Water Corruption Prevents Progress

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.

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Source: WorldChanging.com

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Bulgaria Among The Five EU Countries With Least Water Resources

Restrictions in the water supply have been introduced for hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians because of the continuous drought, the delay in the construction of new dams and the wearing off the water supply network in Bulgaria, writes France press in a correspondence from Sofia.

There is water regime in 281 settlements in Bulgaria. State of emergency was announced in Panagyurishte on 25 August after three weeks without water and temperature over 30 degrees.

There is water shortage in the Black sea resorts after the tourist boom and the unbridled construction in the regions, where there are no water sources, sewerage and purification plants.

The stopping of the water supply is practically inevitable in many other regions of Central and West Bulgaria, where there are no dams and the water supply relies on reservoirs, claimed for AFP an expert from the Ministry of environment and waters.

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Source: News.bg

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Durham, NC offers $100 rebates on water-saving toilets

Durham, N.C. — The city’s Department of Water Management has launched a program to provide $100 rebates to local residents who replace old toilets with models that conserve water.

The city will spend about $300,000 on the program, which officials said could save Durham 21 million gallons of water a year.

Only single-family homes are eligible to receive the rebates, which will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis, officials said. Homeowners must purchase high-efficiency toilets bearing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency WaterSense-label to obtain a rebate.

“Toilet flushing makes up about 30 to 40 percent of all water used in homes. Older, inefficient toilets can use between 3.5 and seven gallons per flush and are responsible for most of the water wasted in our homes,” said Vicki Westbrook, deputy director of the Department of Water Management. “Recent advancements have allowed toilets to use 20 percent less water than the current federal standard of 1.6 gallons per flush, while still providing equal or superior performance.”

Source: WRAL.com

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How dry we are! Let’s act like it, too

The exposed stumps and shoreline of Folsom Lake tell the story this year.

With reservoir levels so low, Californians can’t afford to waste a drop. Conservation has to be part of a multi-pronged strategy to stretch supplies and survive droughts.

To that end, Assemblyman John Laird is trying to pass a bill that would require a 20 percent reduction in urban per-capita water usage by 2020. Cities and counties would have flexibility in how to reach this target, but they could no longer casually water their sidewalks, as occurs almost every day in Sacramento, Los Angeles and other cities.

Laird’s legislation, AB 2175, has passed the Assembly but is in trouble in the Senate. Its survival could depend on two local senators – Mike Machado of Linden and Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento.

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Source: The Sacramento Bee

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Critics: Great Lakes Compact loophole allows bottled water

Lawmakers and concerned environmentalists are sounding the alarm on the Great Lakes Compact just weeks before the historic agreement may be ratified by Congress. They say a loophole would allow businesses to sell bottled Great Lakes water — exactly what the compact was supposed to prevent.

“The compact contains major loopholes that could allow water to be transferred outside of the basin and could result in the privatization of Great Lakes waters for commercial sale, thus undermining the intent of the agreement,” warned U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in an Aug. 20 letter to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

“The compact contains major loopholes that could allow water to be transferred outside of the basin and could result in the privatization of Great Lakes waters for commercial sale, thus undermining the intent of the agreement,” warned U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in an Aug. 20 letter to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

The compact prevents Great Lakes water in containers 5.7 gallons or larger from being exported outside the natural drainage basin. The agreement exempts water used to produce a product that’s transferred out of the watershed — for instance steel or beer. The problem is, the compact defines a product as intended for “intermediate or end-use consumers” and bottled water could fall under that definition, Kucinich said.

Work on the compact intensified after public outrage in 1998 when a Canadian company wanted to sell in Asia the equivalent of 50 tankers per year of Lake Superior water.

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Source: The Post Tribune

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Xeriscaping Reduces Environmental Footprint

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - As Pennsylvania’s dry season arrives, many gardeners fear that their lush landscape will wither under scorching heat. However, a gardening expert in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences says smart landscaping practices can both save water and ensure the garden’s survival.

With dry weather conditions increasing across the country, Penn State Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardeners are promoting the use of xeriscaping, an innovative, low-water gardening system, throughout their communities to help deal with dry weather and promote water conservation.

“Master Gardeners are trying to encourage public awareness of alternative landscaping practices that have positive effects on the environment,” said Robert Kessler, extension educator in horticulture in Franklin County. “They also are working on water recycling through use of rain barrels, which will hold water until it is needed in dry weather.”

Trained by extension educators and faculty, master gardeners are community volunteers that cooperate with service agencies and community groups on gardening projects, while promoting environmentally friendly techniques.

Providing a sun-loving landscape ideal for dry climates, xeriscaping is a low-maintenance gardening technique that incorporates a wide variety of plants to create a lush landscape. “Xeriscaping creates a beautiful landscape with native plants that have low water requirements,” Kessler said. “Most of these plants do not require irrigation in dry weather, making ideal additions for low-water areas.”

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Source: Gant Daily

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Huge underground water plant takes shape under NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — It requires enough concrete to build a sidewalk from New York to Miami and enough pipe to reach the top of the Empire State Building 140 times over. Workers carved out enough dirt from the ground to fill more than 100,000 dump trucks.

The colossal effort is a water filtration plant being built 10 stories beneath a Bronx driving range, a one-of-a-kind project intended to become a nearly invisible part of the city’s infrastructure.

But the plant has been anything but hidden so far.

The plant’s completion date has been pushed back six years, and its price tag, which early estimates put at $660 million, is now $2.8 billion. Costs, delays, seven-figure fines and a brush with a high-profile Mafia case have sharpened criticism of the city’s handling of a project that three city watchdog agencies and a group of community leaders are monitoring.

“The bottom line is that to build this water plant, the taxpayers are getting soaked,” state Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz said. “It’s like government at its worst.”

Despite the problems, officials say they will not be deterred from building what they see as the latest far-reaching project in a city full of grand monuments to civic imagination. Officials say they are making good progress despite a late start, and the cost increases are an unavoidable reflection of an industrywide trend.

“The need to complete important projects like the (water) plant has not diminished,” Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler said. “We can’t sit back and let others worry about the future.”

The federal government has ordered the city to build what will be its first drinking water filtration facility, and the project is believed to be the first subterranean water plant in the nation. Its magnitude is hard to overlook: The pit at Van Cortlandt Park is so deep that large cranes merely peek above the rim.

By 2012, if the schedule holds, a 12-foot-wide tunnel will feed the plant up to 300 million gallons of water a day — about a quarter of the city’s supply. The water will run through a complex set of steps that filter out contaminants: a chemical that makes unwanted particles clump together, air bubbles that push them to the surface to be skimmed off, and a barrier of sand and anthracite coal that strains out still more contaminants. Finally, ultraviolet light will kill bacteria and viruses small enough to have squeezed through the various filters.

New York is one of the few big U.S. cities that doesn’t filter its drinking water, long a point of pride here. It does add chlorine to disinfect its water, fluoride to help prevent tooth decay and other chemicals that reduce acidity and prevent metals such as lead from leaching from pipes.

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Source: The Associated Press

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Overuse of Ground Water Poses Environmental Threat to Asia

BALI-The overuse of ground water resources is becoming a huge threat to Asian nations, warned environmental experts at a seminar in Bali, Indonesia.

Professor Brahma Chellaney, from the India-based Strategic Studies Centre for Policy Research, said underground water in Asia is being pumped to the surface at such a high rate that the ground water can not be replenished by rain.

“Over-exploitation of aquifers will affect ecosystems, and in turn accelerate global warming,” said Dr Chellaney, speaking at the two-day seminar on the strategic Importance of water in Asia.

The seminar, organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF)last week, aimed to help Asian journalists specialising in environmental issues to better understand the current water shortage in Asia and the ramifications for the future.

An example of the immediate results of ground water overuse was raised by Julian Gearing, correspondent for Asia Times in Bangkok, who said one of the reasons why pavements and sidewalks in Bangkok were sinking was overuse of aquifers.

“A majority of people in Bangkok rely on piped water and don’t pump water from wells,” said Gearing. “They are not aware of the strain being put on the aquifers largely by large and small-scale industry.”

Dr Chellaney said rapid urban expansion in China’s capital Beijing, with a population of 17 million, was exhausting the local water supply. More than two-thirds of Beijing’s water supply is now pumped from subterranean reserves.

In addition to concerns over the over-exploitation of underground water, pollution is also presenting another formidable challenge as levels of heavy metals and arsenic rise in some natural water supplies.

Agricultural pollutants, such as fertilisers and pesticides, and industrial pollutants were also seeping into ground water reserves in many areas.

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Source: Vietnam News

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Water Bottler wants to build a water pipeline. It seems to be a profitable business!

LANSING, Mich. - A water bottling company has won approval from state regulators to complete construction of a well and pipeline in Osceola County.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality says Nestle Waters North America’s proposal meets permitting requirements. Regulators previously have determined the project isn’t likely to adversely affect surface or groundwater resources.

Greenwich, Conn.-based Nestle plans to withdraw 150 gallons per minute from an aquifer in the county 70 miles north of Grand Rapids. The permit also authorizes the installation of casing beneath wetlands for a future pipeline. The DEQ announced its decision Thursday.

Nestle bottles water in Michigan under the company’s Ice Mountain label.

Source: The Chicago Tribune

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Businessmen in Canada Want to Export Their Water

A Montreal think tank says it’s urgent for Canada to dip its toe in the water exporting business for financial gain – but some folks aren’t too sure about watching our water go down the drain.

“Large-scale exports of fresh water would be a wealth-creating idea for Quebec and for Canada as a whole,” said the Montreal Economic Institute’s chief economist Marcel Boyer, author of a research paper released today.

“The development and marketing of this expertise requires a strategic plan to enable Quebec to become a leader in water management,” said Boyer, vice-president of the institute, an independent, non-profit organization that takes part in public policy debate in Quebec and across Canada.

The report proposes that the provincial and federal government set out a regulatory framework for the trade in water to make owners or concession-holders more fully aware of the benefits and costs associated with the various uses of the water under their control.

These restrictions should be accompanied by a “realistic” fee structure that would give consumers and other users incentives to use the resource responsibly and encourage the businesses involved to ensure a stable supply, the paper says.

“At a time when water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world, its economic development stirs up substantial opposition, however. Though some people fear harmful exploitation or even the drying up of our water resources, it is urgent to look seriously at developing our blue gold,” Boyer argues in the report.

Canada holds the world’s most extensive freshwater reserves, with 8 per cent of world inventory.

Quebec lays claim to 3 per cent of the planet’s fresh water, giving it 13 times more renewable fresh water per person than the United States.

The report states that Quebec is using only 0.5 per cent of its available renewable fresh water compared to the nearly 19 per cent used in the U.S. The institute goes on to state that suitable use of this renewable resource would not have an impact on Quebec’s water reserves.

Boyer says that if Quebec were to export 10 per cent of its one trillion cubic metres of renewable fresh water per year at a price equal to the current cost of seawater desalination (65 cents per cubic metre), and if the government took 10 per cent of this amount in royalties, it would generate income of $6.5 billion a year – five times the dividend paid by Hydro-Québec.

But the Council of Canadians is adamantly opposed to the practice of selling the nation’s water.

“We’re concerned about that. We know there’s pressure from the U.S. to export Canada’s water. But we see water as a human right and a public resource,” said Meera Karunananthan, the council’s national water campaigner.

“We don’t want to see water commodified and commercialized in this manner,” she said, noting it’s a myth that Canada has abundant supplies of water.

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Source: The Star

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