Mexico City braces for water rationing

Already-scarce water gets even scarcer this weekend for millions of Mexicans.

One of the world's largest cities is launching a rationing plan in a drastic -- and some say overdue -- effort to conserve water after rampant development, mismanagement and reduced rainfall caused supplies to drop to dangerously low levels.

tarting Saturday, water will be cut or reduced to homes in at least 10 boroughs in Mexico City plus 11 other municipalities in the state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital. The action affects an estimated 5.5 million people and includes neighborhoods ranging from affluent Lomas de Chapultepec on the western edge of the city to poor, densely populated Iztapalapa in the southeast.

Full service is expected to be returned sometime Tuesday. Similar cuts will be carried out every month until the rainy season begins, usually around May.

"We are running out of water," Jorge Efren Villalon, a senior official with the National Water Commission, told Mexican radio Thursday.

The level at the main reservoir from which this urban area of nearly 20 million people gets its water for drinking and washing has dipped below 60% of capacity, Villalon said, the lowest in 16 years.

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Interior Ignored Science When Limiting Water to Grand Canyon

Interior Department officials ignored key scientific findings when they limited water flows in the Grand Canyon to optimize generation of electric power there, risking damage to the ecology of the spectacular national landmark, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

A Jan. 15 memo written by Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin suggests that the department produced a flawed environmental assessment to defend its actions against environmentalists in court. The Grand Canyon Trust, an advocacy group, has sued Interior for reducing the flow of water from Glen Canyon Dam at night, when consumer demand for electricity is low, on the grounds that the policy hurts imperiled fish species such as the endangered humpback chub and erodes the canyon's beaches.

"The government's brief as presented continues to misinterpret key scientific findings related to the humpback chub, status of downstream resources in Grand Canyon, and the need for the Secretary to acknowledge [National Park Service] authorities and responsibilities to protect resources under [National Park Service] administration," Martin wrote in a memo that The Post obtained from the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Martin added that his agency continues to fear that the current policy "will significantly impair Grand Canyon resources."

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Seas to rise at varying rates due to warming: expert

Sea levels will rise at widely varying rates around the world because of a quirk of the earth's gravity linked to global warming, a leading glaciologist said.

"Everyone thinks sea level rises the same around the world," David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey, told Reuters on Tuesday at the Rothera Base on the Antarctic Peninsula. "But it doesn't".

Rises could vary by tens of centimeters (inches) from region to region if seas gained by an average of one meter by 2100 as temperatures rise, he said. Worst-affected nations would have to budget billions of dollars more than others on coastal defences.

Vaughan said big ice sheets on Antarctica and on Greenland have a gravitational pull that lifts the seas around them -- water levels around Antarctica, for instance, are higher than if the frozen continent were an open ocean.

As ice thaws, Antarctica would get smaller and its gravitational tug would diminish. In some places around the continent, the level of the Southern Ocean might even drop despite a flood of fresh water into the oceans.

The effect means that seas will paradoxically rise least where thawing ice pours into the sea and most further away from the point of melt, he said.

"Ice lost from Antarctica has a bigger impact on European sea level rise than ice lost from the European Alps, tonne for tonne," Vaughan said.

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Report identifies states most at risk to rising seas

A new federal report concludes that Florida and Louisiana are the states most vulnerable to sea-level rise, followed by North Carolina and Texas.

The new report focuses on the coastal states from North Carolina to New York where the rates of sea-level rise are moderately high. The region has extensive coastal development, a high population and is likely to be at increased risk.

"You're vulnerable," said Jim Titus, project manager for sea-level rise for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and lead author of the report, "Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region." "The people whose land could be permanently submerged aren't even flooded today."

A rise in sea level increases the vulnerability of development in coastal floodplains and diminishes the rate at which low-lying areas drain. It will result in a loss of wetlands in the mid-Atlantic.

Rising temperatures cause ocean waters to warm and expand, like water heated in a tea kettle. In addition, rising temperatures near the poles cause massive ice sheets to melt, adding to the volume of water.

The report predicts that coastal erosion will occur at higher rates as sea level rises. Particularly in the sandy shore of the mid-Atlantic coast, the report says, it is nearly certain that barrier islands, spits and coastal headlands will erode faster due to sea-level rise. The Outer Banks are particularly vulnerable.

The report, produced by a collaboration among agencies including the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Transportation, offers three scenarios for sea-level rise by 2100: A rise of about 16 inches; of about 2 feet, and of about 3 feet.

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Summit Focuses on Pharmaceuticals in Drinking Water

Keeping our drinking water clean and contaminant-free is a concern of many policy makers and scientists, and it was the headlining topic at the inaugural Environmental Health Summit of the Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative held 10–11 November 2008 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. With nearly 150 attendees representing government, research, academia, public interest groups, and the pharmaceutical industry, the stage was set for a constructive dialogue designed to identify key issues for future discourse and action.
pill box beside a bathroom sink

In his opening remarks to the conference attendees, chairman and former NIEHS director Kenneth Olden discussed the origins of the collaborative, originally conceptualized in 2005 as an independent forum that would advise government and private industry on emerging environmental threats and concerns. This goal helped shape the current summit's focus on pharmaceuticals in drinking water, he said.

North Carolina congressmen Bob Etheridge and David Price also spoke, as did experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who provided scientific background and information on the current regulatory landscape regarding pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies. Only 1 pharmaceutical—nitroglycerin—appears on the EPA's current Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List. John Sumpter, head of the Brunel University Institute for the Environment in the United Kingdom, discussed the European perspective on the issue, where there is still limited regulation but greater awareness of the issue, with media covering the problem more extensively than U.S. outlets.

An estimated 41 million Americans are exposed to trace pharmaceuticals in their drinking water, according to the results of an Associated Press investigation published online 9 March 2008. A significant amount of these trace pharmaceuticals are unmetabolized drugs that are excreted as waste. Others are unused medications that people have flushed down the toilet. Veterinary drugs, usually from large farming operations, are also present in drinking water. Not all water treatment methods currently in use can remove all pharmaceuticals in water.

Jim Hagan, vice president of Glaxo-SmithKline's Environment, Health and Safety Department, says the pharmaceutical industry has known about this problem for years. "[O]ur internal working groups routinely assess both the environmental fate and effects [of new products]. The only difference is that now the analytical sciences have advanced to the point where we can accurately measure parts per trillion in water."

Rachel Golden-Smith, an education program manager with the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, pointed out the advantages of direct communication between pharmacists and consumers to determine how different medications should be discarded. When people are given enough digestible information about the hazards of flushing medications down the toilet, they are less likely to do so, she says. She adds, however, that "drug return programs may incorrectly imply to the public that by returning their unused drugs, the problem of pharmaceuticals in the water is being solved. It is important to balance providing avenues for people to help solve the problem with honest communication about where most pharmaceuticals in the water are coming from."

The attendees participated in 4 workgroup sessions throughout the 2-day summit to articulate a plan of action for future areas of focus. On the second day, the group made and prioritized recommendations based on their discussions. The highest priorities included starting a public policy discussion of the issue and drafting a brief written response that water treatment facilities and pharmacies can provide to consumers who ask about the safety of their drinking water: "If your drinking water meets current U.S. standards, your drinking water is considered safe and drinkable. However, trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals have been found in water. These substances are coming from a variety of sources and are difficult to remove. There is limited information on how they affect humans and wildlife. U.S. standards for safe drinking water may need to change as more information becomes available." The collaborative is also developing a website with more information on pharmaceuticals in drinking water.

Olden said the collaborative also plans to brief Congress on the outcome and goals of the summit and will submit the conference proceedings to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. For more information on the collaborative and the summit, visit http://www.environmentalhealthcollaborative.org/.

from Environmental Health Perspectives

Chespeake Bay Advocates Sue EPA

An unusual coalition of environmentalists, watermen and former officials yesterday filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking a judge to overhaul the floundering government campaign to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

The group, led by the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is, in effect, suing the EPA for breach of contract. EPA leaders have signed two federal-state agreements that promised a cleaner Chesapeake. But so far, despite 25 years and nearly $6 billion in spending, they have failed to deliver it.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, asks the court -- without many specifics -- to order the EPA to clamp down harder on polluters.

"If the bay is to be saved, EPA must . . . enforce the rule of law. Is that too much to ask of our government?" said William C. Baker, the bay foundation's president. He said the group's action could be "the most significant lawsuit ever filed in the history of the Chesapeake Bay restoration."

But legal experts said yesterday that it might be difficult for a court to turn around the complex Chesapeake cleanup. And even Baker said the suit was designed to serve as a political marker, an attempt to force the Obama administration to treat the Chesapeake as a priority.

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