by Al Bawaba, originally posted on January 1, 2017

Daesh in Syria have cut off the water supply from two pumping stations on the Euphrates to the east of the city of Aleppo, which was recently liberated from militants.

The blockage occurred on Friday, prompting Aleppo’s Water Organization, Syria’s Red Crescent Society, and local residents to look for ways to restore the water supply to the city.

Rebel groups in Syria have resorted to cutting off water supplies to different residential areas in an apparent bid to retaliate battlefield losses.

On Thursday, the United Nations warned that four million people in the Syrian capital city of Damascus had been deprived of safe drinking water supplies for over a week after springs outside the city were deliberately contaminated by militants.

Water supplies from the Wadi Barada and Ain al-Fija springs to the northwest of Damascus, which served 70 percent of the population in the city, were cut after water facilities were deliberately targeted and damaged, the UN announced in a statement.

Syrian officials had earlier detected diesel contamination in the water piped to the capital and had cut supplies over safety concerns.

According to the UN, 15 million people across Syria are in need of help to access water and households spend nearly a quarter of their income on water.

In a separate development on Friday, the Syrian government forces found a cache of US-manufactured weapons worth of millions of dollars in eastern Aleppo, Russian media reported. The weapons had been sent to the rebel fighters in hundreds of boxes disguised as humanitarian aid, the reports said.

An evacuation deal brokered by Russia and Turkey recently saw militants move from the east of the city — which had been held by armed groups for four years — to designated areas in the Idlib Governorate. As the evacuations were underway, the Syrian government said that trucks meant to deliver humanitarian aid to the area under the auspices of international organizations had to be inspected. Some of those organizations, however, denied inspections.

Last week, a Syrian army unit also discovered a major cache loaded with a considerable amount of munitions in an Aleppo neighborhood. The military later released footage of the weapons depot.

On Friday, the Syrian army announced a nationwide halt to fighting under a deal with the foreign-backed opposition. The ceasefire, also brokered by Russia and Turkey, does not apply to Daesh and Fateh al-Sham terrorist groups.

Over the past almost six years, Syria has been fighting foreign-sponsored militancy. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated in August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the Syrian crisis until then. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

originally posted on January 02, 2017

The choice of Keppel Infrastructure Holdings to design, build, own and operate Singapore’s fourth desalination plant is welcome news, particularly since it will be the first with the ability to treat sea water and fresh water. The plant, expected to be operational in 2020, will bring the country closer to its aim of meeting 85 per cent of its water needs through desalination and Newater by 2060. That would be so despite the demand for water then being expected to double. The plant will also help decrease the Republic’s external dependence for its drinking water needs. A fifth desalination plant will add credibility to Singapore’s efforts to achieve water security by anticipating and ameliorating the effects of climate change.

Singapore’s strategy for water security flows out of what are called “Four National Taps”. These are local catchment water, imported water, the highly purified reclaimed water better known as Newater and desalinated water. Desalination, which produces pure drinking water by moving sea water through membranes to remove dissolved salts and minerals, contributes significantly to the effectiveness of that integrated framework. Singapore, which turned on its fourth water tap in 2005 with the opening of the SingSpring Desalination Plant in Tuas, plans to double its desalination capacity by 2030 and triple it by 2060 to meet up to 30 per cent of its future water needs.

However, energy efficiency needs to be factored into these projections. Singapore will have to provide for its water needs with a keen eye on both economic and environmental costs. Desalination, like any other major industrial process, has an ecological impact. It has been argued that the energy used in desalination contributes to climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, there also are concerns about the consequences of desalination on the health of the marine environment. As an island, Singapore has to take such concerns seriously, even as it uses advances in technology to provide water for domestic and industrial use. It is reassuring that national water agency PUB’s goal is to halve the desalination energy used in the future.

What will make a key difference to that future will be the direction of popular attitudes to water conservation. Scholars have noted that tariff increases, efficiency measures and awareness strategies play an important role in promoting the responsible use of water. But in asking what more can be done, a gap appears between principle and practice. In principle, most Singaporeans are well aware of the need to conserve water, which is nothing less than a strategic resource. In practice, however, plenitude of supply dilutes stringency of use. The very fact that the taps do not run dry begets the belief that they never can, unlike in countries where water scarcity is a fact of life. Singaporeans must beware of complacency.

originally posted on December 29, 2016

by Elias O. Baquero, originally posted on January 05, 2017

A PRIVATE firm has been extracting water in the northern town of Carmen and supplying it in bulk to the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).

But residents of Barangay Cogon, who pay the Carmen Municipal Water System P35 a month, are complaining that no water is coming out of their faucet.

Unmet demand

Cogon Barangay Captain Rene Mahilum said businesses in his barangay are also complaining about the lack of water.

He said their situation is ironic because the water from the reservoir passes their barangay, yet they only have water at 5 a.m. and only for one hour.

A press statement from a concerned citizen said that an unnamed source from the municipal water system revealed that the town’s water demand is about 104,000 cubic meters per day, but production is only 52,000 cubic meters.

If the figure is right, then the demand is about one-third of the demand of Metro Cebu, which include the cities of Talisay, Mandaue, Cebu and Lapu-Lapu and the towns of Minglanilla, Consolacion, Liloan and Cordova under MCWD, at 300,000 cubic meters.

Politicized

MCWD generates more than 200,000 cubic meters of water a day and supplies it to about 42 percent of Metro Cebu residents.

Meanwhile, Mahilum said Carmen Mayor Gerald Villamor is determined to allow a private firm to put up parallel water connections to solve their problem, but the municipal council blocked the proposal.

Villamor could not be contacted for his comment at press time. “This is issue has been politicized in the town already,” Mahilum said. Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 06, 2017.

By Lynn Horsley, originally posted on November 9, 2016

More than 100 people packed the Kansas City Council chamber Wednesday in opposition to the planned Dakota Access Pipeline that would run under the Missouri River.

The Public Safety and Neighborhoods committee endorsed the environmental justice resolution in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council, and the measure goes to the full Council Thursday for debate.

At first, resolution sponsor Katheryn Shields said she was going to pull her measure because she was heartbroken by Tuesday’s election. She said she felt the incoming Donald Trump administration and Republican Congress might well defund the Environmental Protection Agency, and her resolution against the pipeline development would just fall on deaf ears in Washington, D.C.

But after impassioned appeals from members of the crowd, Shields relented and voted to advance her resolution to the council for Thursday’s vote.

Councilmembers Alissia Canady and Quinton Lucas agreed, although Lucas said he may vote against the measure Thursday because he believes it’s a federal matter, not a city matter. Councilwoman Heather Hall left the meeting before the vote.

Shields said the testimony convinced her the resolution sent a crucial message to the Native American tribes fighting the pipeline, “to say we support them.”

Tearfully, she added, “Whether anyone in Washington listens is beside the point.”

The crowd at City Hall is fighting the proposed pipeline, which would carry a half million barrels per day of crude oil from the Bakken shale oil fields of North Dakota to Illinois, would could adversely affect the Missouri River watershed and fragile landscapes and Native American cultural resources.

The committee was asked to endorse a resolution similar to one adopted by St. Louis; St. Paul, Minn.; and Cleveland elected leaders, in opposition to the pipeline and in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council.

Supporters worry the pipeline could contaminate Missouri River drinking water along and downstream from the proposed route, through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. The Missouri River is the drinking water source for Kansas City and many other cities in Missouri.

Environmental activists see the pipeline as a threat to Native American sacred spaces and to the Missouri River watershed. Kansas City Chief Environmental Officer Dennis Murphey cited oil spills in recent years in the Yellowstone and Kalamazoo rivers as indicative of the risks.

John Fish Kurmann, a member of 350 Kansas City, a climate action organization, testified Wednesday that climate change is an emergency that the City Council should not ignore.

“Now is not the time to go into a defensive crouch,” he said. “Now is not the time to back down.”

Mary Benrud of the Kansas City area said she had spent three weeks at Standing Rock in solidarity with protesters there, on behalf of her children and grandchildren.

“I want my children to have clean drinking water,” she said, adding that the resolution would be a great encouragement to the tribes protesting the project.

By Chitra Narayanan, originally posted on November 9, 2016

Twenty per cent of Chennai’s population drinks treated sea water today. Going forward Chennai could be the desalination capital of not just India but the world. Rajiv Mittal, MD & CEO of V A Tech Wabag, a leader in waste water management and the firm behind India’s largest seawater desalination plant, feels the coastal city is doing many things right in water.

Aren’t desalination plants an expensive solution to provide drinking water?

Expensive is a relative term. In a place like Chennai, which does not have adequate fresh water resources, has limited reservoirs and is in a rain shadow, how does a city sustain? Either a conscious decision is made to curb the growth of the city. Or you find solutions.

Chennai adopted the recycle model so that industries could sustain. I also give full marks to the State government for rainwater harvesting policies. The third step was desalination. Actually, re-used water can be good for drinking water.. Singapore uses it.. but it is mentally not acceptable to citizens here. The government recognised that mental block and brought in sea water. Costs are nothing compared to bottled water. It costs 6 paise a litre, Rs. 60 for 1000 litres against Rs. 15 for a litre of bottled water. Even a tanker, you pay 15 paise and you don’t know how safe that water is. Whereas desalinated water is safe, clean and potable.

Chennai is a great example of bold initiatives. It has shown the intent and been bold enough in the face of criticism that sea water is expensive to go ahead. Currently, 20 per cent of Chennai’s population is living on it. There will be a time soon when 60 per cent of the city will live on it. It’s a model that at least coastal India can adopt.

What about other parts of India? What model can they adopt?

Awareness is needed on water management. Water has been taken as granted for very long, it’s free, available and abused, so you don’t bother to care or maintain it. The good news is that most states are today talking about not only managing their water bodies, but also the need to treat and manage the dirty water, whether from industries or houses, before going into sewage. That’s a big mind shift. It means less strain on freshwater resources. There is also a revenue model to this approach as water instead of being seen as a liability becomes a resource.

If you look at Chennai, they have been selling treated sewage. Companies like CPCL, Madras Fertilizer have all been using this to run their establishments, thereby converting a liability into a resource.

When setting up new buildings or plants you can put in waste management solutions. How easy is it to retrofit?

It’s absolutely possible, we have done some multi-storeys, where there was no space. We went into the basement and made some small tanks and sent the treated water up for air conditioning. Old buildings are difficult because they have single pipes whereas new ones have two pipes, and so need to invest in new plumbing. But forget about social obligation, it’s a commercial need now.

In your reckoning, how many outfits in India recycle water?

Less than 4 per cent.

Isn’t there a mandate?

There is a water policy. How strictly they will implement remains to be seen. But the government has to incentivise, either use carrot or stick approach. The same way they do with power. For instance, on power plants, if you use air cooled condensers rather than water cooled condensers, you get more benefits. It’s costlier to put up air cooled condensers but then you are saving water. These are things that need to be done on a broad scale.

Also a lot of vested interests go into which technology to use, rather than looking into which is most appropriate. As long as this is not stopped, we will continue to get technologies that are not sustainable.

Don’t you think the biggest mindset change will come only if we see an example like Ganga being actually cleaned. You are involved in the project now. Can it ever be cleaned?

100 per cent it can be cleaned. The question to be asked is why it has not been cleaned despite 40 years of effort. Is it the capital cost, was it the technology, what was the reason the scheme did not work for the investment that was done.

In my view, the main reason was the administration and management of the plants. If you build a plant costing Rs. 1000 crore and give it to local urban body, what is the chance they will operate it well? They don’t have the money to pay the power bill, they don’t have money for the chemicals.

If you look most of the plants built for the project are defunct. Before we build anything new, what can we do to renovate, refurbish these and give it to a private party where you can have a performance contract. Even if I shut down the plant for one hour, a penalty can be charged – but if they are themselves operating, what penalty can they give?

Second, they have built certain technologies that are not suitable. They guzzle so much power that the State government is unable to provide. Today, you have technologies where all the power is generated from the waste water itself. In all our plants in Chennai, we produce power from waste water. Sixty per cent cost of operating a plant is power bills, if that bill we make zero, and also earn revenue from treated sewage, the plant becomes viable.

We, as a technology company have an obligation to bring technologies that are sustainable. That part is available today. They just have to select the right technologies that are sustainable for the long term.

By Alton Mitchell, originally posted on November 9, 2016

The looming drought over LaFayette and Chambers County is getting worse and now local residents will feel the effects first hand. On Monday evening LaFayette City Council members approved measures to help conserve water in the city after closely monitoring the situation with falling water levels.

Two weeks ago council members announced that they were requesting local residents to seek methods to help reduce their consumption of water. At the time those voluntary cutbacks were announced it was announced that the situation was going to be monitored closely and would be updated at further council meetings.

On Monday evening Mayor Barry Moody announced that he and Katie Hill had been watching the situation very closely over the past three weeks and with the situation still growing worse the city is moving into something known as Phase One of water cutbacks now.

Phase one will create mandatory cutbacks in outdoor water usage in LaFayette. Those cutbacks will include limiting the use of watering outdoors such as lawns and washing cars. Katie Hill announced that those cutbacks will not impact business that have a license to operate with water usage such as car washes.

The cutbacks will take effect this Thursday November 10, 2016 and will impact all of LaFayette. The local forecast does not show any significant signs of rain in the near future. The lack of rain means the water cutback measures may be present in LaFayette for a while.

Native American waterways are less likely to be monitored for pollution.

-By Amy Martyn, originally posted on November 9, 2016

A crude oil pipeline slated to pass under the Missouri River and sacred Native American tribal land was one of the few hot-button political issues that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump wanted to touch during this election.

The Dakota Access Pipeline was approved by the feds last July and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, unless protesters successfully stop it. Protesters and lawsuits note that the Missouri River is an important source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who have led the historic fight against the project.

The Corps responded that the pipeline would pose “no significant impact” on the waterways. But if recent history is any indication, the federal government is probably not the best judge of protecting Native American waterways.

More problems, less enforcement

The report published in Policy Studies Journal found that tribal water facilities received 44 percent fewer inspections than water plants not on tribal land, even though tribal utilities committed 57 percent more drinking water violations. “This suggests regulatory neglect,”  Manny Teodoro, a lead researcher on the study, told Environmental Health News.

The researchers chose to study enforcement of federal drinking water laws on tribal lands because “Indian reservations are homes to a disproportionately poor, historically subjugated racial group,” the researchers wrote, and  “analysis of environmental programs on tribal lands offers a unique perspective on environmental justice.”

The story is not that different from that of other low-income, minority communities in America, which also often lack access to safe drinking water or any piped water at all.

The Environmental Protection Agency has of course enforced some water violations on tribal land. In 2013, the agency reached a $136,000 settlement over drinking water violations on the Hopi Reservation. The Hopis’ public water supply system is controlled by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, and according to the EPA, the Bureau had failed to monitor drinking water for arsenic and disinfectant compounds, leading the water to grow contaminated.

Lack of local control

Most tribes are not in charge of enforcing Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act violations on their own water, as they must gain permission from the EPA to obtain that control.  The EPA currently lists 53 tribes that it has deemed eligible to apply for that authority,  a small fraction of the nation’s 567 federally-recognized tribes.

The Navajo Nation was the first Native American tribe to achieve that feat when the EPA granted them regulatory control in 2001. The Navajo reportedly had to spend 10 years working on the application process before they finally won approval.

Cuomo Denies Permit for Northern Access Pipeline.
More than 400 people came to Albany, New York on April 5, 2016 to urge the Cuomo administration to reject shale gas projects in New York state.
Photo credit: Erik McGregor New York State blocked the Northern Access Project on March 7, a pipeline that would have carried fracked gas from Pennsylvania to Canada via New York.
This is a huge victory not just for New Yorkers but for the entire planet.
Without 401 certification, the natural gas pipeline cannot go forward within the state.
The pipeline would have directly harmed 192 streams, 600 acres of forests and more than 17 acres of wetlands in the state and would have crossed one sole source aquifer—the Cattaraugus Creek Basin Aquifer System—the sole source of drinking water for 20,000 residents in Cattaraugus, Erie and Wyoming counties in New York.
DEC’s decision to deny 401 certification for the pipeline is not the first time that Gov.
Cuomo has taken bold action to protect the environment.
In 2015, New York State was the first state with natural gas resources to ban fracking in the U.S. and in 2016, the State denied a 401 certification to Constitution pipeline, another natural gas pipeline that could have significantly harmed state water quality.
We commend Gov.Cuomo and Commissioner Seggos’ decision to stop this pipeline from moving forward.

By Mark Brush and Rebecca Williams, originally posted on November 8, 2016

Nestle owns a water bottling plant in Stanwood, Michigan, north of Grand Rapids. It bottles spring water for its Ice Mountain and Pure Life brands.

The company wants to increase the amount of water it pulls out of the ground at one of its wells. The well is about 35 miles north of Stanwood in Evart, Michigan. To do that, it needs a permit from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and the public is supposed to weigh in on whether the company should get that permit.

But a lot of people didn’t hear about it – until it was almost too late.

This issue had flown under most people’s radar until Garret Ellison at MLive published a story about it last week.

The DEQ said it had received zero comments from the public until that article was published. It was published three days before a 45-day public comment period was about to end.

Carrie Monosmith is the chief of the environmental health section for the DEQ’s drinking water office. The public comments go to her. Last Friday she told us that since Ellison’s piece was published, they had heard from a lot of people.

“As of this morning we have received over 1,700 e-mail comments,” said Monosmith. “We’re pretty swamped right now.”

Even the environmental group that had fought a long-protracted legal battle with Nestle, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, hadn’t heard about the permit application.

More from Garret Ellison’s story:

The group wasn’t aware of Nestle’s new plans until being contacted by MLive. The Nestle proposal was published last month in the DEQ Environmental Calendar, a bi-weekly clearinghouse for permitting decisions, new administrative rules and other official notices that is not widely read by the general public.

Monosmith says publishing in the online MDEQ calendar is typically all it does. She says they don’t really have a procedure beyond this for notifying the public.

“This is the first time we’ve been hit real hard with this thing,” said Monosmith. “So I can tell you going forward we will have a procedure that will have a public comment period. We will likely always have a hearing and we will likely publish information that public comment period is available in a newspaper or some other main source for the media.”

So, at least for this division that handles groundwater withdrawals, this experience could bring about some change in how they handle public notice.

They’ve extended the public comment period for Nestle’s permit until March 3, 2017. And they are also planning to hold a public hearing on Nestle’s permit in 2017. They are looking for a suitable location for that hearing now.

Striking a nerve with Michigan residents

The Nestle water bottling plant was quite a controversial issue when it first started in the early 2000s. Under Michigan law, water bottlers don’t have to pay for the water they pull out of the ground.

It’s free to them to pump and sell.

Nestle’s long legal battle with Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation concluded with a settlement in 2009. Nestle had to put a cap on what it could withdraw from a well in Mecosta County.

Now it’s back at another well, wanting to increase what it pumps. The permit application states that the company wants to go from taking 150 gallons per minute to 400 gallons per minute.

But, in 2015, the DEQ already approved a 100 gallons per minute increase at this well in Evart. So the company has approval to pump at 250 gallons per minute now. This application, if approved, will allow them to pump 400 gallons per minute.

Arlene Anderson is Nestle’s natural resource manager for the Midwest region. She says the company has been preparing for this expansion.

“We’ve done extensive monitoring. We have well over a hundred monitoring points that we’ve monitored for over 16 years including groundwater, wetlands, aquatic life, temperature, springs — a very extensive database,” says Anderson.

“We’re very confident that this can sustain 400 gallons a minute without adverse impact,” she says.

But now that people have discovered what Nestle wants to do, they are asking the state for more time to review the plan to verify Nestle’s claims.

The public notification process is … complicated

Not everyone pays attention to DEQ’s online environmental calendar. That’s where a lot of divisions publish pending decisions or proposals for permits.

Jim Olson is president of the environmental group For the Love of Water. And he was the lead attorney in that lawsuit against Nestle more than a decade ago.

Olson says Michigan used to have a robust and open public review process for things like this, but he says that’s changed.

Olson said it started with former Gov. John Engler. Engler split up Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources. Two agencies were then created: the MDEQ and the MDNR.

“And part of that reorganization, that split, got rid of commissions with hearings and public notices for air, water — all kinds of decisions like this. That was the first whack at the historic, and long tradition of Michigan having solid public notice in newspapers and information to various people and full disclosure of information and hearings and review processes and rights of citizens to go to water commissions and air commissions to ask questions,” says Olson.

“So we had a very effective open, vigorous review system that ensured that the decisions, even if somebody didn’t agree with them, have their day in, you know, in the open sun of public review. And that was a good thing .. and so there’s been a whittling away of a tradition of public notice and public participation,” says Olson.

We talked to people who work within the air quality and water resources divisions at DEQ. They said how they notify the public can vary by division. And even within divisions.

Some notices are published in the paper. Some are just on the online calendar. And some permit decisions never go out for public notice. It all depends on how each division handles it.

We’re told the department is reviewing how it handles public notices, and changes could be coming.

*This story was last updated at 11:40 am on 11/22/2016.