003 - Ellen' s Water News

[Guest guest]

003 - Ellen' s Water News

 

 

World-wide:

 

The high cost of water engineering leads to the widespread prevalence

of corruption. Municipal water infrastructure projects are valued at

roughly $210 billion annually in Western Europe, North America, and

Japan alone. Large-scale hydropower is considered a " breeding ground

for corruption, " the report said. An estimated $50-60 billion in

annual investments is expected for hydropower worldwide in the coming

decades. Water corruption ranges from petty bribes to corporate

manipulation of public water services. When added up, corruption

raises the price for water services between 10 and 30 percent

worldwide each year, the report said. These additional costs pose

grave threats for countries' chances of meeting the U.N. Millennium

Development Goal of halving the number of people without access to

safe drinking water. Based on the worst-case scenario, corruption

could raise the cost of achieving the goal by $48 billion. " Corruption

in water can lead to skewed and inequitable water resources

allocation, to uncontrolled and illegal pollution, to groundwater

over-extraction, and to degraded ecosystems, " said Andrew Hudson, the

principal technical advisor to the United Nations Development

Programme, at the launch of the report. " In many cases, these impacts

in turn result in reduced resilience and adaptability to the impacts

of climate change. " http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008432.html

 

 

 

Africa:

 

Africa's largest water transfer effort, the Lesotho Highlands Water

Project, plans to supply water to the industrial heartland of South

Africa and to generate energy for impoverished Lesotho. The

multi-billion dollar investment offers economic growth and greater

water security for underserved communities in the region. The project

also presents water officials with countless opportunities to become

rich on the side. In 2002, Lesotho courts sentenced the project's

chief executive to prison for accepting bribes from 18 multinational

companies that were vying for construction contracts. The Lesotho case

is a rare example of justice. Across the globe, the water sector is

particularly prone to corruption, and the world's poor are usually the

ones who suffer the costs. The pervasive nature of dirty water

politics is blamed for much of the stalled progress in improving

access to water resources in this year's Global Corruption Report. It

is the first report to assess how corruption affects the water sector

worldwide. The widespread corruption noted in the report reflects the

large challenge of solving the world's water problems. As growing

populations compete for shrinking water resources, the opportunities

for corruption will increase and the damaging effects will become more

severe.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008432.html

 

 

 

Australia:

 

The pump and pipeline that once irrigated his land now lie in the

open-air rather than underwater. He has been chasing the retreating

water and has been losing the race. " We'd be up to our waist in water

here and it would be navigable, " Nigel told me, after we had walked

out 100 metres from what used to be the shoreline. " You could come out

here with boats. All the fishermen would be up and down with their

fishing gear and pulling in the catch. " " But this is the middle of

winter and it looks like a desert. " There are puddles of water but

they are brown-tinged and unwelcoming. The cows will not drink it. So

high is the salt content that it stings and burns their mouths. The

Lower Lakes lie at the end of the Murray-Darling basin, and are world

famous for their ecosystem, with their long-neck turtles and pelicans.

The area was popularised by the 1970s film, Storm Boy, and supports

the world's largest breeding colony of Australian Pelicans. But for

how much longer? I managed to walk out to an island in Lake Albert

where the pelicans have been breeding for centuries. Now their nests

lie deserted, because there is no water left to protect them - and

foxes are on the prowl. " This area is on the very brink of

environmental collapse, " said Nigel's wife, Melanie. " You only have to

look around to see that. " " You see the lack of birds and the lack of

life. You smell it. You can smell the water. If you walk out into the

lake bed you can burn your feet because of the acid sulphates. " " It's

very real and it's happening right in front of us. " In recent years,

the number of farms in the area has dropped from 55 to just 10.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7577528.stm

North Carolina:

The rest of the southeastern United States has gradually recovered

from last summer's record drought, but a small pocket in western North

Carolina and parts of three other states remain locked in some of the

driest conditions they've ever recorded. In Asheville earlier this

month, the French Broad River, the major waterway here, reached its

lowest levels since record-keeping began in 1895. Local residents

described walking across sections of the normally deep-flowing river

for the first time in their lives. Even with the rainstorm, the

state's Drought Management Advisory Council considers the region mired

in " extreme " drought, the second-most-severe of five drought

categories. The 18-county area lies roughly between the Great Smoky

and Blue Ridge mountains, with extreme drought conditions extending

into corners of Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia. " The rain was

great, but we still have a long way to go before we catch up " to

normal rainfall levels, said Hartwell Carson, the French Broad River

keeper. The drought, now in its second year, has been so severe that

some towns have imposed mandatory water restrictions that have left

lawns brown and perennial beds wilted. A few white-water rafting

companies have temporarily shut down, putting a strain on an economy

that relies, in part, on tourism and recreation. Many cattle farmers

can't grow enough hay to feed their herds, forcing some to sell off

the animals. Apple growers complain that the lack of rain has produced

smaller, less profitable fruit. Depleted water levels mean warmer

temperatures and lower oxygen levels that stress fish, said Jared

Bales, director of the North Carolina Water Science Center, part of

the U.S. Geological Survey. At the same time, he said, low water

levels mean a higher concentration of pollutants discharged into

rivers. On the other hand, fishermen report excellent fishing in

shallow waters. And Dave Donnell, who runs a canoe and rafting company

on the French Broad, said his customers love the leisurely tubing

trips and crystal-clear water possible at low river levels.

Alabama:

A 2004 paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a

respected scientific journal, states that bacteria and chemicals

blowing from sewage-treated fields " may cause nearby residents to be

more susceptible to infections. " The same paper states that the

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health concluded " Class

B biosolids likely contain infectious levels " of bacteria and viruses.

The sludge is spread onto farm fields as a fertilizer made of human

waste. Last year, 78 million pounds' worth of sludge was spread onto

fields in Grand Bay, according to records from the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency. Just thinking about the process sickens some

people. Try living next to one of the fields, say Grand Bay residents.

The sludge smells unmistakably like sewage, according to both

residents and sewer system officials. " It smells so bad outside my

door, you can't go outside, " said Stacy Thornton, describing the smell

of sun-baked human waste. " It smells like something dead and decaying.

People come over to visit and say, 'Oh, my gosh! What is that horrible

smell?' My property value is gone. Who would buy it? " But Thornton

and other residents are also worried about their health. With 3,000

acres ? all located around Grand Bay ? approved to receive daily

shipments of treated sewage solids from the Mobile Area Water and

Sewer System, some families believe that sores in their nasal

passages, chronic staph infections, headaches and sinus troubles are

all the result of exposure to pathogens in Mobile's sewage sludge.

Officials with MAWSS and the EPA say the sludge fertilizer program is

legal and carefully regulated, though it appears there is little state

or federal oversight of the actual application practices in the fields

of Mobile County. For instance, EPA officials last inspected the

spraying operations four years ago. Alabama Department of

Environmental Management officials referred questions about the

program to the EPA. Most of the waste is spread on land owned by

coffee magnate Leroy Hill, according to MAWSS records. Officials with

MAWSS estimated that Hill had saved the people of Mobile $10 million

to $15 million over the past 15 years by allowing the waste to be

spread on his cattle ranch.

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/122017426793080.xml & c\

oll=3

 

Arizona:

 

More than a hundred years ago, the Gila River, siphoned off by farmers

upstream, all but dried up here in the parched flats south of Phoenix,

plunging an Indian community that had depended on it for centuries of

farming into starvation and poverty. If that was not bad enough, food

rations sent by the federal government — white flour, lard, canned

meats and other sugary, processed foods — conspired with the genetic

anomalies of the Indians to sow an obesity epidemic that has left the

reservation with among the highest rates of diabetes in the world.

Now, after decades of litigation that produced the largest

water-rights settlement ever in Indian country, the Indians here are

getting some of their water back. And with it has come the question:

Can a healthier lifestyle lost generations ago be restored? Reviving

the farming tradition will prove difficult, many tribal members say,

because the tribes, who number 20,000, including about 12,000 on the

reservation, have not farmed on a big scale for generations. Fast food

is a powerful lure particularly for the young, and the trend of late

has been to move off the reservation, to work or live. " Nobody wants

to get out and get dirt under their fingernails, " said Pancratious

Harvey, one of a handful of tribal members who began a community

garden a couple of years ago. Still, the garden, which is filled with

vegetables that were once staples in the tribe's diet, is a sign of

enthusiasm for farming that members believe could spread as the water

arrives. On the reservation, the sound of earthmovers fills the air as

workers repair dilapidated and abandoned irrigation canals and ditches

and dig new ones to distribute billions of gallons of water that the

community will soon be receiving. The water settlement, involving the

two principal tribes on the Gila River reservation — the Pima, who

call themselves Akimel O'otham, or " river people, " and the Maricopa —

as well as a related band, the Tohono O'odham Nation on the Mexican

border, took effect this year, after being approved by Congress in

2004. It will take several more years to complete the irrigation and

related projects here, at a cost to the federal government of about

$680 million, but when done it will allow the community to double the

amount of farming, both an economic and cultural boon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/us/31diabetes.html?_r=1 & oref=slogin

 

Costa Rica:

 

EL CAIRO -- The raucous honking of a cistern truck carrying potable

water rouses residents from their homes here each morning, clanging

plastic bottles and tin pots in hand. ''When will it stop,'' says

64-year-old Rufina Najera, lugging a yellow 5-gallon pail stained with

dirt to the roadside. ``The pineapple companies tell us the water is

clean, but the government won't let us drink it.'' Last year,

authorities detected small amounts of Bromacil, a pesticide used to

thwart insects from pineapple plants, in the local aquifer. Since

then, the government has delivered water by truck to nearly 6,000

people. The crisis has spawned an increasingly volatile movement among

residents, who last week blocked the country's principal export

artery, Route 32, between the capital of San José and the Caribbean

port city of Limón, leaving hundreds of cars and trucks stranded for

hours. More than 60 prominent Costa Rican university scientists and

environmental groups joined the chorus of protest in July, citing

water pollution and extreme erosion and demanding a moratorium on new

pineapple plantations in ``areas of high biodiversity.'' Costa Rica

bridges the gap between North and South America, and is said to house

5 percent of the Earth's biodiversity in just .03 percent of its land

mass, according to the country's National Biodiversity Institute.

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/661565.html

 

Oregon:

 

The longtime developer aims to become the newest of a growing group of

Oregon's wetland mitigation bankers, offering developers a chance to

buy " credits " worth between $50,000 and $200,000 that allow them to

fill wetlands in other parts of the region. The concept is similar to

purchasing carbon offsets to fly on an airplane or drive a car to

offset the carbon dioxide resulting from the fuels consumed during

travel. Instead of trying to preserve a tiny wetland on a developed

piece of property that doesn't do much for wildlife, the program

allows bigger areas to be set aside, which is generally agreed to have

a more positive net impact on wildlife, even if it means more pavement

in urban areas. " There's a lot more time and effort put into designing

them, " said Corrie Veenstra, program manager for the Portland district

of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that oversees

wetland mitigation. " Trying to maintain a tiny little mitigation site

in the middle of the city, it's difficult to keep the weeds out of

it. " To be a wetland mitigation banker, Humbert doesn't have to build

anything to cash in. However, he does have to invest a considerable

sum in the property eradicating canary grass, plugging culverts and

leveling dikes so that the land fills with water when it rains and

provides a haven in perpetuity for the swallows, robins, geese, elk

and deer that frequent the property now. Wetlands' water storage can

prevent or lessen the impact of flooding and filter herbicides and

animal waste.

http://www.registerguard.com/rg/CityRegion/story.csp?cid=128477 & sid=4 & fid=2