Walden: Making bipartisan progress on safe drinking water.
Many of these pipes were laid in the early to mid-20th century with an expected lifespan of 75 to 100 years.
While in most places, drinking water quality remains high, we also have seen horrible problems from Flint, Michigan to drinking fountains in Oregon schools.
From the end of 1997 through 2016, Oregon has received more than $274 million in grants to help improve the safety and quality of tap water, comply with drinking water rules and reporting requirements, and give a helping hand to the most economically distressed communities struggling to provide their residents safe drinking water.
This fiscal year, Oregon is set to receive nearly $12 million in funding to improve its water systems.
Our bill, the Drinking Water System Improvement Act, continues those important investments and authorizes $8 billion over five years for the drinking water fund while also expanding the number of ways in which the fund can be used to improve delivery systems.
In fact, we’re authorizing an increase of $350 million in funding for next year from which states such as Oregon could benefit.
Perhaps most important is how the bill looks to the future, using smart-technology to monitor drinking water quality in real-time.
The ability to have up-to-the-minute information helps ensure water is safe and clean, system leaks and recent contamination are identified quickly, and the accuracy and availability of compliance data is maintained.
■ Rep. Greg Walden (R-Hood River), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, represents Oregon’s second congressional district, which includes 20 counties in central, southern and Eastern Oregon.

It can sustain or destroy.
Bangladesh has been chosen as one of the several countries to host a HLPW consultation meeting that aims at providing the leadership required championing a comprehensive, inclusive, and collaborative way of developing and managing water resources, and improving water and sanitation related services, reports the Global Water Partnership(GWP), which participated in the meeting.
Water, More than a Substance The Valuing Water Preamble include eight key values and facts: Water is precious, fragile, and dangerous.
It can sustain or destroy.
Water is essential for human health, food security, energy supplies, sustaining cities and the environment.
Valuing water can help balance the multiple uses and services provided by water and inform decisions about allocating water across uses and services to maximise well-being.
Valuing water can make the cost of pollution and waste apparent and promote greater efficiency and better practices.
Bellagio Principles on Valuing Water The Bellagio Principles on Valuing Water set the following five main principles: Recognise Water’s Multiple Values Principle 1.
Protect the Sources Principle 3.
Protecting sources and controlling pollutants and other pressures are necessary for sustainable development.

France’s top court just ordered the government to provide water to the hundreds of migrants in Calais.
Thomson Reuters PARIS (Reuters) – France’s highest administrative court on Monday ruled President Emmanuel Macron’s government and the Calais region must provide hundreds of migrants with drinking water, showers and toilets.
Rejecting that appeal, the Conseil d’Etat ruled that the treatment of migrants was inhuman.
"These shortcomings are a serious and unlawful infringement on a fundamental freedom."
Last week, Human Rights Watch pressed France to end what it described as recurrent police violence against migrants in Calais, where hundreds have returned despite the demolition of a sprawling camp.
Many of the Calais migrants seek a better life in Britain.
The European Union is struggling to find a coherent answer to a migration crisis that has tested cooperation between member states.
Macron has instructed his government to speed up France’s asylum process.
(Reporting by Richard Lough, Editing by Ed Osmond) Read the original article on Reuters.
Copyright 2017.

With Water Fantasy Ad, Nestle Begins New Pure Life Push.
While bottled water sales are surging, shoppers don’t make much of a distinction of one brand over another, especially for mass-produced mainstream brands devoid of bubbles or flavors.
Nestle Pure Life has done quite well in this environment; it grew volume 1% last year to keep its spot as the top-selling U.S. plain bottled water brand, according to Beverage Digest.
But with Coke’s Dasani and PepsiCo’s Aquafina lurking, Nestle is not resting easy.
Pure Life starting this week is launching a big new global campaign aimed at making its bottles less of a commodity by giving consumers more reasons to buy the brand than just the water inside.
"Today when consumers are buying Nestle Pure Life, and for that matter a lot of the other brands, it’s quite frankly a transaction.
You walk into the grocery store [and] you’ve got a universe of brands in your mind that you feel are all relatively all of equal quality," said Andrius Dapkus, VP-general manager of Pure Life at Nestle Waters North America.
"You see it on display, you put it in your cart and you move on and you’re gone."
The goal of the rebranding is "to make the choice of Nestle Pure Life a conscious choice for our consumers, a purposeful choice.
And we are going to do that by connecting the actions that we take as a brand to that choice," he said.

Two Billion People Worldwide Lack Access To Clean Water.
(IPS) – More than two billion people lack access to clean and safe drinking water, according to a new report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Although significant progress to ensure access to drinking water has been achieved, there is still a long way to go to ensure its quality—deemed free from pollutants and safe for drinking.
“Every day, 800 children under the age of five die from waterborne diseases like diarrhoea.
In many countries, open defecation due to the lack of in-house toilets poses a significant challenge.
While the global drop in open defecation from 20 to 12 percent between 2000 and 2015 is a welcome fact, the rate of decline, at just .7 percent every year, puts pressure on governments to do more.
Still, some countries like Ethiopia have combatted the issue of open defecation successfully.
Critical building blocks like stronger policies at the government levels and dutiful allocation of funds can go a long way,” Wijesekera said.
These issues—from access to safe drinking water to sanitation supplies—mostly affect the poorest families.
For example, Angola, which has performed better than other sub-Saharan African countries and achieved overall basic access to water for its citizens, still shows a gap of 40 percent between people who live in urban and rural areas.

Top French court orders government to provide water to Calais migrants.
PARIS (Reuters) – France’s highest administrative court on Monday ruled President Emmanuel Macron’s government and the Calais region must provide hundreds of migrants with drinking water, showers and toilets.
Charities and the national human rights watchdog have been fiercely critical of the squalid conditions facing hundreds of migrants who have converged again on the northern port city after government bulldozers razed a camp known as the "Jungle".
Rejecting that appeal, the Conseil d’Etat ruled that the treatment of migrants was inhuman.
"These shortcomings are a serious and unlawful infringement on a fundamental freedom."
While Macron has called for migrants to be treated with dignity, his own government has taken a tough stance, refusing to open a new migrant reception center in Calais, saying it would act as a magnet for other migrants.
Last week, Human Rights Watch pressed France to end what it described as recurrent police violence against migrants in Calais, where hundreds have returned despite the demolition of a sprawling camp.
Many of the Calais migrants seek a better life in Britain.
The European Union is struggling to find a coherent answer to a migration crisis that has tested cooperation between member states.
Macron has instructed his government to speed up France’s asylum process.

Reflecting on decades of devotion to Cambodia’s development.
As CWS prepares to end its engagement in Cambodia next year, I joined with my colleagues in Kampong Thom province to celebrate 24 years of partnering with families, communities and local government, as they work with us to improve their food security, health, education and access to clean water.
CWS started working in 34 villages in this central Cambodia province in 1993 responding to the resettlement rights and needs of repatriates from the Khmer-Thai border.
A few years later CWS transitioned focus from humanitarian assistance to community development partnership.
Then, for the next two decades CWS staff and volunteers worked in partnership with families, communities and local government leaders on integrated programs focusing on food security, health, access to clean water and sanitation, emergency response when needed, and also demining.
For example, access to safe drinking water has significantly increased over the last decade.
In addition, by educating communities about diversified and improved vegetable gardening, through seed and tool supplementation and composting, CWS has helped families decrease their food insecurity, which is measured by the amount of time they have access to enough food to meet minimum daily calorie and nutrition intake.
In 2008, 86% of families experienced food insecurity; now that number has reduced significantly to 61%.
Access to antenatal care has also improved, with more than 93% of the mothers with whom CWS works visiting a health facility for antenatal care and safe delivery.
Mao Sophal is CWS Cambodia Country Representative.

Development is much more than just economic growth.
Haq, an internationally renowned Pakistani economist, worked with Sen, an economic theorist, to advance a new approach of measuring development that amalgamated human and social improvements with economic growth.
Thus, development of the state is strongly linked with numerous factors other than income growth, such as health, education, nutrition, access to clean drinking water, access to energy, infrastructure and mobility among others.
In fact, economic, social and human development are all contingent upon each other.
Does economic growth cause better social and human outcomes or better social and human indicators translate into economic growth.
This proves that investment in human and social development would lead to economic growth.
On the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), an indicator devised by Haq, which amalgamates standards of living and economic growth, in 2016 Pakistan ranked 147th with a value of 0.55.
The closer the value is to 1, the better the performance of the country.
If Pakistan has to improve its development rankings and ensure better citizenry for all, the policy-makers will have to invest considerably more in these deprived regions.
This is followed by infrastructure (Rs172.1 billion).

Development is much more than just economic growth.
Haq, an internationally renowned Pakistani economist, worked with Sen, an economic theorist, to advance a new approach of measuring development that amalgamated human and social improvements with economic growth.
Thus, development of the state is strongly linked with numerous factors other than income growth, such as health, education, nutrition, access to clean drinking water, access to energy, infrastructure and mobility among others.
In fact, economic, social and human development are all contingent upon each other.
Does economic growth cause better social and human outcomes or better social and human indicators translate into economic growth.
This proves that investment in human and social development would lead to economic growth.
On the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), an indicator devised by Haq, which amalgamates standards of living and economic growth, in 2016 Pakistan ranked 147th with a value of 0.55.
The closer the value is to 1, the better the performance of the country.
If Pakistan has to improve its development rankings and ensure better citizenry for all, the policy-makers will have to invest considerably more in these deprived regions.
This is followed by infrastructure (Rs172.1 billion).

The notice began a 30-day period for public comments, motions and intervenors in the decision.
Among the changes is a request to raise the target water elevations of three lakes — James, Norman and Wylie.
“Raising reservoir normal target elevations by 6 inches on our three largest storage reservoirs increases available storage by approximately 8 billion gallons,” said Kim Crawford, company spokesperson.
They also help solve a problem Duke and municipal water providers along the Catawba discovered throughout a hydroelectric relicensing project dating back more than a decade.
A study found the amount of water needed from the Catawba — drinking water, power, the whole lot — would exceed what it yields by 2048.
Further studies began, largely from the Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group made up of Duke and municipal suppliers, on how to extend that deadline.
Boat ramps on Lake Wylie were closed because of low water for part of 2015 and 2016.
Lake Wylie Marine Commission member Brad Thomas recently asked what Duke can do when it rains to ward off problems when it doesn’t.
“These 95-degree days, you have millions of gallons of evaporation,” he said.
Even in normal rain patterns the lake level can sit a few inches off the target.