LeakBird

(May 13, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)

Reporting from San Diego — A plan by a private company to build a $320-million desalination plant along the coast of northern San Diego County was unanimously approved Wednesday by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Proponents say the plan could provide more than 56,000 acre-feet of drinkable [...]

(April 26, 2009, Sand Gets in My Eyes)
The “raw” water in Saudi isn’t really fit to drink, so bottled water, rather than being a luxury like it is in other places, is a necessity.
Anyway, awhile back I started noticing that when I drank certain brands of water, my gut really started to hurt. More specifically, [...]

(March 17, 2009, MSNBC)
The global desalinated water supply will grow at a CAGR of 9.5% over the next decade, reaching 54 billion m3/year (cubic meters per year) in 2020 — 54 trillion liters/year — or triple what it had been in 2008, according to a new report from Lux Research entitled “Desalination’s Future Champions.”
According to [...]

(March 15, 2009, Treehugger)
Visitors to Disneyland likely don’t know that when they sip from Disney water fountains that the great tasting aqua treat was once streaming through a public sewer. Not to worry though. That sewer water is actually substantially cleaner and more carefully filtered than the water consumed in the average American household. Moreover, [...]

(March 10, 2009, Reuters)
It’s hard to visualize a water crisis while driving the lush boulevards of Los Angeles, golfing Arizona’s green fairways or watching dancing Las Vegas fountains leap more than 20 stories high.
So look Down Under. A decade into its worst drought in a hundred years Australia is a lesson of what the American [...]

(March 8, 2009, The Fresno Bee)
It is China’s latest grand attempt to tame nature. Three canals will bring water hundreds of miles to Beijing and other thirsty cities in the north. More than 350,000 people in the way will be forced to move.
For many in Zhangyigang, a village of 942 people in brick and mud [...]

(March 7, 2009, Arizona Geology)
There have been 550,000 applications to appropriate deep, “non-potable” water in New Mexico in recent months according to story in the Alamagordo Daily News.
The New Mexico legislature and the state engineer are seeking to take state control of water deeper than 2,500 feet in anticipation of efforts to desalinate brackish water [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought emergency Friday, urging cities to cut their use of water 20 percent and paving the way for projects such as desalination plants and water recycling projects to bypass standard environmental reviews.
Despite heavy rainstorms this month, state officials say California’s water [...]

(Feb. 25, 2009, West Volusia Beacon)
Imagine 15 or 30 years from now, turning on your kitchen faucet. A few drops dribble into the sink, then the water stops. It’s gone.
That’s what could happen without a large-scale plan to supply water to Central Floridians, DeLand Public Services Director Keith Riger said.
A couple of years ago, the [...]

(Feb. 25, 2009, CleanTech)
Leaders at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco today said the days of cheap water are over.
The developing world is still struggling to provide usable water to its residents, while water shortages in the developed world have put a new focus on expensive technologies.
“Water has never been priced properly, but [...]

(Feb. 19, 2009, Christian Science Monitor)
On the Colorado River Delta, some 250 miles west southwest of Tucson as the crow flies, sits Cienega de Santa Clara.
It’s a 63-square-mile patch of wetland – a key stop for migrating birds along an arid stretch of the Pacific flyway. It’s the largest remaining wetland on the Colorado River [...]

(Feb. 15, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)

Is it time to stick a straw into the Pacific Ocean?
About 20 water agencies up and down the California coast seem to think so.
From Marin County to San Diego, small and large projects that turn seawater into tap water are gaining favor, propelled by events unprecedented in [...]

(Feb. 13, 2009, Max Deveson, BBC News)
The arid states of America’s south-west have been getting drier in recent years.
Since 2000, the Colorado River – which provides water for seven US states in the region – has carried less water than at any time in recorded history.
And while the drought is worsening, the demand for water [...]

(Feb. 11, 2009, Associated Press)
It’s been called a modern-day gold rush. But the free-for-all isn’t for sparkling bits in a stream, it’s for the water – deep underground and salty – that developers and politicians hope will help keep New Mexico’s metro areas growing.
In Albuquerque and Santa Fe, developers and local governments have staked claims [...]

(Feb. 11, 2009, Aguanomics)
On Monday, I visited DXV Water Technologies, a start-up with a new technology for desalination.
I met with Michael Motherway (president), Curt Roth (VP engineering), and Diem Vuong (inventor), and we discussed their technology, markets and other issues of supply and demand. Here’s one write up [PDF].
I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to [...]

(Feb. 4, 2009, Marin Independent Journal)
The Marin Municipal Water District Board of Directors unanimously approved a final environmental report Wednesday night for a plan to take water from San Rafael Bay, remove the salt and send it to Marin residents.
The vote doesn’t mean the board will now move ahead with building a desalination plant, but [...]

(Jan. 28, 2009, Las Vegas Now)

Desalination has been called the wave of the future — an endless supply of water for the parched Southwest. But unlike neighboring water agencies, the Southern Nevada Water Authority isn’t riding the wave.
Local water officials have come up with several reasons why desalination won’t work in the immediate future.
SNWA boss [...]

(Image Courtesy of CaliforniaGreenSolutions)
Is the water crisis a resource crisis or a service crisis? No matter what anyone says, each seems to fall on one side or the other. Frank R. Rijsberman claims the water crisis is both, but he seems to lean more toward a service crisis.
And opinions vary so widely on related topics, [...]

(Jan. 15, 2009, Fast Company)
Randy Truby’s wardrobe — broad, rectangular glasses; a long-sleeve navy blue corduroy shirt; navy slacks; and oxblood cowboy boots on an 80-degree day in Southern California — does little to minimize his distinct physical presence. But an almost elfin energy animates Truby’s big-fella frame when he starts talking about water. “If [...]

(Jan. 20, 2009, CleanTech)
Researchers at Frost & Sullivan say the water treatment industry is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of China’s plan for RMB 4 trillion in government spending in 2009 to stimulate the economy.
The government already spent RMB 120 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, with about 10 percent of [...]

(Jan. 15, 2009, Orlando Sentinel)
Possibly 10 years from now, a converted oil tanker could offload desalted ocean water at an Atlantic port, with that water pumped to Mount Dora, Leesburg and DeLand.
A dozen utilities want to figure out whether that’s the best way to supply drinking water in the future.
The Coquina Coast desalination group on [...]

(Jan. 14, 2009, NanoWerk)
QuantumSphere, Inc., a leading developer of advanced catalyst materials, high-performance electrode systems, and related process chemistries for portable power and clean-tech applications, today filed for a U.S. patent on a water purification process that serves as a more energy-efficient alternative to desalination methods now commonly used to help meet growing water needs [...]

(Jan. 14, 2009, Science Blog)

Water and energy are two resources on which modern society depends. As demands for these increase, researchers look to alternative technologies that promise both sustainability and reduced environmental impact. Engineered osmosis holds a key to addressing both the global need for affordable clean water and inexpensive sustainable energy according to Yale [...]

(Jan. 7, 2009, Houston Chronicle)
The state’s first attempt at purifying salty seawater sucked from the Gulf of Mexico yielded two lessons: adding the gulf to the state’s mix of water resources is technically feasible, but at least for now too expensive on a large scale.
Data gleaned from the 18-month pilot project on the Brownsville ship [...]

(Nov. 17, 2008, GreenTech)

Water has long vexed investors. Statistics and news reports all confirm that many parts of the world face serious shortages of water that is suitable for human consumption and agriculture. Conservation measures, which would likely induce public panics if placed on gasoline, are being imposed on water supplies in the developing and [...]