Tag: Water

March 13, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Europe’s water resources ‘under pressure’

Continued inefficient use of water could threaten Europe’s economy, productivity and ecosystems, a report has warned.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) said that the continent’s water resources were under pressure and things were getting worse.

It said limited supplies were being wasted, and nations had to implement existing legislation more effectively.

The EEA presented its findings at the 6th World Water Forum in Marseilles.

“The critical thing for us is that we are seeing an increasing number of regions where river basins, because of climate change, are experiencing water scarcity,” said EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade.

“Yet behavioural change, and what that means, hasn’t really come about.”

Prof McGlade said the main purpose of the report was to raise awareness about the issue.

“Member states need to be clearer about the opportunities they can make in order to enhance their use of a scarce resource,” she told BBC News.

“Nations need to use different kinds of methods. Instead of just having a hosepipe ban to fix this year’s problem, you need to invest in a very different way.

“Long-term investment needs to recognise these different uses of how water is allocated, how it is used [and the need for] different water qualities.

“[The report] highlights all the different challenges as countries move from their historical position on water to where they are moving to [as a result of] climate change.”
Within the EU, agriculture uses about a quarter of the water diverted from the natural environment, and in southern Europe the figure is as high as 80%.

As there was an economic cost to farmers abstracting water to put on their crops, Prof McGlade said the sector was showing an increased awareness of where water was being used inefficiently.

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January 1, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Environmentalists hope to turn the tide against use of sea walls

For years, San Francisco’s Ocean Beach has been under assault by such powerful surf that a fierce winter storm can scour away 25 feet of bluff in just days.

The startling pace of the erosion near the San Francisco Zoo has compelled the city to spend $5 million to shore up the crumbling bluffs. The strategy has been simple: drop huge rocks and mounds of sand to protect the nearby Great Highway and the sewer pipes underneath from being destroyed by the crashing waves.

But as the enormous rocks have piled up, adding to a jumble of concrete — chunks of curb and bits and pieces of gutters — from parking lots that have tumbled onto the shore, so too have the demands that the city get rid of it all and let the coastline retreat naturally.

Now, San Francisco finds itself under fire from environmentalists, who call the rock and rubble unsightly and harmful to the beach, and the California Coastal Commission, which regulates development along the state’s 1,100-mile coastline but has refused to sign off on the fortifications, some of which have sat on the shore for 15 years without its permission.

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May 8, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Taylor aims to take care of existing water issues

WAILUKU – If you ask Department of Water Supply Director Dave Taylor what keeps him awake at night, he might think of something lurking in the depths of a 647-foot-long tunnel.

A single, aging pump, accessible only by descending to the very bottom of “Shaft 33,” a 65-year-old well above Wailuku, is responsible for delivering more than 5 million gallons of water per day to Central and South Maui. If the pump were to fail, thousands of residents could be without water until it was repaired – and that would be a long wait, he said.

“This kind of thing would be very, very hard to fix,” he said. “It’s difficult even to get to.”

While voters clamor for the county to provide more water to a growing population – and politicians promise to deliver it – Taylor said one of his biggest jobs will be to remind people that the county first needs to take care of the water customers it already serves. And that can take a lot of time and money in a system that includes more than 750 miles of pipelines; infrastructure located deep in mountainous jungles; and century-old water intakes and ditches that must integrate with state-of-the-art treatment plants.

“All the discussion is about expanding service,” he said. “There’s very little discussion about what it takes to keep reliable service to existing customers.”

Calling Shaft 33 one of the system’s weakest links, Taylor said it’s imperative that the county continue a project that is already under way to replace the aging well with three smaller, modern ones tapping into the same aquifer.

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April 22, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Big Island groundwater tested for radiation

Hawaii state health officials have sent samples of Big Island groundwater for testing after the release of radiation from Japanese nuclear power plants last month.

West Hawaii today reported Friday health officials took samples from Waimea’s groundwater supplies to be sent to the mainland for testing.

Results are expected next week or early next month.

County officials are to ask the Board of Water Supply to approve a contract change that would allow for in-house lab tests for radiation or to request tests from the lab contractor.

Big Island groundwater tested for radiation – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

April 17, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Water wars? Thirsty, energy-short China stirs fear

AHIR JONAI, India >> The wall of water raced through narrow Himalayan gorges in northeast India, gathering speed as it raked the banks of towering trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra river, the villagers remember, it took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestock.

No one knows exactly how the disaster happened, but everyone knows whom to blame: neighboring China.

“We don’t trust the Chinese,” says fisherman Akshay Sarkar at the resettlement site where he has lived since the 2000 flood. “They gave us no warning. They may do it again.”

About 500 miles east, in northern Thailand, Chamlong Saengphet stands in the Mekong river, in water that comes only up to her shins. She is collecting edible river weeds from dwindling beds. A neighbor has hung up his fishing nets, his catches now too meager.

Using words bordering on curses, they point upstream, toward China.

The blame game, voiced in vulnerable river towns and Asian capitals from Pakistan to Vietnam, is rooted in fear that China’s accelerating program of damming every major river flowing from the Tibetan plateau will trigger natural disasters, degrade fragile ecologies, divert vital water supplies.

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April 10, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Lanai water group will continue meeting

WAILUKU – Members of the Lanai Water Advisory Committee said they will continue to meet and comment on local water issues, even after officials said the county would no longer recognize the group.

In a letter to committee members last month, newly appointed county Water Director Dave Taylor said the group’s input had been valuable but that there was no longer a need for them to meet, because the Lanai Water Use and Development Plan, which they had been tasked with reviewing, had been sent to the Maui County Council for approval.

“LWAC members are free to meet and talk about water issues as community members, but not in the official capacity of members of the LWAC holding an officially recognized meeting,” he wrote.

But committee members said their mandate from the county was to monitor the implementation of Lanai water policies – and that they intended to finish the job.

“We do not agree that you have the authority to unilaterally alter the scope of our responsibilities – duties which we have faithfully carried out for well over a decade,” wrote committee Chairman Reynold “Butch” Gima in a reply to Taylor. “Protecting Lanai’s ‘most precious resource – water’ (as you noted in your letter) does not end with the production of a draft plan, it is a continuous effort.”

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