Tag Archive for 'water supply'

Water war heats up; farmers sue over move to save salmon

Published on 06/11/2011 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems and management. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Examiner

“After a drought-busting winter that was good news for fishers and farmers, tens of thousands of salmon have been caught or killed at the powerful Delta pumps in the past few months. In addition, more than 6 million Sacramento splittail, a large minnow that environmentalists say should be protected by endangered species laws, were also collected or killed at the pumps.

“Government biologists contend that the large number of fish killed in recent weeks and months is a product of their bouncing back because of the big winter. It stands to reason that with more fish in the estuary, more will be found at the pumps, they say.

“Still, to reduce the toll on California’s salmon run, which collapsed three years ago, regulators this week ordered pumps that serve farms along Interstate 5 to slow down by about one-third for two weeks.

“For farmers, the effect is slight — just a percentage point or two off what they would otherwise receive this year. And it appears possible that loss of water could be made up later in the year, though the head of the organization that filed the lawsuit denied that.

“We think it’s an illegal restriction on our pumping,” said Dan Nelson, general manager of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, which mostly represents west San Joaquin Valley farms. “The fishery action costs 35,000 acre-feet. “… There is no way of making that up.”

“The move to slow pumping rates was made possible by a 1992 law, co-authored by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, that shifted 800,000 acre-feet of water from San Joaquin Valley farms to the Bay-Delta environment, largely with the intent of doubling salmon populations. The law was in response to concerns that excessive diversions of Delta water to farms was degrading the estuary.

“The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Fresno, contends the decision to let 35,000 acre-feet of water flow into San Francisco Bay rather than be pumped to farms is illegal because it violates a 1985 agreement between state and federal water managers to maximize pumping in wet periods.”

Read more: mercury news

sammykayed

Shrinking snowpack hurts water supply

Published on 06/10/2011 in drought and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: carlsagans

“The Rocky Mountain snowpack has been dwindling at an almost unprecedented rate for the past 30 years, according to an international research team.

“The scientists warn the changes, tied to “unparalleled springtime warming,” could have “serious consequences” for western water supplies.

“The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, says the changes are affecting the Colorado, Columbia and Missouri Rivers, which together supply water to 70 million Americans.

“And they are also altering river flows in the Canadian prairies and central British Columbia, said co-author Brian Luckman, at the University of Western Ontario.

“Snowpack is essential for water supply to many of these areas,” Luckman said, noting that the Rockies feed rivers flowing through central B.C. and the Bow, Athabasca and Oldman rivers in Alberta. “Between 60 to 80 per cent of the water in those rivers is snowmelt from the mountains.”

“Mountain snow records don’t go back far beyond 1950, so the team, led by Gregory Pederson at the U.S. Geological Survey, looked at tree rings at 66 sites from B.C. to Colorado to get a read on snowpack levels over the past 800 years.

“They found that the snowpack shrank more during the late 20th century than during any other period since 1200 AD, with more severe declines at the northern end of the range studied.”

Read more:  Vancouver Sun

sammykayed

COTE D’IVOIRE: Crisis could hit drinking water supply

Published on 04/20/2011 in contaminated water, displacement of people, management, water filtering and waterborne diseases. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Retrieved from: Irin News

“Hundreds of thousands of urban residents in Côte d’Ivoire could be hit by drinking water shortages in the coming weeks, as the post-electoral violence interrupted the supply of chemicals used at treatment plants throughout the country.

“The risk of shortages is particularly worrying given the cholera outbreak in neighboring Ghana, with more than 6,000 cases to date, said François Bellet, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) specialist in the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) West and Central Africa regional office.

“Between January and March Côte d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan saw at least 515 cases of cholera, with 12 deaths, according to Kadjo Yao of UNICEF’s WASH team in Abidjan. It is unclear whether cholera is still infecting people, as surveillance systems are down, the agency says.

“The situation [of drinking water supply] is extremely uncertain – we’re on a razor’s edge,” said Bellet, who is currently in Côte d’Ivoire.”

Read more: Irin News

sammykayed

Peak Water: What Is it — and Are We There Yet?

Published on 01/28/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, rivers, tap water, water shortage and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

“Increasingly, around the world, in the U.S., and locally, we are running up against peak water limits.

“Peak water is coming. In some places, peak water is here.

“We’re never going to run out of water — water is a renewable natural resource (mostly). But increasingly, around the world, in the U.S., and locally, we are running up against peak water limits. The concept is so important and relevant that The New York Times chose the term “peak water” as one of its 33 “Words of the Year” for 2010 (along with “refudiate,” “top kill,” and “vuvuzela”), a term that a colleague and I defined in a new research paper in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (available here).

“Water Number: Three (3) definitions of “peak water.”"

Read more: AlterNet

jenna cavelle

Water Pressure

Published on 06/13/2010 in climate change, contaminated water, dams, drought, groundwater, rainwater harvesting, solutions and outreach and world water supply. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Photo: Ethiopian boy drinks water

Drawing deep from a new well, Soti Sotiar is among a lucky few: the 10 to 20 percent of rural Ethiopians with access to clean drinking water. Photograph by Peter Essick

“Among the environmental specters confronting humanity in the 21st century—global warming, the destruction of rain forests, overfishing of the oceans—a shortage of fresh water is at the top of the list, particularly in the developing world. Hardly a month passes without a new study making another alarming prediction, further deepening concern over what a World Bank expert calls the “grim arithmetic of water.” Recently the United Nations said that 2.7 billion people would face severe water shortages by 2025 if consumption continues at current rates. Fears about a parched future arise from a projected growth of world population from more than six billion today to an estimated nine billion in 2050. Yet the amount of fresh water on Earth is not increasing. Nearly 97 percent of the planet’s water is salt water in seas and oceans. Close to 2 percent of Earth’s water is frozen in polar ice sheets and glaciers, and a fraction of one percent is available for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use.”

“Gloomy water news, however, is not just a thing of the future: Today an estimated 1.2 billion people drink unclean water, and about 2.5 billion lack proper toilets or sewerage systems. More than five million people die each year from water-related diseases such as cholera and dysentery. All over the globe farmers and municipalities are pumping water out of the ground faster than it can be replenished.”

“Still, as I discovered on a two-month trip to Africa, India, and Spain, a host of individuals, organizations, and businesses are working to solve water’s dismal arithmetic. Some are reviving ancient techniques such as rainwater harvesting, and others are using 21st-century technology. But all have two things in common: a desire to obtain maximum efficiency from every drop of water and a belief in using local solutions and free market incentives in their conservation campaigns.”

Read More: National Geographic

jenna cavelle

What will California look like in year 2050?

Published on 05/21/2010 in climate change, dams, desalination, drought, groundwater, policy, rivers, solutions and outreach and tap water. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

 

Learning more about Update 2009

“Update 2009 uses three plausible yet very different future scenarios — Current Trends, Slow & Strategic Growth, and “Expansive Growth — to illustrate future uncertainties to which the water community will need to respond, including the potential effect of long-term climate change on future water demands. Each scenario has different assumptions for how population, development, irrigated farmland, environmental water, or background water conservation may change over time.”

“A short description of the future scenarios is on information about scenarios is in Managing an Uncertain Future pages 14 – 15 of the Highlights booklet. “

Read more: California waterplan highlights

jenna cavelle

The Price for Building a Home in this Town: $300,000 Water Meter

Published on 04/13/2010 in policy, solutions and outreach and tap water. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

“BOLINAS, Calif. — Marc Dwaileebe would like to build a house for his family on land he owns in this bucolic town just 20 miles north of San Francisco. But he cannot hook up to the water main that runs right past his property unless he has a water meter. And a water meter, in Bolinas, could cost more than $300,000.

“That is the minimum bid for a meter being auctioned off through Friday. The auction is the unlikely result of a water meter moratorium imposed by antidevelopment forces here in 1971.

“For most of the last 39 years, “the only way a water meter came free was when a house burnt down, or fell off a cliff,” said Barbara Rothwell, a longtime Bolinas resident.”

read more: New York Times

chrismorrow

Poor Mexican villagers struggle to cope without water and power in wake of 7.2 earthquake

Published on 04/06/2010 in solutions and outreach. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

“In a poor farming village about 20 miles south of Mexicali, the Baja government was setting up a relief center Monday to distribute blankets, food and water for those whose homes were damaged or flooded. Hundreds of people, mostly families, have begun lining up, some of them walking miles to get to the center.

“Scattered throughout Colonia de la Puerta, hundreds of ramshackle homes made of adobe or brick, with tin or tar-paper roofs, collapsed after Sunday’s magnitude 7.2 earthquake. Many people are sleeping outside or in tents.

“Maria del Carmen, 21, said she and her family arrived at the relief center after walking seven miles from their home. “We have nothing,” she said. “We have no water for our family. We need help.”

read more: Los Angeles Times

chrismorrow