»In which Los Angeles drops the ball

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has been dropping bird balls into the Ivanhoe Reservoir in order to control the creation of carcinogens within the water. The LA Times reported that "The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe's water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP's director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix. The DWP drop was designed to stop the three from mingling in the 10-acre, 58-million-gallon Ivanhoe Reservoir. The 102-year-old facility serves about 600,000 customers downtown and in South Los Angeles." Donna Barstow's blog has a different, well-informed take, describing possible risks to human health from the degradation of the plastic balls; the risk to avian life from the sudden inaccessibility of the water; and the overall inutility of the balls, considering the water flow through the Ivanhoe and Silver Lake reservoirs.