(May 11, 2009, The California Progress Report)
The San Joaquin Valley has been ground zero in the current economic recession. News outlets have run a number of stories about food banks running out of supplies and residents leaving their hometowns in search of work on the East Coast.
Water contractors have claimed that recent environmental regulations [...]
(May 11, 2009, The Miami Herald)
The states of Florida and Alabama are meeting Georgia in federal court in Jacksonville over the allocation of water from Lake Lanier, which is the city of Atlanta’s water supply.
U.S. District Judge Paul Manguson will hear arguments Monday from the three states over the legality of the water supply allocations [...]
The Running Toilet Book: Chapter 4 — People Depend on Systems (LeakBird)The manager relies on systems, the leader relies on people.
Unknown
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Murphy’s Law
When it comes to running toilets, you can’t rely on your tenants to report them, unless you have a system in place. In other words, people depend on systems. Chapters 5 and 6 will explore systems in further [...]
The Running Toilet Book: Chapter 1 — The Water Myth (LeakBird)Want to use more water? Pay for it.
David Zetland, Aguanomics.com
The Water Myth is the myth that we have an endless water supply, renewing itself ad infinitum. How can we not believe in this myth when even our cats can drink from the potable water in our toilet bowls, for which we pay less than [...]
(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 [...]
How Landlords and Property Managers can Secure Their Tenants’ Water Supplies at the Single Largest Water Waste Point, the (Running) Toilet (LeakBird)Property managers, landlords and water companies or utilities consider two resources their most precious:
Money
Water
Without secure cash flows and water supplies, their businesses will be under water almost instantaneously.
Because 95% of landlords and property managers pay their tenants’ water bills, it’s natural that they’re interested in where they can most effectively manage and secure the [...]
(March 21, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Earthquakes and severe storms could destroy hundreds of miles of mostly earthen levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in coming decades, according to a state report that provides the most detail yet on the vulnerabilities of the hub of California’s water system.
Among the findings in the [...]
Teach a Man How to Fish, but Take Away His Right to Fish: Water Policy, Water Police, Water Rights (LeakBird)There’s an interesting ESPN article on the coming water policy crisis in America, in the context of fish and wildlife. Wikipedia defines the word “policy” as “a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s)“. Of course, it’s rooted in the word “police” as well, which “stems from the Greek word ‘politeia’ [...]
(March 18, 2009, The New York Times)
Don’t expect the future to look much like the past, at least when it comes to the Earth’s fresh water supplies. That’s the message emerging from a major international meeting being held here this week.
More than 27,000 people — including government ministers from more than 120 countries — have [...]
(March 17, 2009, The Associated Press)
The global economic crisis threatens to shrink investment in water infrastructure, an already underfunded sector vital to growth and public health, the World Bank said Tuesday
The first global economic contraction since World War II threatens to overshadow the scarcity of clean water in many poor regions, where inadequate sanitation is [...]
(March 16, 2009, Robert Stavins, The Huffington Post)
Throughout the United States, water management has been approached primarily as an engineering problem, rather than an economic one. Water supply managers are reluctant to use price increases as water conservation tools, instead relying on non-price demand management techniques, such as requirements for the adoption of specific technologies [...]
(March 16, 2009, The San Diego Tribune)
With its vast reserves running precariously low, the Metropolitan Water District has widened its unending search for water to even more distant sources.
Since 2007, Metropolitan’s stockpiles have shrunk by nearly half, drained by a combination of drought, diversions to safeguard fish, cuts in Colorado River supplies and population growth.
As [...]
(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 4, 2009, Robert Glennon, The Huffington Post)
Drought has prompted California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state emergency. Water agencies are preparing to impose mandatory water rationing. We’re all hoping that melting snow in the Sierra will save the state’s farmers and city dwellers from hardship.
But once rain starts to fall – and it [...]
(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 5, 2009, Aguanomics)
…Says Harvard Professor Stavins at the Huffington Post. His op/ed continues:
Throughout the United States, water is under-priced. Efficient use of water will take place only when the price reflects the actual additional cost of making that water available. Lest one fear that higher water rates would mean that Americans would go thirsty, [...]
(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 [...]
(March 5, 2009, Business Insider)
While we don’t have a smart grid for electricity in place yet, there’s already talks that we need a smart grid for water. Implementing a smarter system that could monitor water usage would save the the US as much as 30% to 50% of its water used each year, estimates Mark [...]
(Feb. 28, 2009, The San Bernardino Sun)
Water is one of California’s most vexing challenges.
Most of the state’s rainfall comes in Northern California and its snowpack is in the Sierra Nevada range. But most of the users are in Southern California and the Central Valley, where agriculture is the main consumer.
There are obstacles at every step [...]
(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. 27, 2009, AlterNet)
The state has done little to study the impacts drilling might have on water supplies and is unprepared to treat the waste water it produces.
Got bubbles? Alarms have been ringing for months about the risk that natural gas drilling poses to drinking water supplies, but recent reports of water contamination just [...]
(Feb. 27, 2009, Reuters)
“The south has plenty of water and the north lacks it, so if possible why not borrow some?” China’s revolutionary communist leader Mao Zedong said in 1952.
That probably seemed a great idea at the time.
But it is causing pollution as well as discontent among farmers facing forced resettlement to make way for a mammoth construction to [...]
(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. 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. 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, 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. 24, 2009, Aguanomics)
San Diego is looking north for water this year, working out a number of smaller option agreements with Sacramento Valley Districts. I looked into one 10,000 AF transfer with South Feather Water and Power to get a handle on numbers for this year.
San Diego is paying $10 per acre-foot for the option [...]
(Feb. 15, 2009, The Colorado Water Examiner)
Mining engineer and hay farmer Gary Hausler was at a recent meeting of the Rio Grande Basin Roundtable pitching the idea for a 22 inch water pipeline from the Mississippi River west. The proposal would divert less than one half of one percent of the Mississippi’s flows and could [...]
(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. 11, 2009, The Star-Telegram)
As Texas’ population explodes, new residential, commercial and industrial development is rampant. The state is far more urbanized, and continued dramatic growth is expected in coming decades.
That’s putting unprecedented environmental pressures on one of the state’s most-precious resources: its many rivers, creeks, bays and estuaries. These flowing bodies provide critical water [...]
(Feb. 9, 2009, Aguanomics)
David Besley sent me his article comparing Australia to Georgia. Besides the usual points (farmers can survive and thrive with water markets), the article had some new stuff:
Before it reaches the Southern Ocean, the Murray drains into two large lakes that are surrounded by wetlands.
[snip]
“We had the driest years on record in [...]
(Feb. 6, 2009, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Water conservation amounts differ
The director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division told state lawmakers Thursday that metro Atlanta could save up to a third of the water it uses with aggressive and expensive conservation measures.
Metro Atlanta’s water planners have been less ambitious. In a draft conservation plan, they’re shooting for a [...]
(Feb. 5, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle)
With experts predicting an historically dire drought in the state due to limited snowpack in the Sierras, Californian Steven Chu, Obama’s Secretary of Energy emphasized in his first interview since taking office how big the economic hit to the state and nation would be if water supplies stopped supporting California’s [...]
(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. 2, 2009, AZStarNet)
Mexico City shut down a main water pipeline under a new conservation program, cutting service to more than 2 million residents Sunday after some reservoirs dropped to their lowest levels in 16 years.
The Mexico City government and the National Water Commission will interrupt service for three days every month until May, when [...]
(Jan. 31, 2009, Portland Water Bureau)
Portions of the Missouri River’s bed from Nebraska to Missouri are sinking, causing the future of the river as a drinking water source to come into question.
At this point, the US Army Corp of Engineers can’t figure out exactly why the river bed is sinking, but theories include:
impacts from commercial dredging
upstream dams that reduce the [...]
(Jan. 23, 2009, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it has the legal authority to supply metro Atlanta’s drinking water from Lake Lanier.
The Corps’ legal opinion, released late Thursday, is a good harbinger for metro Atlanta in proceedings unfolding in a federal court in Jacksonville, Fla. That’s where a federal judge is [...]
(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. 21, 2009, UN News Centre)
Water supplies for over a billion people around the world are under threat from increasing populations, expanding cities, industrialization, climate change and even the rising demand for food, warned the United Nations, as delegates from more than 60 countries kicked off a meeting today in preparation for the upcoming World [...]
(Jan. 20, 2009, The Arizona Republic)
The storms that pushed through Arizona in December built water-laden snowbanks in the high country and began filling reservoirs months earlier than normal.
And none too soon.
As snow-survey teams measured the bounty on watersheds across the state, climate forecasters charted the return of La Niña, a periodic drop in ocean temperatures [...]
(Jan. 18, 2009, Treehugger)
China’s “Dead Lakes” Keep Reappearing
Two years ago, an algae outbreak in China’s renowned Tai Lake sounded a global environmental alarm. Now, despite China spending billions of dollars on lake cleanup efforts, some algae has returned. And similar poisonous blue-green algal blooms that have been cropping up in other lakes across the country [...]
(Jan. 13, 2009, San Gabriel Tribune)
There is a 50 percent chance Southern California’s main water agency could ration water deliveries by spring, according to a report released Tuesday.
Previously, the agency said there was a 33 percent chance of rationing.
“We would basically be … capping water supplies to our local agencies,” said Bob Muir, a [...]
(Jan. 14, 2009, Star-Telegram)
More than a decade ago, Texas kicked off an ambitious and comprehensive program to guarantee that the state’s urban and rural regions would have the water supplies they needed through 2050.
Much good work has been done under the framework established by 1997’s Senate Bill 1, but Texas still faces alarming trends when [...]
(Jan. 13, 2009, MSNBC)
A Florida administrative law judge has recommended that the St. Johns River Water Management District approve Seminole County’s plan to withdraw 5.5 million gallons daily from the river.
The permit for diverting the surface water for use in Seminole County’s water supply was challenged by several entities, including the the city of Jacksonville, [...]
(Jan. 13, 2009, Jacksonville Business Journal)
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear Georgia’s appeal of a lower court ruling in the long-running tri-state water wars.
The high court denied a request to review a decision handed down nearly a year ago by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington invalidating a 2003 agreement to let [...]
(Jan. 7, 2009, The Age)
MELBOURNE consumed slightly less water in 2008 than 2007 but still lived beyond its means in the ongoing drought.
In the first full calendar year under stage 3a water restrictions, the city consumed 368 billion litres of water, a result that ensured per-capita usage was close to 1930s levels…
But a gloomier picture [...]
(Oct. 20, 2008, MarketWatch)
Water conservation efforts overwhelmed by continued population growth.
Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and allied organizations have initiated an ad campaign to draw attention to America’s looming water shortages and the role that population growth plays in the problem. The advertisements will appear in major national publications.
“California and other parts of the country [...]
