Washington, D.C. — Each year, American Rivers identifies 10 rivers facing urgent threats and critical decisions.
This year, American Rivers stresses that the list highlights the dangers Trump Administration budget cuts pose to rivers and communities nationwide.
“This is a critical year for rivers and clean water,” said Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers.
“Water is one of the most crucial conservation issues of our time.
The rivers Americans depend on for drinking water, jobs, food, and quality of life are under attack from the Trump administration’s rollbacks and proposed budget cuts.” “Americans must speak up and let their elected officials know that healthy rivers are essential to our families, our communities and our future.
Atop the list, the Lower Colorado is America’s most endangered river, the organization reports.
One-third of the nation’s Latinos live in the Colorado River Basin.
The significance of the river to the faith, livelihood and future of Latino farm-working families is showcased in the new film Milk and Honey, produced by American Rivers and the Hispanic Access Foundation.
#1: Lower Colorado River (Arizona, California, Nevada) Threat: Water scarcity and demand.
#2: Bear River (California) Threat: New Dam #3: South Fork Skykomish (Washington) Threat: New hydropower project #4: Mobile Bay Rivers (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi) Threat: Poor water management #5: Rappahannock River (Virginia) Threat: Fracking #6: Green-Toutle River (Washington) Threat: New mine #7: Neuse and Cape Fear Rivers (North Carolina) Threat: Pollution from hog and chicken farms #8: Middle Fork Flathead River (Montana) Threat: Oil transport by rail #9: Buffalo National River (Arkansas) Threat: Pollution from massive hog farm #10: Menominee River (Michigan, Wisconsin) Threat: Open pit sulfide mining Read in-depth stories and reporting about these rivers and other conservation battles on C&K: —Riding a flash flood to the heart of the Little Colorado

Filmmaker promotes discourse about water, drugs.
Courtesy photo Conrad Weaver, a documentary filmmaker who spent the past year screening a film about water shortages in the West, is currently at work on another that isn’t overtly agricultural but still has an indirect tie that might be of particular interest in a state like Colorado that led the way in legalizing marijuana.
By Candace Krebs / Contributing Writer Conrad Weaver, a documentary filmmaker who spent the past year screening a film about water shortages in the West, is currently at work on another that isn’t overtly agricultural but still has an indirect tie that might be of particular interest in a state like Colorado that led the way in legalizing marijuana.
Weaver has become familiar to agricultural audiences for his work on a pair of documentaries that began with the “Great American Wheat Harvest,” which followed custom harvesters on their annual migration bringing in the crop.
Over the past year, Weaver has screened the film at multiple venues across the region, starting with the world premiere held at the University of Nebraska’s Water for Food Global Conference last April.
“There’s been lots of interest in the film, and lots of great discussions, and that’s really what I intended for it to do,” he said.
“The drought map may be clear today, but tomorrow or next year it could come back, and we need to be ready,” Weaver said.
By September, he plans to finish a new documentary examining the heroin epidemic in his local community outside the greater Washington, D.C., area.
He considers marijuana a gateway drug that has helped fuel a nationwide drug epidemic.
Last year 52,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, and the problem exists everywhere, including in rural communities, he said.

Solar power devices are now capable to extract water out of air.
These devices work on a novel kind of material which could extract a large volume of water into its various number of pores.
A report during the last year in Science Advances had found that nearly four billion residents, almost half in India as well as in China, face “severe water scarcity at least during one month of the year.” This means that water shortages have affected about two-thirds of the world’s growing population.
These shortages—and conflicts are only expected to get more popular in large parts of the globe as the climatic changes accelerate.
A team at MIT has developed the technology working in Omar Yaghi’s laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
These devices have components which promise a class of synthetic porous materials also known as metal-organic frameworks and are composed of organic molecules attached along with the metal atoms, which Yaghi developed.
The material consists of a massive area of the surface, in order of a football field per gram, allowing it to connect with large quantities of particles.
I call it personalised water,” he said.
The new system is composed of dust-sized MOF particles which are compressed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, which is placed inside a chamber which is left open to the air.
The older water-harvesting technologies have been made limited to the areas having fog or other high-moisture conditions.

Ads by Kiosked Anantapur: With the month of April experiencing high temperature, livestock-cows, buffaloes, sheep and goats- are questing for drinking water to just wet their throats.
Highlights: New scheme of constructing water tubs for the cattle launched on April 3 in Anantapur district The scheme is jointly executed by DWMA and Animal Husbandry department To offset drinking water shortage, District Collector Kona Sasidhar devised a new scheme to cater to water requirements of 48 lakh sheep and cattle in the district.
The purpose of the scheme is to provide drinking water tubs for the cattle in all villages in the district.
The scheme was launched by the Collector on April 3, 2017 to supply water to livestock especially during the on-going summer months.
These are community water tubs and all the cattle can quench its thirst from the tubs.
The construction of each tub costs Rs 25,000 with 17 per cent of it as wage component and 83 percent for materials.
In case of water scarcity, tankers will supply water to the water tubs and ensure availability of water for livestock throughout the day.
All the water tubs’ construction has been completed and proving to be a great boon to the cattle even as mercury levels are rising.
To effectively tackle thirst of livestock, the scheme is being executed on a war footing to prevent animal deaths and distress sales.
By Ravi P Benjamin

NASA scientist visits, speaks on global water crisis.
The CWRU Think Forum concluded its 2016-2017 program with a talk given by Jay Famiglietti, a NASA hydrologist.
Famiglietti spoke on global water scarcity problem.
The talk, titled “Can We Solve the Global Water Crisis?” was the last speaking event of the year hosted by Think Forum at Case Western Reserve University.
Two satellites in particular, which were launched in 2002 as part of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission, have been devoted by the agency to study terrestrial hydrological conditions and what they show does not look good.
Significant water scarcity now affects huge aquifers (areas with natural accumulations of groundwater) around the world, from California to the Middle East to Northwestern India.
“My definition of water security is very simple,” said Famiglietti.
Whether it’s irrigation, drinking water, energy production, whatever…does it have sufficient water to carry out those tasks?” According to Famiglietti, unfortunately, it seems like an increasing number of regions around the world are suffering from diminished water security, if not losing it altogether.
“People often think there’s some miracle technology [to solve hydrological problems],” he said.
And the planet, he pointed out, increasingly under stress, is gradually losing its ability to recuperate.

This Solar-Powered Tool Can Create Fresh Water Out of Thin Air.
In the future, every household will be able to produce nearly three liters of water daily from thin air using the solar-powered tool.
The solar-powered tool uses a special material called a metal-organic framework, which was developed in Omar Yaghi’s laboratory at the University of California Berkeley.
The researchers were able to create a solar-powered "sponge-like" device that can pull water from the air, according to a report from Science Magazine.
"This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity," Yaghi, one of two senior authors, said.
"There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy.
It was in 2014 that Yaghi crafted a metal-organic framework that binds water vapor, eventually teaming up with MIT’s Evelyn Wang and her team to develop a water-collecting system.
Wang’s team used a kilogram of the dust-sized metal-organic framework crystals in a thin sheet of porous copper metal, which was placed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, then inside a chamber.
The vapor then condenses as liquid water.
"One vision for the future is to have water off-grid, where you have a device at home running on ambient solar for delivering water that satisfies the needs of a household," Yaghi added.

City has been experiencing maximum temperature of 41.0 degrees Celsius since last couple of days.
The night temperature also remained two degrees Celsius above normal at 21.2 degrees Celsius.
“Winds blowing from north to southward direction will take its toll on the night temperature more and heat waves coming from neighbouring states can push the temperature up in coming days,” weathermen said.
The humidity recorded on Thursday morning was 19 per cent and 11 per cent in the evening.
Water scarcity in many areas With the increase of temperature, residents of various areas in the city are facing water scarcity and they have to wait for tankers to meet their water demands.
Water works incharge of Indore Municipal Corporation Balram Verma claimed that they have not received any major complaint about water scarcity.
“In view of the increasing heat, we will increase number of water tankers to meet the needs of the city.
He said the corporation started water supply through few water tankers.
Save water campaign Expecting more water shortage, city residents have started a campaign to save water by taking small steps and changes in habits.
Auto dealer Sandeep Goyal said, “I have to keep the vehicles clean for getting good business but due to water scarcity, I have directed my staff not to wash vehicles daily.” Similarly, senior associate of an NGO, Kirti Dixit said that people should work on water re-charging campaign once again.

Sindh survives almost entirely on the water of the River Indus as there is very limited groundwater available.
Compared to its increasing needs, water availability to Sindh is being reduced every year.
Though regular surveys have not been carried out to assess the availability of groundwater in the province, various sources estimate that its volume is quite sparse scattered in 28 percent of the geographical area of Sindh.
This water is found mainly along the Indus water channels and in the few natural underground streams.
Due to Sindh’s finite water resources and its increasing population, the province is facing a serious water crisis.
Recently the Sindh water commission in its report has noted that the people all over the province are not being provided safe drinking water in accordance with the World Health Organisation’s standards.
The commission was formed in December last year on the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, comprising Sindh High Court judges.
Headed by Justice Iqbal Kalhoro, the commission was tasked to conduct an in-depth probe into the authorities’ failure to provide clean drinking water, sanitation facilities and a healthy environment to the people of Sindh.
The high pollution level of the Indus River and groundwater has led to different environmental consequences such as reduction of biodiversity, increase in water-related diseases and decrease in agricultural productivity.
To ensure sustainable water supply for agriculture, drinking and industrial uses and for protecting the natural environment of Sindh, the Sindh government must ensure that the province receives its share of water as per the 1991 water accord besides promoting better management and conservation of its water resources.

And while a lot of research has focussed on desalination, a team of scientists have now come up with another possible solution – a device that pulls fresh water out of thin air, even in places with humidity as low as 20 percent.
Called the ‘solar-powered harvester’, the device was created by teams from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, using a special type of material known as a metal-organic framework (MOF).
So far the prototype device has been tested under conditions of 20 to 30 percent humidity, and was able to pull 2.8 litres (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12- hour period, using 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF.
"One vision for the future is to have water off-grid, where you have a device at home running on ambient solar for delivering water that satisfies the needs of a household," said Yaghi.
Unlike regular sheets of metals, MOFs are structures where metals such as magnesium or aluminium are combined with organic molecules in an arrangement that creates rigid, porous structures ideal for storing gases or liquids.
The MIT team then took dust-sized crystals of this MOF and compressed them between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, and placed the whole thing inside a chamber that was exposed to the outside air.
Sunlight then heats the MOF up and pushes the bound water towards the condenser, which is the same temperature as the outside air.
This vapour condenses as liquid water, and drips into a collector to provide clean drinking water.
"This work offers a new way to harvest water from air that does not require high relative humidity conditions and is much more energy efficient than other existing technologies," said MIT team leader, Evelyn Wang.
"To have water running all the time, you could design a system that absorbs the humidity during the night and evolves it during the day," he added.

They hope that a version of the technology could eventually supply clean drinking water in some the driest and poorest parts of the globe.
The device is based on a novel material that can pull large amounts of water into its many pores.
A report last year in Science Advances found that four billion people, nearly half in India and China, face “severe water scarcity at least one month of the year.” That means water shortages affect two-thirds of the world’s population.
The size and chemical character of the material’s pores can be customized to capture particular types of molecules or allow them to flow through.
The material also has a massive surface area, on the order of a football field per gram, enabling it to bond with a large quantity of particles.
In this case, the scientists employed a previously developed version of the material that Yaghi optimized to efficiently capture water molecules.
But during the day, sunlight hitting the material adds enough energy to convert the water molecules into vapor.
Though they plan to continue refining the technology, they’re “not that far away” from a viable product, says Evelyn Wang, head of MIT’s device research laboratory.
Could this technology make a real difference in some of the driest parts of the world?
But the big hope, he says, is that these devices could become household fixtures in poorer parts of the world.