LeakBird

(March 16, 2009, GreenBiz)
This report examines the opportunities and challenges of strategic water management. Five case studies provide perspectives from projects around the world.
Though it’s a worldwide entity, water is treated as a regional issue, IBM says. There is no global market and very little international exchange.
“Water is about quantity, quality, space and time,” says [...]

(March 13, 2009, The New York Times)
Give I.B.M. credit for technological ambition and a willingness to tackle big problems.
I.B.M. is presenting a new bundle of services and research offerings at the World Water Forum in Istanbul on Monday. The package, grandly called Strategic Water Management Solutions, is the most recent entry in I.B.M.’s so-called smart [...]

(February 27, 2009, Gavin Newsom, CleanTechnica)
Today, San Francisco took a meaningful step toward turning the promise of renewable ocean energy into reality. We submitted a preliminary permit application to the federal government to develop a wave power project off our coast that we believe can generate between 10 to 30 megawatts of energy, with potential [...]

(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 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 [...]

Acoustic water leak detection has been around a long time. It predominates in the water industry when it comes to listening for leaks in underground pipes, in order to protect and secure municipal water supplies from catastrophic underground leaks.  A couple of companies that come to mind are SubSurface Leak Detection, Inc, Davis-Inotek Instruments and [...]

(Feb. 26, 2009, Bloomberg News)
On a cloudless December day in the Nevada desert, workers in white hard hats descend into a 30- foot-wide shaft next to Lake Mead.
As they’ve been doing since June, they’ll blast and dig straight down into the limestone surrounding the reservoir that supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas’s water. In September, [...]

(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. 24, 2009, International Rivers)
This March, Istanbul Turkey will host the 5th World Water Forum, the world’s largest international event on water issues. The World Water Forum is organized every three years, and brings together representatives from around the world to discuss policies of water. However, the forum is dominated by state officials and private [...]

(Feb. 20, 2009, Boston Sustainable Food Examiner)
Did you know that bottled water in the U.S. is not subject to the same stringent standards as tap water?  The Environmental Protection Agency sets standards for water that comes out of your sink, but bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which uses a different [...]

(Feb. 17, 2009, CentralAsia, ForeignPolicyBlogs)
In contrast to its neighboring countries with vast oil and gas resources, Tajikistan has the most important resource in the world; large reserves of fresh water. Some of this water is now being used for a single dam, the Nurek, which provides the country’s electricity. Unfortunately, the dam alone cannot provide [...]

(Feb. 18, 2009, Aquadoc, WaterWired)
John Cloud’s TIME article on the Top 10 Food Trends of 2008 lists the war on bottled water as #4:
In 1992’s The Player, Tim Robbins’ character, the consummate Hollywood insider, showed his sophistication at restaurants through his ability to differentiate among various kinds of bottled water. But today, that same [...]

(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. 12, 2009, The Salt Lake Tribune)

Utah enjoyed healthy precipitation in January, allowing the National Weather Service to issue an optimistic report about this spring’s runoff.
Hydrologist Brian McInerney, who issues his reports via the Web to make science more available, says this water year is “looking very good.”
As of Feb. 11, his prediction for water [...]

(Feb. 13, 2009, The International Herald Tribune)
HARTFORD, Conn.: It’s a drop in the bucket for overburdened budgets, but bottled water is an expense states are considering cutting at the urging of activists trying to galvanize support for the use of public water supplies.
Following a similar move by U.S. mayors earlier this year, governors across the country [...]

(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. 9, 2009, Scoop)
NZWWA CEO, Murray Gibb, is urging government to continue its reforms and rationalise water management in New Zealand.
“The question must be asked why a country of only four million people needs over seventy water utilities and twelve separate regional water regulators,” said Mr Gibb.
“With the imminent release of the Royal Commission’s report [...]

(Jan. 14, 2009, Reuters)
One of the world’s biggest water industry contractors is targeting 10-15 percent revenue growth in the Asia Pacific region in 2009 as government’s boost infrastructure spending to buoy their ailing economies.
Unlisted U.S.-based Black & Veatch, which ranks itself among the world’s top five builders of water infrastructure, on Wednesday gave an upbeat [...]

(May 29, 2008, Christian Science Monitor)
Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water – and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake [...]

(Jan. 3, 2009, CapitolChronicles)
Many urban planners and conservationists now see water replacing oil as the new precious commodity this century. It’s conceivable that the next wars will be fought over the wet stuff. Arizona, California and New Mexico are all struggling with droughts, but it’s not just the Southwest. Atlanta and parts of the Old [...]

(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 [...]

(Dec. 9, 2008, MarketWatch)
Five million lives are lost each year to water-related diseases. More than 20 percent of the world’s population lacks access to safe drinking water, and more than 40 percent of people live in water-stressed regions of the world. He pointed out that while economic development can increase water challenges, it can also [...]

(Photo Courtesy of WaterDropBlog.wordpress.com)
As water management blossoms, a boom in all things water is coming to the US and the World.
In a state like Arizona, where the water and power supplies are intimately entwined, the undervalued and hence underpriced non-renewable commodity we call water is growing scarcer and scarcer.  While the demand booms, supply runs [...]

(Photo Courtesy of Sarah Coleman, The Color of Water)

Water rates are on the rise in virtually every city, region and county across the nation. One fact that I’d like to point out, that I actually haven’t heard anybody say yet, is that rising water rates are a symptom of inflation, and they will continue to [...]

(Nov. 22, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle)
Dodging a disastrous third year of drought in California could take the kind of winter mega-storms that leave almost as much ruin as they do rain…
An average year wouldn’t spell doom for supply conditions in the north. But it wouldn’t slake demand from growing cities or dramatically raise state reservoir [...]

(Nov. 13, 2008, The Toronto Star)
Gorman sees long-term potential in the water industry – distribution, safety, supply and desalination.

(Nov. 7, 2008, Inc. Magazine)
In an article entitled “Blue is the New Green” in the November 2008 issue of “Inc. Magazine”, Moving Water Industries ( www.mwicorp.com) was recognized as one of eleven “extraordinary entrepreneurs who are creating radical change at every step of the way“ and “finding opportunity in the largest emerging market the world [...]

David Zetland recently wrote an article for Forbes magazine entitled, “The Water Shortage Myth“, which basically echoed the economistic idea that until water is no longer an undervalued scarcity, but rather priced accordingly, as in the case of crude oil, at perhaps 3x the current water prices across the US, public utilities will waste their [...]