred only in a ∆syfA mutant, while colonies of wild type and syfR– strains did not change their appearance in response to this signal. This observation suggested that the fried egg phenotype must be a response to an extracellular compound that is only sensed by a component of the SyfR regulon. We earlier hypothesized that syringomycin is the compound that induces this fried egg phenotype. If syringomycin directly stresses the cell or otherwise induces this colony phenotype, and if syringomycin is produced in large quantities in an algT– mutant, then we should have seen a restoration of the fried egg phenotype in a ∆syfA/syrE– double mutant strain upon exposure to syringomycin. However, when a ∆syfA/syrE– mutant strain is placed in close proximity to a ∆syfA/algT– mutant, there is no restoration of the fried egg phenotype. Furthermore, a ∆syfA mutant still exhibits a strong fried egg phenotype when placed near a ∆syfA/algT-/syrE– triple mutant. Therefore, it does not appear that syringomycin acts as the direct extracellular signal that invokes this response, but rather is necessary for enabling other factors to induce the response. This evidence, in addition to the finding that syringomycin is only produced during the initial 24 hours of surface growth, lead us to assume that syringomycin instead acts as a signal that primes the colony for the fried egg phenotype that we later observe. We recently observed that an algT– mutant of P. syringae produces high levels of a surfactant termed BRF , whose production requires an rhlA homolog. This surfactant also exhibits a strong temporal pattern of regulation, with production increasing over time. Therefore, we hypothesized that this surfactant could be responsible for inducing the fried egg phenotype in the ∆syfA mutant. Colonies of a ∆syfA/∆brfA double deletion mutant did not express the fried egg phenotype at any age. However, this double mutant regained the fried egg phenotype in the presence of a ∆syfA/algT– mutant strain, suggesting that BRF could be a signal that induces this phenotype. Furthermore, neither a ∆brfA/algT– double mutant, nor a ∆syfA/∆brfA/algT– triple mutant is capable of inducing an early fried egg phenotype in a ∆syfA mutant. However, application of a BRF extract near a colony of a ∆syfA mutant does not induce the early appearance of the fried egg phenotype. It is thus possible that BRF is modified to gain its activity, or that BRF might play a role in delivering an insoluble signal over the long distances that separate colonies. Similar to the other characterized members of LuxR-type regulators, SyfR appears to form multimers in order to initiate transcription. Furthermore, in keeping with observations of LuxR and SalA, SyfR appears to have an autoregulatory role in its own transcription. However, it is unclear how the activation of SyfR is mediated by external conditions. In the case of LuxR, binding of a quorum signal induces dimerization which then allows LuxR to function as a transcription factor; thus, cell density is conveyed to the cell by increased availability and binding of the autoinducer signal, which stimulates increased LuxR activity. However, SyfR belongs to a class of LuxR-type regulators that do not contain characterized small molecule binding domains, and thus there is no factor that has been determined to limit SyfR dimerization and activity other than its own transcription levels.

Vying with OCWD’s GWRS for the title of California’s premier water recycling facility, is the Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility . Built by the West Basin Municipal Water District in 1995, it has been expanded on three occasions and now is capable of advanced cleaning technologies, micro-filtration, and reverse osmosis . WBMWD received state and federal funding to design and build the 30 million gallon a day treatment facility in the City of El Segundo, south of Los Angeles. The ELWRF is the only water recycling facility in the world that produces five different types or qualities of waters to meet the needs of its customers, from basic irrigation water, to ultra-pure high pressure boiler feed water, to purified water that is injected into the west coast groundwater injection barrier . The facility also has a 60,000 square foot solar power generating system to offset energy production. It currently has over 350 industrial customers for its recycled water and is once again under expansion. Like Factory 21 and GWRS, the facility conducts basic water treatment and technology research . California’s water recycling regulations are spread out among several legal entities – the California Code of Regulations,bato bucket the Water Code, and the Health and Safety Code .

The Federal government’s EPA treats reused water just like water. It has guidelines for water reuse with criteria and design considerations but leaves implementation to the the states . The California water recycling program is the shared responsibility of the California Department of Health Services , under the direction of the California Environmental Protection Agency , and State Water Resources Control Board . The DHS is responsible for establishing criteria that ensures recycled water maintains water quality and protects public health. The SWRCB has water allocation and quality protection authority over all States water resources. The DHS works with the SWRCB—and the nine Regional Water Control Boards— in the drafting of permits and management of contamination . The SWRCB also provides financial assistance for both the planning and construction of water reuse projects. Some funds are also available through the DWR and DHS. The Water Recycling Facilities Planning Grant Program provides up to $75,000 in grants to local agencies for reuse feasibility studies. The Water Recycling Construction Program provides low-interest grants and loans for construction and development. Since the late-1970s, the program has distributed close to $151 million in planning and construction grants and approximately $611 million in low-interest loans for water reuse projects . As pointed out in the discussion of California water market drivers, water reuse has become a cost effective new source of water.

In 2005, California’s Recycled Water Task Force found that the costs of reclaimed water, including the annualized capital and operational costs, would range from $0 to $2000 per acre-foot, but averaged approximately $600 per acre-foot . Operation and maintenance costs alone were also found to vary, with an average projection to be $300 per acre-foot. At the time, this cost was perceived to be very high—MWD water often sold for less then $300 an acre-foot . These costs, however, compared favorably with the costs of other options to increase the water supply, such as reservoirs or desalination plants.. Water reuse has always been controversial. Quite simply, people do not like the idea of drinking sewage. One water manager I interviewed privately disclosed their personal distaste for reused water—even for landscaping purposes. This person trusted the science completely and understood—they simply could not get past the grossness of the idea. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as “psychological contagion,” essentially the idea that once two entities touch they are forever linked . Studies have found that nearly 60% of people refuse to drink water that has been linked with sewage . So it is not surprising that in California, water reuse has often met with fierce public resistance—often organized at the grassroots . The most famous case occurred in the mid 1990s, the city of Los Angeles launched a reuse program specifically to recharge the groundwater basin with tertiary-treated reused water. It was smeared as a “toilet to tap” program. The negative publicity led the city to abandon the groundwater recharge plan and instead marketed the water to irrigation and industrial customers . This hasn’t been all bad for the city though.

Today, the year round water in the Los Angeles River is actually a result of plants discharging treated water originally meant for the groundwater system. Some activists have claimed that the flowing water has greatly contributed to the to the city’s river revitalizations efforts . It should be noted that the Los Angeles County Sanitation Department is still in the reuse businesses and working with various partners have launched the Century and the Rio Hondo Water Reclamation Programs .In addition to the environmental injustices they often endure by virtue of living in poorer—and often industrial— areas. These communities often come with a history of state or societal sanctioned discrimination and may react very strongly to water reuse proposals . Being asked to drink shit is simply one indignity too many. For this reason, many scholars who have looked into the politics of water reuse have recommended that educational campaigns target these groups, rather than the higher educated business leaders who are likely to be easily converted . One could speculate that the fact that the Southern California region that has been the most successful in the implementation of water reuse, Orange County, enjoys a reputation as a relatively wealthy suburb of Los Angeles may have helped facilitate the development of water reuse. Although to be fair,dutch bucket hydroponic today’s Orange County has roughly the same ratio of minorities and is only a little wealthier then the state as a whole . The best technique psychologists have found to cognitively cleanse the dirty reused water is to “cognitively co-mingle the water with nature” . Indeed, I found this be true with the interviewee that expressed repulsion. The individual was perfectly fine drinking water derived from the Colorado river, despite the fact that it is full of reused water discharged from numerous upstream municipalities. Today reuse projects that augment water supplies create “indirect potable water” that incorporate this psychological technique by piping reused water into lakes or rivers where before being drawn again. For example, Orange County’s GWRS only directly injects half of the water it cleans into the ground, and that is into the saltwater intrusion barrier. The rest is pumped to the Kraemer/Miller recharge basins, essentially large lakes, in Anaheim where it then percolates into the groundwater supply naturally, hence co-mingling with nature. . This strategy requires more land and infrastructure than simply direct groundwater injection—or for that matter, direct potable reuse—and hence results in more expensive projects. It is not only Southern Californians, however, who prefer their reused water to be returned to nature before becoming part of the drinking supply. Globally, only one major city, Windhoek, Namibia practices large scale direct potable reuse . Windhoek happens to be a very poor city located in one of the driest regions of Africa far from sufficient water sources. Another major strategy employed by water reuse advocates is positive marketing campaigns. Burned by pervasive “Toilet to Tap”, media campaigns against reused water utilities have worked hard to brand reused water as a good, “new” source . Like Singapore’s NEW water program, Californian advocates have embraced “new” and “blue” in order to enlist support for recycled water as pure, clean and safe technology. Additionally, campaigns like the New Blue Water Coalition promote educational campaigns filled with associations with safety and scientifically advanced technologies, and environmental protection themes to further reassure the public .

Some water agencies have even cultivated these themes as their personal brand. See for example the logo of OCWD and its partner in the GWRS project, OCSD in figure 5. The two organizations have lead an extensive outreach program in order to build community support for the GWRS. They have given over 1500 Presentations to community groups, organizations, and clubs and conduct daily tours of Water Factory 21, GWRS, and the recharge facilities, . The district also operate an well designed and informative website detailing their project and are happy to send informational packets on demand. OCWD has runs a water education program designed for children and young adults, H20 University . Other local agencies such as WBMWD at the Ed C. Little facility, and LADWP at its Hyperion treatment plant also offer tours and both are very active in working to educate the public OCWD works closely with other water agencies, such as Israel, Singapore, and Australia, in order to exchange knowledge and share best practices . For example the website lists reuse data in both metric and imperial measurement units, as reflects the web traffic it receives from interested people around the world. Water reuse project marketeers throughout the world point to the GWRS as a model. Together,the OCWD team and its global partners are slowly building support for water reuse globally, and consequently building a market for new innovative reuse infrastructure and technologies.Orange County Water District’s Groundwater Replenishment System is one of the most celebrated civil engineering and water reuse projects in the world. The GWRS has received more than 35 local, regional, national, and international awards, including the American Society of Civil Engineers 2009 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award and the 2008 Stockholm International Industry Water Award . The design and construction of the GWRS was jointly-funded by the Orange County Water District and the Orange County Sanitation District who together run an extensive ongoing public outreach program. Notable for a drinking water reuse project, the project went forward without any major opposition. Large businesses such as Sempra Energy, environmental groups like Surfriders and Coast keepers, community groups such as Kiwanis and Rotary, all voiced support for the project . Several key minority leaders were also strong proponents of the project, most notably Hispanic Congresswoman, Loretta Sanchez. Elected in 1997, Ms. Sanchez has also been instrumental in steering federal support—and dollars—towards GWRS. Most recently, she authorized H.R. 383, which was included in the 2009 Omnibus spending bill. The bill increased federal support of the project by $6 million . The GWRS was designed to produce 70 million gallons of recycled water per day, or a total production of 23.5 billion gallons per year . Today, the project is once again under construction and is being expanded to 100 million gallons a day. OCWD and OCSD together secured $92 million in state, federal and local grants to help fund the $481 million project. In addition, the GWRS also receives a $7.5 million annual subsidy for 12 years from the Metropolitan Water District . OCSD and OCWD also agreed to share the cost to construct the GWRS. OCWD consented to manage and fund the operations of the facility into the future. The annual operating budget for GWRS is approximately $34 million, which includes electricity, chemicals, labor, and maintenance. The replenished water is affordable and even without outside funding the cost of water would still be approximately $800 AF—very close to the 2012 price of tier-1 treated water charged by the MWD . Orange County Water District is a special district formed in 1933 to protect Orange County’s rights to Santa Ana River water and to manage the large groundwater basin that underlies much of Orange County . OCWD encompasses 229,000 acres in the lower watershed of the Santa Ana River. The Orange County groundwater basin provides water for over 2.3 million people. OCWD is governed by a 25-member board of directors comprised of representatives of local agencies and cities within its 470-square-mile service area . OCWD receives revenue from assessments paid by the groundwater basin pumpers, a percentage of the local property taxes, and from investments. Each day, OCSD treats approximately 220 million gallons of water—70% of which is groundwater —with the remainder imported from MWD. Northern and central Orange County receive the majority of their water supply from large groundwater basin managed by the Orange County Water District, while areas to the south are more dependent on imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River.

During this time, PUB was restructured and expanded its duties from simply providing drinking water to also treating all municipal wastewater and managing water infrastructure. PUB manages Singapore’s 15 reservoirs, six water reclamation plants and nine water treatment plants . The PUB administers the federally funded Active Beautiful Clean Waters program, a planning project intended to beautify the island’s drains, canals and reservoirs. Meanwhile, the separate NEA serves as the regulatory enforcement arm of the MOEWR. Commensurate with its investment in water, Singapore has also embarked on an aggressive economic development strategy of building an internationally renowned water technology industry. Singapore set up the Environment and Water Industry Program Office in 2006 and the government committed S$330 million to fund research and workforce development in the water industry. In 2011, the government added another S$140 million, bringing the total amount committed to S$470 million, or US$400 million. The bulk of this money supports research at the two major water research centers, but individual grants such as the innovative technology challenge are also available. EWI also provides PhD Scholarships for both national and international students to study water technologies.

These scholarships are redeemable at not only both national institutions, but also international centers,ebb and flow trays although only native Singaporean are eligible for international scholarships. Complementing the government’s efforts, is the regional trade association, the Singapore Water Association . SWA aggressively markets Singapore as a one-stop center for all water related services and as a water technology hub. The SWA is a government and business partnership with over 220 local members . Many members are local representatives of international water services and technology firms such as MWH Global, Suez, Mitsubishi, CDMH, etc. Singapore budgets S$50 million a year in government subsidies to entice water innovation companies to locate and maintain operations there. The small country also has over 70 local firms . The SWA is active at every scale all the way from the huge annual international conference to small local workforce development workshops. The association holds multiple monthly meetings, produces a monthly newsletter, conducts biweekly workforce development events, provides industry certifications, and even hosts a monthly casual “Singapore Water Industry Nite” . Singapore desires to be more than simply a gateway to neighboring international markets. Singapore’s strategy has been to develop local expertise through its infrastructure investment and research. Towards this aim, it has established numerous partnerships, notably through joint venture agreements used for the construction of the NEW water plants.

Singapore has recently signed a partnership agreement with Siemens Water Technologies, to build a new water treatment plant that uses half the energy of existing technologies . It should be noted that Siemens Water Technologies global research and development center is now in Singapore. Singapore’s PUB has also recently inked a new partnership with the famous Dutch water consulting agency, Delft Hydraulics, to develop a regional center of excellence for water knowledge . Singapore has agreements with the Dutch Kiwa water research center, and the important American trade industry group, American Water Works Association. as well as several others .Vying with Singapore and Israel for the world’s best branded water industry cluster is Australia. Since 2002, the already world’s driest continent, has been in the grips of a severe drought, which some have even called a thousand year drought. A few Australian economists have even estimated that the drought has shaved a percentage point of GDP growth annually . Water governance reforms begun in 1994 have created a more commercial industry and led to major improvements in water productivity and efficiency and growth in the domestic industry . The government’s National Water Initiative program is a partnership among local, state, and federal government that continues the reforms intended to develop a more efficient industry. In 2008, the government created a $13 billion ‘Water for the Future’ investment program to provide funding for water purchases, irrigation modernization, desalination, recycling, and storm water capture. Knowledge creation is a central goal of the efforts and two new research centers dedicated to water technology have been created, the Center of Excellence for Water Recycling and Center of Excellence for Desalination .

Since the turn of the millennium, Australia has experienced major growth in water technology patents . Desalination plants and city-wide wastewater recycling systems are also being pursed. In Australia, the use of recycled water is increasing, and now totals 5% of total consumption . In 2006, the government also implemented a new certification standard, the Watermark, for water supply, sewerage, plumbing and drainage goods . Government entities and the private sector have together recognized the economic growth potential of an export oriented water industry and are working hard to bolster Australian water technology and engineering firms, most actively in neighboring southeast Asian countries. Today Australia is widely recognized for its progressive water management practices. The last decade has seen the rise of multiple industry associations such as Australian Water Association , Water Australia, Water Supply Advocate, and the Australia Water Industry Alliance . For example, Water Australia aims to triple exports of Australian water technologies by 2015 . These various agencies are now working closely with governmental departments such as the department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and Australian trade commission to promote Australian water industry expertise throughout the world. That trade promotion has begun to pay off, for example,4×8 flood tray the Australian Water Industry Alliance claims to have grown annual exports of South Australian water technology products and water management services from less than $30 million in 1998 to over $550 million in 2011, over $3 billion in total export revenues . Australian firms such as engineering giant Whorly Parsons, Earth Systems, or SMEC have parlayed their mining and water engineering expertise into a global presence. Smaller and midsize firms with niche products such as specialized pump technologies, have also seen growth in exports . In 1994, well before the current crisis and growing public cognition of the countries vulnerability to global climate change, the Council of Australia Governments agreed to a significant water reform framework. The reforms were intended to make the industry more commercially oriented and responsive to change. Operational and regulatory responsibilities were separated throughout the country and are now administered through state or local bodies. Local utilities were reformed into large integrated state-owned corporate water service providers. Australia has over 300 utilities, but 71% percent of the population is served by the 22 largest ones centered around the major urban centers . Despite its vast size, Australia is heavily urbanized with over 90% of the population connected to a main water supply. Local competition in the procurement of capital items and facility management services was strongly encouraged and has resulted in more economic development . Significantly, water price subsidies were removed from Australia, which has been credited by industry as resulting in much higher investments in efficiency improvements. Water rights were also reformed and today, users purchase entitlements that can be bought and sold, with the result of a water market arising with rural to urban water transfers . The trading market has been very successful for farmers, particularly during dry years. For example in 2009, there were transfers of over $220 million in the south Murray Basin alone. As a result of these reforms, Australia’s water productivity has increased over 50%, and urban efficiency has improved over 25% . Water knowledge creation, at least as measured by Australia water technology patent production, has thrived since the reforms. Australian inventors filed 1,475 patents between 2004-2006, over one third of all water technology patents filed in the country . A large portion of the patents is for residential or one off uses, such as rain collection, rather than industrially oriented products . This is expected to change as industrial producers have rapidly embraced conservation technologies and many water intensive industries are incorporating direct water reuse technologies .

Large investments in desalination and water recycling will also increase research and development opportunities and capabilities. For example, the city of Melbourne is currently building the world’s largest desalination plant which will complement the country’s existing plants at Sydney, Perth, and the Gold Coast. One significant barrier to innovation, however, is the relatively conservative financial sector. Australia has a developed conventional financial industry, but historically it has not been a major source of capital for small technology startups . Nor is there an overly large venture capital presence. Surveys of inventors find that lack of resources is a major impediment to commercialization . Similarly, surveys of the renewable energy sector have also found that financial tools are an impediment to industry growth. The federal government has developed grant and loan programs aimed at overcoming this gap but potentially more is needed . Additionally, various federal and state governments have developed business incubators aimed at connecting innovative start ups with capital. Several niche start ups have prospered, particularly in wastewater products. For example, Biogill Environmental, invented an innovative membrane technology; Aqua Diagnostics, pioneered a wastewater sensor; Environstream Solutions created a new filter technology . As the water reuse industry grows internationally, these firms are well positioned to thrive. Another significant development brought about by the 1994 reforms, is that the federal government’s Bureau of Meteorology now prepares the annual report, the National Water Account, which details volumes of rainfall, water stocks and current flows, water use, water rights, and water market trades . This public information is used to plan water management accordingly. The government has also created the “Water for a Healthy Country Flagship Program” a long-term water urban planning program with a goal of developing integrated urban water resources management approaches that utilize the full water cycle from storm water capture to effluent discharge . This is a very important governance goal that is similar to Singapore and Israel’s strategies of comprehensive water resource management. The Netherlands has also moved decisively in this direction with water management now handled under central ministry of infrastructure and the environment. In Australia, however, implementation of integrated management practices has been somewhat spotty in practice. For example, Benetini and Brown’s study of the drought stricken western Australia city of Perth, found major institutional barriers despite the overwhelming compelling logic of integrated management. As most parts of the water process are managed separately from one another, each player is only focused on their role rather than the complete picture. Information was not easily shared, single use infrastructure continued to be the preferred method, and incentives were misaligned . Findings such as these have potential ramifications for continued reforms. Many water resource managers recognize the logic of integrated water management, particularly as a cost effective new source, yet are cognizant of the structural tension that currently exists. Therefore, many have concerns about additional reforms. In a policy paper on additional possible reforms, the Australia Water Alliance explicitly cautioned that planning must continue to be integrated with service delivery. The AWA further warns that unplanned “disaggregation of the industry” could diminish institutional knowledge capacity and aggravate the problem. . The United States water and wastewater industries are the world’s largest and most developed. In 2011, sales topped $136 billion—over a quarter of the global total. Since 1994 the industry has nearly doubled in size, growing an average of 4.1% every year. . There are hundreds of thousands of water businesses in the United States. Accordingly, there are also numerous regional centers of water technologies. I do not intend to get into a detailed explanation of the workings of the United States water technology innovation system here as I discuss that in much more detail in my analysis of southern California in the chapters that follow. Instead I wish to briefly discuss three regional centers here. Again I would like to note that a case could be made for other regional water technology centers. For example, the Tristate New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey region is a very strong player in water technologies with US headquarters of Siemens Water Technologies, Dow Chemical, Pall, and the newly water focused ITT spin off Xylem .

Meanwhile, enzymes involved in GSH synthesis, regeneration and transport appeared to work in concert to maintain GSH homeostasis during acetaminophen transformation and detoxification. Detoxification by GSTs is known to play an important role in the biotransformations of a multitude of xenobiotics in plants . When emerging contaminants such as acetaminophen are introduced in agroecosystems, GSTmediated detoxification may serve the purpose to minimize their potential phytotoxicity to susceptible plants. On the other hand, however, the conjugation may effectively conserve the parent compound and its biological activity, if deconjugation occurs, e.g., in the human digestive tract. Conjugates back transformation to other biologically active compounds has been reported for benzotrizole , triclosan , and naproxen . Thus, understanding the toxicological consequence of Phase II conjugates of such emerging contaminants in agricultural plants may improve risk assessment of reuse practices of treated wastewater and biosolids. Moreover, non-food plants capable of such detoxification may be used for removing such trace contaminants, in settings such as storm water basins,vertical grow table wetlands and vegetative buffers.Southern California’s urbanization was accomplished through the technologically-aided harvesting of faraway water sources.

Currently, procuring additional freshwater sources using conventional water delivery infrastructure is expensive, environmentally damaging, and rarely attempted as there are no longer sufficient freshwater supplies within reach. Climate change models predict a long-term decline in Sierra Nevada snow pack, threatening current freshwater sources. In anticipation of this, Southern California utilities have begun shifting to a strategy of conservation and the development of local sources such as groundwater, desalination, or recycled water. Progressive water agencies have built advanced infrastructure projects like Orange County Water District’s Groundwater Replenishment System , the world’s largest and most technologically advanced indirect potable water reuse project. At the same time, the region has been mired in a prolonged multiyear economic downturn leading many observers to advocate economic development through nurturing environmentally sensitive “clean tech,” industries. This thesis investigates the Southern California water industry in general and, specifically, the regional innovation system that has generated major breakthroughs in water reuse technology and infrastructure. It seeks to understand how this technologically innovative system emerged and the prospects for the region’s future economic growth. Using an analytical framework derived from economic agglomeration scholarship, innovation systems literature, and an international case study analysis of the water technology innovation systems of Israel, Singapore, Netherlands, and Australia, this study employs qualitative interviews, industry analysis, and a case study of the GWRS project to investigate the regional water industry. It finds a strong local industry—often led by a forward looking state government—with auspicious growth prospects, but with significant local impediments.

The fact that Southern California has become a global leader in the development of water reuse technologies and infrastructure is notable because water reuse often evokes strong negative psychological reactions. Historically, “toilet to tap” campaigns against water reuse have been very successful, leading agencies and voters to reject reuse as a legitimate water source strategy. Nevertheless, the region has since become a global leader in water reuse. My case study analysis of GWRS found a set of unique circumstances starting with early salt-water intrusion on its wholly owned groundwater basin. As a result, the Orange County Sanitation District began to invest in the water reuse industry in 1976, focused on the GWRS’s groundbreaking predecessor, Water Factory 21. This early investment helped spur major private and public water reuse research and investment leading to a strong local industry in the region. Today the region is home to numerous water technology leaders—particularly in irrigation as well as the membrane technologies that are critical to water reuse and desalination. The region also has a large number of innovative start-ups, as well as many of the world’s leading water infrastructure engineering service firms. Compared to other regional world technology case studies, however, the local industry appears less motivated in banding together and marketing its regional expertise. Water delivery systems are comprised of multiple differing technological systems often with highly individualized components, making it difficult for entrepreneurs to scale or export products to different markets. Water infrastructure systems are also highly capital intensive, and managed by public utilities that are often risk—and publicity—adverse.

In the Southern California region, direct and indirect price subsidies, inefficient water pricing regimes, and water utilities dependent on volume pricing models for economic survival, all conspire to reduce investment in innovative water technologies. Furthermore, the region’s severe fragmentation of markets, customers, and particularly governmental administrative bodies—who often have conflicting missions—greatly complicates private sector decision-making, inhibits the development of return on investment calculations, and retards potential industry growth. Confusing legal institutions regarding ground water rights, pollution responsibilities, and flood water management further complicate the development of innovative solutions to water problems. Despite these multiple and significant impediments, there is a vibrant and innovative regional water industry which is a global leader in water reuse and recycling technologies. Historically, California has been a global leader in progressive water legislation and water related research, which has helped spur these industries. The state has continued this tradition but now often lags more progressive regions. The state should consider fundamentally reorganizing its water governance institutions in order to align incentives, reduce inter-agency competition, and manage limited regional water supplies more effectively. Water subsidies should be lessened and water agencies’ financial viability should be decoupled from volume of water sold. Integrated water management strategies with appropriate groundwater management rules should be implemented, and enforced, by appropriate administrative bodies. Such a reorganization would spur economic growth as the local innovation system adapts. Additionally,mobile vertical grow tables the regional industry should consider working more closely together in order to promote the industry as a force for economic development and maintain the region’s position as a global center of water innovation and technological development. For example, the region was once home to the one of the world’s dominate water technology corporate conglomerations, US Filter, now Siemens Water Technologies with national and international headquarters in Pennsylvania and Singapore respectively. Today Singapore, rather than Southern California is Siemens’s global research and development center. Other regions, even neighboring Northern California are rapidly growing their water technology expertise—occasionally at the expense of Southern California. More effective regional governance and better public/private cooperation would further strengthen the region’s already robust industry and accelerate the local creation of technological innovation. In January 2010 the board of the Metropolitan Water District , the regional agency that supplies over half the water to Southern California, commissioned a Blue Ribbon Committee of experts charged with rethinking the powerful agency’s fifty year business plan, Vision 2060. After a thorough analysis of Vision 2060, the committee made an additional recommendation that MWD should become a global leader in managing water in arid urban environments; furthermore, they should take a leadership role in fostering the economic development of the region through active promotion of innovative technologies.

The committee thought that Metropolitan “could help create an industry cluster of water technologies and management, of potential global significance in Southern California” The Blue Ribbon Committee’s recommendation is well-grounded in regional economic development theory. Economic geographers have long understood that local specialized demand conditions—in this case supplying water to a dry urban region—can spur local innovation in equipment and services. This local innovation can give the business that supply those products and services a competitive advantage over similar businesses from other regions . The businesses that supply those goods and services can use that competitive advantage to profitably export, and thereby grow the local economy. In fact, this is already happening in Southern California’s water industry where a globally significant industry cluster in water reuse technologies and the design and construction of reuse infrastructure is emerging. Furthermore this cluster is a thriving center of innovation, and potentially a vehicle for local economic development. Innovation is an invention of economic significance . Understanding how innovation occurs is absolutely critical to modern economic development. Today’s modern economic growth theories are premised on the idea that growth comes from increasing returns to knowledge. Yet these theories—and traditional neoclassical economic theory as a whole—say surprising little about the creation of knowledge in general, much less how knowledge becomes innovation . Innovation is almost always the result of learning, which occurs through proximity or via social networks. Therefore, innovation scholars have turned to studying propinquity and association as a—if not the—key source of innovation . Understanding how a region promotes—or hinders— innovation is one of the most important questions in regional economic policy today. Accordingly, this thesis seeks to understand how Southern California’s strength in water technology innovation developed, what sustains it, and what factors could transform the region into the BRC’s vision of a global center of water innovation. Arguably, California’s history has been forged through successful innovation in the water sector more than any other region in the modern world. In the twentieth century, California water agencies built the world’s most advanced system of waterworks. This system propelled the state’s growth into the nation’s most populous and prosperous state. Well before then however, California already had a very proud pedigree in water, with numerous technological inventions, engineering feats, and management innovations. The 1849 gold rush spurred the local invention of hydraulic sluicing that felled whole mountainsides in pursuit of yellow riches . This technological innovation enabled infrastructural projects such as the Los Angeles Aqueduct of the Panama Canal to be built, without which the world would be a very different place. The massive mining and lumber operations of the nineteenth century required equally massive water networks to transport goods to market; they are gone today but the legacy of those operations has likely contributed to why California is now home to four of the ten largest engineering firms in the world . When pioneering farmers flocked to the verdant but salty Central Valley of California they not only built wells and canals and water agencies to manage them, but also created new water rights legal systems to prevent disputes and enable effective allocation . California’s technical prowess in water technologies came in handy when oil was discovered and expertise in piping and pressure management was required to bring it forth, spurring the growth of a whole new local industry including the world’s first offshore oil platforms . When Hollywood followed the oil industry to Southern California and the population exploded— along with the real estate market—the state created innovative institutions like the Metropolitan Water District to ensure an ample water supply for regional growth. Growth came shortly as the aeronautics, defense industry, manufacturing, and communications industries, and more followed Hollywood. MWD is the powerful engineering and water distribution organization that built the massive Colorado River aqueduct and now supplies nearly two thirds of all water to the semiarid south coast . California’s economic growth has always followed the innovative water sector. But what is a “water sector”? The procuring of, treating, transporting, collecting, and discharging of water, all utilize different technologies that originate from several very different industries. Indeed our modern taxonomy of SIC codes does not have a unique SIC code for “water sector.” Instead there are a whole range of codes—water utilities, water systems , irrigation, various levels of pipe manufacturing, chemical treatments, and manufacturing—covering the multiple technologies involved in the “water sector.” . Additionally critical service providers, such as engineering consultants and contracting firms not only fall outside of water industry sectorial codes, but they also often work in other sectors as well. Many of the technological goods produced for the water industry, such as piping materials and chemical treatments also have significant overlap with external industries, such as the oil and gas industry or chemical engineering. The lack of a clear definition and obvious distinctions from other industrial codes make water a very difficult “sector” to analyze. For the purposes of this investigation I define the water industry as all of the firms, agencies, contractors, and technologies that are involved in the extraction, transport, distribution, use, collection, and discharge of water. This would include everything from large-scale infrastructure contractors, to pipe manufacturers, to groundwater geologists, to specialized filter manufactures to chemical treatment suppliers to water monitoring device manufacturers. I concede this is perhaps an overly broad definition–certainly too broad to study sectorial trends effectively— however, despite its inelegance this is an accurate description.

The potential beneficiaries of this guide include building owners, designers, energy modelers, users, building developers, building facility managers and operators, building product manufacturers, and other stakeholders. A wide diversity of building costs, services, and comfort levels requires application-specific design for optimizing energy efficiency. A small portion of the office stock consists of unconditioned, lower-cost indigenous buildings; with arguably acceptable low-energy solutions for comfort levels adapted to regional and climatic considerations. The bulk of the existing stock consists of mass-produced business-as-usual office buildings with a typically lower level of services , or fitted with ad hoc air conditioning to provide ostensibly higher level of services. However, the BAU trend is toward the construction of new, air-conditioned, sophisticated buildings that provide international levels of service. With the exponential increase in the floor space of this type of buildings, the projected growth in building cooling demand will be explosive.Several building physical systems have been adopted from western applications without accounting for the regional, climatic, cultural, and economic context. On the other hand, several region specific systems already exist in indigenous buildings that are able to offer higher performance for minimal cost, but the methods used to design such buildings are rapidly disappearing,plastic pots for seedlings because of a lack of visible documentation and analysis of the techniques.

India needs appropriate localization of energy-efficient technologies to meet the needs of various regions, with respect to weather, standards, materials, construction, and technological maturity . Buildings in India were traditionally built with high thermal mass and used natural ventilation as their principal ventilation and cooling strategy. However, contemporary office buildings are energy-intensive, increasingly being designed as aluminum and glass mid- to high- rise towers . Their construction uses resource-intensive materials, and their processes and operations require a high level of fossil fuel use. A large share of existing and upcoming Indian office space caters to high-density of occupancy and multiple shift operations. Whereas the average for U.S. government offices is 20 m2 /occupant and for US private sector offices is 30 m2 /occupant, Indian offices have a typical density of 5–10 m2 /occupant. Business Processing Office spaces have three-shift hot seats—a situation that while conserving space because of its multiple usage also leads to considerably higher EPI levels. . Moreover, with the increased demand for commercial office spaces from multinationals and IT hubs, and the current privileges being accorded to Special Economic Zones , the trend is toward larger buildings with international standards of conditioned spaces, dramatically increasing the energy footprint of Indian offices .Building energy consumption in India has seen an increase from 14% of total energy consumption in the 1970s to nearly 33% in 2004-2005.

The gross built-up area added to commercial and residential spaces was about 40.8 million square meters in 2004-05, which is about 1% of annual average constructed floor area around the world and the trends show a sustained growth of 10% over the coming years, 4 highlighting the pace at which the energy demand in the building sector is expected to rise in India. In 2004– 2005, the total commercial stock floor space was ~516 million m2 and the average EPI across the entire commercial building stock was ~61 kWh/m2 /year. Compare this to just five years later in 2010, when the total commercial stock floor space was ~660 million m2 and the average EPI across the entire commercial building stock almost tripled to 202 kWh/m2 /year . Energy use in the commercial sector is indeed exploding, not just due to the burgeoning of the Indian commercial sector- India is expected to triple its building stock by 2030 , but also through the increase in service-level requirements and intensity of energy use. Thus there are two intertwined effects: an increase in total building area and an increase in the EPI. According to India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency , electricity consumption in the commercial sector is rising at double the rate of the average electricity growth rate of 5%–6% in the economy. To deliver a sustained rate of 8% to 9% through 2031-32 and to meet life time energy needs of all citizens, India would need to increase its primary energy supply by 3 to 4 times and electricity generation capacity about 6 times.

According to UNEP, approximately 80%–90% of the energy a building uses during its entire life cycle is consumed for heating, cooling, lighting, and other appliances. The remaining 10%–20% is consumed during the construction, material manufacturing, and demolition phases. 6 To manage and conserve the nation’s energy, it is imperative to aggressively manage building energy efficiency in each commercial building being designed and operated in India. By increasing energy efficiency in buildings and other sectors such as agriculture, transportation, and appliances, it is estimated that the total Indian power demand can be reduced by as much as 25% by 2030. 7 To this end, the best practices outlined below identify processes and strategies to boost the energy efficiency in buildings, while also focusing on cost efficiency and occupant comfort.Just as no two buildings are identical, no two owners will undertake the same energy management program. It is also improbable to include all the listed best practices into one building, since some of them will conflict with each other. The practices are presented individually; however, they should not be thought of as an “a la carte” menu of options. Rather, designers and engineers, developers, and tenants need to work together to capitalize on the synergies between systems . From the demand side, this means implementing a suite of measures that reduce internal loads as well as external heat gains . Once the demand load is reduced, improve systems efficiency. Finally, improve plant design. This is illustrated through the Best Practice strategies and Data Points in this guide. The supply side can then add value by provision of renewables, waste heat sources, and other measures that are beyond this guide’s scope .The guide illustrates innovative strategies and technologies across office buildings in India. It focuses on cross-cutting, whole-building strategies, as well as systematic measures for each load type . Tables of quantitative metrics allow for apples to-apples comparisons, and provide hard targets. The “standard” data in the tables reference numbers from ECO III bench marking or the National Building Code of India. This “standard” data is representative of the median or 50th percentile of commercial buildings in India. For “better” practice data,blueberries container either the Energy Conservation Building Code or better performing buildings have been referenced, and are representative of the top quartile. For the “best” practice data , the top 5th percentile, or best-in-class buildings have been referenced. To design and operate an energy-efficient building, focus on the energy performance based on modeled or monitored data, analyze what end uses are causing the largest consumption/waste, and apply a whole-building process to tackle the waste. For instance, peak demand in high-end commercial buildings is typically dominated by energy for air conditioning. However, for IT operations, the consumption pattern is different. In the latter, cooling and equipment plug loads are almost equally dominant loads.

The equipment plug load is mostly comprised of uninterrupted power supply load from IT services and computers, and a smaller load is from raw power for elevators and miscellaneous equipment. Figure 8 shows typical energy consumption end-use pies — energy conservation measures need to specifically target these end uses. By doing so, one can tap into a huge potential for financial savings through strategic energy management. However, a utility bill does not provide enough information to mine this potential: metering and monitoring at an end-use level is necessary to understand and interpret the data at the necessary level of granularity. Energy represents 30% of operating expenses in a typical office building; this is the single largest and most manageable operating expense in offices. As a data point, in the United States, a 30% reduction in energy consumption can lower operating costs by $25,000 per year for every 5,000 square meters8 of office space. Another study of a national sample of US buildings has revealed that buildings with a “green rating” command on an average 3% higher rent and 16% higher selling price. 9 Whether in the US or India, improvements to energy efficiency can often be attained through no-cost or low cost ECMs that lower the first costs of construction and equipment. Optimizing building loads can lead to lower first costs and operating costs. By targeting low-hanging fruit through early-stage ECMs, the first costs saved through these can be applied toward more expensive technology solutions like high-quality glazing or sensors that can further the energy and cost benefits later in the building life cycle. Hence, it is important to decide which measures to prioritize initially, and then what to cross-subsidize eventually. For example, if one is able to save costs by reducing the number of lighting fixtures and taking advantage of high daylight levels in a space, then those savings can be used to install daylight sensors. The latter can provide a large cost benefit with a relatively short payback time by driving down the operational hours for artificial lighting. The ECMs at the whole building level using systems integration can greatly benefit the EPI of a building. Table 1 shows whole building energy use metrics, using Standard , Better , and Best Practices at the whole building level.Optimizing day lighting and lighting can provide better views and improve the visual acuity of the occupants. Well-designed mechanical systems can improve indoor air quality while reducing initial equipment and operating energy costs. Workplace productivity can increase by providing individual controls, and with direct access to daylight. Given that the bulk of working time is spent indoors, a better indoor environment can boost worker performance and reduce sick leave that could equate to monetary benefits to businesses.Displacement ventilationdelivers the air at low speeds using the principle of air stratification. Here, air is delivered at close to floor level for primarily conditioning the occupied volume and extracted at the ceiling height rather than conditioning the unoccupied higher volume first. Well designed DV systems provide better indoor air quality since the air in the occupied zone is generally fresher than that for mixing ventilation. There are no perceived air drafts. Any released pollutants rise rapidly to above the occupied zone. Large cooling energy savings are possible, as it uses a higher supply air temperature at 18°C, which also increases the efficiency of mechanical cooling equipment and lowers equipment requirements. Underfloor Air Distributiontechnology uses the underfloor plenum beneath a raised floor to provide conditioned air through floor diffusers directly to the occupied zone. A thoughtful design can overcome the usually cited challenges of uneven floor surfaces, difficulty in providing added airflow to the perimeter of the building, and perceived control difficulty. The advantages of a well-designed UFAD system are: improved thermal comfort, occupant satisfaction, ventilation efficiency and indoor air quality, reduced energy use and the potential for reduced floor-to-floor height in new construction. Radiant Cooling works on the principle that water can store 3,400 times more thermal energy per unit volume than air. It offers the potential to reduce cooling energy consumption and peak cooling loads when coupled with building thermal mass. Some radiant systems circulate cool water in dedicated panels; others cool the building structure . Because radiant surfaces are often cooled only a few degrees below the desired indoor air temperature, there are many opportunities for innovative cooling energy sources, such as night cooling and ground-coupled hydroponic loops. The heating and cooling supply water temperatures for radiant systems operate at higher set points compared to traditional systems. The radiant cooling system supply water temperature would typically operate at 15°C–18°C for cooling, whereas typical supply water temperatures for a traditional forced air system are around 5.5°C–7.5°C. The central cooling equipment can operate more efficiently at these temperature set points.In a typical office space, the airflow required to cool and ventilate the space can be three to four times greater than that required to just ventilate the space. If the space cooling is decoupled from the ventilation, especially through a hydroponic system, the central air handling system and associated distribution system can be downsized accordingly.

Given this finding, we cultured the strains that had exhibited putative surface-dependent regulation of surfactant production for their ability to induce drop collapse when grown in viscous broth. While P. syringae B728a does not produce a surfactant capable of conferring drop collapse from normal broth cultures, it did so when grown in a viscous broth. A similar induction of surfactant production was induced by growth of other environmental strains of P. syringae, as well as Pantoea strain PB64 in viscous broth. Interestingly, P. fluorescens strain PB59, which produced surfactant only in broth media, still produced abundant biosurfactant detectable by drop collapse when grown in viscous broth , suggesting that its biosurfactant production is regulated by a different mechanism. Although it is tempting to speculate that the P. syringae and Pantoea strains are sensing a surface by directly measuring viscosity, growth in viscous broth could be indirectly stimulating biosurfactant production via alteration of growth patterns such as cell aggregation which was stimulated by the reduced turbulent drag of this culture medium. Vigorous shaking of P. syringae cultures reduced pellicle formation and resulted in a lower induction of syfA. 

Since leaves are a waxy habitat, we hypothesized that the phyllosphere is enriched for biosurfactant-producing bacterial taxa due to the benefits this phenotype may confer. To test this hypothesis we examined the incidence of this trait in bacteria from different habitats including leaf surfaces using the atomized oil assay. Using this assay,garden pots for vegetables we screened over 5,000 bacteria recovered from leaf surfaces, soil, and freshwater samples in close proximity to each other in the early spring, when there were many ephemeral pools of water and streams. To determine the frequency of surfactant production in bacterial populations this trait was assessed in approximately 50 random strains per sample, and at least 30 samples were collected for each environment. The frequencies at which surfactant producers were found in a community from a given sample ranged from zero to close to 90%. Overall, a much lower frequency of surfactant producers was observed in freshwater samples than from leaf surfaces or soil. Student’s t-test with unequal variance comparing the frequencies of surfactant production revealed that leaves and soil harbored significantly higher frequencies of bacteria with this phenotype than water. Interestingly, while soil and leaf surfaces harbored a similar average frequency of surfactant producers, there was a much higher deviation in this frequency between samples of leaves than soil; nearly 30% of the leaf samples harbored no surfactant producers compared to 17% and 6% for water and soil samples respectively.

Conversely, many leaves also harbored very high proportions of surfactant producing bacteria. Several features of leaves were examined in an attempt to account for the substantial sample to sample differences in frequency of biosurfactant-producing bacteria. Given that the leaf surfaces of different plant species differ in hydrophobicity, we addressed whether plant species or the degree of water-repellency of leaves was predicative of the fraction of surfactant-producing bacterial strains recovered. There was no correlation between leaf hydrophobicity, measured as the total area covered by a 10 ul droplet of water applied to the leaf, and the frequency of surfactant producers. Likewise no association between plant species and the frequency of surfactant producers was evident , although more species would need to be examined to rigorously test this conclusion. Overall, our observations suggest that leaf properties are not the dominant factor that leads to the occurrence of surfactant-producing strains on a given plant. However, since our collections were made in early spring, the leaves examined were all at early stages of growth and thus the microbial communities were also in early stages of colonization. The apparent random patterns of occurrence of bacteria on the leaves therefore suggests that colonization can be described by a neutral theory of competition. As such, the abundance of a given bacterial strain on a leaf is reflective of its early time of arrival on that plant, and largely dependent on chance. In comparison to leaf surfaces, a much more uniform frequency of occurrence of surfactant production was observed in bacteria from soil and water.

There was no apparent effect of the source of water on the incidence of surfactant production in these samples, since about 5% of the bacteria in all samples from streams, ephemeral pools and a lake produced biosurfactant. Additionally, the frequency of surfactant-producing bacteria found in a given soil sample was not correlated with that from adjacent plant samples , suggesting that mixing of bacterial members of these two communities was not prominent. The application of the atomized oil assay to a wide variety of environmental bacterial strains and synthetic surfactants revealed it to be both more versatile and sensitive than the more commonly used drop collapse assay. The atomized oil assay confirmed surfactant production in every bacterial strain in which surfactants were detected using the drop collapse assay. More importantly, several bacterial strains were identified that produced either low amounts of surfactant or apparently hydrophobic surfactants that were not detectable using the drop collapse assay. The atomized oil assay readily confirmed biosurfactant production in taxa in which it had previously been described. The majority of the strains that produced surfactants detectable by both tests belonged to the genera Pseudomonas and Bacillus , both of which have been described in the literature to produce biosurfactants that lower the surface tension of water. Likewise, the Pantoea strain PB64 may produce rhamnolipids as do other members of this genera , although this was not verified. While surfactant production has not been previously documented in Staphylococcus, some species of this genus have been observed to be motile on swarming plates , suggesting their production of surfactants.

The identification of such previously recognized surfactant-producing taxa emphasizes that while the drop collapse assay is suitable for finding such biosurfactant producers,flower plastic pots the atomized oil assay may be more readily employed due to its high-throughput capability and higher sensitivity. The atomized oil assay was particularly useful in identifying biosurfactants in taxa in which this trait had not previously been shown. The surface-active compounds that are produced by the seven strains that were detectable only with the atomized oil assay would have escaped attention in most other studies; these compounds may well have unique biological functions and/or potential industrial applications. For example, our assay detected the hydrophobic pumilacidins produced by Bacillus pumilis which have been documented for their potent antibiotic and antiviral properties , although their surfactant activity has previously been ignored due to their low water solubility. Likewise, we detected surfactant production by a Rhizobium strain ; although we have not verified the compound, we suspect it could be similar to the long-chain AHLs produced by Rhizobium etli, which cannot be detected with a drop collapse assay but are documented as surfactants with a dual role in quorum sensing and swarming motility. Furthermore, a biosynthetic gene cluster proposed to synthesize a surface-active lipopeptide virulence factor was identified in the genome sequence of the plant pathogen Xanthomonas axonopodis ; although incapable of imparting drop collapse, both an authentic culture of X. axonopodis pv. glycines as well as a related environmental strain found in this study produced compounds detectable with the atomized oil spray. Biosurfactants detectable only with the atomized oil assay were also observed in a Cedecea strain, a taxon not previously known to produce surfactants; this feature may prove biologically important to its success as an opportunistic pathogen. Therefore it appears that application of the atomized oil assay in environmental surveys might greatly expand our knowledge of novel biosurfactants. While the atomized oil spray assay has many advantages over other assays there are some limitations that could bias the detection of surfactant producers. This assay best identifies bacterial strains that produce “bright” halos around colonies , although we have previously shown that some highly hydrophilic synthetic surfactants can modify oil droplets to appear “dark” due to their flattened nature. 

“Dark” halos are less visibly obvious and no strains that unambiguously exhibited this appearance were found in our survey even though we approached the study with the expectation that we would find biosurfactants of this type. We were surprised that we did not find any biosurfactants that yielded a water drop collapse and such a “dark” halo. Bacteria that produce such compounds must thus be quite uncommon, or it may be that such surfactants are not easily distinguished or detected by either assay. Another limitation of the atomized oil assay, which is shared with any culture-based assay, is that the nutrient medium that we used may have precluded us from detecting production of surfactants by some strains which require specific conditions for surfactant production. Furthermore, our assay is restricted to surfactant production by culturable organisms, although there is evidence that at least on leaves the most common cultured taxa are also among the most prevalent taxa identified by culture-independent methods. Metagenomic investigation into the prevalence of biosurfactant production could be fruitful in expanding our understanding of their prevalence in bacterial communities, although advances will be limited until more genetic determinants for their production are described. An unexpected finding from this study was that the production of surfactants that conferred a reduction of surface tension was very conditional on whether the bacteria were grown on a surface or cultured planktonically. Although a number of studies have connected surface sensing with swarming motility , we are only aware of one report, of Serratia liquefaciens, which has noted increased biosurfactant production in cells grown on a surface. In the current work we have shown that a surprisingly large proportion of bacterial strains restrict biosurfactant production to growth on a surface. Although most of these surface-dependent surfactant producers were strains of P. syringae isolates, this phenomenon was also seen in a Pantoea strain, suggesting that it may be a common trait. Commonly-used methods of screening for biosurfactants by drop collapse employ broth cultures and would likely not identify such strains. On the other hand, two strains were identified that only conferred drop collapse from broth culture and not from cells grown onplates and subsequently suspended in water drops. However, surfactant production was still detectable in these strains as a small halo of de-wetted oil droplets with the atomized oil spray when cells were grown on plates. The small halo size of these two strains indicates that the amount of surfactant produced by cells grown on plates was probably too low in concentration to be detected by the drop collapse assay; therefore surfactant production was not fully blocked at a surface, but rather dramatically reduced. Although we have not yet encountered such strains, there is the potential for us to overlook biosurfactants which are produced only in broth culture. However, such strains must be uncommon based on our extensive survey, and the high sensitivity of the atomized oil assay should enable even very low production on solid surfaces to be detectable. Presumably the strong environmental-dependent regulation of surfactant production at surfaces is linked to its role in the habitat of some strains. For example, surfactants contributing to biofilm growth or movement on a surface would be pointless if produced in an aqueous environment. Thus, it makes sense that bacteria with multiple habitats should survey their growth environment before committing to production of a biosurfactant. The surface trigger for surfactant production and its conservation among bacterial taxa remains an active area of research.A few specific mechanisms for surface sensing have been investigated, such as two-component systems and flagellar inhibition. Once a surface is perceived, there is growing evidence that cyclic-di-GMP levels control genes involved in cell surface features that participate in processes such as biofilm growth. It is intriguing that increases in viscosity led to increases in surfactant production in this study , much as it has been shown to induce production of flagella in Vibrio parahaemolyticus. However, our results lead us to believe that it is not viscosity sensing per se that is inducing surfactant production, but rather perception of a growth pattern such as cell aggregation that perhaps restricts movement of cells which, in turn is induced by the reduced turbulent drag of a viscous medium.