A flexible barge is a fabric barge (non-rigid) for the shipment of bulk liquids like water, chemicals or oil. Patents indicate that the inventions relate to a flexible fabric barge technology or combination of several barges made of a rubber

polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethane is produced from ...

material. The main body portion of a flexible fabric barge is cylindrical in shape. The barge can be used by itself or as several connected flexible fabric barges that can be towed through the open ocean under extreme conditions. The basic invention is a device for the delivery of huge amounts of fresh water in each bag at one time in a hostile wind and wave environment typical of oceans and large seas.

History

One such barge is called the Dracone Barge invented in 1956. Other similar devices are the Spragg Bag invented in the 1980s, the water bag proposed by Nordic Water Supply in the late 1990s and the more recent REFRESH modular waterbag, developed in the 2010s. Terry Spragg (1941 - 2020) of Manhattan Beach, California, built flexible fabric barges for transporting bulk fresh water and was the reason why his device was called the "Spragg Bag." Spragg was originally in the 1970s a promoter of icebergs as a source of fresh water, but realized this was not practical to expedite. He then put his skills into developing the waterbag technology starting in the 1980s. Spragg has worked on and perfected this over the last twenty years with his associates. The first field test of his waterbag was in December 1990. The waterbag was long and it contained approximately of fresh water. It was towed from the Port Angeles harbor in the state of Washington. Another test was done in 1996 with a voyage from Port Angeles to

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

.Gleick, p. 203 This test ended on April 29 when the fabric of one of the two bags under tow developed a tear. Spragg says that his next goal is to run another test voyage demonstration between Northern and Southern California and a demonstration of the waterbag technology in the Middle East as well as around the world. There are various reasons why it has been difficult to gain support for demonstrating the viability of waterbag technology in California and around the world. Spragg claims when two waterbags pass underneath the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time in history the media will let the whole world know about it.Emily Bouckaer
Freshwater Delivery in the Wake of Natural Disasters
Circle of Blue, March 25, 2010San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1999 A novel, ''Water, War, and Peace,'' has been completed that details the solutions waterbag technology offers to the complex political problems surrounding water issues throughout the Middle East, the United States, and the world. Nordic Water Supply waterbag

The Norwegian company Nordic Water Supply developed a 10.800 m³ bag in 1997 under an agreement with the Turkish government to transport freshwater to Northern Cyprus. Within two years at least 7 million m³ of water had to be delivered annually at a cost of €2.7M per year, with volumes growing over time, but the actual transport only amounted to 4 million m³ in four years and the contract was discontinued by Turkish authorities. As a result, NWS went out of business and was de-listed from the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2003. NSW's waterbag technology was acquired by the Monohakobi Institute of Technology in Japan.

The REFRESH waterbag was developed by a consortium of companies and research institutes from Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey and the Czech Republic within two European FP7 projects, REFRESH (running from 2010 to 2012) and the follow-up XXL-REFRESH (running from 2013 to 2015). The first project was focused on validation of the concept of modular waterbag; it developed a small scale prototype of 200 m³ capacity, tested in Greece in 2012. The second project was focused on scale-up and partial redesign of the REFRESH system. At the end of the second project the REFRESH waterbag concept reached commercial scale and a 2500 m³ system made of five 500m³ modules was tested offshore Spain in 2015. The length of the waterbag was 60 m long. The REFRESH concept is different from concepts of waterbag proposed earlier, based on huge monolithic containers (as the one proposed by Nordic Water Supply) or "trains" of smaller containers each one being sealed in itself (as the Spragg bag). The REFRESH waterbag is made of a series of modules, each one being a cylinder open at both bases, joined by watertight zippers. This makes it possible to perform all "dry" operations on ground at the level of single modules, overcoming the handling problems of monolithic containers and improves the behaviour in navigation with respect to the "trains" of connected bags.

Technology

The 1995 associated Spragg patents (#5,413,065 and #5,488,921) indicate that the inventions relate to a flexible fabric barge technology or combination of several barges made of a rubber

material. The main body portion of a flexible fabric barge is cylindrical in shape. The barge can be used by itself or as several connected flexible fabric barges that can be towed through the open ocean under extreme conditions. The patents further explain that the goal of Spragg's inventions are a practical water delivery system of fresh drinkable water that could be delivered to dry regions worldwide that have a shortage of

potable Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, ag ...

water. One of the flexible fabric barge concepts aims at an economical delivery system for fresh water that would be considerably cheaper than

desalination plant Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture. Saltw ...

s, rigid

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

s, tanker trucks, conventional barges, aqueducts or

pipeline transport Pipeline transport is the long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas through a system of pipes—a pipeline—typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 count ...

. Waterbags are more economical and better for the environment than desalination of the seas and oceans. The flexible fabric barge is a

plastic container Plastic containers are containers made exclusively or partially of plastic. Plastic containers are ubiquitous either as single-use or reuseable/durable plastic cups, plastic bottles, plastic bags, foam food containers, Tupperware, plastic tub ...

that is buoyant. It can be linked together with an attachment system to other flexible fabric barges to make a "train." The "waterbags", which are sometimes referred to as balloons or bladders, are made up of a vinyl lining inside a stronger material net.Seattle Times-News, Feb 20, 1994, p. 30 ''Floating a plan to ship fresh water to California'' It is a type of "fabric water pipeline" when several are strung together for transport of liquids by tugboat through seas or open oceans to remote locations.

Zipper

Zippers play an important part in extending the capacity of the waterbag beyond what is practically achievable by a single textile piece. The Spragg and REFRESH concepts both feature prominently zippers, albeit with a fundamental difference in its function. In the Spragg design, large waterbags are connected together like

boxcar A boxcar is the North American ( AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most ...

s in a "train" fashion to increase the amount of liquids delivered at a time. It is estimated that the flexible barges could be as large as 14 meters in diameter and 150 meters in length, holding up to 17,000 cubic meters of fresh water or any other transportable liquid. Theoretically as many as 50 to 60 "waterbags" could be connected to one another and towed, although such a test has not been done to date. REFRESH fabric equipped with zipper

Engineers suggest that the fabric barge can hold a "train" of of liquids. A zipper coupler system is 10 times stronger than what is pulled by a 4,300 hp tug.Bulk Water Exports – Status Report
May 11, 2010 Laborde Marine estimates a 4,300 horsepower tug with a

bollard pull Bollard pull is a conventional measure of the pulling (or towing) power of a watercraft. It is defined as the force (in tonnes force, or kilonewtons (kN)) exerted by a vessel under full power, on a shore-mounted bollard through a tow-line, commonl ...

of 110,000 pounds can pull a "train" of fifty or so flexible barges weighing up to 1,300,000 tons. The "train" speed would be about 3 knots. This is over of fresh water or other liquid per trip. In the REFRESH design, the container itself is assembled on shore starting from planar cuts of fabric. Zippers run all along the perimeter of the fabric and make it possible to join an indefinite number of modules. Since each module is not closed by itself, zippers need to be watertight in order to ensure that no seawater leaks in.

Invention

The basic invention is a device for the delivery of huge amounts of fresh water (700,000 to in each bag) at one time in a hostile wind and wave environment typical of oceans and large seas. Since freshwater is lighter than

seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has appr ...

the filled "bladders" (as they are sometimes referred to) float on top, similarly to icebergs, with little above the surface and most below the surface. Fresh water can be taken from rivers just before it discharges into salty seas or oceans, which then would not interfere with salmon spawning. The associated coupler and zipper patent describes that to be economically feasible there should be several such flexible barges towed at one time. The greater the volume of water that can be delivered per trip, the better the economics. This string of barges would typically consist of barges in size from 25 to in diameter and 200 to in length each. The unique characteristic of the Spragg Bag system is not the large volume of water in each bag, but what is called the world's strongest zipper (produced by Italian company Ziplast) that allows connection of several bags together in long trains. The large connecting zipper can be operated manually or by remote control with radio signals. The string of such flexible fabric "waterbags" may be coupled to a barge via a reinforced fabric nose cone where a tow line is attached. The REFRESH scheme is enabled by a specialty zipper, again developed by Ziplast, that uses a completely different tooth engagement design able to keep the strength of the original "Spragg" zipper while adding watertightness. Tests performed by the Spanish research centre AIMPLAS have confirmed that the zipper is able to stay watertight even when in tension. Each "waterbag" is generally filled to 80-90% capacity (so that it is not stiff and remains able to adapt to deformations when turning) and is flat across its top.

Economics

One San Francisco area reporter writes that waterbag technology would provide economical fresh water delivery to the

Monterey Peninsula The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, and the resort and community of Pebble Beach. History Monterey Monterey was founded i ...

district and a solution to the shortage of fresh water in the area. He reports that the average family of four uses one acre-foot of water a year. This costs over $1000 for delivery using conventional methods, however this same amount of water delivered by Spragg Bags would cost about 30% less. Another newspaper reporter explains that towing Spragg Waterbags is environmentally friendly and is more economical than carrying water in ships or water tanker trucks or even using conventional rigid pipelines. An article in the July issue of ECONOMIST Magazine in 2008 explains that worldwide there is enough water for all, however most is often in the wrong place at the wrong time and it is just too expensive to transport. Waterbag technology offers an easy and inexpensive solution to the problem of today's expensive conventional water transportation. It eliminates the difficulty of transporting water long distances by using the ocean as the means of transport. Waterbags considerably lower the capital costs and operating costs of moving fresh water from place to place. If a train was able to only move one or two box cars at a time, rather than in a train of dozens of boxcars at a time, it would not be very efficient and extremely expensive. Linking waterbags into "trains" of strings of waterbags and moving them through the ocean increases the economics of water transportation making it a viable practical option. The cost to transport water 300 to through the ocean, based on deliveries of to , is estimated to be between $350 to $450 per acre foot, depending on the length of the voyage and the amount of water delivered per trip. Increasing the amount of water delivered per day in each waterbag train will help to significantly reduce the cost of the water delivered. Once the reliability of the waterbag delivery system has proven its economics and reliability it will just be a matter of adding more waterbags to the trains, and more trains to the system in order to increase the amount of water delivered to selected locations, while also reducing the cost of the water delivered. Based on the increasing reliability of the waterbag delivery system over time, it should be possible to be able to economically deliver 100,000's of acre feet per year to many coastal locations around the world. According to the inventor of the Spragg bag, the total cost of delivering fresh water down the California coast by his waterbag technology for a distance of from

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Monterey Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bot ...

would cost about $966 per acre-foot per year. Keith Spain in a study for a Master Of Arts then shows in an analysis that it would save the residents of the

some $1,134 per-acre foot otherwise using a

. This is a savings of over $19 million per year for the Monterey taxpayers. This number assumes a usage of approximately per year (17,000 X $1,134 = $19,278,000 savings).Monterey Institute of International Studies Master of Arts in Commercial Diplomacy by Keith Spain
/ref>

Applications

One application seen is in the Middle East where large quantities of fresh water that are available in the Turkey region could be delivered to other places around the Mediterranean Sea that have an extreme shortage of drinkable fresh water, like Israel and Gaza.Westneat, The San Diego Union – Tribune, April 28, 1996. p. A-3 Spragg believes that delivering fresh drinking water to water-poor nations can promote world peace. Israeli President Shimon Peres has written a letter in support of implementing a demonstration of Spragg Bag technology in the Mediterranean Sea as a tool for helping to bring Peace to the Middle East. In this letter President Peres states, "The draft of WATER, WAR AND PEACE written as a novel is in my view an original approach to highlight this grave problem and its solutions, that will pave the path to a better and more peaceful region. Your efforts to embark on a demonstration voyage to enlighten us all, both regarding the technological viability as well as cost, will surely contribute to meet the critical dilemma." He also points out that using waterbags towed through the Mediterranean Sea would be much more economical than transporting water through pipeline systems. This view is shared by the REFRESH consortium. Waterbags have been proposed to be used for emergency purposes in order to link the Gulf Cooperation Counsel countries' desalination plants all along the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...

coast. Another application is the regular delivery of fresh water over long distance routes. Proposed routes include from the state of Washington to dry regions of Southern California, from Mad River in Northern California to the San Francisco area and from Southern Chile to

Atacama The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the w ...

. Other applications are that it: * could be used to move water through the Sacramento River Delta following an earthquake and a catastrophic levee collapse that could cut off Southern California's water supply for up to two years or more. * could deliver large quantities of stormwater and/or

recycled water Water reclamation (also called wastewater reuse, water reuse or water recycling) is the process of converting municipal wastewater (sewage) or industrial wastewater into water that can be reused for a variety of purposes. Types of reuse include: ...

to areas that need more fresh water to offset lower water levels and rising salinity. * could be pre-positioned storage worldwide of large quantities of fresh

drinking water Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, a ...

for quick delivery after a natural disaster. Spragg has suggested to transport through flexible brarges water from the

Manavgat River Manavgat River originates on the eastern slopes of Western Taurus Mountains in Turkey. In ancient times it was called Melas ( grc, Μέλας). At an elevation of 1,350 m, the outflow of several small springs joins together to become the headwater ...

in the country of Turkey across the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

to Israel and the Gaza Strip, which has an extreme shortage of water, which presently is being reviewed by the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

. Spragg has proposed to the White House the idea of a peace offering in the Middle East by supplying 20 to 30 of his waterbags with fresh water and transport them from Turkey to the Palestinians and Israelis. The technology could also be used for the collection of Australia's factory waste water outputs, storm water, and sewerage for processing and reuse.Liz Penford speech
/ref>

Footnotes

Sources

* Barlow, Maude, ''Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water'', Earthscan, 2003, * Fridell, Ron, ''Protecting Earth's Water Supply,'' Lerner Publications, 2008, * Gleick, Peter H.; ''The world's water: the biennial report on freshwater resources,'' Volume 1998,
pp. 203-205, Spragg Waterbags
', * Lawrence Journal-World – April 27, 1996; ''Giant water bags proposed to quench a dry planet's thirst'' * McCabe, Michael, San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1999; ''Full of Holes, or in the Bag'' * Snitow, Alan, ''Thirst: fighting the corporate theft of our water'', Publisher John Wiley and Sons, 2007, {{ISBN, 0-7879-8458-2 * Westneat, Danny, The San Diego Union – Tribune, San Diego, Calif.:Apr 28, 1996. p. A-3, ''He hopes water-bag idea will float. 'Fabric pipeline' could slake thirst worldwide'', ,2 Edition

External links

Spragg waterbag site

Demonstration of waterbag

Documents prepared for Lester Snow, California Department of water resources

Spragg waterbag technology comments pertaining to Battle Creek (California) Delta
Water supply