Report: US getting better at conserving water

Americans are using less water per person now than they have since the mid-1950s, thanks to water-saving technologies and a nationwide push to safeguard dwindling supplies.

A report released Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey also shows that industries as well as the general population are sucking up less water overall than in 1980, when the nation's thirst for water peaked.

Experts said it was particularly welcome news in the burgeoning West, where cities built in dry regions are grappling with intense disputes and ecosystem collapse tied to dwindling supplies.

"Even during a time of population growth and economic growth, we are all using less water," said Susan Hutson, a USGS hydrologist in Memphis, and an author of the report. "It's exciting to see we have responded to these crises by really seeking solutions."

California, in the third year of a withering drought, was the most water-hungry state in 2005, the most recent year for which figures were available.

California used about 9 percent of all water extracted from lakes, rivers and underground aquifers, followed by Texas, Idaho and Illinois. All told, those four states drew more than a quarter of the country's total freshwater supplies in 2005.

Nationwide, about 80 percent of the 410 billion gallons used each day went to produce electricity at thermoelectric power plants and to irrigate farm fields.

But as the drought and environmental battles persist in California, some of the state's most productive farmers are receiving as little as 10 percent of their normal supplies, forcing growers to leave hundreds of thousands of acres unplanted and lay off thousands of farmworkers.

This year, city dwellers, too, have been forced to shorten their showers and let their lawns turn brown under mandatory water rations.

"We still have collapsing ecosystems because of water use, we still have rivers and aquifers that are overtapped, and we still have rapid population growth," said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, an environmental think tank based in Oakland. "I guess the optimistic way to put it is, we're learning our lessons about smart water use but we have a long way to go."

Occasional shortages and disputes have arisen even around the water-rich region of the Great Lakes, which hold 95 percent of the nation's fresh surface water and meet the drinking needs of 34 million people in eight states.

Last year, the states signed a compact that limits any diversions of lake water to areas outside the drainage basin, in reaction to fears of Sun Belt water grabs.

Scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have warned that climate change will exacerbate water scarcity problems around the world. Computer models suggest a warming climate may send the Great Lakes' levels substantially lower by century's end.

"The pressure's on to conserve," said Tim Eder, director of the Great Lakes Commission, an interstate agency. "We're trying to position ourselves so we'll have an abundant supply that can be used sustainably, particularly if businesses want to relocate here from places where water is expensive or unavailable."

from the Associated Press

The trouble facing Canadian rivers

he seasonal waxing and waning of rivers is one of nature's most crucial cycles, influencing everything from the success of salmon runs to having enough water during parched summers to irrigate crops.

But by this measure, many of Canada's major rivers are in trouble, contends a new report that says many of the best known rivers have suffered major alterations in their natural flows due to hydro dams, irrigation schemes and withdrawals by industry, and could be further compromised by the effects of global warming.

The report, by WWF-Canada, one of the country's major environmental organizations, says the rivers that have been most altered from their natural state include the St. Lawrence and the South Saskatchewan, whose “ecosystems are in serious trouble” as a result. But it warned that if safeguards aren't put in place soon, some of North America's last free-flowing rivers, including the Skeena in B.C., the Athabasca in Alberta, and the Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories “could soon be in trouble as well.”

The report, titled Canada's Rivers at Risk, is believed to be the first evaluation of rivers in Canada based on how much human activity has changed their natural flows. Previous studies of rivers by government or environmentalists have focused on such traditional threats as pollution from industries or sewage treatment plants.

“The concept of environmental flows is really emerging globally as a fundamental indicator of how to look at river health,” said Tony Maas, director of freshwater programs at WWF-Canada.

The report assessed 10 major rivers based on more than 300 scientific papers, and is being released Thursday.

Most rivers have a distinct annual flow pattern on which wildlife depend, with amounts peaking in spring when melting snow augments flows. Low levels occur during winter freeze-ups or summer droughts. But dams and other human interferences smooth out these natural fluctuations.

It highlighted the fact that responsibility for most large rivers in Canada is shared by several governments, making efforts to regulate their flows more difficult.

more from the Toronto Globe and Mail

Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued the plant’s owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseases and acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

“It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,” said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility’s pollution regulations. “We can’t escape.”

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

Much power plant waste once went into the sky, but because of toughened air pollution laws, it now often goes into lakes and rivers, or into landfills that have leaked into nearby groundwater, say regulators and environmentalists.

Officials at the plant here in southwest Pennsylvania — named Hatfield’s Ferry — say it does not pose any health or environmental risks because they have installed equipment to limit the toxins the facility releases into the Monongahela River and elsewhere.

more from the NY Times

interactive map of coal-fired plants in the US

Millions of gallons of raw sewage taints Missouri waters, state agency data show

A couple of weeks ago, 3 million gallons of raw sewage poured into a south Kansas City stream, and it made news across Missouri.

But those may just be drops in a sea of bacteria flowing into the state’s rivers and lakes.

While a lot of attention has turned to the way a state agency handled E. coli problems in the summer at the Lake of the Ozarks, several other recreational lakes have been forced to close beaches.

Hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage have spilled into Missouri’s waterways in the past year, according to data from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

“We consider this to be a serious problem,” said Travis Ford, spokesman for the DNR, which is conducting an internal investigation into its own procedures because of concerns about the risk to human health.

Consider: In St. Joseph last December, more than 31 million gallons of raw sewage poured into the Missouri River during a rainstorm. Just a couple of weeks before that, 8.9 million gallons flowed in, and a month later, 8.5 million gallons more.

In Independence, 14 million gallons ran into streams there during rainstorms last April.

Kansas City annually fights millions of gallons of sewer overflows during rainstorms.

Many spills and overflows occur when rains flood decaying sewer systems; others occur when old pipes break.

more from the Kansas City Star

Egypt oasis risks becoming mirage

Four days into the journey his men had run out of water. By the time they eventually stumbled across the oasis it must have appeared - as it still does - like a mirage out of the sand.

Today Siwa is a nine-hour drive from Cairo, across some of the most barren desert anywhere on the planet. It sits 18 metres below sea level, the main oasis surrounded by green desert islands where water naturally springs to the surface.

Beneath the sandstone is the Nubian aquifer an enormous - yet finite - supply of fossilised water that has flowed for thousands of years.

It fills the turquoise bathing pools in Siwa; one of them, "the spring of Juba", is so old it was mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus who lived in the 5th Century BC.

So abundant is the water that within the oasis they grow over 120 different types of dates, some considered the best in Egypt. But the ancient caravan routes on which they once transferred their produce to market have now been replaced by a tarmac road.

It brings tourists, technology, growth and the sort of development that threatens delicate eco-systems. In the past 20 years the water, that once flowed naturally from beneath the rocks, has been sucked at alarming rate from hundreds of man-made wells.

Mounir Neamatalla runs an eco lodge in Siwa, a hotel complex built with mud brick, a model of sustainable development. He is now fighting a lonely battle to preserve the unique Berber culture and the precious water reserves on which the oasis survives.

"Unfortunately the whole industry of well drilling is now very active in the oasis," he said, "to feed our greed and appetite for more.

"As a result the rate of natural replenishment of the springs is lower than it ought to be. We are competing with a natural phenomenon that has existed for thousands of years."

more from the BBC