Sewage fouling treasured S.F. Bay

Last weekend, 890,000 gallons of raw sewage and stormwater spilled into San Francisco Bay from an overloaded, World War II-era treatment plant. Five days earlier, a ruptured pipe released 400,000 gallons of filth into the bay.

And those were just the big spills the public heard about.

On average, human waste spills into San Francisco Bay more than five times a day, fouling the waters and shorelines of this environmental jewel and recreational treasure.

Decrepit pipes, outdated municipal sewage treatment systems, and poor upkeep have been blamed for many of the spills into one the world's most famous and beautiful natural harbors. And some of the Bay Area's wealthiest communities have been identified as some of the most persistent polluters.

"It's like living in a situation sort of like a Third World country, where there's poor sanitary management," said Sejal Choksi of the environmental group San Francisco Baykeeper.

Some spills have been blamed not only for killing large numbers of fish but for causing respiratory infections, skin and eye irritation, and diarrhea in swimmers. Signs warning against water contact are a common sight at beaches and marinas for those who swim, fish, or sailboard in the bay, especially after storms.

more from the AP

Iraq marshes face grave new threat

Iraq's southern marshes, by far the Middle East's most important wetlands, are under threat again.

At stake is a unique ecosystem that for millennia has sustained a vibrant and diverse wildlife, as well as the extraordinary way of life evolved by the Marsh Arabs.

Partially drained by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s to drive out rebels, the marshlands were revived after his overthrow in 2003.

Now they are shrinking again, thanks to a combination of drought, intensive dam construction and irrigation schemes upstream on the Tigris, Euphrates and other river systems.

Some Marsh Arabs, who have lived in harmony with the wetlands for 6,000 years, returned after Saddam's downfall but are now leaving again as the marshes dry up.

Re-flooded

Throughout the area, what used to be large expanses of open water and reedbeds have been reduced to shallow creeks and mudflats.

Historically, the marshes covered a sprawling area of up to 15,000 square kilometres, though in more recent times 9,000 sq km has been regarded as the baseline.

By the time Saddam Hussein had finished, the wetlands had been reduced to barely 760 sq km.

more from the BBC

Worst Drought in Half Century Shrivels the Wheat Belt of China

Northern China is dry in the best of times. But a long rainless stretch has underscored the urgency of water problems in a region that grows three-fifths of China’s crops and houses more than two-fifths of its people — but gets only one-fifth as much rain as the rest of the country.

The current drought, considered the worst in Northern China in at least half a century, is crippling not only the country’s best wheat farmland, but also the wells that provide clean water to industry and to millions of people.

In the hamlet of Qiaobei in China’s wheat belt, a local farmer, Zheng Songxian, scrapes out a living growing winter wheat on a vest-pocket plot, a third of an acre carved out of a rocky hillside. He might have been expected to celebrate being offered the chance to till new land this winter. He did not.

Normally, the new land he was offered lies under more than 20 feet of water, part of the Luhun Reservoir in Henan Province. But this winter, Luhun has lost most of its water. And what was once lake bottom has become just another field of winter wheat, stunted for want of rain.

more from the NY Times

Drought sucks life from Argentina's farms

This is San Miguel del Monte, a little over 100km (60 miles) south of Buenos Aires, in the Argentine pampas, the vast grasslands that roll out like an inner sea across thousands of kilometres.

The Salado river, which supplies the local ranches, is now a small stream. Large carp leap desperately in the shallows, trying to find deeper water.

A long-running drought, the worst in 50 years, has exacted a heavy toll and even a brief break in the weather in some areas was unlikely to alleviate the situation.

Cattle ranching has a long history in Argentina and about half the country is used for agriculture.

The country's wealth was built on beef, and Argentines are avid meat-eaters, consuming an astounding average of 70kg (154lb) of beef per person per year.

Cesar Gioia has been ranching in the Salado basin for 25 years. He rides a white stallion and is at ease in the saddle as he monitors his herd of 500 cows and bullocks.

"Look, these cows are emaciated. They should be capable of four or five births, but I will need to sell them because there is no pasture. They won't be able to reproduce because they are too thin," he says.

"If I have to pay for food for them I won't make any profit. They will have to go for corned beef because they are in such bad condition," he adds.

Mr Goia's frustration is clear - he is being forced to slaughter the cows that should have generated next year's herds.

This pattern has been repeated all over the country for two years running.

In the first 10 months of last year, 280,000 more cows than the year before were sent to slaughter.

more from the BBC

Drought Adds to Hardships in California

The country’s biggest agricultural engine, California’s sprawling Central Valley, is being battered by the recession like farmland most everywhere. But in an unlucky strike of nature, the downturn is being deepened by a severe drought that threatens to drive up joblessness, increase food prices and cripple farms and towns.Across the valley, towns are already seeing some of the worst unemployment in the country, with rates three and four times the national average, as well as reported increases in all manner of social ills: drug use, excessive drinking and rises in hunger and domestic violence.

With fewer checks to cash, even check-cashing businesses have failed, as have thrift stores, ice cream parlors and hardware shops. The state has put the 2008 drought losses at more than $300 million, and economists predict that this year’s losses could swell past $2 billion, with as many as 80,000 jobs lost.

“People are saying, ‘Are you a third world country?’ ” said Robert Silva, the mayor of Mendota, which has a 35 percent unemployment rate, up from the more typical seasonal average of about 20 percent. “My community is dying on the vine.”

Even as rains have washed across some of the state this month, greening some arid rangeland, agriculture officials say the lack of rain and the prospect of minimal state and federal water supplies have already led many farmers to fallow fields and retreat into survival mode with low-maintenance and low-labor crops.

Last year, during the second year of the drought, more than 100,000 acres of the 4.7 million in the valley were left unplanted, and experts predict that number could soar to nearly 850,000 acres this year.

more from the NY Times

From effluent to energy

Where others see simply manure, Danny Kluthe smells money.

Long before President Barack Obama promised the country that "we will harness the sun and the winds and the soil," Kluthe already had yoked the power of pig poop.

Manure from his hogs drains as a slurry into a giant vat. It is stirred and warmed. A virtually odorless liquid — ideal for fertilizing surrounding fields that, in turn, feed more pigs — emerges from the giant digester.

The real beauty, though, comes in the methane fumes that rise off the muck. They are funneled to a tractor engine and used to power a generator. Suddenly his electrical utility is writing checks to him.

"There will be a day when there will not be a hog facility or a dairy built without one of these things," Kluthe said. "This," he said with the glee of someone who has figured out how to spin straw into gold, "just makes too much sense."

What helps save the farm could help save the planet.

Because Kluthe doesn't let the methane from hog waste waft away, his sewage lagoons pack one-twentieth the climate-changing punch they would otherwise.

In fact, his dung-to-dollars system is but one way agriculture can put food on your plate without dumping so much greenhouse gas into Earth's atmosphere.

Other fixes can be made earlier in the process: improving grassland diversity, spreading fertilizer more precisely and tweaking animal food.

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Scientists Warn of Persistent 'Dead Zones' in Bay, Elsewhere

Healing low-oxygen aquatic "dead zones" in the Chesapeake Bay and hundreds of other spots worldwide will be trickier than previously imagined, leading scientists on the issue said Sunday.

That's because the low oxygen levels that make it impossible for most organisms to survive also kill bacteria crucial to removing nitrogen from the water.

Dead zones are caused primarily by excess nutrients -- nitrogen and phosphorus -- that feed massive algae blooms. Those, in turn, soak up most of the water's oxygen and leave little for other life forms -- a condition known as hypoxia. In recent years there have been extensive efforts to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads in the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and other areas with dead zones. But those efforts have not yielded the expected results, scientists said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"We've been working for 20 years to breathe life into these dead zones, but we've found it much harder than we thought," said Donald F. Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "Even when the nutrient loads are reduced, the hypoxia is generally not recovering with the rapidity we assumed it might."

In the Chesapeake Bay, what scientists call a "regime shift" happened in the early 1980s, when bottom-water oxygen levels dipped even lower than would have been expected, given the amount of nutrients in the water. That trend continued for two decades.

more from the Washington Post

Water agencies debate desalination

Is it time to stick a straw into the Pacific Ocean?

About 20 water agencies up and down the California coast seem to think so.

From Marin County to San Diego, small and large projects that turn seawater into tap water are gaining favor, propelled by events unprecedented in California's history: worsening drought, dwindling species of freshwater fish, crumbling plumbing systems and unyielding demand.

"People are worried about water supply," said Michael Carlin, assistant general manager of water at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. "Desalination is for drought supply, for an emergency, and it augments existing supply - it's another tool in our toolbox."

But critics argue that desalination is an expensive, environmentally questionable last resort in a sprawling state that misuses one of its greatest assets.

"People are looking for an easy solution, and they look to the ocean," said Linda Sheehan, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, a watchdog group. "They're ignoring the opportunities we have for conservation, storm water reuse and water recycling."

This is not the first time the desalination debate has surfaced in California. Dry spells and government funds for infrastructure often prompt new studies and investment in the process, which strips salt, debris, bacteria and other substances from saltwater and funnels it to local taps.

more from the San Francisco Chronicle

Water board moves to clean up Bay, waterways

The heaps of trash ringing San Francisco Bay are so unsightly and threatening to wildlife that regional regulators voted Wednesday to designate most of the shoreline and two dozen tributaries as "impaired" under the federal Clean Water Act.

So far, the bay's pollution spots have been linked to such contaminants as mercury, PCBs and DDT as well as invasive species.

But tons of cigarette butts, diapers, crushed Styrofoam and plastic bottles and bags convinced the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to vote unanimously to designate the edges of the central bay and the south bay, along with 24 rivers and creeks, as places in need of trash controls.

Until now, Oakland's Lake Merritt has been the only bay waterway designated as impaired because of trash that ruins walks along the shore, despoils habitat and endangers wildlife.

The vote was the first step in putting counties and cities on notice that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could impose legal requirements and fines if they don't get rid of the trash. But the listing could also bring resources to aid in the cleanup.

more from the San Francisco Chronicle

WHO GETS WHAT: Billions for clean water, parks

WASHINGTON (AP) — The 20 million visitors who travel the Blue Ridge Parkway each year could have a smoother drive along a stretch of the scenic road in North Carolina.

Across the nation, some of the 102,798 leaks at storage tanks beneath gasoline stations would finally have cash to be cleaned up.

And a network of gauges used to predict floods along America's streams and rivers across the country might get enough money to literally stay afloat.

These are just some of the environmental projects that could be funded when Congress passes the economic stimulus package.

The plan includes more than $9 billion for the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The money would be used to shutter abandoned mines on public lands, to help local governments protect drinking water supplies, and to erect energy-efficient visitor centers at wildlife refuges and national parks.

The Interior Department estimates that its portion of the work would generate about 100,000 jobs over the next two years.

"Most of the construction work we do, whether it is major repairs or building a visitor center — those are all contracted out," said Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman with the National Park Service. That means private firms would handle the projects, not state or federal workers.

Yet the legislation will not go very far when it comes to erasing the backlog of cleanups facing the EPA and the long list of chores that still need to be completed at the country's national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands. It would be more like a down payment.

The refuge system, an assemblage of more than 150 million acres set aside to protect wildlife, fish and plants, has a $2.5 billion maintenance backlog. The stimulus bill would provide $300 million, enough to cover the more than 600 projects on its to-do list in the next couple years.

When it comes to national parks, the plan sets aside about $750 million for road repairs and maintenance. But that's a fraction of the $9 billion worth of work needing funding. The projects include fixing a visitor center at the Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah-Colorado border that has been condemned for two years and upgrading a sewage treatment plant at Yellowstone National Park that can't handle the number of flushes from visitors to Old Faithful.

At EPA, the wish list is even more expensive. A 2003 report by the agency estimated that $276.8 billion was needed over the next 20 years to repair and improve the nation's drinking water systems. The stimulus package includes around $6 billion, and more than half of the money would be used to fund projects that protect bays, rivers and other waterways used as sources of drinking water.

Other big-ticket items at the EPA include about $200 million for a fund that is used to remove soil and groundwater contamination caused by leaky gasoline storage tanks and an estimated $600 million for cleanups at the nation's most hazardous waste sites.

In 2008, according to agency documents, the EPA ran out of money and could not take additional steps to address contamination at 10 sites in nine states.

More than 100,000 spills under gasoline stations need cleaning. But at a cost of about $125,000 each, according to EPA estimates, the stimulus money will only be able to pay for roughly 1,600 of them.

Road salt spreading into our water

Rain and melting snow in the Twin Cities have flushed away road salt residue from hundreds of streets and tens of thousands of cars. But that might not be a good thing.

Now a University of Minnesota study estimates that 70 percent of the deicing salt used on metro-area roadways does not travel far when it drains off the pavement. It gushes into area wetlands and lakes and seeps into groundwater, and it is making them saltier with each successive year. About 30 percent goes to the Mississippi River.

"This is a wake-up call," said Heinz Stefan, a civil engineering professor at the university's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. "Fortunately we don't have an acute problem right now, but we may have a significant problem in 50 years with groundwater if we keep on doing this."

The use of road salt is no small matter. Snowplow drivers apply nearly 350,000 tons of it in the greater metro area each winter, said Eric Novotny, one of the researchers who tracked movement of the salt using state data.

more from the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Beijing fights drought as wheat fears rise

China has resorted to artificial rainmaking and is diverting water from its two largest rivers to alleviate a drought the government is calling the worst in half a century.

More than 4.4m people and 2.2m cattle face shortages of drinking water across at least eight provinces which contain about half the country’s wheat growing areas, the ministry of water resources said on Sunday.

Weather-control officials across the country fired artillery shells and rockets filled with rainmaking chemicals over the weekend while military aircraft were used to seed clouds across northern and central provinces.

The same technology was used to create rain and to clear pollution over Beijing in the weeks preceding last summer’s Olympics.

Water from the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers is being diverted for farm irrigation to battle the drought which began in November and threatens the livelihood of 13.5m people, state media reported.

The ministry of finance said it would accelerate the disbursement of Rmb86.7bn ($12.7bn, €9.8bn, £8.6bn) of annual subsidies for farmers to ensure grain production and support rural incomes.

The government declared a national drought emergency late last week.

Hu Jintao, the president, and Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, ordered a full mobilisation of state resources to ensure a good summer harvest.

more from the Financial Times (UK)

Delays block China's giant water scheme

A multi-billion-dollar project to divert water from southern China to the arid north is already four years behind schedule. 

The news comes as parts of northern and central China struggle to cope with severe drought. 

Officials recently admitted that water would not flow along the project's central route - a total of three are planned - until 2014. 

But there appears to be a difference of opinion about what is actually causing the delay. 

Whatever the reason, the entire scheme is unlikely to solve northern China's dire water shortage, even when it is finished. 

To solve that problem, experts say the region must conserve what little water it has. 

Environmental problems 

China first started considering building the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in the 1950s. 

The need is obvious. An area along three major rivers in northern China has 35% of the country's population, but only 7% of its water resources. 

A recent severe drought is a reminder of just how dry some parts of China can be. 

Nearly four million people are short of water. Livestock and crops are also under threat. 

It is problems like this that prompted numerous studies into the water diversion scheme, which finally gained the go-ahead in 2001. 

The $62bn (£42bn) project includes eastern, central and western routes that will divert water from China's Yangtze River to the parched north. 

Some parts of the eastern and central routes have already been completed, although work has yet to start on the western route.

More from the BBC

How can water be fairly distributed?

By the time you read this you will have inevitably used water directly and indirectly since the start of the day.

The chances are you have no idea how much you have used.

But without it, many activities would have been impossible - from obvious processes such as drinking to washing - to having food to eat, using energy and enjoying any number of manufactured goods.

But as competing demands for water intensify, how can we ensure that water is fairly and affordably distributed?

Stress

By 2030, 3.9 billion people are forecast to be living in areas under severe water stress, the OECD predicts. This is in addition to around one billion who already lack clean water today.

While the scale of the problem might be clear, opinions are fiercely divided over how to handle this pending crisis.

At one extreme are those who say water should be traded through markets, like a commodity, to optimise its value.

more from the BBC

Projecting the future of nitrogen pollution

Heavier rainfall due to climate change will exacerbate the effects of increased fertilizer use for corn-based ethanol production, causing a significant increase in nitrogen levels in rivers, according to a new study in ES&T (DOI 10.1021/es801985x). The good news is that if farmers choose organic practices and reduce fertilizer use, the impact of heavy rains will lessen and nitrogen pollution levels might drop to below present-day levels, the study concludes.

The study by research fellow Haejin Han of the University of Michigan and colleagues is the first to simultaneously model the changes in nitrogen runoff across space18 watersheds in the Lake Michigan basinand over time, the past 20 years. Using a model they developed, the researchers then project future variations in nitrogen loading under different land-use and climate scenarios.

The study reinforces an old message for lawmakers: current decisions on land use and agriculture will have a strong impact on the future availability of freshwater and the health of our aquatic and coastal ecosystems, says David Allan, one of the authors on the study. It also reinforces the notion that two factors drive the future of nitrogen pollution, he notes: climate change and how much nitrogen humans use on land.

Scientists have known that roughly 20−25% of the nitrogen applied to land by humans eventually makes its way into rivers. But that percentage changes depending on the type of land use, because the more fertilizer-dependent the agriculture is, the higher the concentrations of nitrogen entering water bodies. For example, more fertilizer use as a result of increased corn planting is expected to raise the levels of nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico, which in turn fuels algal growth and creates oxygen-free dead zones, according to a study (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2008, DOI 10.1073/pnas.0708300105) by researcher Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia (Canada).

more from Environmental Science and Technology

Non-navigable River Blues

Muddied water-protection standards leave Western streams without oversight

Heather Wylie found herself out of a job in December. And it really had nothing to do with the economic crisis or her workplace performance. The 29-year-old biologist, who had worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Southern California for five years, left because of a little kayak trip. It wasn't exactly a whitewater wilderness adventure: Wylie and her companions were more likely to encounter discarded car parts or grocery carts than frothing rapids, and much of the scenery was covered by elaborate graffiti. Parts of the stream more closely resembled a giant concrete trough than a burbling brook.

Wylie, however, was not out there for the scenery. She'd joined a dozen boaters on a 52-mile, three-day trip on the Los Angeles River in July 2008 to prove a point: that her own employer's declaration that the L.A. River was non-navigable was simply wrong. If the boaters could make the trip, that proved that one could, in fact, navigate the river. And that, in turn, increased the likelihood that the river's dozens of major tributaries (many of which are dry, sandy washes most of the year) fell under the jurisdiction and protection of the Army Corps of Engineers.

When Wylie's bosses found out what she had done (Wylie says they scoured blogs and Web sites in search of incriminating photos), they were not happy. First, they threatened her with suspension. Then, in December, after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility took up her case because they felt she was being retaliated against for her opposition to Corps policy, she resigned under a settlement that both sides agreed to keep secret.

more from High Country News

Drought threatens peace in Iraq's marsh Eden

Miles of reed stalks and baked mud are all that can be seen of much of Iraq's ancient marshes this year, as a lack of water threatens to turn one of the world's most important wetlands to wasteland.

Thought to be the biblical Garden of Eden, Iraq's marshes have for years been more known locally as a haven for smugglers, bandits and kidnappers. Police say recent security gains could be reversed if their inhabitants do not get help.

Dusty boats lie abandoned on caked earth, where water once teemed with fish, and forests of tall reeds gave shelter to migratory birds. Reed stumps now stretch into the horizon, and water buffalo crowd the small remaining pools.

"The water went and now look at us," said Marsh Arab Zuhair al-Haideri. "Our situation is terrible. We are of this water, the fish, the birds, the reeds and buffalo. Now the marsh is dried. Where's the help?"

A combination of a lack of rainfall last year, damming of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and increased agriculture as the country becomes calmer after years of war are putting growing demand on Iraq's scant water resources.

more from Reuters

Water - another global 'crisis'?

Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission.

Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over.

"The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality"
UNDP, 2006

Some people, perhaps incredibly from a western vantage point, are hardy enough to survive in these conditions; but it is not a recipe for a society that is healthy and developing enough to break out of poverty.

"Obviously there are many drivers of human development," says the UN's Andrew Hudson.

"But water is the most important."

At the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where Dr Hudson works as principal technical advisor to the water governance programme, he calculated the contribution that various factors make to the Human Development Index, a measure of how societies are doing socially and economically.

"It was striking. I looked at access to energy, spending on health, spending on education - and by far the strongest driver of the HDI on a global scale was access to water and sanitation."

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