Monthly Archive for January, 2012

Water Wars Flood L.A. Central Basin

Published on 01/31/2012 in hydrology, management, peak water, policy, riparian zone, rivers, tap water, water diversions, water technology and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.latimes.com

“The Current Court Ruling

On Jan. 18, 2012 the State Appellate Court ruled that the trial court: 1) had authority to allocate future storage in the Central Basin; 2) had jurisdiction over water transfers between the Central and nearby West Coast Basins; and 3) was not prohibited from appointing a “watermaster” over unused space in the Central Basin. The court additionally ruled that the Central Basin Water District might also be able to serve as “watermaster.”

The defendants — the cities of Cerritos, Downey and Signal Hill — contended: 1) their costs would be increased if others were given the right to lease unused capacity in the Basin; 2) over-drafting of the Basin could result if new “wet water” was not put in first; and 3) there was a threat the appointed watermaster could try to merge the Central and West Coast Basins. The Central Basin did not want a proverbial “shotgun marriage” to result over the issue of renting a room to the unwanted bastard child of unused basin capacity.

Presumably, the above issues can be heard and adjudicated now that the jurisdictional issues have been clarified.

Enormous Implications

The timing of this case has enormous implications for what is happening statewide.  The Delta Stewardship Council appointed by the State Legislature is about to put into place widely encompassing laws that could usurp powers from local water districts.  Local water agencies would no longer be able to do anything that adversely impacted the Sacramento Delta.  The Delta is where Southern California gets most of its imported water supplies.  Conceivably, local water departments might not be able to issue any new water permits or “will serve” letters to real estate developers if that meant using more imported Delta water.”

Read more: Cal Watchdog

 

lily victoria

Remedies for water famine for 2020

Published on 01/30/2012 in climate change, contaminated water, displacement of people and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Makanaka

“With Bangalore bursting at its seams with the increasing population, the power shortage, bad civic conditions and the water shortage have posed a major question about the functioning of corporation bodies.

“Discussing the daunting question of water availability in the city — the Bangalore Water Supply Sewerage Board, the Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagara Palike, the Bangalore Development Authority, the Lake Development Authority and the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation Limited came together to devise an action plan to meet the impending water famine that is expected to strike Bangalore by 2020.

“The present population of Bangalore is 85 lakhs and this will increase to 1.26 crores by 2020 as the current annual growth rate is four per cent.

“Calculating the data of water availability, usage and leakage right now and estimating it with the growth rate, the per capita availability will go down drastically by 2020.”

Read more: Ibn live

sammykayed

Google Brings Water Data to Life

Published on 01/30/2012 in contaminated water, drought, peak water, tap water and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Photo retrieved from: circleofblue.org

“Fusion Tables, which was developed by Google engineers using sample research data about the global fresh water crisis provided by the Pacific Institute and Circle of Blue, is specifically designed to unlock a treasure trove of facts, trends, and scientific findings that until now have been sequestered in databases and spreadsheets not easily shared.

“Users can also display their data through a variety of visualizations: as a timeline, a graph or a map. The “fusion” of the data sets can link dissimilar information from the far corners of the Web to reveal patterns and trends that might be impossible to spot otherwise. This makes Fusion Tables a central hub for data collaboration, as anyone can publish and access files, which were formerly locked away in Excel spreadsheets, PDF reports, and hard-cover textbooks.

“There is an enormous amount of water data out there, but data by itself doesn’t tell the story; data are only numbers,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. “If we can find innovative ways to convert data into action, then data is important.”

“Fusion Tables created a scatter plot that revealed a noticeable and predictable correlation of death by water-related illness, wealth and safe drinking water availability. As the gross domestic product per capita increased, the percentage of a country’s population connected to tap water increased, and child deaths related to diarrhea decreased.

“As Circle of Blue does with front-line reporting of water issues, we hope to provide new ways of looking at problems, collecting vast amounts of information and making it widely relevant, visual and accessible,” Halevy said.”

Read more: circle of blue

Sami Oueida

Raiding the Bread Basket: Use and Abuse of the Mississippi River Basin

Published on 01/30/2012 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, contaminated water, invasive species, oceans, rivers, wastewater and waterborne diseases. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.nationalgeographic.com

“A fleck of phosphorus fertilizer costs a farmer almost nothing. “But that half pinhead per gallon can cost society millions in lost recreational value and cleanup costs,” said Downing, an Iowa State University professor whose water-monitoring group tests 137 Iowa lakes.  “We don’t have lakes that we could point to and say: ‘Here is a pristine lake that has been unimpacted by people.’ ”

You wake up to cereal made from midwestern corn. You slip on cotton clothes, get into a vehicle fueled partly by ethanol and dine later on chicken and rice—all made possible by crops from the Mississippi River Basin, a vast area that stretches from Montana to New York and drains all or parts of 31 states.

The part of the basin east of the Mississippi River largely relies on rain to grow crops; farmers on the west side irrigate much, much more. All told, it’s among the most productive farming regions in the world.

Trouble is, fertilizer that flows from fields (and cities) takes a toll on local waters and eventually reaches the Mississippi River and the economically important fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico, where nitrogen and phosphorus pollution suffocates marine life and has led to a dead zone larger than the state of Connecticut.

What’s Grown

Nearly four out of 10 ears of corn grown in the world come from the Mississippi River watershed. So much corn, soy, and wheat grow here that some communities claim superlatives—Decatur, Illinois, “Soybean Capital of the World;” Sumner County, Kansas, “Wheat Capital of the World;” and Iowa, “Food Capital of the World.” The lion’s share of the country’s corn, grain, livestock, poultry, cotton, sorghum, and soy is grown in the Mississippi basin.”

Read more: National Geographic

 

lily victoria

China Cadmium Spill Threatens City Water Supplies

Published on 01/30/2012 in contaminated water, lakes, policy, rivers, tap water and wastewater. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.guardian.co.uk

“SHANGHAI—China’s environmental authorities were redoubling efforts Monday to prevent a spill of toxic cadmium from further tainting water supplies of cities downstream.

Official reports have provided little information about the exact cause of the spill, whose impact was first seen in fish kills in mid-January. The contamination initially was blamed on a mining company, but officials now say further investigation is needed to confirm that finding.

Cadmium, used to make batteries, is poisonous and can cause cancer.

The spill prompted residents of Liuzhou, a city of 3.2 million in southwestern China’s Guangxi region, to stock up on bottled water, though officials said efforts to neutralize the cadmium were keeping the water within safe levels and the city could use groundwater reserves if water from local rivers and reservoirs becomes too contaminated.

Chinese rivers, lakes and coastal waters are heavily polluted due to inadequate controls on industries, runoff from farms and urban sewage. The area near Hechi, the city upstream on the Longjiang River, where the cadmium was first detected, has seen repeated spills from smelters and miners operating in the area.”

Read more: boston.com

 

lily victoria

California water projects circling the drain

Published on 01/29/2012 in greenwashing, management and solutions and outreach. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Calif Aqueduct

“California’s efforts to deal with its chronic water crisis are again in upheaval as lawmakers prepare to pull an $11 billion water bond off the November ballot even as Governor Jerry Brown revives the controversial idea of a canal to route Northern California water to the state’s arid south.

“The water bond, which would fund a variety of projects around the state ranging from dams to watershed protection, was painstakingly crafted under former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to balance the needs of agricultural and residential water users and address environmental concerns.

“The bond measure calls for selling general obligation bonds backed by the state’s general fund, which is already facing a $9.2 billion shortfall. If it doesn’t go forward, local water agencies will have to find their own ways of funding critical projects while delaying many others.

“John Coleman, president of the board of East Bay Municipal Utility District, said the state’s leaders can’t delay in rallying behind the measure. He said it is crucial for upgrading the state’s aging water infrastructure and would provide jobs.

“Water equals jobs equals taxable money to the state,” said Coleman. “That’s how the voters need to look at it and that’s how the elected officials need to look at it.”

Read more: Reuters

sammykayed

Iraq Water Crisis Could Stir Ethnic Clash

Published on 01/28/2012 in agriculture, management, peak water, policy, privatization, tap water, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.greenprophet.com

“International aid organizations have been reporting an increase in violent incidents concerning water supply.

This is happening against a worrying backdrop of mounting sectarian violence between Iraq’s majority Shiites, who dominate the government and the security forces, and the minority Sunnis who lost power when Saddam Hussein‘s dictatorship was toppled after the U.S.-invasion of March 2003.

With U.S. forces withdrawn from Iraq, government forces under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki haven’t been able to contain a wave of bombings and assassinations by Sunni groups, including al-Qaida.

Shiite vengeance on a significant scale may not be long in coming and with it the risk of a sectarian civil war.

Iraq’s water comes primarily from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Both rise in Turkey, which has constructed a chain of dams over the last decade, with more to come. This has drastically reduced the flow of water into Iraq.

Syria, which has also suffered because of the Turkish dams, and Iran have been building dams too, further cutting the river flows from the north and the east into a country that until the late 1950s was a breadbasket for the Arab world.

Iraqi farmers recently blocked border crossings from Iran east of Baghdad to protest Tehran’s diversion of the al-Wind River that irrigates one of Iraq’s largest agricultural areas.”

Read more: UPI

 

lily victoria

Metrowater to monitor groundwater in expanded areas

Published on 01/28/2012 in groundwater, hydrology, management, rainwater harvesting, solutions and outreach, tap water and water conservation. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.thehindu.com

“The monitoring would help in understanding the groundwater level in those areas where rainwater is not being harnessed properly. For this purpose, the water agency is in the process of identifying observational wells.

Creating public awareness of the benefits of rainwater harvesting coupled with good rains over the past few years had improved the groundwater level in the city. Metrowater is expected to adopt a similar strategy to popularise RWH in the suburban areas that were merged with the civic body. The pressure on the water agency would be less if the newly added localities also harness rainwater effectively. The demand for drinking water in the Chennai Corporation limits has increased from 800 million litres a day to around 1,100 mld following the inclusion of the suburban areas.

“In the city, we study the groundwater table during the end of the monsoon as the fluctuations in the level would have settled. Good rainfall for eight years consecutively and proper maintenance of the RWH structures in most buildings has helped sustain groundwater resources,” an official of Metrowater said.”

Read more: The Hindu

 

lily victoria

Flooding and water scarcity ranked as top threat for UK

Published on 01/27/2012 in climate change, drought, floods and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: edieWater

“Water scarcity and flooding is likely to become the main problem for the UK in the future, which will need to adapt to increase its reliance, was the stark warning from the first comprehensive climate change risk study.

“As part of the assessment, 700 potential climate change impacts were investigated, with flooding ranked as the worst risk for the UK, closely followed by water shortages, soil erosion and prolonged heatwaves.

Flood risk is projected to increase significantly across the UK, with analysis for England and Wales showing unless plans to adapt to changing risks are implemented, that by the 2080s climate change and population growth could see damages to buildings and property reach between £2.1bn – £12bn, compared to current costs of £1.2bn.

Water quality is also predicted to be affected, as it depends on water volume and river flows to dilute pollutants. This, states the report is likely to increase water treatment costs and damage the local ecosystem.

“The CCRA also predicts increasing pressure on the UK’s water resources and warns that without action to improve water resources there could be major supply shortages by the 2050s in parts of the north, south and east of England, with the Thames River basin predicted to take the brunt of the drought.”

Read more: edieWater

Sami Oueida

No More Catfish in the Madeira?

Published on 01/27/2012 in aquatic ecosystems, dams, greenwashing, hydropower, peak water, policy, privatization, rivers, species extinction and water diversions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Photo retrieved from: www.internationalrivers.org

“When the environmental license for the Santo Antônio Dam was approved against the findings of fish experts, Lula controversially claimed that the dams would not be stopped because of “some catfish.” Now, the catfish are disappearing.

The news is especially troubling only a few years after 11 tons of fish were destroyed during construction of a coffer dam. Meanwhile, construction of the Jirau Dam continues farther upstream; and if the government’s plans move forward to build a third dam on the Madeira River – the Ribeirão Dam – fish species may disappear from this majestic river at an even greater rate.

Earlier this year, Congress unilaterally proclaimed the Ribeirão Dam a “national priority,” despite the dam not appearing on any government plan. It is not mentioned in the Program to Accelerate Growth, nor in the Ten-Year Energy Plans for 2020, nor in the National Energy Plan for 2030. The project has not passed through the Ministry of Planning. And no economic feasibility study, no environmental impact assessment, and no indigenous action plan have ever been sent to IBAMA, and no prior consultations have ever been held. Every indication points to this third dam being a nice serving of pork barrel spending for theRaupp political family in Rondônia.

Will the catfish disappear entirely from the Madeira River? As long as Dilma’s authoritarian dam-building in the Amazon continues, chances are only getting worse.”

Read more: International Rivers

 

lily victoria