Floatation Systems in the State of Washington

NEHA

Floatation Systems in the State of Washington

Hello everyone and welcome to the presentation "Flotation Systems in the State of Washington." To ask questions about this presentation, please join the presenter in the networking lounge on Thursday, the 19th, from noon to 2:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. I would now like to introduce Paul Reeves, the Water Recreation Program Manager at the Washington State Department of Health.

Thank you, Sally. Hi everybody. Again, my name is Paul Reeves. I work, currently, with the State of Washington Department of Health in the Water Recreation Program. I worked for the State of Montana before here. I just wanted to share with you all a little bit of information on flotation systems in the State of Wash -- well, flotation systems in general, but then kind of how we've been approaching them in the State of Washington a little bit for about the last four years.

So I'm going to start out with a just a little bit of background on what the systems are, where they came from, what some of the ideas were. So the float system genesis, originally they were called -- in the 1950's they were called sensory deprivation tanks. And there's certain members of the industry that are adamantly against that term because I think it's kind of an overstatement. So we've adopted the term "float systems." Technically, in our Washington administrative code, it is still called a sensory deprivation system, but out of respect for the industry we just changed the terminology a little bit. They're the same thing. They should be, anyway. They should all be the same, sensory deprivation float pod, float cabin. There's several different monikers that you can assign to them.

But the first person to really start to explore this theory of a resisted environmental health stimulus package would be John Lilly. He was the first one to explore this form of therapy or relaxation. It's actually kind of an enhanced meditation method. He was a scientist, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, philosopher, writer, and inventor. Mr. Lilly died in about 2001.

Early tanks were pretty similar to what we've got now, as far as the constitution of the components in the tank. It was still water. It was still high, high, high doses of magnesium sulfate, and peroxide was introduced somewhere in the early days -- we're not quite sure -- as a part of a sanitizer. Because it was originally thought that the magnesium sulfate solution was a bactericidal in and of itself, and that's been proven to be not true. It's kind of bacteriostatic, but it's not necessarily bactericidal. For example, pseudomonas in just the magnesium sulfate water solution, pseudomonas will survive. It won't replicate, but it will survive for approximately 24 hours. So that kind of indicates that there is a need for some kind of additional sanitation over and above just the magnesium sulfate solution.

But you can see in these pictures there's kind of an awkward situation. You know, they were floating. If you look at some of them, they're floating face down, some of them they're floating vertically, they're standing, but they're all wearing massive head gear, and that's to help breathe and to reduce the light infiltration. But the early reports were that mechanism -- you could feel it too much, it was annoying. So they weren't getting the full benefit of the therapy, if you will. But, again, still kind of the same therapy -- theory, that they're just floating in a highly-saturated salty water solution.

The first commercial tank system was this one here, pictured on the slide. It's called Samadhi Tank Co. You can see Glenn and Lee Perry, they are the owners and designers of this original commercial system. They were also direct students with Dr. Lilly. So they were involved right from the beginning as far as what the theory was. Dr. Lilly actually helped design this chamber, if I'm not mistaken. So that's kind of where it all started. So it was kind of in with flotation systems in the '90s, popularity dropped off -- I mean, the '80s -- sorry -- popularity dropped off. There were some concerns about the AIDS epidemic and some contamination possibilities there, which has been proven can't happen, but there was -- that's why it kind of -- the industry kind of tailed off in the '80s.

So, a typical system that we see today is going to be about 200 -- and again, these fluctuate a little bit. You'll see a couple more examples coming up here shorty. But there's approximately 200 gallons of potable water. There's about 800 pounds of food- or pharmaceutical-grade Epsom salt. That's a whole lot of salt, and that salt comes at about a dollar a pound. So it's about 800 dollars worth of the solute, if you will. And so this is not a system that they drain and fill on a regular basis. We'll get into it in a little bit we'll get into the float tank association and some of the guidelines they have as far as how often to change that water. As far as what kind of metrics we use to determine when it is time, we're still kind of discovering some of that, but generally it's about twice a year that they are recommending to change this water.

The industry-preferred sanitizer -- again, I want to be careful using the word "disinfectant" because, as we found out from the EPA, in August of this year the use of a disinfectant in the form of chlorine, bromine, or hydrogen peroxide in float solution is actually a violation of FIFRA. So we have to get away, in the State of Washington -- again, these things are in our code, so we're required to regulate them, but what we're going to have to do is get away from the chemicals. And I'll get into that a little bit more as far as other systems that might work. But the industry prefers hydrogen peroxide. If the industry wants to get hydrogen peroxide listed as an EPA -- to get it approved for FIFRA, if you want to make it an on-label use, they can do that.

We've talked to EPA and we kind of get an idea of what the procedure is and things. It can be done for chlorine, bromine, or peroxide. You can do it for chlorine or bromine, and if you do that, since those are already approved for swimming pools, it's like the journey is kind of, like, half done. So then they just have to make sure that we know it works in potable water or pool water, so then we just have to extrapolate and add the salt to see if it still works. If the industry wants hydrogen peroxide, they're going to have to kind of go through that whole gamut because currently hydrogen peroxide is not approved by the EPA for recreational water use. So, that being said, that's one of the complications we've run into. Again, I'm kind of giving you a little bit of a background on what the systems are and I'm going to kind of introduce some of the hurdles we have run into over the years.

So, again, we ask for four volumetric turnovers between each bather, and also at the beginning of the day. And so basically we're just asking that these things, again, about 200 gallons, and usually it's about a 50-gallon per minute flow. We are not being prescriptive on you must do four turnovers in 20 minutes. We're not being prescriptive on that, because, again, we'll get into some of the physical details of this water. But there can be complications if you try to push this water too fast. So it's really kind of a business decision because during these turnovers, that's when the owners and operators are going to be in there cleaning the room, cleaning the pod, preparing for the next person, that kind of thing. So they've got -- you know, they've got some responsibilities. So if they can turn the thing over in five minutes, that doesn't mean the room's going to be ready. So it's kind of a balance. So we just want four turnovers. We don't really care how much time they choose to take.

Another thing you'll notice in some of the upcoming pictures, some of the equipment's quite a bit different than what we're used to seeing. For example, a lot of these systems -- a lot, not all -- a lot of these systems use magnetic drive pumps. And truth be told, as far as I know, NSF Standard 50 has no magnetic drive pool pumps listed as NSF Standard-50-certified. So that creates a little bit of a problem if your agency requires pumps to be NSF Standard-certified.

So they use a magnetic drive pump for two different reasons. And I actually misspoke in October about this. But the primary reason that the direct drive pumps don't work as well is, you know, this is a very, very salty solution at 94.5 degrees. Well, somebody's floating in there, there's going to be water in the pump that's going to drop below that 94.5. And, of course, what's going to happen is that salt's going to start to precipitate out of the solution. So then when they start that pump up, it's really hard on the pump and the bearings and the seals and things. It's very difficult on it. So that's just the way they're trying to deal with it is with a magnetic drive pump, to get away from that. The other thing is, because the solution is so viscous, the pumps can actually generate some heat. So then they start exceeding that 94.5-degree maximum that they're shooting for within the float experience, within the tank.

I'm going to backpedal one bullet point here and talk about use of UV and ozone. Now, when we talked to EPA it was very clear that the chemicals themselves, chlorine, bromine, and peroxide, are not allowed under FIFRA. But according to EPA, devices -- and that's the term that they use -- a device such as a UV generator, an ozone generator, technically a chlorine generator, like an in-line chlorine generator or brine generator, that kind of thing, those are devices, as would be something like an advanced oxidation type equipment. We've got a fair amount of research and we're almost -- the in-line chlorine generation simply doesn't work. There's too much salt. If there's a brine solution and they're using fresh, potable water to treat the chlorine, that might work, but, again, one of the complications we've come into there is, again, you're technically not supposed to use chlorine, but EPA is okay with that. If you generate it on site, you can use it.

The concern that we have here is we don't have any way to test what the ceiling is. We -- there's no way to test how much there is. We might know that there's some there, but it might be five parts per million, it might be 250 parts per million. We don't have that. So we're a little bit leery on that. So what we're looking at is more UV and ozone type systems, or UV and ozone type systems.

So, another anomaly, if you will, with these is they do not have traditional skimming. A traditional skimmer with the skimmer weir, as it's designed, is designed for a specific gravity of 1.0. This is significantly -- it's 25% more viscous than that. The floating weir is not designed for that. So I don't think you would get the same -- you wouldn't get the same effect. And I'm not sure you'd actually even get the same surface tension. So I don't know if the skimming would actually work. On top of it, part of the skimmer -- within the skimmer, it creates a vortex to suck contaminants, if you will, suck down to the bottom. With this viscous a fluid at that flow rate, I don't think there would be any manner of cycling where that could create a cyclone process that's going to remove that surface -- that material from the surface. It's just going to stay on the surface.

So what we've gone with is something called a strip skimmer, which is partially above the surface of the water and partially below. So it's not a fully submerged suction outlet. So, again, many complications. If there's no surface skimming, one of the first things that the operator does is goes in with, like, a leaf net for a pool, scrapes off the hair and visible stuff, and then turns on the system. That used to be about the best way to do it.

Many of these systems use non-NSF filters, NSF Standard 50 filters. They use what appears to be a very efficient one micron filter. It's designed for more of an industrial use, so it's not designed for a 1.0 specific gravity. And we're not quite sure how the application rate, if your filter media rate, if you will, is the same with a specific gravity of 1.0 as it would be with a specific gravity of 1.25. So the filter media rates, pump curves, heating capacity, flow-through, drain covers, things like that, those are still some questions we're trying to get at just because it's physically a very, very different situation.

Many of these systems do not come with flow meters. And we had found one manufacturer that was pretty darn accurate. Now they've actually got one that I believe is actually certified and it's through -- it's a FlowVis. But the typical blue and white -- or blue/white, I should say, flow meters that we typically see, I never noticed it before, but right on the -- embossed right into the plastic it says for 1.0 specific gravity. So it's clear that those do not work.

So, but we always require a flow meter because, again, that's the only way we can figure out if they're getting those four volumetric turnovers. You know, if they're down for 30 minutes between customers and they can get with their flow rate and all that stuff, that all matches and they get that done in 20, they have a ten-minute buffer. That's all good. Without that, they don't have any way to measure.

Some of the other complications, these are light-proof systems. They're sound-proof systems. They're generally maintained at about 94.5 degrees, which is the temperature of your skin. So, basically you're not able to tell where the water ends and the air begins kind of thing. Again, the specific gravity of this is about 1.25, 1.26, somewhere in there. In doing a little bit of research within Washington, I looked at the Pacific Ocean, and the specific gravity of the Pacific Ocean is between 1.022 and 1.025. So, clearly, this is way, way saltier than the Pacific.