Monthly Archive for May, 2011

Groundwater Depletion Is Detected From Space

Published on 05/31/2011 in groundwater, peak water, policy and world water supply. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.nytimes.com

“Yet even as the data signals looming shortages, policy makers have been relatively wary of embracing the findings. California water managers, for example, have been somewhat skeptical of a recent finding by Dr. Famiglietti that from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the state’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet — almost enough to fill Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

Greg Zlotnick, a board member of the Association of California Water Agencies, said that the managers feared that the data could be marshaled to someone else’s advantage in California’s tug of war over scarce water supplies.

“There’s a lot of paranoia about policy wonks saying, ‘We’ve got to regulate the heck out of you,’ ” he said.

There are other sensitivities in arid regions around the world where groundwater basins are often shared by unfriendly neighbors — India and Pakistan, Tunisia and Libya or Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories — that are prone to suspecting one another of excessive use of this shared resource.

Water politics was hardly on Dr. Famiglietti’s mind when he first heard about Grace. In 1992, applying for a job at the University of Texas, he was interviewed by Clark R. Wilson, a geophysicist there who described a planned experiment to measure variations in Earth’s gravitational field.”

Read more: New York Times

 

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Europe’s dry spring could lead to power blackouts, governments warn

Published on 05/31/2011 in agriculture, climate change, drought, management, rivers, water conservation and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.guardian.co.uk

“One of the driest springs ever recorded in northern Europe could lead to power blackouts this summer, with nuclear reactors going offline because of low river levels. The exceptionally dry weather will also raisefood prices and has already forced water restrictions on millions of people, say governments, farm groups and meteorological organisations across the continent.

Large parts of southern Britain, northern France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other northern and eastern European countries have had their driest three-month spells in more than 50 years, receiving just 25-60% of their long-term average rainfall since February. This has led to parched soils and difficult growing conditions for farmers, as well as to river levels that are dangerously low for wildlife.

Patchy rain has moistened soils in parts of northern Britain, France and Germany over the past few weeks, but with summer approaching and temperatures soaring to over 30C in France, it is not expected that any rains will compensate for months of exceptionally dry weather.

Last week the European Union warned that soils were now “critically dry” in six countries. The French wheat harvest is now expected to be 11.5%-13% down on average despite an increase in the area planted this year and German output is expected to fall 7-9%. In south-east England, many farmers expect crops to fail dramatically unless steady rains come soon.”

Read more: Guardian

 

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Rights Group says Gaza’s Drinking Water Polluted

Published on 05/30/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, hydrology, policy, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

 

Retrieved from: map-UK

“A Gaza rights group said Monday in a fact sheet that quality of drinking water in the Gaza Strip is way below international standards.

“Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said that 95% of the drinking water is below World Health Organization (WHO) standards, stressing that the Israeli practices contributed to decreasing the availability of drinking water and increased level of contamination of Gaza underground water reserves.

“The fact sheet focused on the Gaza Strip’s desalination stations, especially the quality of the produced water and monitoring policy.

“It explained that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory in 1967 is the main reason for the water shortage and contamination.

“It reported that the Israeli authorities dug more than 26 wells along the armistice demarcation line between Israel and Gaza in an attempt to prevent the flow of ground water.

“It said that Israeli forces deliberately destroyed the infrastructure of the water sector in Gaza, targeting wells, reservoirs, ponds , the main supply lines and irrigation systems.

“The sheet addressed the pollution of the underground reservoirs, adding that this source is being depleted, which leads to the deterioration of water quality.

“As for the quality of the drinking water, the fact sheet said that the level of chloride in the water wells exceeds by eight times the WHO criteria. The nitrate concentration increased in most wells also to eight times WHO’s criteria

Read more: wafa

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Vast amounts of resources are being lost to leaky pipes

Published on 05/30/2011 in drought and water conservation. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: cricket bread

“A total of 6 billion cubic meters of tap water are lost through leaking pipes every year in China, a country that faces chronic water shortages.

“That’s enough water to turn Beijing into a four-meter-deep swimming pool, or meet a year’s demand for water in the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and Hainan, the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly reported Friday.

“China’s water problem is getting worse. This year, several provinces and municipalities along the Yangtze River which were previously rich in water resources, including Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi, were hit by weeks of severe drought, leaving millions facing a shortage of drinking water and 166,000 hectares of farmland with no harvest. Drought also brought the threat of plague and higher grain prices.

“The shortage makes the water leakage more unbearable. Leaking pipes resulted in a loss of 6 billion cubic meters of water in 2009, and so far no one seems to be taking responsibility for it, according to the China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook 2009.

“Water pipe leakage is a problem that every country faces, but in China, the rate remains high and seems to be getting worse, the Southern Weekly reported.

Read more: global times

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Drought? Quake? Blame China’s Big Dam

Published on 05/29/2011 in agriculture, dams, displacement of people, drought, hydropower, management, policy, privatization, rivers and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.chinasmack.com

“Natural disasters have long been agents of social and political change in China, and droughts especially so. In part, it was the control of droughts and floods along China’s Yangtze River — Asia’s longest — that inspired the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the 2,500-meter-long superstructure that stands as a symbol of the Communist Party’s careful, successful stewardship of China’s economy over the last 30 years.

It has long been an object of controversy in China, but its pedigree — it was a pet project of Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s modern economy — made it a mostly off-limits subject for criticism.

That all changed this month when China’s State Council announced that there were “urgent problems” with the dam, including issues with pollution and the relocation of populations displaced by the project. And with one week’s hindsight, it also appears that the State Council was aware of a more immediate, looming problem, as well: The Yangtze is now experiencing its worst drought in 50 years, and Chinese voices — both powerful and common — are starting to question the sacrosanct pile of concrete that now dams it. Even the People’s Daily, the official voice of the Party, got in on the act (albeit via quotes on the news pages).”

Read more: Jakarta Globe

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Illegal Dam On Canal Triggers Protest

Published on 05/29/2011 in agriculture, dams, displacement of people, policy, privatization, water rights, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: .

A large number of farmers form a human chain in Char Montaz union of Galachipa upazila under Patuakali district yesterday removal of dam on Bailabunia canal. Impediment to the flow of the canal hampers cultivation in the area, they said. Retrieved from: www.thedailystar.net

“Hundreds of farmers and fishermen of Charmontaz union under Galachipa upazila formed a human chain on the bank of Bailabunia canal on Friday demanding removal of illegal dam on the canal.

They also brought out a procession joined by over 1,000 affected people.

About 10,000 acres of land remain uncultivated as a few local influential people who took lease of the 10-km long canal, raised the barrier on the canal.

Charmontaz union is an isolated newly emerged land mass, about 30 km away from Galachipa upazila headquarters and about 60 km off Patuakhali district headquarters.

Ainalee Howlader, 55, a farmer of the area said, Mosharef Khan, Basir Khan, Kuddus Khan and other influential people stopped the water flow of Bailabunia canal illegally two years ago.

“We can’t cultivate our land in the dry season as the lessees stop the water flow illegally. Most of the farmers grow green crops here”, he added.

Abdur Rahman, 45, another farmer alleged the lessees also bring saline water through the sluice gate to cultivate fish in the canal.

“The farmers will be deprived of Aush paddy as the time for seedlings is almost over”, he added.

“We are becoming poorer as we miss two out of three crops”, Solaiman, 40, another farmer alleged.

“Cultivation of green crops like watermelon, potato, ground nuts, pulses has stopped due to water crisis”, he added.”

Read more: The Daily Star

 

 

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Dams Power Down In The Largest US Dam Removal

Published on 05/29/2011 in aquatic ecosystems, dams, hydropower, policy, riparian zone, rivers and solutions and outreach. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Elwha Dam. Photo retrieved from: www.moldychum.com

“The Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula once teemed with legendary salmon runs before two towering concrete dams built nearly a century ago cut off fish access to upstream habitat, diminished their runs and altered the ecosystem.

On June 1, nearly two decades after Congress called for full restoration of the river and its fish runs, federal workers will turn off the generators at the 1913 dam powerhouse and set in motion the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

Contractors will begin dismantling the dams this fall, a $324.7 million project that will take about three years and eventually will allow the 45-mile Elwha River to run free as it courses from the Olympic Mountains through old-growth forests into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

“We’re going to let this river be wild again,” said Amy Kober, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group American Rivers. “The generators may be powering down, but the river is about to power up.”

The 105-foot Elwha Dam also came on line in 1913, followed 14 years later by the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam eight miles upstream. For years, they provided electricity to a local pulp and paper mill and the growing city of Port Angeles, Wash., about 80 miles west of Seattle. Electricity from the dams – enough to power about 1,700 homes – currently feeds the regional power grid.

A Washington state law required fish passage facilities, but none was built. So all five native species of Pacific salmon and other anadromous fish that mature in the ocean and return to rivers to spawn were confined to the lower five miles of the river. A hatchery was built but lasted only until 1922.

The fish are particularly important to members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, whose ancestors have occupied the Elwha Valley for generations and whose members recall stories of 100-pound Chinook salmon so plentiful you could walk across the river on their backs.”

Read more: Associated Press

 

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Shale Boom in Texas Could Increase U.S. Oil Output

Published on 05/29/2011 in contaminated water, fracking, groundwater, natural gas drilling, oil and policy. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.nytimes.com

The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska.

There is only one catch: the oil from the Eagle Ford and similar fields of tightly packed rock can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing, a method that uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and hazardous chemicals to blast through the rocks to release the oil inside.

The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil, which flows less easily through rock than gas. As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it.”

Read more: New York Times

 

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Water Emerges as a Hidden Weapon

Published on 05/28/2011 in agriculture, contaminated water, desalination, groundwater, management, oil, rivers, tap water, water shortage, water technology, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Each circular plot is about 1 km in diameter, and is able to grow a number of different crops including grains, fruits and vegetables, and crops for animal fodder. Retrieved from: www.africanagricultureblog.com

“In 1983, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi initiated a huge civil water works project known as the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) – a massive irrigation project that drew upon the underground basin reserves of the Kufra, Sirte, Morzuk, Hamada and the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer – to deliver more than five million cubic metres of water per day to cities along Libya’s coastal belt.

“The Colonel’s GMMR project was discounted when first unveiled as an uneconomic flight of fancy and a wasteful exploitation of un-renewable freshwater reserves,” Middle East-based journalist Iason Athanasiadis told IPS. “But subsequently it was hailed as a masterful work of engineering, tapping into underground aquifers so vast that they could keep the 2007 rate of dispersal going for the next 1,000 years.”

Lying beneath the four African countries Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan, the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) is the world’s largest fossil water aquifer system, covering some two million square kilometres and estimated to contain 150,000 cubic kilometres of groundwater.

Fossil water is groundwater that has been trapped in underground fossil aquifers for thousands or even millions of years. Unlike most aquifers the NSAS is a non-renewable resource, and over extraction or water mining could cause rising sea levels.

“The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya’s vast underground aquifers like the NSAS in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometres to the north,” Ivan Ivekovic, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo told IPS.

“The entire project was drawn out over five phases. Phase one took water from eastern pipelines in As- Sarir and Tazerbo to Benghazi and Sirte; phase two supplied water in Tripoli and western pipelines in Jeffara from the Fezzan region; and phase three intended to create an integrated system and increase the total daily capacity to almost four million cubic metres and provide up to 138,000 cubic metres per day to Tobruk.”

With an estimated cost of nearly 30 billion dollars, the GMMR’s network of nearly 5,000 kilometres of pipeline from more than 1,300 wells drilled up to 500 metres deep into the Sahara was also intended to increase the amount of arable land for agricultural production. ”

Read more: IPS

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The Food, Water and Health Crisis Surrounding Natural Gas Extraction

Published on 05/28/2011 in contaminated water, fracking, greenwashing, groundwater, natural gas drilling, oil, policy and tap water. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.water-contamination-from-shale.com

“A proposal for more transparency about fracking received about 30 percent of shareholder votes at Exxon, while 41 percent at Chevron backed a similar resolution.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson blamed the media for focusing on water contamination linked to fracking. He said, quote, “As often happens with these things, the early detractors slap a label on something, and it takes a long time to peel it off. And you guys help them slap it on there.” But the number of detractors continues to grow even as the Obama administration has put natural gas at the center of its energy policy.

AMY GOODMAN: In Texas, lawmakers are close to passing a bill that requires companies to disclose the chemicals they use in the fracking process. On Wednesday, Michigan passed a law that requires energy companies to ensure fracking won’t affect neighboring water wells or surface water. Earlier this month, scientists at Duke found dangerous levels of methane in water wells near shale gas wells in Pennsylvania and New York. And in April, scientists at Cornell University argued shale gas, touted as a cleaner alternative to coal, could actually be a worse contributor to climate change because of methane that leaks into the air during fracking.

About 30 states allow fracking, but New York state has imposed a partial moratorium on the drilling process pending the outcome of an environmental impact study this July.”

Read more: AlterNet

 

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