originally published in The Express Tribune on March 24, 2016

He says that his community does have access to tap water and tube wells used for irrigation. “But the water is far from drinkable. Hepatitis and gastroenteritis are common ailments in the area. Many people are affected by water borne diseases,” he says. According to Saaf Pani Company statistics, 13 per cent of the population in rural areas has access to tap water.

Bhatti Dhilwan is a small village near Sheikhupura. It is surrounded by factories and industrial units. Here, a filtration plant set up by Nestle Pakistan provides safe drinking water to 5,000 people.  It was set up at the Government Primary Boys School.

It is functional for five hours a day.

People get water between 7am and 10am in the morning and 4pm and 6pm in the evening.

“People travel long distances to get water from the plant because they know it’s clean,” Dogar says. “They come on rickshaws and motorcycles.”

Samson Simon Sharaf, the CEO of Eco Tech, says his company operates the filtration plant. “Traces of arsenic were found in the water in the area,” he says. “This filtration plant is among the few in the country that can remove arsenic.”

He says fecal contamination was another problem.

“People dig up shallow wells to dispose waste. This seeps into ground water,” he says.

“We tried to resolve this issue by pumping water from a depth of 500 feet,” he says. “This ensures that fecal matter does not contaminate water and reduces the risk of water-borne diseases.

Nestle also organised an awareness campaign where locals were informed about the benefits of using clean containers.

External Projects Manager Ali Ashar says the filtration plant provides 25,000 litres to the people in the area.

He says the company has established similar plants in Muzaffargarh, Kot Addu, Khanewal, Kabirwala and Sheikhupura and provides safe drinking water to 50,000 people every day.

The initiative at Bhatti Dhilwan was inaugurated in 2015. Ashar says these plants could be kept functional for three years after which would will be replaced with new equipment.

The southern state recorded the highest temperatures in the last decade at the beginning itself of 2016

-by Haritha John, originally posted on March 24, 2016

According to environmental activists, Kerala is going through highest recorded temperatures in the last decade at the beginning of this year itself. Palakkad district has crossed 40 degree Celsius several times, while Kannur hovers near 40 most of the time.

The average temperature in the rest of the districts is around 35 degree Celsius.

Severe drinking water problem has been reported from different parts of Kerala as fresh water bodies have started drying up. People in rural settlements which are exclusively dependent on natural water bodies are now traversing long miles just to access drinking water.

Saline water incursion­

Situation in cities are also not different. In cities like Kochi and Kannur, the saline content in the water supplied by the municipal corporations has increased, as when the water level in the rivers dip, sea water tends to enter the rive­­rs. Places like Kunnumpuram, Cherai, Thundiparambu, Kazhuthumuttu and Vypeen to name a few in Kochi have been reportedly receiving saline water.

In a study conducted on the summer of 2015 by the SCMS College in Kochi, it was revealed that last year’s summer saw the chloride concentration in water in these areas rise to 1000mg per litre as against the permissible limit of less than 250 mg in a litre of potable water.

 Rivers dry up

In cities like Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram, rivers are drying up rapidly with simultaneous reduction in water supply. Dr.V.Subhash Chandra Bose -Director at Communication and Capacity Development Unit (CCDU), Water Resource Department, Kerala- is alarmed at the prospect of chronic water shortage in the state, if such high temperatures continue to prevail.

For example -he says- the 300-million-litre per day treatment plant at Aruvikkara, one of the major plants that distributes water to the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram has water just about sufficient for hardly a month more of supply.

The plant mainly gets its water from the Peppara dam built across the Karama river in Thiruvananthapuram. The dam and the river which are well-known for its abundance of water have now almost dried up. Photographs of the catchment area of the dam proves it.

“Ideally we should get 10% of rainfall during the summers; the rest of the rain we usually receive during the monsoons. But this time, we hardly had any summer rain. Kerala has got orographic rainfall which depends on the Western Ghats; so deforestation of the ghats could be a major reason,” he feels.

“A rise in temperature first affects the surface water and gradually it will lead to drought and disasters,” he warns. He also adds that mono-culture i.e. cultivation of a single crop in a given area, rubber cultivation, urbanization etc… are all adversely affecting the water resources in the state.

So what will Kerala do if the current temperature prevails?

“If it does not rain this summer, next summer too will see us without access to any fresh water. Discussing about drought at the time of actual drought doesn’t make any sense. It should be done when there is plenty of water. Think about means of preserving water when we have abundant rains. There are hundreds of ways to harvest rain water. Save water for the future,” he says.

He also warns that 30 or 40 years ago, the rain water which fell on the Western Ghats reached the Arabian sea in three or four weeks’ time. Now the water hardly takes two days due to rapid urbanization. “So day by day, Nature is losing her capacity to preserve water, which makes man-made preservation of water all the more mandatory,” he stresses.

Most affected

Kerala is blessed with abundant sunlight and rain which makes it a fertile land for agriculture. The farmers are now the most affected by the impending drought-like situation.

In 2013, a study conducted by the state agricultural department found that drought caused a loss of Rs 24.13 crores to the farmers from paddy cultivation alone. The study also revealed that the loss in total agriculture cultivation in Palakkad district alone was around Rs 33 crores.

In 2016, reports say that 377 hectares of paddy farms have already been fully destroyed this summer, and 530 farmers have been affected.

Since 2016 has recorded such high temperatures at the beginning of the year itself, this could be much higher this year. Though Palakkad is the most affected, the situation in other districts is no less different.

Unless drastic remedial measures are not put in place by authorities concerned, Kerala -known as God’s Own Country- is now on the verge of becoming a literal hell-hole to live in.

originally posted on March 21, 2016

Around 55, 186 villagers in Odisha do not have access to drinking water. In urban areas 145 wards in the state lack access to drinking water facilities, according to the State Fourth Finance commission report.

The matter is worsened by the poor water quality with 20 per cent water in the state is chloride polluted, 70 per cent area has high iron content and  2 per cent is water is fluoride polluted.

Moreover,  various places  in the state are suffering from water crises namely, Bhograi, Khundari Pokri, Satyabadi, Saitala, Titilagarh, Jhumpura, Kendujhar  Ersama, Balikuda, Nuagaon and Khariar. These places have been recommended supply of drinking water from various water bodies at a cost of Rs 591 crore, by the commission.

But, the government has ignored  finances to for water resources in the recent budget with 6.75 per cent allotted for rural development and 3.49 per cent for urban development.

From western Odisha to coastal areas drinking water crisis looms ahead in parts of western Odisha Bargarh, Sonepur, Bolangir till Angul. The Odisha capital Bhubaneswar is also set to face water crisis, according to the commission report.

Notably, last year, a government notification had declared that the 9,618  drinking water facilities in villages are no longer under the village panchayat.

They will be maintained by Group zilla parimal committee, village welfare committee or women self help group and a monthly user fee will be collected from them.

Residents having to spend up to a fifth of their income on clean water – in a country where 76 million people lack access to a safe supply

-by Leila Nathoo, originally posted on March 21, 2016

As the clanking metal tanker turns into the gravel road, women carrying large plastic barrels vie to be first in line for the delivery. Within minutes, residents of this corner of Sangam Vihar, a sprawling unofficial settlement on the edge of Delhi, have attached a plastic pipe to the container, taking turns to drain its precious cargo: clean water.

Suddenly, a motorbike shoots into the alley, runs over the tube and punctures it. A jet spurts into the air, throwing the women into hysterical panic. “This tanker only comes once every 15 days. It’s not enough for us!” says Mamta Devi.

Like a quarter of Delhi households, Ms Devi and her neighbours get no piped water into their homes, forcing them to rely on ground water from bore wells, or on tankers bringing supplies from outside.

This tanker’s treated water is government-supplied and free, part of an attempt by authorities to break the stranglehold of what locals call the “water mafia” – those profiting from Delhi’s acute water shortage.

The Indian capital’s inability to satisfy its burgeoning population’s need for water mirrors the situation across the country where 76 million people, the highest number in the world, lack access to safe water, according to a report released today by WaterAid. A 2013 audit of Delhi’s water system found it provided 200 million gallons less per day than its 17 million residents require.

In Sangam Vihar, opportunist businessmen cashed in on the discrepancy, digging their own illegal wells or seizing official supplies to resell at a higher price, often, some claim, in cahoots with the authorities.

The populist Aam Aadmi Party, elected to run Delhi last year, has promised free water for all, with pipes into all unplanned residential areas and a crackdown on private suppliers.

“It is totally immoral,” says Dinesh Mohaniya, Sangam Vihar’s representative in the Delhi assembly, of the water mafia. “Even in India’s capital, more than 65 years after independence, we can’t provide drinking water to our citizens – it’s shameful.”

He says more Delhi water board tankers are now plying his constituency, tube wells have been recaptured and put under community control, and a newly extended pipeline is within reach of 70 per cent of the area’s people. But many are still forced to supplement supplies from private sources, and some appear untouched.

In Lalita Yadav’s neighbourhood, visits by official tankers are rare. She says her household, with a monthly income equivalent to £90, has to pay £20 a month for water from a private well. “I could put my children into a better school with that money,” she says angrily. “If we complain, they will cut off our water. For them, it’s just a business.”

One local supplier, Om Prakash, says he charges between 50 pence and £1 per month to the 100 families who draw water from the well outside his home, but denies he is profiteering and says he sells water at a nominal price. “I consider it a public service,” he said. But many bore wells are themselves running dry and much of the water pumped from underground is contaminated, so unsuitable for drinking.

The capital depends on the Yamuna, Ganges and Sutlej rivers of northern India for most of its supply, but years of mismanagement and the city’s booming population puts the resources under constant strain. Even those connected to the piped network only receive water a few hours each day.

The city’s vulnerability was exposed last month when rioters in neighbouring Haryana sabotaged a crucial canal, leaving millions without water for days. Dinesh Mohaniya says Delhi’s water board is focusing on water conservation. But that is not enough. “We can provide pipelines, we can create networks, but we can’t create water,” he said.

Gov Bello orders board to end water scarcity in Minna.
GOV Abubakar Bello of Niger has directed the State Water Board to immediately complete the repair of Chanchaga Water Works to save residents of Minna from water scarcity.
Bello gave the directive in Chanchaga on Wednesday when he inspected four electric motors imported from Germany to boost water supply in Minna metropolis.
The governor directed the water board and the contractor handling the project to speed up the repairs, saying that he was running out of patience.
“I am running out of patience with you.
You must fix this water plant with immediate effect, I am not ready to take any excuse from you that will further delay the fixing of the water works.
“Fix the water works so that there will be regular and adequate water supply in the state.
“We purchased these modern equipment to ensure constant water supply and reduce the suffering of our people,” he said.
Bello assured that the state government would also rehabilitate and upgrade other water works in Bida, Suleja and Kotangora, to ensure 24-hour water supply.
Earlier, Mr Outare Kokobissi, the contractor handling the project, said the company was making efforts to complete the project and ensure efficient water supply.

SCIENCE NEWS: Collaboration in a time of crisis: NOAA responds to Oroville Dam emergency; Back to the bones of the Delta; Satellites reveal bird habitat loss in California; Asian dust providing key nutrients for California’s sequoias; and more ….
In science news this week: Collaboration in a time of crisis: NOAA responds to Oroville Dam emergency; Fish and money: Consequences of the Oroville Dam emergency; Back to the bones of the Delta; Going local buys future for Bayshore; March issue of Estuary News now available; Satellites reveal bird habitat loss in California; PNAS Journal club: In some cases, water management practices exacerbated California drought, according to model; Asian dust providing key nutrients for California’s sequoias; Disappearing beaches: Modeling shoreline change in Southern California; Where states rank on Colorado River water rights transfers; NOAA publishes agency-wide framework to optimize and accelerate modeling; Chance find has big implications for water treatment’s cost and carbon footprint; Another study points to climate change’s direct role in fueling extreme weather; and Winter outlook 2017: So how did the Climate Prediction Center do?
The teamwork and coordinated response on behalf of the public and the resources were impressive, and we were proud to be a part of it.” … ” Read more from NOAA here: Collaboration in a time of crisis: NOAA responds to Oroville Dam emergency SEE ALSO: NOAA’s data story on the Oroville Dam Fish and money: Consequences of the Oroville Dam emergency: “The Oroville Dam made headlines this winter when Lake Oroville overflowed onto its emergency spillway for the first time in its history, raising safety concerns and prompting the evacuation of almost all residents of Oroville and some communities further down the Feather River.
The dam, constructed on the Feather River from 1962–1968 as part of the California State Water Project, is the tallest in the United States at 770 feet.
… ” Continue reading at ESTUARY News here: Going local buys future for Bayshore March issue of Estuary News now available: “This issue of ESTUARY News magazine debuts a new guide to how to repair and renew the Delta and examines stresses on Delta species, especially pesticides.
In it, the authors make one of the first attempts to quantify the effect that human water management has on the frequency and intensity of surface water drought in California–and in some cases, they found, management practices exacerbated drought conditions.
… ” Read more from the PNAS here: Journal club: In some cases, water management practices exacerbated California drought, according to model Asian dust providing key nutrients for California’s sequoias: “Dust from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Asia is providing more nutrients than previously thought for plants, including giant sequoias, in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, a team of scientists, including several from the University of California, Riverside, have found.
… ” Read more from PhysOrg here: Where states rank on Colorado River water rights transfers NOAA publishes agency-wide framework to optimize and accelerate modeling: “A new report describes high-priority recommendations to improve the way NOAA develops and operates models.
The first, obviously, is the actual post on the winter outlook describing what exactly we, at the Climate Prediction Center, were thinking when it came to temperature and precipitation for winter.
About Science News and Reports: This weekly feature, posted every Thursday, is a collection of the latest scientific research and reports with a focus on relevant issues to the Delta and to California water, although other issues such as climate change are sometimes included.

-by Anastasia Bengard, originally posted on May 17, 2016

The quality of drinking water in some regions of Kyrgyzstan does not meet standards. This is stated in the Ombudsman’s report on the observance of the rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen in 2015.

Ombudsman’s Institute has analyzed the citizens’ right to access safe drinking water. It reported that only 50 million out of 358 million, planned for the construction and rehabilitation of water supply, have been allocated in 2015.

“As before, there are still many unresolved problems in providing the population with the safe drinking water. The water supply system of the country in general is technically and morally obsolete, most of the water pipes were made before 1970 and are in dire need of rehabilitation. The water supply system in some settlements has worked two or three its lifetimes. Therefore, drinking water quality does not meet standards. In villages, only 3 percent of the buildings have drainage systems. These are schools and health centers,” the report says.

According to the National Statistical Committee, 725 villages (38 percent of the total number) do not have sufficient access to the centralized water supply system, and more than 400 villages (22 percent) lack the water supply network, that is why people in them use water from open sources. At least 396 (21 percent) villages have no water supply systems at all.

It is also reported that only 21 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population is provided with a central sewage system.

A massive fire that broke out in a condominium construction site in White Rock Sunday has led to a torrent of water problems for area residents.

-by Matt Robinson, originally posted on May 15, 2016

Fighting the flames had put such a demand on the small local water system that the city’s reservoirs dropped to “dangerously low” levels, explained councillor David Chesney.

“We haven’t drained our reservoirs, but they’ve gone down a tremendous amount in fighting this fire,” Chesney said. He said the blaze was the biggest he could recall in his 35 years in the city.

The fire, near Johnston Road and Buena Vista Avenue in the Five Corners area of White Rock, was reported a little after 5 a.m. and neighbours were evacuated from the area. Firefighters remain at the scene Sunday evening.

Shortly after the blaze broke out, many White Rock residents noticed their water darken, drop in pressure, or stop running altogether. Eventually the city advised residents to conserve their water and boil what they need to use.

“We’ve not had any indication that there is a major problem yet, but … we just want to err on the safe side that we don’t endanger anyone’s life,” Chesney said.

When area resident Jacqueline Lewis woke around 7 a.m. she immediately noticed the black smoke billowing from the fire. Shortly after, she realized the water to her building had either been turned off, or had lost all of its pressure.

Lewis and her husband Colin live about six blocks north of the blaze in a building with many other seniors who, like themselves, cannot get so much as a glass of water from their taps.

Meanwhile, Christine Kannegiesser, about four blocks from the fire, spotted her toilet filling with dark-coloured water shortly before pressure dropped. Her taps were still pouring clean water, she said, but with little pressure.

When one area resident saw what they thought was soot coming out of their household taps they tried to notify the city about the problem but soon found that its number for water emergencies was only monitored during business hours.

It wasn’t until 1 p.m. — hours after water had blackened for some — that the City of White Rock posted notice of a boil water advisory on its website.

“We are asking that you conserve water during this event,” read the advisory, which was projected to be in effect for the next day or two. It gave no explanation for the water quality concerns at the time, but by 3:30 p.m. the city added: “We do not believe that the discoloured water is a health concern, however as a precaution a boil water advisory is still in effect.”

Chesney said that because the city’s water storage areas had not been drained as low as they had, “probably ever, or certainly not in anyone’s memory,” it was a matter of erring on the side of safety. Chesney, who lives a few blocks from the fire, noted his own water pressure had been halved.

Unlike most parts of the region, White Rock is not connected to Metro Vancouver’s water system. Instead, its 20,000 residents get their water from six ground wells driven in the Sunnyside Uplands Aquifer, according to the municipality.

City councillors directed staff in January 2013 to look at what it would take to join Metro Vancouver’s system. A report from Metro put the infrastructure cost around $25 million, including $13 million in upstream improvements “to pay for the incremental impact of their additional demand.” Among other things, White Rock would need to purchase land at South Surrey Athletic Park to build a pump station and construct distribution lines, according to the city, and the work was estimated by Metro to take at least three years to complete. White Rock would also need to pay Metro about $1.5 million a year for the water.

Rather than go that route, in 2015 the city agreed to purchase its privately run local water utility. The two parties have since gone to binding arbitration over the purchase price.

When asked if he thought the water problems caused by the fire would change the discussion around White Rock joining Metro’s water supply, Chesney said he did not think it would have any effect at all.

“I don’t think this is going to impact that in any way, shape or form, to be very truthful,” Chesney said.

Downtown Vancouver has some fire hydrants that can be fed with sea water, but Chesney said he believed White Rock did not. He said officials will take a close look at whether anything more could be done to prepare for a future fire of this size, but noted mid-afternoon Sunday that despite the loss in pressure, fire trucks were still pumping plenty of water on the blaze and the reservoirs would fill back up quickly after the firefighting was finished.

“This disaster — that’s about the only way to describe it — once we’ve ensured that the community is safe and drinking water is back to normal, I think we’ll sit down and look at this,” Chesney said.

Water has been a major issue for the municipality in past months, with residents protesting a city plan to treat its well water with chloramine.

by Ian James, originally posted on June 10, 2016

A plan to raise water rates in communities from Cathedral City to La Quinta is being questioned and scrutinized by customers who say they’re about to be hit with an excessive financial burden.

The rate increases, which are up for a vote Tuesday, would lead to significantly higher bills for residential customers, businesses and homeowners associations that buy water from the Coachella Valley Water District.

The district’s board members say the rate increases are needed to raise $250 million for new water treatment plants to remove the potentially hazardous heavy metal chromium-6, as required under a new state standard. The district is also trying to make up for a projected decline in revenue due to conservation.

Many opponents of the plan are pressing CVWD to reduce the rate increases or at least ease into them. Some customers have called for the agency to find ways to spend less on water treatment or come up with different financing approaches.

According to notices mailed to homeowners, the average monthly bill for a single-family home could climb by about $6, or 23 percent, starting in July. The increases will vary, though, depending on the customer and on how much water is used. Some homeowners associations could see rates jump by more than 50 percent.

The board will be voting on a single year of rate increases for now. But CVWD’s mailer details potential increases for the next five years. If those changes are adopted as proposed in future years, many customers would see their bills double by 2020 – and the rates of some HOAs could rise more than 150 percent.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Keith Comrie, whose homeowners association in Rancho Mirage has calculated its annual water bill could go from $60,000 to about $140,000 by 2020 under the proposal. “You’re going to see people in associations see their water bill go up $100 a month. That’s huge for somebody living on Social Security.”

The district’s board members say they intend to limit the rate hikes to the lowest level that would still allow them to qualify for a low-interest state loan to pay for chromium-6 treatment.

Some critics, however, argue CVWD’s elected leaders ought to be managing money very differently.

Debating rates and finances

One of those who has raised detailed objections is Randy Roberts, a retired businessman who lives in Palm Desert. He contends the water treatment plan is ill-conceived and CVWD’s board has long mismanaged funds.

Roberts accused the district of improperly using revenues from domestic customers to make up for insufficient revenues in the East Valley, where large farms benefit from particularly cheap water rates. Roberts argued the district has been undercharging those big agricultural water users and should have increased their rates years ago to adequately cover costs.

“We’re shouldering all of it,” he said. “They’re making us pay for these guys.”

Roberts pointed to a list of concerns in the district’s records. In 2013, for instance, documents show CVWD’s board chose to use $60.3 million from the Domestic Water Fund to provide a 15-year loan to the East Whitewater Replenishment Fund, which relies on revenues from fees charged to well owners. The loan has been used to pay for construction of the Thomas E. Levy Groundwater Replenishment Facility in La Quinta, and the funds are being gradually paid back.

“This money is owed to us immediately,” Roberts said. He said he thinks if those and other funds were paid back to the domestic customers’ fund and properly allocated, “there would be little need for additional rate increases.”

Roberts said his message for the district’s board is: “Give us back our money and come with a realistic proposal.”

John Powell, Jr., president of the CVWD board, denied those accusations and defended the district’s rate-setting process and financial management, including the 2013 loan.

“With the repayment of that loan, with interest, the domestic fund is whole,” Powell said. “And we take that into account when we set rates.”

Powell also took issue with Roberts’ contention that the district has been undercharging water users in the East Valley, and he pointed out that the rates are based on cost studies. Consultants hired by the district have carried out those “cost-of-service” studies for different categories of customers, and have recommended rates.

BAYLA, Somalia – Like many Somalis, Hassan Samanthar has had to travel more than 600 kilometers (371 miles) in search of water and grass in a country that is on the brink of famine due to a lack of rainfall.
Samanthar started his journey along with one of his sons two months ago from the central Somali village of Galkayo, as he faced the despair of seeing his cattle die of starvation.
Samanthar lost more than 50 goats during his trip and expressed his disappointment after also finding drought in Bayla.
Water trucks from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supply water to the most affected communities in Puntland, where water scarcity has led to price increases.
Ali Asair was captured by the epa photographer tending to his camel as he traveled hundreds of kilometers looking for suitable pastures for his animals.
In Bandarbeyla, farmers were pictured tending to a flock of sheep, providing them with water, and a vet injecting them with multivitamins.
The population has been forced to resort to sources of non-potable water, triggering a new outbreak of cholera that has already affected about 8,000 people in 11 regions, primarily in the south of the country.
Despite Somalia’s desperate situation, international organizations insist that acting urgently can still prevent hundreds of thousands of people from dying.
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from the Latin American Herald Tribune: addthis_pub = ‘artevenezuela’;