If you live in Penang, Kedah or Perlis, you may want to join a cycling and running event to conserve the Ulu Muda forests which are the source of your drinking water.
The cycling (and running) event is the first to be organised by WWF-Malaysia to support freshwater conservation efforts in the large forests of Ulu Muda in the more hilly areas of eastern Kedah.
The awareness event calls for the public to cycle 40km along the padi fields in Alor Setar, against the scenic backdrop of Gunung Keriang.
The “Kedah Cycle for Water 2017” event was launched last month to conserve the source of freshwater for the three states.
As the main water resource for the Muda Irrigation Scheme, Ulu Muda is critical to ensuring the livelihood of close to 55,000 farming families in Kedah and Perlis.
In other words, Ulu Muda’s forests help drive the region’s growth in many ways via invaluable environmental services to northern ,Peninsular Malaysia.
‘Kedah Cycle for Water 2017’ is an initiative to create greater awareness of Ulu Muda’s importance in providing environmental services,” said Dr Sundari Ramakrishna, Conservation Director of WWF-Malaysia.
It is also hoped that this platform will help drive Malaysians to play a more active role in the protection of Ulu Muda and the country’s freshwater resources.
Today, close to 663 million people do not have access to safe water – that is roughly one in three people,” said Tunku Puteri Intan Safinaz in her opening address at the launch event.

In a landmark ruling, Indonesia’s Supreme Court this week ordered the government to restore public water services to residents in Jakarta after finding private companies “failed to protect” their right to water.
The Supreme Court decision quoted residents of low-income areas in North Jakarta who blamed limited access to clean water and sanitation services on the failure of the private companies to adequately service their neighborhoods. Those residents described how the firms, PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya and PT Aetra Air Jakarta, provided only sporadic water service, mostly limited to evening hours. These residents were forced to buy expensive drinking water from street vendors and bathe in polluted public wells. “Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” concluded three United Nations water experts in 2014.
Suharto ordered Jakarta’s public water utility to be divided into two operations, giving one half to a joint venture between British firm Thames Water and an Indonesian firm owned by his son.
The privatization contracts included guarantees that lower-income consumers would pay lower water tariffs. However, 12 residents and organizations that filed the class action lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court ruling argued that the companies deliberately underserviced lower-income consumers to prioritize higher-revenue service to wealthier consumers.

The proposed route skirts the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s reservation and crosses under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir in the Dakotas that serves as the tribe’s drinking water source.
April 2016 — Opponents establish a camp in southern North Dakota for peaceful protest.
The Standing Rock Sioux sues.
Aug. 10 — North Dakota authorities make the first arrests of protesters.
April 4 — The pipeline leaks 84 gallons of oil at a rural pump station in South Dakota.
Trump later rejects the request.
June 14 — Boasberg orders the Corps to do more environmental assessment of the pipeline’s impact on the Standing Rock Sioux.
June 27 — North Dakota’s Private Investigative and Security Board sues TigerSwan for operating in the state without a license.
Oct. 10 — The North Dakota Pipeline Authority says the pipeline boosted the state’s tax revenues by about $19 million in its first three months of operation.

CLINTON, Conn., Oct. 12, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Connecticut Water joined water utilities across the nation in recognizing Imagine a Day Without Water campaign, an annual nationwide day of education and advocacy about the value of water.
“Imagine a Day Without Water typically focuses on raising awareness about the role safe drinking water plays in our everyday lives,” stated David C. Benoit, interim president and CEO of Connecticut Water. Each year, people are asked to consider how their lives would be impacted if pure, safe water was not available. Mr. Benoit explained, “This year, tens of thousands of people across Texas, Louisiana, Florida and Puerto Rico saw firsthand what it is like to be without safe drinking water. Right now, an estimated one-third of the people in Puerto Rico do not have access to running water.
We invest in water sources, water treatment, distribution system and IT systems so that families and communities served by Connecticut Water have a dependable supply of safe water for good health, sanitation, and public fire protection.
In Connecticut, Connecticut Water — through its Connecticut public water utility companies, Avon Water Company, Connecticut Water Company and Heritage Village Water Company — serves more than 100,000 customers, or about 325,000 people, in the state of Connecticut.
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FEMA authorized $70 million to Puerto Rico’s water authority as questions arise over the safety of the potable water that has been restored, the agency announced Wednesday morning.
Although the president of the Authority of Aqueducts and Sewers (AAA as it’s known in Spanish) defended the quality of the drinking water, the EPA is recommending that Puerto Ricans take steps to ensure the water is safe for drinking.
The tablets were donated by the UN World Food Programme and are used to disinfect water.
In Washington, administration officials held a briefing for all House members on he relief effort in Puerto Rico.
He said he asked how many daily drops were being done, but the officials did not have that information, which he thought they should know.
2 Democrat in the House, said administration officials informed the members that it has executed two contracts to mobilize "whatever it takes to restore the power grid in Puerto Rico, which is an important step."
While progress is being made, I continue to be deeply concerned by reports that there are still rural communities in Puerto that are desperate for food and water," said Hoyer, D-Md.
There is some concern among Democrats that Wednesday marked three weeks since Hurricane Maria made landfall and communities are still without life-saving resources, according to a Democratic aide.

The coalition is a member of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), which includes more than 300 shareholders internationally and uses that leverage to work with companies on social, environmental and governance issues. Most of its members are congregations of women religious.
Sisters are using the U.N.’s "Human Right to Water," which says water should be accessible, safe and affordable to all, as a standard for what they expect from companies.
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility was the only stakeholder to ask Campbell to take a stance on the human right to water, said Dave Stangis, vice president of corporate responsibility at Campbell.
Shareholders must hold more than $2,000 worth of stock for at least a year before they can file a resolution voted on at the company’s annual meeting.
Tyson has not yet adopted a water stewardship policy that the group has put forth, but Mary Beth Gallagher, executive director of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment (also a member of the interfaith coalition), said more investors sign on to the resolution every year.
Through the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Sisters of Mercy also use their power as investors to hold mining companies accountable — namely Freeport-McMoRan and Newmont — as mining affects both contamination of and accessibility to water.
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility also plans to address leather tannery issues in Bangladesh.
"Sometimes the immediate reaction is to pull out and not use them as suppliers, but that doesn’t help the people in Bangladesh who need jobs," Byron said.
McGrath said the speakers reminded her "to do my best to see what we could do as the Congregation of Notre Dame, becoming part of Blue Community."

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Dakota Access oil pipeline can continue operating while a study is completed to assess its environmental impact on an American Indian tribe.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s decision will come as a blow to the Standing Rock Sioux, who have argued that an oil spill from the pipeline under Lake Oahe — from which the tribe draws its water — could have a detrimental effect on the tribal community.
Boasberg also acknowledged that shutting down the pipeline would disrupt the energy industry, but said it wasn’t a major factor in his decision.
Boasberg ruled on June 14 that the Corps largely complied with environmental law, but he ordered the agency to reconsider certain areas of its analysis, and took arguments on whether to shut down the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) pipeline while the work is done.
Boasberg in June said the Corps didn’t adequately consider how an oil spill under the Lake Oahe reservoir on the Missouri River in the Dakotas might affect the Standing Rock Sioux.
The judge said the Corps also didn’t adequately study how the pipeline might disproportionately affect the tribal community — a concept known as environmental justice.
In its analysis of the Missouri River crossing, the Corps studied the mostly white demographics in a half-mile (0.8-kilometer) radius, which the agency maintains is standard.
Boasberg in his ruling Wednesday said that issue was "a closer call" than the others, but that it still did not justify shutting down the pipeline.
ETP maintained that a shutdown would cost it $90 million monthly and significantly disrupt the broader energy industry as well as state and local tax revenue.
Tribal attorneys argued that ETP had overstated the potential effects of a shutdown, and Boasberg acknowledged "some cause for skepticism" regarding ETP’s predictions.

And even where there is water, officials are advising residents to boil it beforehand, to ensure that it is safe to consume. “Dozens of water and wastewater treatment plants remain inactive after the hurricane. And damage to the laboratories where water quality is analyzed has forced the island’s water authority to outsource the task to private entities,” NBC News reported. On Wednesday, FEMA announced that it had authorized $70 million dollars to the Puerto Rican government to restore water safety.
These reports come as the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico remains dire. Roughly 35 percent of residents still don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water, and an even larger portion of the population still does not have electricity.

PARBAT, Oct 12: Every year, the District Coordination Committee and the District Drinking Water and Sanitation Division Office (DDWSDO), Rolpa, publicize a report showing the increase in people’s access to drinking water in Kushma Municipality.
Despite several efforts to increase the students’ access to drinking water at Janata Sudarshan Higher Secondary School (JSHSS) of ward no.12 of the Municipality, the students are still deprived of the basic amenity. There is not even a single water tap at the school. According to Meghnath Acharya, principal of JSHSS, no availability of water is a major problem of the school.
There is no settlement around the school as it is situated near a jungle.
Principal Acharya informed Republica that even after taking initiatives, the school authority has not been able to bring water as there are no sources of drinking water available nearby.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill written by Bakersfield Assemblymember Rudy Salas which authorized the expansion of state safe drinking water funds for those in disadvantaged communities.
SACRAMENTO – Governor Jerry Brown has signed Assembly Bill (AB) 560, authored by Assemblymember Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield), authorizing the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to expand the eligibility for the state’s safe drinking water funds to severely disadvantaged communities (SDCs) who need the funding for water projects. “I applaud the governor’s signing of AB 560, which is going to provide more flexibility and expand access for communities that need funding from the state to bring safe, clean drinking water to their residents,” said Assemblymember Rudy Salas. Currently, only water systems whose service areas qualify as SDCs and are smaller than 10,000 residents are eligible for grants, principal forgiveness, or zero percent financing. “Our public water systems are doing all they can to provide safe reliable drinking water and we should be doing everything we can to make sure costs are not passed onto California families,” said Mayor Jose Gurrola Jr., City of Arvin. “We appreciate the vision and leadership of Assemblymember Salas and Governor Brown in signing AB 560 to make sure that families in communities like Arvin have access to clean and affordable water.” AB 560 authorizes the State Water Board to prioritize funding for water systems that serve SDCs on a discretionary, case-by-case basis regardless of the community’s population size, if the water system can demonstrate that paying back a safe drinking water loan would result in an increase in a household water bill to unaffordable rates. The bill increases the types of financial assistance larger SDCs can access through the state’s safe drinking water fund to help with drinking water affordability.
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