LeakBird

(May 13, 2009, The New York Times)
For the third year in a row, Mark Watte plans to rely on the aquifer beneath his family farm for three-quarters of the water he needs to keep his cotton, corn and alfalfa growing, his young pistachio trees healthy and his 900 dairy cows cool.
That is 50 percent more [...]

(April 27, 2009, The San Antonio Business Journal)
The Edwards Aquifer Authority has officially declared a drought for the San Antonio region, requiring groundwater permit holders to reduce consumption by 20 percent for at least the next 30 days.
The mandatory Stage I drought restriction applies to all Edwards Aquifer water users served by the San Antonio [...]

(March 22, 2009, Reuters)
If water is the new oil, is blue the new green?
Translation: if water is now the kind of precious commodity that oil became in the 20th century, should delivery of clean water be the same sort of powerful political force as the environmental movement in an age of climate change?
And, in another [...]

(March 21, 2009, Robert Glennon, AlterNet)
The following is an excerpt from “Unquenchable: American’s Water Crisis and What We Can Do About It” by Robert Glennon. Copyright 2009 Robert Glennon. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington DC.
Editor’s Note: This excerpt is from the introduction of Glennon’s new book and follows a narrative about the water [...]

(March 14, 2009, The Oroville Mercury-Register)
The state is shopping for water for the Drought Water Bank, but a variety of factors has supplies drying up.Despite a hefty price for the sale of water, environmental constraints and good prices for commodities have far less Sacramento Valley water users signing up to sell water to other parts [...]

(March 13, 2009, MSNBC)
With local lakes and rivers at critically low levels, the region’s water provider has virtually shut down the surface water supply to the Tampa Bay region.
“The reservoir’s level is so low we are unable to provide water, consistently, to the water treatment plant and we are unable to pull water from the [...]

(March 8, 2009, TBNWeekly)
The latest report from The Southwest Florida Water Management District shows aquifer levels are continuing to fall.
According to the district’s March 6 Aquifer Resource Weekly Update, the central aquifer, which is a water source for the Tampa Bay region, is down to a negative 1.69 feet. Last week, the aquifer was at [...]

(March 10, 2009, The Europa Research Information Centre)
Since world governments decided that improving the management of the planet’s water reserves was a major priority, the threats hanging over groundwater have suddenly become front-page news. However, inconsistencies remain…
Since ancient times, water diviners have doused for water armed only with a wooden stick (or divining rod). Most [...]

(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 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 [...]

(March 7, 2009, The New York Times)
THE Earth may be two-thirds water, but only about 1 percent of that water is actually usable for human consumption and agriculture. What’s more, as the planet warms and the population shifts, even that 1 percent is at risk.
That is why demand for hydrologists has been predicted to grow [...]

(March 3, 2009, Aguanomics)
I talked to Ray Walker, a retired water rights analyst, about the “new source” of water he’s been mentioning in comments to this blog. Since both of us are interested to find out if any water managers are interested in this new supply, I am posting his request for expressions of interest. [...]

(March 2, 2009, The Mercury News)

Even with the recent heavy rains that deluged the state, California’s snowpack is 80 percent of normal and the state’s largest reservoirs are still far below where they should be at this time of year.
“Obviously, it’s much better than last month. The problem is, on the heels of two critically [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, MSNBC)
Butte County water officials have concerns that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proclamation Friday on the drought isn’t clear about protecting local control over groundwater.
Paul Gosselin, director of the county Department of Water and Resource Conservation, said there are concerns about what exactly the governor means by “expedited water transfers.”
Butte County has an ordinance [...]

(Feb. 26, 2009, Associated Press)
As more companies become conscious of their carbon footprint, a new movement is urging corporations to track their “water footprint” as well, or risk financial losses as freshwater supplies dry up around the globe.
Major corporations such as Coca-Cola Co. now disclose the amount of water they use in financial reports, in [...]

(Feb. 22, 2009, News24)
African economies are especially vulnerable to water shortages, delegates to the Implementing Environmental Water Allocations (IEWA) conference heard on Monday.
“Many African economies are held hostage to hydrology,” World Bank senior water resources specialist Rafik Hirji said at the start of the four-day event in Port Elizabeth.
It has attracted more than 300 experts, [...]

(Feb. 24, 2009, Aguanomics)
The battle is getting started:
The California Legislative Analyst’s Office recommends that the Legislature turn groundwater over to the state, which would remove local control
[snip]
[farmers] say they fear that the state would require water meters, find out how much water everyone’s using and charge for it.
Valente, vineyard and orchard manager for John Kautz [...]

(Feb. 17, 2009, The Wall Street Journal)
Taking a Cue From Carbon Tracking, Companies and Conservationists Tally Hidden Sources of Consumption
It takes roughly 20 gallons of water to make a pint of beer, as much as 132 gallons of water to make a 2-liter bottle of soda, and about 500 gallons, including water used to grow, [...]

(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. 14, 2009, The Houston Chronicle)
LUBBOCK, Texas — Reliable sources of clean water are the key to a successful economic future for Texas and without them the state and businesses could suffer billions in losses.
That was the dire message in a recent report from the office of state comptroller Susan Combs, a longtime West [...]

(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. 3, 2009, Ventura River Ecosystem)
According to an article in the Ojai Valley News, the current drought and new water pricing is creating tension between water agencies and farmers. When wells run dry, growers have become accustomed to subsidized water imported from Lake Casitas. But with rate increases intended to cover the true cost of [...]

(Feb. 4, 2009, Aguanomics)
“The [Napa, California city] council unanimously approved paying Yountville $3.45 million for the permanent rights to 1,100 acre feet from the vast State Water Project. The city, which uses about 15,500 acre feet annually, already has rights to 20,800 acre feet each year.”
This price for permanent water rights is equal to an [...]

(Jan. 29, 2009, Lemoore Advance)

Residents of Kings County walk on water. It’s part of an aquifer that provides the vast majority of drinking water to area residents and water to many farms and ranches with irrigation supply. It lies beneath the ground.
Despite the recent rainy weather, a two-year drought has left above-ground storage facilities [...]

(Feb. 3, 2009, The Seattle Times)
A groundwater-mapping study that tracks how water trickles under Eastern Washington shows deep wells in four counties are in deep trouble.
The two-year study done by the Columbia Basin Groundwater Management Area, based in Othello, found that aquifer levels are dropping fast, that most deep wells in the study area are [...]

From the age of 7 to 20 I grew up off the grid in the Northwest woods.
I remember the day we had a dowser come out, when I was 7 or 8, to designate a couple of spots for potential wells. He seemed like a blind man wandering around our property, his Y-shaped branch in [...]

(Jan. 20, 2009, Aguanomics)
As promised in the comments to this post, I spoke to Mike Wade, Executive Director of the California Farm Water Coalition (CFWC) about water pricing and water markets.
We had a long conversation, but here are the comments that Mike wanted on the record:

CFWC favors a “fix” in the Delta that serves [...]

(Jan. 14, 2009, Robert Glennon, Huffington Post)
I recently returned from Saudi Arabia, a country that faces self-inflicted water challenges. I’m part of a team charged with drafting a water code for the Kingdom. In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia decided it wanted food security, so it encouraged farmers to grow wheat by drilling an unknown number [...]

(Jan. 13, 2009, WaterWired)

Ray Walker sent me this link to Henry Brean’s article in the 12 January 2009 Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The first part of the story will whet your appetite:
If the federal government wants a surefire way to create jobs and stimulate the economy, Pat  Mulroy has a suggestion to make: Why not study and build [...]

(Jan. 11, 2009, The Good Human)
Dear EarthTalk: With all the talk of rising seas, what could happen to the rivers that flow into the oceans? Will they reverse flow? Will rising seas back up into fresh water lakes? And what happens to our groundwater should saltwater flow backwards into it?
The intrusion of saltwater from the [...]

(Jan. 8, 2009, Napa Valley Register)

This week, water experts from the city and county of Napa expressed confidence that residents will not have to prepare for rationing or extreme conservation measures in the near future.
Even if the State Water Project delivers only a small portion of what it has promised in 2009 — which is [...]

(Jan. 7, 2009, MLive.com)
Several coal or oil ash waste sites in Michigan and in Wisconsin and Indiana near the shores of Lake Michigan have contaminated nearby ground water and wells that threaten human health, according to a 2007 Environmental Protection Agency study cited by the New York Times.

A New York Times map shows some of [...]

(Jan. 5, 2009, PhillyBurbs)
Each day Montgomery County residents and workers use as much water as the daily flow of the Perkiomen Creek.
Seventeen large public water suppliers (10 authorities, four privately owned companies and three municipal water departments) supply 254,000 domestic, commercial, industrial and institutional customers.
These customers use more than 152 million gallons of water each [...]