Monthly Archive for June, 2011

Page 2 of 10

How El Paso Is Beating The Worst Drought In A Generation

Published on 06/28/2011 in agriculture, drought, groundwater, hydrology, management, peak water, rivers, tap water, water conservation and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: Rio Grande, texas' water supply.

Photo retrieved from: www.guardian.co.uk

“This year’s historic drought has for the first time cajoled cities into water rationing. San Antonio banned all fountains and lawn sprinklers. Galveston asked citizens to avoid filling their swimming pools. Odessa, which could drain its main source of ground water by the end of 2012, is thinking of building a reclamation plant.

It’s been a shock awakening. According to some projections, 900 communities in the south-west could go dry by the middle of the century if there is a serious drought. But Texas is a conservative state, and there is reluctance to talk about the extreme events caused by climate change. It is also the only western state that does not have a central authority to manage ground water. In the lone star state, it’s every one for themselves.

“It is basically a pirate’s approach,” said John Matthews, director of fresh water and climate change at Conservation International. “The right of capture is the legal framework. If you’re able to get it, then it’s yours. If you’re on a river and draw all the water, then it’s just tough luck for the people downstream. If you deplete an aquifer on your land and that aquifer serves a much larger area, then it’s just tough luck to the other people.”

But El Paso, isolated from the rest of Texas on the border with Mexico and more than 500 miles away from the state capital, Austin, has always operated a little bit outside the norm.”

Cotter Corp. Refuses To Clean Up Contaminated Water From Defunct Uranium Mine

Published on 06/28/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, management, tap water and wastewater. 0 Comments Tags: toxic water, uranium mining.

Photo retrieved from: www.uminepolicy.com

“Cotter Corp. is still refusing to clean up contamination at a defunct uranium mine west of Denver, where a now-contaminated creek flows into a metro-area drinking-water reservoir.

State mining regulators ordered Cotter to drain highly toxic water from the mine. They contend the Schwartzwalder mine is connected through groundwater to Ralston Creek, which flows into Ralston Reservoir. Denver Water and state tests have detected uranium at elevated levels exceeding health standards.

Tests last summer along Ralston Creek indicated uranium concentrations as high as 310 parts per billion, above the 30 ppb standard for drinking water.

Cotter has filed a lawsuit challenging the state order.

Cotter officials could not be reached for comment.

Denver Water officials say they’re relying on existing treatment systems to remove uranium contamination from the creek and reservoir before it reaches homes.”

“Super Sand” Cleans Dirty Drinking Water with Graphite Waste

Published on 06/27/2011 in contaminated water and water filtering. 0 Comments Tags: graphite, peakwater, Rice Univesity, super sand, Water, water filteration.

sand in hand photo

“Billions of people lack access to clean drinking water and researchers are constantly searching for cost-effective ways to purify water for rural villages and developing areas. A team of researchers has come up with just such a possible solution using “super sand,” or sand coated in an oxide of graphite.

“Using sand to purify water is already an old strategy, but researchers from Rice University in Texas think that by coating it with graphite, the “super sand” will purify water more quickly and effectively than ever before. The BBC reports that coarse sand doesn’t purify as well as fine sand, but fine sand purifies very slowly as water percolates through. The new process could harness the best qualities of both.

“Rice University reports that the researchers ran two model contaminants for testing, including mercury at 400 parts per billion and Rhodmine B dye at 10 parts per million. When they ran the contaminated water through the specially coated sand, they found that the coated sand removed mercury for over 50 minutes before it was saturated, resulting in water with less than 1 part per billion — half the EPA’s maximum level for mercury in drinking water. They found similar results for the Rhodamine B dye.”

Floods, Droughts, And A Global Water Warning

Published on 06/27/2011 in agriculture, climate change, drought, floods, greenwashing, groundwater, hydrology, solutions and outreach, tap water, water conservation, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: global water supplies.

Photo retrieved from: www.howstuffworks.com

“The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE ), a joint satellite mission by NASA and the German space agency DLR, tracks freshwater availability over the globe. And according to hydrologist James Famiglietti at the University of California, Irvine, it’s not revealing a pretty picture. His team has observed steadily declining groundwater reserves in many of the world’s major aquifers, particularly those in the arid and semi-arid parts of the globe. Between 1994 and 2006, annual fresh-water flow increased 18% suggesting an acceleration in the global water cycle of evaporation and rainfall.

Translation: More intense storms, flooding, and drought.

A redistribution of precipitation from the mid latitudes to higher and lower latitudes means that wet regions get wetter and dry get drier . Famigliette’s research is among the first to demonstrate that these conditions–previously predicted by climate models–are already happening. And this isn’t just a story about available drinking water because it causes tremendous concerns about food, energy, economic, and international security.”

Sudan Seeks To Tap ‘Blue Gold’

Published on 06/27/2011 in agriculture, dams, hydrology, hydropower, oil, peak water, policy, rivers, tap water and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: Blue Nile, roseires dam, water conflict in Sudan, white nile.

Photo retrieved from: www.zawya.com

“Sudan is aggressively seeking to tap its abundant Nile waters with new dam projects as the oil-rich south’s independence looms, but experts warn of the social and environmental costs, and the bearing on the Nile water sharing dispute.

Khartoum sits on the confluence of the Blue and White Niles.

The cash-strapped government has good reasons for wanting to exploit its “blue gold,” a valuable resource that will help to offset the imminent loss of revenues from southern oil — some 36 percent of its income — when south Sudan proclaims independence on July 9.

“Sudan is clearly gearing up in terms of agriculture, because of the oil gap that comes with the separation of the south. To the extent that it can do more in the way of dams, that is its economic security,” said a Sudan-based environmentalist, requesting anonymity.

Last week, during a ministerial visit, the engineer responsible for heightening the vast Roseires dam, on the Blue Nile, said the $400 million project, which is due for completion in June 2012, would create three million feddans (1.3 million hectares) of farmland.”

Light At Bottom Of One Town’s Toxic Water Wells

Published on 06/27/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, policy, solutions and outreach, tap water and waterborne diseases. 0 Comments Tags: arkansas water, arsenic in drinking water.

Photo retrieved from: www.activerain.com

“The Arkansas native has lived in unincorporated Kettleman City for 43 years. She has spent a goodly chunk of this time trying to bring clean and safe drinking water to the Kings County community.

“It’s yellow, and it smells like eggs,” says Ware, 78, of water from the town’s two wells.

The water contains high levels of arsenic, benzene and lead, according to state health officials, who, nonetheless, didn’t link the water to a cluster of birth defects that made tiny Kettleman City a national story.

Now, after winning a fight against the state bureaucracy, residents could turn on their taps — instead of buying bottled water — as early as the end of next year if plans stay on track.”

At Least 10 Killed In North Kenya Clashes: Police

Published on 06/27/2011 in agriculture, drought, water rights, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: kenya.

Photo retrieved from: www.climatesecurity.com

“Clashes over control of grazing land and water sources in drought-afflicted northern Kenya killed at least 10 people on Saturday, police said.

Police and local leaders said the fighting occurred on the border between the Isiolo and Samburu districts, an area that is prone to drought and has been plagued by deadly clashes over resources in the past few years.

Marcus Ochola, the deputy police commissioner for Eastern Province, told Reuters six raiders and four local herders had been killed, more people had been wounded and the death toll might rise.

Civic leader Abdullahi Golicha also put the death toll at 10, split roughly between raiders and herders, and said the fighting was still going on so there could be more casualties.”

China’s Water War With India

Published on 06/27/2011 in dams, rivers, water diversions and water wars. 1 Comment Tags: Brahmaputra river, water conflict between china and india.

Brahmaputra river. Retrieved from: www.travelingbeats.com

“Is China trying to divert the Brahmaputra waters to its dry north and north-western regions? Or, is it merely trying to build small dams along the river? The Government of India seems clueless if SM Krishna’s recent remarks are any indication. Can the country afford to ignore such a momentous issue?

Sometimes news found in the mainstream Indian media can be flabbergasting. Take the case of the purported ‘diversion’ of the Yarlung Tsangpo. A ‘serious’ national newspaper spoke of the “Yarlang Tsangpo, it is what the Brahmaputra river is called in Mandarin”. Yarlung (not Yarlang) Tsangpo is the Tibetan name for the river originating near Mt Kailash. It has nothing to do with Mandarin.

The article further states that the Ministry of Water Resources has asked the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for a report on the Chinese activities near the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, as it enters Indian territory: “Sources do not rule out the possibility that the ‘new’ images could be of existing structures, since the resolution of India’s satellite images has increased substantially in recent months… This means structures, which have been there, are now visible in much greater detail.”

Great news, but the NRSC scientists are wasting their time looking for structures near the Grand Bend of the Brahmaputra. In reality, the diversion is planned a few hundred kilometres upstream, near the city of Tsetang in Central Tibet.

It seems the Ministry hasn’t done its homework before sending a request to NRSC. Also, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna is not a good student. He mixes the ‘diversion scheme’ with the dams being built on the Brahmaputra. While answering a question on the diversion, he affirms that Zangmu Dam “is no cause of concern to India as it is a ‘run off the river’ dam”. ”

Water For Peace In Darfur

Published on 06/25/2011 in agriculture, climate change, peak water, policy and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: water conflict in darfur.

Photo retrieved from: www.oikoumene.org

“Dwindling natural resources, caused in part by climate change, had pitted nomads against farmers and others who previously lived in harmony until desertification forced them to compete violently for water.

While his words generated some controversy at the time, the United Nations is now backing serious efforts to right the ecological situation in Darfur as a key driver for peace.

On 27-28 June, the UN, AU and Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources open a major international conference on Water for Sustainable Peace in Darfur. Some 200 experts on water and development will gather in Khartoum to address the challenge of creating a sustainable water sector for Darfur. That reversing environmental degradation must happen in order to establish recovery and sustainable peace in Darfur is now accepted wisdom.

While there is water underground below the sands of Darfur, the stark reality is that some areas are facing chronic depletion of water resources. Camps for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons are running dry. The water supply for rapidly growing towns is plummeting. The population of Nyala in South Darfur, for example, has grown by 300 percent in 30 years while the water table has fallen by eight to 10 metres. Another year of low rainfall could mean that aquifers under these camps and urban centres could fail catastrophically. The gravity and urgency posed by this situation cannot be ignored and impact the chances for peace.”

Double Choke Point: Demand for Energy Tests Water Supply and Economic Stability in China and the U.S.

Published on 06/25/2011 in hydropower, mining, oil, peak water, policy and water wars. 1 Comment Tags: China's water supply.

Photo retrieved from: www.circleofblue.org

“The coal mines of Inner Mongolia, China and the oil and gas fields of the northern Great Plains in the United States are separated by 11,200 kilometers (7,000 miles) of ocean and 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of land.

But, in form and function, the two fossil fuel development zones—the newest and largest in both nations—are illustrations of the escalating clash between energy demand and freshwater supplies that confront the stability of the world’s two biggest economies. How each nation responds will profoundly influence energy prices, food production, and economic security not only in their domestic markets, but also across the globe.

Both energy zones require enormous quantities of water—to mine, process, and use coal; to drill, fracture, and release oil and natural gas from deep layers of shale. Both zones also occur in some of the driest regions in China and the U.S. And both zones reflect national priorities on fossil fuel production that are causing prodigious damage to the environment and putting enormous upward pressure on energy prices and inflation in China and the United States, say economists and scholars.”