Archive for the 'water wars' Category

Worst drought in 50 years takes toll in northern Brazil

Published on 05/13/2012 in drought, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.china.org

“RIO DE JANEIRO — Severe drought gripping northeastern Brazil — the worst in a half-century — is taking its toll on more than 1,100 towns, even triggering fighting in rural areas, local media reported Sunday.

An average of one person a day is being killed in “water wars” in rural areas, while scores of animals are wasting away before perishing, the O Globo newspaper reported over the weekend.

Short water supplies have devastated farm output, the report said, endangering the lives of local people and their livestock.

Many people in the area have lost half their livestock, and the Brazilian government has reduced forecasts for corn, soy and bean crops.

In Pernambuco, 66 municipalities are on water emergencies, rivers have run completely dry and animals looking for water in the riverbed can only find the odd muddy puddle.

Local dams in the region are running dry, and abuses are rife. In one cited example, water truck drivers make deliveries — but only if customers promise to vote for certain local candidates.”

Read more: AFP

 

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Amid Brazil’s Rush to Develop, Workers Resist

Published on 05/07/2012 in dams, hydropower, policy, rivers, water diversions, water rights and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.libcom.org

“JACI PARANÁ, Brazil — The revolt here on the banks of the Madeira River, the Amazon’s largest tributary, flared after sunset. At the simmering end of a 26-day strike by 17,000 workers last month, a faction of laborers who were furious over wages and living conditions began setting fire to the construction site at the Jirau Dam.

Throughout the night, they burned more than 30 structures to the ground and looted company stores, capturing the mayhem on their own cellphone cameras, before firefighters extinguished the blazes. The authorities in Brasília flew in hundreds of troops from an elite force to quell the unrest.

Men in camouflage fatigues still patrol the sprawling work site, reflecting a dilemma for Brazil’s leaders. Even as they move to tap one of the world’s last great reserves of hydroelectric power, the Amazon basin, strikes and worker uprisings at the biggest projects are producing delays and cost overruns.

“No one burns anything if they’re satisfied,” said Altair Donizete de Oliveira, a union leader here in Brazil’s western frontier. He listed salaries, cramped living quarters and requests for more home visits among the grievances that were contributing to the festering tension among the laborers, who number in the tens of thousands at various work sites in the Amazon.”

Read more: International Rivers

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MENA Changing Drastically & NASA Has The Pictures To Prove It

Published on 05/07/2012 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, climate change, contaminated water, dams, drought, groundwater, hydrology, lakes, oil, peak water, policy, rivers, tap water, water diversions, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

“Lake shrinkage in Iran

Retrieved from: www.greenprophet.com

Left: August 1985. Right: August 2010.

Iran’s Lake Oroumeih (also spelled Urmia) is the largest lake in the Middle East and the third largest saltwater lake on Earth. But dams on feeder streams, expanded use of ground water, and a decades-long drought have reduced it to 60 percent of the size it was in the 1980s. Light blue tones in the 2010 image represent shallow water and salt deposits. Increased salinity has led to an absence of fish and habitat for migratory waterfowl. At the current rate, the lake will be completely dry by the end of 2013.

Urban Growth in Morocco

Retrieved from: www.greenprophet.com

Left: July 2, 1985. Right: June 24, 2011.

The Moroccan cities of Agadir, Inezgane and Tikiouine are close to the Atlantic coastline (seen in blue in the images), and stretch into the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. Agadir was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1960. Reconstruction has focused on tourism, turning this area into a winter destination. The 1985 image shows the area 25 years into the rebuilding. By 2011, the urban areas reach into the Sahara Desert. Growth has been influenced by the expanding fishing industry and modern commercial ports.”

Read more: Green Prophet


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Beckoning war on water

Published on 05/06/2012 in dams, hydropower, peak water, policy, privatization, water diversions and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.defenceblog.org

“India’s feverish pursuit of building dams on the rivers allocated to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has received the attention of the International Crisis Group (ICG) whose objective is to evaluate the consequences of a developing situation for peace in the world and give early warnings of eruption of conflicts unless they are resolved well in time. The ICG rightly foresees the outbreak of war between the two countries if India resorts to stopping water from flowing into Pakistan, which according the IWT is its share, and that creates a dangerous situation for Pakistan. The ICG also draws attention to a report of last year released by the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Congress wherein it was stated that New Delhi was building three dams on Chenab and Sutlej. By virtue of these dams, the reports said, India would come into a position to divert water way from Pakistan right at the time it badly needed it for the crops, thus putting a question mark on the relevance of the IWT.

The ICG’s foreboding or the US Congress’s apprehensions are not something that should come as a surprise to experts in the field or even the general public in Pakistan who are aware of the fact that the headwaters of these rivers fall in the Indian occupied part of the disputed state of Kashmir and are also familiar with the Indian designs against the existence of Pakistan. Thus, there has been a lot of hue and cry not only among the farming community that is directly affected, but also the people and the media. Only the political circles, the ruling coalition and to a large degree also the opposition, are turning a blind eye to New Delhi persistent manoeuvres to hold Pakistan by its jugular vein when it deems fit to do so.”

Read more: The Nation

 

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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

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China’s Looming Conflict Between Energy and Water

Published on 05/02/2012 in coal, contaminated water, groundwater, lakes, rivers, water shortage and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.e360.yale.edu

“Yet, in expanding coal-industry bases in west China, one crucial challenge has so far received far less attention than it deserves: Coal-based industries are massively water-intensive (in fact, coal mining, coal-based power generation, and petrochemical processing together account for more than one-fifth of China’s total water usage). And much of western China is already short on water — think Gobi desert and camels, as opposed to Pearl River Delta rice paddies. “The west of China is an environmentally fragile area,” says Professor Wang Xiujun, who conducts research on climate and precipitation jointly for the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography and the University of Maryland. “There’s not much water to spare.”

When new industry comes to town, water is secured by tapping local lakes and rivers, pumping groundwater, and constructing reservoirs to capture rainwater, which diverts its normal flow and reabsorption into the soil. All three have unintended environmental consequences, says Sun Qingwei, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace China and a former government scientist based in western Gansu province.”

Read more: Yale Environment 360

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America is Not Immune to the Water Crisis

Published on 05/01/2012 in water shortage, water wars and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Retrieved from: IMDB

“In the U.S., we tend to think of “the water crisis” as a problem for other countries, but as we show in Last Call, we are not immune. By the interconnected nature of the resource, the crisis is global, its impacts domino-like. We shouldn’t feel insulated just because water flows freely from our taps.

“But we do feel insulated, don’t we? For a while I contemplated calling the film A River in Egypt, but I realized that the problem isn’t denial — which implies willful dismissal of facts — but ignorance. Water problems barely register on our list of concerns.

“I grew up in Northern California. We never had a lawn; we let the hillside go brown in drought years. We had a bucket in the shower to catch the water that came out before it got warm. In starting Last Call at the Oasis, I was somewhat smug in feeling that I knew something about water issues.

“I realize now that all I really knew was drought. I didn’t factor in climate change, groundwater depletion, contamination, outdated water laws, the battle between industry and the environment, etc., etc. All of which made this production a continually eye-opening experience for me. A sampling: we learned that there are estimates that that the aquifer in the Central Valley, which produces a quarter of our nation’s food, might be depleted in as little as sixty years. One third of U.S. counties face water shortages by 2050. And of the more than 80,000 chemicals used in the United States, many of which end up in our water supplies, only 5 are regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act. What’s going on is big, and it is crucial that we understand it. This is water — essential for all life. Could the stakes be any higher?”

Read more: Huffington post

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The Great Nile River War

Published on 04/29/2012 in peak water, policy, rivers, water diversions and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.dailyalert.org

“April 29, 2012: Ethiopia and Egypt, working through the AU (African Union), have asked Sudan and South Sudan to resume negotiations to end their war. Discussions have taken place in Ethiopia and Egypt. Since the time of the pharaohs Egypt has regarded Sudan as its backdoor. Ethiopia has remained nominally neutral in the Sudan-South Sudan War, but has cultural and historical connections with the people of South Sudan. Egypt is predominantly Muslim, as is Sudan, Ethiopia is predominantly Christian, as is South Sudan. Ethiopia and Egypt are both much more powerful than either of the Sudans. The nightmare scenario for an escalating East African war has Egypt aligning with Sudan and Ethiopia aligning with South Sudan. Call it The Great Nile River War, because Nile water issues play a huge role in Ethiopian and Egyptian strategic planning. Ethiopian and Egyptian leaders, however, know that war will have no winner. Cooler heads in Ethiopia and Egypt are trying to calm the hot heads in Sudan and South Sudan.

The government is expanding its blocking of hostile or opposition web sites. The website of a major opposition newspaper, the The Reporter, has been blocked, by the state-owned communications company, for a week.

April 27, 2012: Oromo rebels claimed that Ethiopian security forces killed four Oromo civilians and wounded eight in an incident in the town of Hassasa.

Read more: Strategy Page

 

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Sudans conflict leaves 37,000 desperate for water

Published on 04/27/2012 in groundwater, oil, peak water, privatization, water shortage, water wars and waterborne diseases. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.nationalgeographic.com

“There is simply not enough ground water available to sustain the growing number of people who need it,” “said Pauline Ballaman, head of Oxfam’s operations at the camp. “Women have to queue for hours in the burning sun just to collect a fraction of the water they need, and the situation is getting more desperate by the day. The only solution is for people to be moved urgently.”

Oxfam says this large number of refugees fled to the camp since December and more are on their way.

South Sudan split from Sudan last year as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of war in Africa’s largest nation. The war left 2 million people dead and ended with the peace agreement that included an independence referendum for the south.”

Read more: CNN

 

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The Water Fight That Inspired ‘Chinatown’

Published on 04/25/2012 in agriculture, dams, greenwashing, hydrology, policy, privatization, rivers, tap water, water diversions and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

William Mulholland. Photo retrieved from: www.nytimes.com

“When 95 percent of the water rights along the river were in the hands of Mulholland’s department, an aqueduct some 233 miles long was built to take the water to the city. But because the amount that was flowing to Los Angeles was more than it could use, Owens Valley water soon made the San Fernando Valley bloom and enriched inside investors who were champions of Mulholland’s plans. (The relevant line from the movie, spoken by Jack Nicholson’s character, J.J. Gittes: “Do you have any idea what this land would be worth with a steady water supply? About $30 million more than they paid for it.”)

Eventually Los Angeles incorporated those farmlands into its boundaries. In an effort beginning in 1905, Dr. Libecap reports, the city acquired the land and water rights of 1,167 Owens Valley farms comprising 262,000 acres for about $20.7 million. (The latter figure is the equivalent of more than $220 million today.)

The one serious misjudgement in Mulholland’s plan was his calculation of how fast the newly watered city would outgrow the initial infusion of water. So Mulholland and Los Angeles came back for more of the river in 1926 and 1927, and some local farmers responded by repeatedly blowing up the pipeline. Mulholland then sent dozens of armed guards to protect his aqueduct. Soon, agricultural resistance dissipated. But the legend of injustice persisted.”

Read more: New York Times

 

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