Monthly Archive for January, 2011

Draft EPA report: Biofuels threaten habitat, water quality

Published on 01/31/2011 in agriculture, contaminated water, greenwashing and riparian zone. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

retrieved from: bluelivingideas.com

“A draft Environmental Protection Agency report concludes that expanded production of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel carries an array of ecological risks in the U.S. and other nations, and calls for improved policies to mitigate these harms.

“The report is required under a 2007 energy law that vastly increased the national biofuels mandate but also called for new analysis of the ecological effects of expanded development.

“The draft finds, for instance, that growing biofuels crops can affect water quality through erosion and fertilizer runoff, among other factors.

“The report comes as ethanol is already under attack from some environmentalists, and lawmakers seeking to strip tax subsidies. But renewable fuels are valued as a way to displace oil reliance and boost rural economies, and retain powerful political support on Capitol Hill.”

read more: The Hill

sammykayed

Suit over Pardee Reservoir expansion goes to court

Published on 01/31/2011 in dams, hydropower, rivers and water diversions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

“The fight over an East Bay water utility’s bid to expand a picturesque reservoir and flood up to 1,200 acres in the Sierra Nevada foothills will head into a Sacramento courtroom this week.

“While the East Bay Municipal Utility District will argue that a bigger reservoir could be an important source for slaking the thirst of hundreds of thousands of new customers in coming decades, a coalition of conservation and fishing groups says the project is an environmental disaster in the making.

“In approving a 30-year plan to provide water for large swaths of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in 2009, EBMUD reversed its previous position on the Pardee Reservoir, located on the Amador-Calaveras line, according to agency opponents.”

jenna cavelle

Prompted By Scarcity, Colorado River Basin States Examine Their Lifeline

Published on 01/30/2011 in drought, management, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Colorado River

Retrieved From: Circle of Blue

“The worst drought in the 105-year historical record of the Colorado River has opened a new era of water scarcity that is prompting state and federal water managers to evaluate never before considered options for increasing water supply and reducing demand.

“The new ideas for managing the seven-state river basin, which supplies water to 30 million residents and thousands of farms, have attracted increasing attention from agricultural users and other big water interests, particularly in the upper basin states that counted on receiving more water under the region’s near-century-old water use agreement.

“New options for managing the Colorado include establishing provisions for year-to-year agreements with states and farmers to avoid shortages. They also include improvements in the efficiency of river operations, or by river augmentation, which means adding new supplies from a slew of sources—some viable, some expensive, and some fanciful: desalination, river diversions, and weather modification, respectively.”

Read More: Circle of Blue

sammykayed

Israel’s New Water Crisis Management Plan

Published on 01/30/2011 in desalination, drought, management and oceans. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

photo retrieved from: Dwellingintheworld.com

“The growing water crisis in Israel has prompted the Cabinet to approve an emergency plan to increase production of desalinated water.

“The plan, which entails around-the-clock operation of desalination facilities in the country, is expected to result in production of some 420 million cubic meters of the life-giving fluid in 2013.

“The increased production will enable the country to wrestle with the results of the increased consumption and the drop in precipitation in the region, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.

“The plan will “ensure the orderly supply of water to residents of Israel while maintaining existing sources of water,” according to the PMO statement.”

read more: IsraelNationalNews

sammykayed

China Makes Water a $12 Billion Priority

Published on 01/30/2011 in agriculture, policy and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

0130cwater01

Photo Retrieved From Wall Street Journal

“China suffers from an annual shortage of 40 billion cubic meters of water, the minister said, with two-thirds of cities having trouble accessing water.

“The water shortage is one barrier in the way of the government’s goal of meeting demand for important grains from domestic supplies. While the government has continued to declare statistical self-sufficiency, grain purchases from abroad surged last year, with imports in key categories reaching their highest levels in 15 years.

“Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of Sunday’s briefing, Chen Xiwen, one of China’s leading agricultural policymakers, said that “with changes in global trade and resources, our self-sufficiency may decrease.” But he added that self-sufficiency is “still an important concept…. It’s dangerous for a country with a population as large as China not to defend self-sufficiency in grains.”

Read More: Wall Street Journal

jenna cavelle

Water Pollution Solution—New York Experiments with Coal Tar “Sponges” in Hudson River

Published on 01/30/2011 in contaminated water, mining and rivers. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Retrieved from: solcomhouse.com

“For the last 18 months, research engineers and a New York state utility have been using a Hudson River contamination site as a laboratory, testing a new way to remove pollutants from riverbeds, the Times Herald-Record reports.”

“During the last week of November, utility workers from Central Hudson Gas & Electric and engineers from the Electric Power Research Institute began removing mattress-sized absorbent panels from the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, about 80 miles north of New York City.

“In place since May 2009, the 75 panels are filled with organo-clay—a mineral that draws oil like a magnet—and are designed to remove coal tar from the riverbed. Typically, the organo-clay is scattered on the site, and the soil is then dredged or excavated. The Poughkeepsie location was too technically challenging for heavy machinery to operate, however, due to river depth and a strong current.”

Read more: Circle of Blue

chrismorrow

Report details future water needs: SWSI says statewide consumption will double during next 40 years

Published on 01/29/2011 in agriculture, dams, desertification, drought, rivers, tap water and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Photo retrieved from: laist.com

“At least 1.8 million people are expected to live in northeast Colorado by 2050, straining drinking water supplies, drying up farmland across the region and forcing authorities to consider building new water storage and pipeline projects, according to a state water supply report issued this week.

“The 2010 Statewide Water Supply Initiative, or SWSI, report concludes that statewide water consumption will double during the next 40 years and require between 600,000 and 1 million acre-feet of additional water supplies to sate the state’s growing thirst.

“Doing that will mean up to 267,000 acres of today’s irrigated land in northeast Colorado – the entire South Platte River Basin including most of Larimer County but excluding the Denver metro area – will be forced to go dry as water used for crops will be used for city drinking water.

“Without studying the impact of climate change on water availability in Colorado, the report shows that Northern Colorado will be short more than 100,000 acre-feet of water to meet the demand even if Glade Reservoir and all other water storage projects now on the table are eventually built.”

Read more: The Coloradoan

jenna cavelle

Iraq water shortages raising ethnic tensions

Published on 01/29/2011 in agriculture, dams, drought and water shortage. 0 Comments

“A worsening water shortage in Iraq is raising tensions in the multi-ethnic Kirkuk province, where Arab farmers accuse the Kurdistan region of ruining them by closing the valves to a dam in winter.

“”We are harmed by the Kurds, and the officials responsible for Baghdad and Kirkuk will not lift a finger,” said Sheikh Khaled al-Mafraji, a leader of the Arab Political Council that groups mainly Sunni tribal leaders.

“At the heart of the conflict is the Dukan dam, built in 1955 in Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan, 75 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Kirkuk province.

“”They release too much water from June to September while from October it is the opposite: there is not enough drinking water and even less to irrigate our lands,” Mafraji complained.”

Read more: Yahoo News

jenna cavelle

Peak Water: What Is it — and Are We There Yet?

Published on 01/28/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, rivers, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

“Increasingly, around the world, in the U.S., and locally, we are running up against peak water limits.

“Peak water is coming. In some places, peak water is here.

“We’re never going to run out of water — water is a renewable natural resource (mostly). But increasingly, around the world, in the U.S., and locally, we are running up against peak water limits. The concept is so important and relevant that The New York Times chose the term “peak water” as one of its 33 “Words of the Year” for 2010 (along with “refudiate,” “top kill,” and “vuvuzela”), a term that a colleague and I defined in a new research paper in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (available here).

“Water Number: Three (3) definitions of “peak water.”"

Read more: AlterNet

jenna cavelle

Big Coal’s Watergate? Nation Watches as Clean Water Act Scandal Rocks Kentucky Court Today

Published on 01/28/2011 in contaminated water and mining. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

“Extraordinary investigative work turned up over 20,000 incidences of Clean Water Act violations by three coal companies. Now will they finally be held accountable?

“Clean water advocates and concerned citizens across the nation will be monitoring a blockbuster Kentucky court case today, which will ultimately determine whether citizens can intervene in a state’s gross mishandling of indisputable acts of contempt and egregious Clean Water Act violations by two coal companies.

“According to many observers, the sheer number of fraudulent acts and mind-boggling oversights could turn this case into Big Coal’s Watergate–or Clean Watergate.

“Thanks to the extraordinary investigative work of clean water advocates, Kentucky subsidiaries of International Coal Group and Frasure Creek Mining were singled out in an intent to sue notice last October of “over 20,000 incidences of these three companies either exceeding permit pollution limits, failing to submit reports, or falsifying the required monitoring data. These violations could result in fines that may exceed 740 million dollars.””

Read more: AlterNet

jenna cavelle