Santa Cruz desal critics pick apart environmental eval

Published on 06/17/2013 in aquifer overdraft, desalination, groundwater, hydrology, oceans, peak water and policy. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.santacruzsentinel.com

“SANTA CRUZ — Desalination skeptics packed a Quaker Meetinghouse on Thursday to hear a critical evaluation of an environmental report for a $129 million facility that would serve 135,000 water ratepayers.

More than 100 people listened as Rick Longinotti, a founder of Santa Cruz Desal Alternatives, questioned a draft environmental impact report’s conclusions about water supply shortages, alternatives and the impact on growth and the environment. He argued the city has made a political decision to allow for water use to grow at UC Santa Cruz and within the city’s limits from 3.2 billion gallons in annual demand now to 3.8 billion by 2030, figures published in the report, rather than hold demand down.

The former electrician turned marriage counselor and anti-desal crusader said the city needs to wean golf courses off drinking water, share excess winter flow with neighboring districts, become more aggressive with conservation measures and better manage the Loch Lomond Reservoir rather than pursue a costly desalting facility. He called again for a formal water-neutral development policy similar to one in place within the city’s desalination partner, the Soquel Creek Water District, which requires developers to directly offset their new use through conservation rather than pay fees that may not all go toward conservation.”

Read more: Santa Cruz Sentinel

 

lily victoria

Water Management Biggest Risk to China Shale Gas

Published on 06/17/2013 in contaminated water, fracking and management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Pack west

“Water management is the biggest challenge to shale gas development in China amid concern that extraction of the fuel will contaminate drinking supplies, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

China’s government will need to find ways of getting capital and technology into its shale-gas sector without compromising environmental standards, said Neil Beveridge, a Hong Kong-based analyst at the consultant.

“Despite very little knowledge of fracture stimulation or shale drilling, there is already a perceived concern of potential risks to clean-water contamination,” Beveridge said in an e-mailed report today. “While water is abundant in Sichuan, clean water is less so.”

China is the “biggest shale opportunity” outside of the U.S., according to Bernstein. The country has the world’s largest shale gas resources, estimated at 4,746 trillion cubic feet (134.4 trillion cubic meters), it said, citing data from the Ministry of Land and Resources and the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Within China, Sichuan has the largest potential and the Silurian Longmaxi shale is the most prolific, the consultant said.

In hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, drillers shoot a mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground to free oil and natural gas trapped in shale-rock formations.”

Read more: Bloomberg

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Anti-Dam Election Campaign Launches in Chile

Published on 06/17/2013 in dams, hydropower, policy and rivers. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.internationalrivers.org

“Legislators and congressional candidates gathered in Santiago’s former Congress building Monday to pledge their support for clean energy alternatives to major hydroelectric dam projects in Patagonia.

Launched by the Defense Council of Patagonia, the campaign “Vota Sin Represas (Vote No Dams),” calls for presidential candidates to formally pledge their commitment to keep Patagonia free of dams and invest in renewable energy before this year’s election.
“It’s basically a political tool,“ Juan Pablo Orrego, president of the advocacy group Ecosystems told The Santiago Times, describing the campaign. “The Chilean people are against this dam and they’re not going to support a candidate who is for it. This campaign is a means to bring more transparency to the issue.”

HidroAysén is a major dam project which encompasses plans for five hydroelectric dams in the Aysén Region of Patagonia. Though the project was approved under the administration of President Sebastián Piñera, progress stalled in June 2012 due to widespread protests in Chile.

Some parliamentary candidates, present at Monday’s event, have already signed on to the campaign, including former student leaders Camila Vallejo, now running as a Communist Party (PC) deputy candidate, and Giorgio Jackson.”

Read more: International Rivers

lily victoria

Fracking Is Already Straining U.S. Water Supplies

Published on 06/17/2013 in contaminated water, fracking, groundwater, natural gas drilling, oil and water shortage. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.alternet.org

“Every fracking job requires 2 million to 4 million gallons of water, according to the Groundwater Protection Council. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has estimated that the 35,000 oil and gas wells used for fracking consume between 70 billion and 140 billion gallons of water each year. That’s about equal, EPA says, to the water use in 40 to 80 cities with populations of 50,000 people, or one to two cities with a population of 2.5 million each.

Some of the most intensive oil and gas development in the nation is occurring in regions where water is already at a premium. A paper published last month by Ceres, a nonprofit that works on sustainability issues, looked at 25,000 shale oil and shale gas wells in operation and monitored by an industry-tied reporting website called FracFocus.

Ceres found that 47 percent of these wells were in areas “with high or extremely high water stress” because of large withdrawals for use by industry, agriculture, and municipalities. In Colorado, for example, 92 percent of the wells were in extremely high water-stress areas, and in Texas more than half were in high or extremely high water-stress areas.”

Read more: Alternet

 

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1863 Indian Massacre Site Uncovered in California

Published on 06/14/2013 in displacement of people, lakes, land grabs, policy, water diversions and water rights. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.newser.com

“Archaeologists say they’ve stumbled upon a grim page in American history: the site of the 1863 Owens Lake massacre. The Los Angeles Times provides a history lesson: The Paiute Indians occupied land some 200 miles north of LA that proved desirable to an influx of ranchers in the mid 1800s. The Owens Valley Indian War broke out in 1861, but a seminal moment occurred on March 19, 1863: Settlers and soldiers battled with the Paiutes, who tried to flee their attackers by swimming into the lake, but were thwarted by a strong wind; nearly three dozen of them drowned or were shot. The tale of that day remains, but the exact location was lost.

That’s in part because officials diverted the Owens River in 1913 in order to feed LA’s water needs, reports Grist; by the middle of the next decade, Owens Lake was no more. But heavy winds and rains in 2009 may have helped return bullets, buttons, and Native American artifacts to the surface; Los Angeles Department of Water and Power archaeologists found them during a survey last year. But the discovery is spurring a small controversy: The dry lake bed fuels toxic dust storms, and DWP has been charged with mitigating that with shallow flooding—at what is now thought to be the massacre site.”

Read more: Newser

 

lily victoria

River be damned

Published on 06/14/2013 in dams, policy, rivers and water diversions. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.theage.com/au

“As the narrow longtail boat glides downstream from the dusty hamlet of Nong Kiew towards the golden temples of Luang Prabang, mirror images of jungle, vertical limestone cliffs and impossibly steep mountains shimmer in the waters of the Nam Ou River, a tributary of the mighty Mekong.

Endangered Asian elephants and Indochinese tigers still roam the upper reaches of the river within Phou Den Din National Protected Area, one of 20 national parks in Laos. This is the beauty that tourists, many Australians among them, come so far to see.

Yet this undeveloped region in northern Laos is about to be jolted into the industrial age. Three hours downriver from Nong Kiew, a scar of ochre-coloured dirt and rock stretches for kilometres: construction of the Nam Ou 2 Dam is steamrolling ahead.

The 450 kilometre-long Nam Ou, one of the few Lao rivers traversable by boat for its entire length, will soon be severed seven times over by a 350-kilometre stretch of hydropower dams built and maintained by Chinese giant Sinohydro.

The Nam Ou 2 belongs to the first phase of the $1.95 billion project, which is expected to be operational by 2018. Details surrounding the project are scant. Even the final destination for the proposed 1146 megawatts of hydropower is unclear, although the Lao government claims the first three dams, Nam Ou 2, 5 and 6, will provide electricity for domestic consumption.”

Read more: The Age World

 

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Toxic waste spill in northern Alberta biggest of recent disasters in North America

Published on 06/13/2013 in contaminated water and oil. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: The globe and mail

“The substance is the inky black colour of oil, and the treetops are brown. Across a broad expanse of northern Alberta muskeg, the landscape is dead. It has been poisoned by a huge spill of 9.5 million litres of toxic waste from an oil and gas operation in northern Alberta, the third major leak in a region whose residents are now questioning whether enough is being done to maintain aging energy infrastructure.

The spill was first spotted on June 1. But not until Wednesday did Houston-based Apache Corp. release estimates of its size, which exceeds all of the major recent spills in North America. It comes amid heightened sensitivity about pipeline safety, as the industry faces broad public opposition to plans for a series of major new oil export pipelines to the U.S., British Columbia and eastern Canada.

The spill has not reached the Zama River, although the Alberta government said it has affected tributaries. Water monitoring is ongoing.

Neither Apache nor Alberta initially disclosed the spill, which was only made public after someone reported it to a TV station late last week.”

Read more: The globe and mail

sammykayed

Winners in harsh battle for Klamath River water claim their rights

Published on 06/11/2013 in drought, water rights and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Retrieved from: Trbimg

“Some southern Oregon ranchers will have to reduce or completely shut down irrigation in the parched Upper Klamath Basin this summer as a result of a historic assertion of water rights by other users in the region.

On Monday, several groups, including the Klamath Tribes and irrigators in the federal Klamath Project, made formal calls for water, asking Oregon to enforce rights they won earlier this year.

“Nobody should be surprised by the tribes making a call,” said Jeff Mitchell of the Klamath Tribal Water Team. “Everyone’s seen this day coming for a long, long time.”

Some southern Oregon ranchers will have to reduce or completely shut down irrigation in the parched Upper Klamath Basin this summer as a result of a historic assertion of water rights by other users in the region.

On Monday, several groups, including the Klamath Tribes and irrigators in the federal Klamath Project, made formal calls for water, asking Oregon to enforce rights they won earlier this year.

“Nobody should be surprised by the tribes making a call,” said Jeff Mitchell of the Klamath Tribal Water Team. “Everyone’s seen this day coming for a long, long time.”

Flows into the Upper Klamath Lake are only 40% of normal this year, reducing irrigation deliveries and flows vital for fish, including the endangered shortnose and Lost River suckers traditionally harvested by the tribes.”

Read more: LA times

sammykayed

Zimbabwe: Making a Business Out of Water Rationing

Published on 06/10/2013 in groundwater, management, privatization and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Retrieved from: Sphotos

“For 61-year-old Sarah Chikwanha from water-starved Chitungwiza, a town about 25 kilometres outside Harare, Zimbabwe, there is no choice. She must buy her water from illegal water traders, whose businesses have sprung up across the country.

“We only have water once weekly in Chitungwiza, and so I have no choice but to buy from dealers at 95 dollars for a 2,500-litre tank,” Chikwanha told IPS.

These new, illegal businesses are the result of the dire need for water, as rationing in towns and cities continues because of shortages of water treatment chemicals in this southern African nation.

Harare’s mayor, Muchadeyi Masunda, has gone on record saying that the council needs three million dollars a month for water treatment chemicals, a challenge compounded by the city’s obligation to supply water to neighbouring towns like Chitungwiza, Norton, and Ruwa.

Statistics from the Harare Residents Trust (HRT), an advocacy group, indicate that only 192,000 households in Harare are connected to the water system, while the rest depend on boreholes or rainwater.

Harare needs 1,300 megalitres of water daily, but the current supply ranges from 600 to 700 megalitres.

Councillors from Chitungwiza, where Chikwanha lives, told IPS that the council there failed to pay for water supplied by Harare’s Lake Chivero, thus intensifying water rationing in a town of nearly two million people. People have now turned to wells, streams and inadequate boreholes, as well as illegal traders, for their water.

Panganayi Charumbira, a councillor from Harare’s Budiriro low-income suburb, told IPS that both Zimbabwe’s urban and rural areas were affected. “The water crisis is getting worse in towns, but it’s even worse in the countryside,” Charumbira said.”

Read more: All Africa

sammykayed

Experts Urge Focus on Aquifers in Push for Water From Mexico

Published on 06/09/2013 in management and transboundary water. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: fpri

“As Texas lawmakers say farmers in the Rio Grande Valley are hurting because Mexico is not honoring a treaty on surface water delivery, experts caution that greater attention should be paid to water deep below the surface.

At least 20 aquifers stretch across the United States-Mexico border, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law and the director of the International Water Law Project. Some are being mined at a record pace, he said.

“I know you have a lot of agricultural interests in the Valley yelling and screaming about water in the Rio Grande; that is going to continue,” he said. But of the 14 million people living within 50 miles of the border, “80 or 90 percent of them get their water from aquifers.”

Texas lawmakers, environmentalists and farmers have been focused on a 70-year-old treaty under which Mexico is to deliver water to the United States from six tributaries that feed into the Rio Grande, in exchange for water from the Colorado River. Lawmakers say that Mexico has not addressed a mounting deficit in water delivery.”

Read more: NY times

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