LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A group of Charlestown, Ind., residents is asking state regulators to temporarily halt a company’s approved purchase of the city water system and investigate the deal.
The Charlestown City Council voted this week to sell the water infrastructure to Indiana-American Water Co. for $13.4 million, but the sale still needs state approval.
The residents – part of a group called No Outsourcing Water, or NOW — filed the complaint Friday with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
It was submitted by attorney J. David Agnew of New Albany.
Michael Gillenwater, Charlestown’s city attorney, did not immediately respond to a message left at his office Friday afternoon.
Without the sale, he said rates would have climbed to $53 per month.
But the Charlestown residents allege those rates are “exceedingly low.” They note, by comparison, that another Indiana town is asking for state approval of rates of $1.44 per 1,000 gallons.
The residents say the terms of the lease agreement were not provided to the public prior to the meeting at which the sale was approved.
Reach reporter Marcus Green at 502-585-0825, mgreen@wdrb.com, on Twitter or on Facebook.
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Alarm as 32-yr-old woman dies of suspected dengue.
The woman, who was suffering from fever since Monday, developed symptoms of dengue and was admitted to a private hospital in Trichy.
It may be recalled that Manapparai has become the hotbed of fever in the past few months.
Meanwhile, health department officials have blamed the municipal administration for not providing regular supply of water, thus forcing people to store drinking water in which the dengue-causing Aedes mosquito breeds.
The fever has become endemic to the district in the past five years.
In July itself, the district has witnessed 18 cases of dengue positive cases.
The Trichy corporation area recorded eight cases , while the rural areas reported nine cases of dengue.
A case of dengue was recorded in Trichy municipality area.
The treatment at private hospitals was also another reason for the mortality in several cases, they said.
The district administration and the public health department has appealed to people to admit patients to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) where the patients will be treated in the isolation ward.

Sham Choudhary for speedy completion remaining works in Kathua.
Sham Choudhary for speedy completion remaining works in Kathua Jammu, July 07, (Scoop News)- Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Sham Lal Choudhary today asked the engineers to speed up the left over works in Kathua district at the earliest so that the people don’t face any difficulty in getting clean drinking water.
The Minister issued these instructions while chairing a meeting convened to review the actions taken by the department on the decisions taken in the last review meeting in Jammu.
The Minister enquired about the progress of repairing of old pipe lines in Rakh Hoshari, installation of transformers in Hatli Morh Chak Partap Singh, installation of public water stand in village Suba Chak, improvement if Water Supply Scheme, Chadwal, laying of disty system in Protey Chak/Bannu Chak, drilling of new bore well at Randhwal, replacement of worn out pipes in Pathwal, laying of distribution in Sungwali, Patyari Kattlan, Muthi Khurd, commission of filtration plant in Hira Nagar, measures taken to tackle water scarcity in Kissan Nagar Sumwan, installation of new deep drilled hand pumps, improvement of water supply to Govt.
Middle School, Krishna Colony, redevelopment of bore well Pandrar Old, Amala Dhaloti, construction of toe wall at village Dhani and other related issues.
The engineers gave a point by point reply to every query of the Minister and informed him about the steps taken by the department for augmenting water supply in Kathua.
In the meeting, the Minister directed the engineers to take every necessary step for providing water to inaccessible areas of the district and conduct regular field visits to Water Supply Schemes.
Chief Engineer PHE Jammu Susheel Aima, Chief Engineer I&FC Jammu Rajeev Gandotra, SE’s and Executive Engineers were present in the meeting….

The New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, is helping direct stockholders’ resolutions to fight climate change using tools built by a nonprofit organization.
They track sustainable resolutions and provide resources about sustainable supply chains to shareholders who may be interested.
“More and more companies recognize that by taking steps to buy palm oil or soy from suppliers that do not contribute to deforestation, they are promoting better environmental practices and protecting their shareholder value.” This year, shareholder resolutions have become the new behind-the-scenes advocacy movement, with DiNapoli leading the charge.
He started with oil companies: 62 percent of Exxon shareholders voted to demand disclosure of risks to the climate.
Inside Climate News reports, The number of climate-related resolutions filed with food and beverage companies is up from 12 in 2011 to 131 this year.
The group released a guide last week for food company investors that illustrates the climate-related risks that each of eight commodities represents to supply chains and businesses.
The guide also looks at issues beyond but related to climate change, including water use and pollution, as well as social impacts, including land rights and working conditions.
“The risks are mounting—whether it’s climate change or water scarcity or human rights abuses—and investors need a one-stop shop.” Financial firms such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity have put climate disclosure language in their mix of investments.
Food industry votes have not yet achieved the success that shareholders in the giant oil companies have had, but it is only the beginning.
A 2015 survey by CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, found that 90 percent of 97 food, beverage and tobacco companies—representing 822 institutional investors and more than a third of the world’s invested capital—said their businesses were vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In Killabandar Village, Even Little Girls Have to Make Sure There’s Enough Water to Go Around.
A photo-essay by People’s Archive of Rural India reveals that there’s more to this hardship.
The women and girls often scrape the bottom to be able to access water.
This isn’t just Killabandar; water scarcity is a huge problem in India.
But Killabandar’s story tells us how inefficiently and unfairly water resources are being distributed.
What its residents resent is that while they depend on wells, tankers, and the extremely erratic and unhelpful municipal supply, water from Palghar district is redirected to the Mumbai metropolitan region.
“The well has only a little water [in the summer] in one corner.
While most of the 75 existing wells in and around the Vasai fort are out of commission, the taps receive water for only around one-and-a-half hours, once in two days, the villagers confess.
We don’t get any holidays,” one of the women says.
Like PARI reports, “The need for water pushes even the youngest members – almost always girls – of many families into this daily labour.” The girls of Killabandar wake up at 7 am, some of them collect water till 10 am, and then go to school.

Federation hold meet on revival of waterbodies.
The Federation of Civic and Welfare Associations’ of Pallavapuram Municipality recently organised a special meeting to discuss the issue of water scarcity affecting localities that come under the jurisdiction of the Municipality — they include Chromepet, Pallavaram, Hasthinapuram and Keezhkattalai.
At present, residents of these localities receive Palar drinking water twice a month.
The residents are forced to depend on can water for cooking and drinking purposes, and for other purposes, they buy water through tankers and store it in sumps.
V. Santhanam, president of the Federation, says, “Steps should be taken to de-silt and deepen Pallavaram Periya Eri, Thiruneernmalai Eri, Keezhkattalai Eri, and Veeraraghavan Eri.
If steps are taken to rejuvenate these waterbodies and promote lake tourism, they will be protected and become valuable reservoirs.
Earlier, they used to purchase water only for drinking and cooking, and were dependent on groundwater for other uses.” “ Encroachments found on all sides of these lakes and water channels have to be removed.
Steps should also be taken to arrest discharge of sewage into the waterbodies through storm water drains, which should carry rainwater to the water-bodies.
The members of the Federation made an appeal to the State government to construct additional recharge wells, check dams at Palar river and waterbodies across the State.
Also, steps must be taken to construct Rain Water Harvesting pits, members say.

Las Cruces legislator cites budget, jobs crisis for why he’s running for governor.
We’ve had 27,000 people leave the state during this administration.
We passed corporate tax cuts [in 2013] which I opposed.
Too often we find if we attract with incentives one year, another state offers better ones the next year.
[The state Legislature] authorizes $50 million a year in [Local Economic Development Act] money.
How would you approach K-12 education differently from the current administration?
One of the first things I would do as governor is offer the same opportunity to every student in every school in the state.
An active governor would be on the phone and sitting down with the governor of Texas and the other states involved to try to find the best resolution to the lawsuit.
Historically, New Mexico has been a territory with scarce water and has learned to work with less.
I asked judges what we can do to better address crime and they overwhelmingly say they’re overburdened with cases on possessions of small amounts of marijuana Those cases bog down a court system.

Geological difficulties slowing tunnel excavation work.
Five people have been stricken with the rare, rode… Kathmandu, July 6 The Melamchi Water Supply Development Board has said it may take additional few months to supply water supply to Kathmandu Valley due to geological problem in tunnel excavation.
“It is almost certain that the project will miss its October deadline due to difficulties in tunnel excavation,” Devkota told The Himalayan Times, adding that they were also unable to set a new deadline as it is uncertain when the tunnel excavation work would be completed.
A few days ago, the board had confirmed that it will not be able supply water to Kathmandu Valley by October this year.
The Melamchi project’s first deadline expired in 2007 and second in 2016.
The project deadline was then extended to October 2017.
Given the current rate of tunnel excavation, it may still take four months to complete tunnel excavation work.
According to the project, it will take another three months to complete the remaining work after tunnel breakthrough.
The Melamchi project envisages supplying 510,000,000 litres of water per day to the Valley from the Melamchi, Yangri, and Larke rivers of Sindhupalchowk district.
The current daily demand of water in Kathmandu Valley is around 370,000,000 litres, while daily supply stands at 110,000,000 litres per day.

HYDERABAD – Sindh Education Minister Jam Methab Hussain Dehar along with (USAID) Mission Director Jerry Bisson and Deputy Mission Director Denise Herbal Thursday inaugurated the newly established building of ‘US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Study in Water (USPCAS-W)’ at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) Jamshoro.
He extended thanks and appreciation to the American people and US Agency for International Development (USAID) for full financial support, including funding for this Center, and also thanks to the University of Utah for providing technical and capacity building support for the Center.
He also congratulated to the Vice Chancellor Mehran University and the Project Director of the Center for having such state-of-the-art building, adding that water-related challenges of the country which are multi-dimensional and multi-faceted could be addressed in accordance with the latest methods and technologies of water preservation.
He said that water shortage, low system efficiency, conventional irrigation methods leading to inefficient use of water resources, low water productivity, mining of ground water including brackish water, limited availability of clean drinking water and so on were the key issues which needs to be addressed.
This is beside the challenges related to limited storage capacity and decreasing availability of water from the current water storage structures, he added.
He said that effective development and management of the country’s water resources were therefore vital to Pakistan’s overall economic development, food security and health of its population.
“We need to take necessary steps on war footing which require policy makers, researchers, advocacy groups, development professionals and civil society groups to join hands to draw appropriate plans and policies to sensitize and engage all stakeholders on critical water issues, challenges and opportunities in order to address the above challenges and achieve sustainable water development and management, he added.
He informed that Sindh Water Sector Improvement Project (WSIP) was also part of the Planning and Development Department and engaged in improving water use efficiency, overcoming water scarcity and implementation of IWRM plans.
b We are also focusing our efforts to ensure supply of safe drinking water and sanitation servicesb , the minister informed and added that Clean Water Project of Mehran University is also part of this initiative and many other projects.
Qureshi also addressed the participants of the inauguration ceremony.

The former joint managing director of Arena Investment Management will join the board of AMP-backed Macrovue. The online investment platform will welcome James Goodwin following his participation in a capital raise of about $1.25 million to support Macrovue’s continuing growth. In addition to Arena, Goodwin brings more than 15 years’ experience in financial services and funds management. He has expertise across a range of areas including corporate finance, equity and debt capital markets, private equity, M&A, early stage investment and financial risk management. “James will add his wealth of knowledge and network in financial services and funds management to…