LeakBird

(May 6, 2009, The San Francisco Business Times)
In an effort to drive innovation in solving global water problems, a San Francisco nonprofit has launched a business plan competition for breakthrough technologies in water efficiency.
Imagine H2O is offering $50,000 in prizes for winning business plan that includes an Incubator Program.
“The winners will also receive thousands [...]

(March 23, 2009, William Eagle, VOA News)

Development experts are looking at better ways to cope with water shortages. They’re worried about predictions from scientists that population pressures will increase the demand for water to meet needs for food and energy. This concern comes as countries try to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals.  Among them [...]

(March 4, 2009, BloggingStocks)
“Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed a new position in Nalco Holding (NYSE: NLC); it’s my favorite pure play on water filtration,” says Chris Mayer in Daily Wealth.
“With a $1.6 billion market cap, Nalco is a small-cap stock, but it’s actually one of the world’s largest water-treatment companies. Customers use Nalco’s products and [...]

(March 5, 2009, Kansas City InfoZine)
Maintaining water quality and efficiency shouldn’t be purely a local problem, a panel of water experts told the House Science and Technology Committee Wednesday.
Five witnesses said federal agencies should cooperate on water research and policy initiatives to combat scarcity caused by drought and population growth.
“We can’t continue to use the [...]

Okay, so this number may shock you, but trust me, I didn’t make it up.  I actually did a year’s worth of research, and I haven’t heard anyone say this yet — in fact, I’d like someone to disprove it.
Here’s what I extrapolated.  I’ll preface by stating that 25% to 40% of all in-building, residential [...]

(March 4, 2009, David Zetland, Aguanomics)
RT writes:
I am an economist from Australia who works on among other issues urban water policy.
I read with interest your nicely-written Forbes article.
We seem to have pretty much a similar situation here in Australia and a few of us make similar suggestions.
I’d love to understand more about the your situation [...]

 
I recently came across an insightful 2006 document (pdf) from New York’s Department of the Environment on water/ sewer billing, water metering and water efficiency, put together for New York landlords and property managers.
I know that it’s now three years old, so some of the information is perhaps dated, though in essence I would hazard [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
With California’s budget crisis resolved for the moment, state lawmakers Thursday turned their attention to another emergency: a three-year drought that has left key reservoirs at 35% of capacity.
Legislators stepped forward with plans to ask voters to borrow as much as $15 billion for projects to expand and improve [...]

(Feb. 15, 2009, Reuters)
China, faced with widespread water shortages exacerbated by its worst drought in decades, aims to cut the amount of water it uses to produce each dollar of national income by 60 percent by 2020, state media said.
The target, unveiled by Water Resources Minister Chen Lei, underlines Beijing’s growing concern over chronic water [...]

If you’re a landlord or property manager, there are certain things you shouldn’t be doing when it comes to water conservation in your buildings.  We’ve compiled the top seven “Worst Practices” here:

 
Not Monitoring Your Tenants’ Running Toilets: The toilet is the single biggest culprit when it comes to in-building water waste.  There are lots of [...]

(Feb. 12, 2009, Aguanomics)
I have criticized rationing as uneconomical, and I have criticized dumb rationing as unfair, yet water managers continue to pursue it.
What do I mean by that? Cutting EVERYONE back by 20% when supply falls by 20%. That’s not only lame compared to raising prices, but it’s patently unfair to cut water wasters [...]

(Feb. 11, 2009, Ben Block, WorldWatch)
In regions where pumping and distributing water requires significant electricity use, policies that lead to reduced water consumption could address climate change more efficiently than requiring businesses and households to use less energy, according to water expert Peter Gleick.
“Some of the cheapest greenhouse gas emission reductions available seem to be [...]

(Feb. 12, 2009, The Deseret News)
The House passed Wednesday a bill by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to create new research programs into how to conserve water, use it more efficiently and reuse wastewater.
“Many experts are starting to see water as ‘the new oil’ in terms of what a precious commodity it is,” Matheson said. “The [...]

(Feb. 3, 2009, GreenBiz)
It has become eco-chic in recent years to declare that “water will be the oil of the 21st century” — an essential and limited resource, unevenly distributed around the world, the growing shortage of which will lead to economic power for water-rich nations and poverty for the rest, possibly even resource wars [...]

(Feb. 3, 2009, GreenTech Media)
Although many companies are paying attention to their electricity and fuel consumption, they don’t pay as much attention to their water use. Well, they should, says a panel at GreenBiz.com conference.
How much water do you use to wash your jeans?
Levi Strauss figured out that 45 percent of the water used in [...]