Archive for the 'management' Category

Africa: U.S. Response to Future Water Crisis Takes Shape

Published on 05/11/2012 in climate change, hydrology, management, peak water, policy and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.africastories.org

“Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton requested the report and she named Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero to lead the U.S. response to the challenges outlined in the study.

Otero told the Washington audience that the first priority she and Clinton have identified is to help other nations develop their capacity in resources and expertise to cope with future water-scarcity problems. “We know that it is countries and communities that have to lead in securing their own water and in securing their own water future,” Otero said.

The United States must also work to increase international awareness of the potential for future water crises by increasing and better coordinating diplomacy. The United States will help developing countries better prepare for the challenges they’ll face, Otero said, and help them “to prioritize so that water and sanitation are part of their national plans, part of their budgets and part of their overall thinking.”

Otero said finding solutions to secure adequate water supplies for growth and development will require enormous levels of funding that the United States must help mobilize. The application of science and technology to the problem is an important part of the strategy.”

Read more: All Africa

 

lily victoria

Fishermen Fire Shot in California Water Wars

Published on 05/03/2012 in aquatic ecosystems, management, policy, rivers, water diversions and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.city-journal.org

“California fishermen and crabbers call the federal decision to divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta “a charade devoid of any effective environmental review,” in Federal Court.
The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association sued the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation for violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Central Valley Project Improvement Act.
The 1,100-square mile Delta, formed by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, is the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast.
The fishermen object to the Bureau of Reclamation’s environmental assessment (EA) and the adoption of its Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), a “charade” necessary to deliver eight water service contracts in the next 2 years.
The groups claim the reports violate NEPA because they assume that Reclamation has no discretion to reject the contracts, reduce the quantity of water diverted from the Delta or increase the price of the contracts to force a reduction in water demand.”

Read more: Courthouse News Service

lily victoria

INDONESIA: Living with dirty water

Published on 04/30/2012 in contaminated water, hydrology, management, policy, rivers, wastewater and waterborne diseases. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.irinnews.org

“Heavy pollution of river water by household and industrial waste in the Indonesian province of West Java is threatening the health of at least five million people living on the riverbanks, say government officials and water experts.

Poor sanitation and hygiene cause 50,000 deaths annually in Indonesia, with untreated sewage resulting in over six million tons of human waste being released into inland water bodies, according to an ongoing study by the World Bank.

Ibu Sutria, 53, lives in a wooden shack on the banks of West Java’s Krukut River, which runs approximately 20km south from the capital, Jakarta, to the city of Depok. “Sometimes the river is clean, sometimes it’s dirty,” she said. Sutria suffers from regular bouts of stomach ache and diarrhoea, and says the river is constantly flooded.

“People use the river for a toilet and children play in it because they have nowhere else to swim.” She and others in her community use nearby ground water to wash themselves because they think it is cleaner than river water.

Pak Jumari, 35, is a leader of a community group living along the Ciliwung River, which runs north for 97km from the West Java city of Bogor. Since 2010 he has been using a boat to keep his own section of the Ciliwung clean by scooping out rubbish. “We find many detergents and soaps in the river, “he said. “We no longer use it for washing or drinking.”

Fishermen on the Ciliwung use “blast fishing” – bombs made of kerosene and fertilizer to kill fish so they are easier to catch – which has worsened pollution. Nevertheless, his community still fishes in the river, with few reported ill effects, he said.”

Read more: IRIN

lily victoria

Study reveals groundwater resources in Africa

Published on 04/24/2012 in climate change, groundwater, hydrology and management. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.bgs.ac.uk

“The largest groundwater volumes are found in the large sedimentary aquifers in the North African countries Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Sudan,” “the scientists said in their paper, published on Friday.

They estimate that reserves of groundwater across the continent are 100 times the amount found on its surface, or 0.66 million cubic kilometres.

Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they cautioned, though, that not all of the reserves are accessible.

Where they are, small-scale extraction by hand pump would be better than large-scale drilling projects, which could quickly deplete the reservoirs and have other unforeseen consequences.

Extraction complications

Groundwater is no panacea for Africa’s water shortages but it could form an important part of a strategy to cope with an expected sharp increase in demand for water as the continent’s population increases.

Even now, some estimates put the number of Africans without access to safe drinking water at more than 300 million and only 5 per cent of arable land is irrigated.”

Read more: Aljazeera

 

lily victoria

In the Klamath Basin, too little water promised to too many interests

Published on 04/22/2012 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, contaminated water, management and water rights. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

 

The marshes of the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge were once known as the Everglades of the West. Standing in line for scarce water behind farms and endangered fish, the refuge's marshland was only half flooded early this year, however, and thousands of birds died.

Retrieved from: nytimes.com

“The abundance and diversity of waterfowl and other migratory birds make the Klamath Basin one of the nation’s most significant wetland wildlife areas. The region’s spectacular National Wildlife Refuges, including Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, support 80 percent of Pacific Flyway waterfowl but regularly suffer water shortages harmful to waterfowl populations, wildlife habitat, and water quality. This spring’s devastatingavian cholera outbreak in the Klamath — sparked by a lack of water — has highlighted the grave situation not only facing these refuges but also the Klamath’s salmon, fishermen and farmers. Put simply, there has been too much of this region’s scarce water promised to too many interests.

“Meanwhile, supporters of the controversial Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and associated federal legislation — now stalled in Congress — have made numerous claims regarding the deal’s supposed water-supply benefits for the Klamath’s prized refuges. However, a reading of the agreement shows such claims have no basis. In fact, the settlement would institute unsustainable water policies favoring farming at the expense of Klamath refuges, fish and wildlife, all while placing a $1 billion burden on the American taxpayer.

“The deal also forecloses on one of the best, lowest-cost opportunities for increasing refuge water supply and achieving a sustainable water balance in the Klamath. To protect a sweetheart deal for a small group of irrigators, the settlement attempts to perpetuate commercial leaseland farming on 22,000 acres of Tule Lake and Lower Klamath refuges and asks taxpayers to subsidize this harmful practice. In contrast, phasing out this federally managed program, using those lands to store winter water, and using the 1905 priority date water rights associated with those lands for fish and wildlife purposes would represent a huge step toward a sustainable Klamath Basin — at a fraction of the cost of the settlement deal.”

Read More: oregonlive

Chippie Kislik

An Army Corps of contradictions

Published on 04/19/2012 in displacement of people, levees and management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Sacbee

“Even as it clings to a policy requiring state and local agencies to clear trees from levees, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted one of its own districts a variance to plant 30,000 trees along the levee-lined Sacramento River.

Huh?

“The Corps has always been an agency of internal contradictions, but this one suggests a higher level of Dilbert-like bureaucratic incongruity. How can the top leadership of the Corps reasonably expect flood agencies to strip trees from riverbanks – putting themselves in conflict with environmental laws, and possibly undermining the structural integrity of levees – when the Corps is letting one of its own act like Johnny Appleseed?

“Ever since New Orleans was inundated during Hurricane Katrina, the national Corps office has aggressively enforced vegetation removal on levees, attempting to make trees a culprit for other institutional failings that led to the flooding of the Big Easy.

“Here in California, flood agencies and environmental groups have objected.

“Friends of the River has sued, and the California Department of Fish and Game has filed notice of intent to sue.

“Such lawsuits stand a good chance of success, partly because the Corps’ own research has shown that trees planted at the toe of levees can actually benefit public safety. Their roots help reinforce the levees’ integrity.

“The stakes are particularly large here because, as The Bee’s Matt Weiser noted in a story Saturday, early 20th century engineers built California’s levees close together to scour out old mining sediment. That has left us with little riparian forest – essential for fish and wildlife. The Corps, if its national office were to have its way, would mow down that remaining forest.

Read more here: Sacbee
sammykayed

US government releases ‘fracking’ gas rules

Published on 04/19/2012 in contaminated water, fracking, management, oil, peak water and policy. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: wtfrack.org

“The US government has released long-awaited rules on “fracking”, the process  used to unlock oil and gas deposits hidden deep in rock formations that has revolutionised  the domestic energy sector.

From 2015, oil and gas companies will be required to capture methane and  other pollutant gases that are byproducts of fracking, which involves pumping a  mixture of water and chemicals at high pressure to crack the surface of rock  formations.

The guidelines, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, represent the  first federal clean air standards for fracking, the technology that has  underpinned the breakneck growth of the shale oil and gas sector and holds out  the hope of eventual energy independence for the US.

But they grant energy companies more than two years to meet the new  standards, and do not cover wastewater produced by fracking, an  increasing focus for critics of the industry.”

Read more: Financial Times

Sami Oueida

Protecting Bay Area’s Water Supply in Event of Major Earthquake

Published on 04/18/2012 in levees and management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Retrieved from: Llnl

“One day before the 106th anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, Mayor Ed Lee was in San Mateo County on Tuesday to mark a major milestone in securing the region’s water supply in the event of a future major earthquake.

“Lee joined San Francisco Public Utilities Commission general manager Ed Harrington and San Mateo County Supervisor Adrienne Tissier on the banks of the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir, where improvements to the 124-year-old Crystal Springs Dam have just been completed.

“The dam improvements — which doubled the width of the main spillway and raised the height of a parapet on top of the structure by 9 feet — were part of the SFPUC’s $4.6 billion Water System Improvement Program, which consists of 81 seismic improvements to water delivery pipelines, dams and reservoirs from Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco.

“Harrington said the seismic upgrades “virtually guarantee” the reliability of safe drinking water for 2.6 million Bay Area residents within 24 hours of a major earthquake.

“These projects now serve as our reinforced lifeline to deliver Hetch Hetchy water around the Bay,” Harrington said.

“Five years ago we would not have had the same reliability we have today,” he said.

Read more: Bay citizen

sammykayed

Direct drinking water recycling could prevent floods

Published on 04/18/2012 in dams, management and rainwater harvesting. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Rainwater Harvesting

“Direct potable reuse (DPR) of wastewater could free up billions of litres of water from reservoirs around Australia, giving cities a greater buffer to capture and control major flooding events, says Dr Stuart Khan, an at the UNSW Water Research Centre.

“Current plans for water recycling in Australia generally involve Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR), where is treated to a high standard and then returned to rivers, lakes and aquifers,  where it mixes with environmental waters before being re-extracted for further treatment.

“But Dr Khan says a better approach, which is more cost effective and less energy intensive, is to skip the dam altogether. With DPR, highly treated wastewater is introduced directly to drinking water treatment plants, without re-entering the natural environment along the way.

“In Queensland alone, DPR would be the equivalent of immediately constructing a new 425-billion litre reservoir, without the cost of construction or having to relocate a single home or farm, says Khan.

“This added ‘virtual’ storage space represents a 30% increase on the volume currently reserved for flood mitigation in this region, his research shows.

“DPR probably would have saved Brisbane from the 2011 floods from Wivenhoe,” he says. “The big inflow peak of around 1900 GL that occurred between 9 and 13 January could have been contained in the dam, rather than spilled.”

Read more:  Phys

sammykayed

Water meters to cost €40 a year for 20 years

Published on 04/16/2012 in management and water technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Independent

“Homeowners face an annual €40 standing charge for 20 years just to cover the cost of water meters. That is before they hand over a cent for the water they use.

“The Irish  Independent has learned of fresh details about the standing charge which will be levied on 1.35 million homeowners.

“Environment Minister Phil Hogan intends the €40 annual bill to cover the cost of the water meter as well as installing and maintaining the new system.

“But a government spokesman tried to defuse the looming row over the charges pointing out that there will be no upfront bills.

“As the Opposition branded the contradictory statements over costs householders will face, ‘a communications fiasco’, the spokesman said that the political hare was off and running since the weekend confirmation that householders would have to pay several hundred euro for water meters.

“The prospect of paying a yearly charge for two decades will shock homeowners already forking out a range of fees.

“The National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) is providing a loan of €450m for the water metering programme.”

Read more: Independent

sammykayed