Chicago Trib: Brewers worry that national water shortages will raise prices

Brewers worry that national water shortages will raise prices

MILWAUKEE: Even a hint of water scarcity is enough to drive a brewer to drink.

"Simply put, beer is 92 percent water," said Wisconsin Commerce Secretary Richard Leinenkugel, who hails from one of the nation's oldest breweries, the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. [read rest of article]

Green, Inc.: Water Use by Solar Projects Intensifies

Water Use by Solar Projects Intensifies

The West’s water wars are likely to intensify with Pacific Gas and Electric’s announcement Monday that the utility will buy 500 megawatts of electricity from two solar power plant projects to be built in the California desert.

The Genesis Solar Energy Project would consume an estimated 536 million gallons of water a year while the Mojave Solar Project would pump 705 million gallons annually for power plant cooling, according to applications filed with the California Energy Commission.

With 35 big solar farm projects undergoing licensing or planned for arid regions of California alone, water is emerging as a contentious issue. [read rest of article]

Clean Technology Forum

This is video from the main segment of the Clean Tech Forum held in San Antonio on Sept. 16, and livecast to the Web by NOWCastSA.

The speakers were: San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro; Steve Bartley, Interim General Manager, CPS Energy; Patrick Moore, Co-Chair, Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy); Craig Severance,Author, Business Risks & Costs of New Nuclear Power and Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research.

ABC NEws: From Ecological Soviet-Era Ruin, a Sea Is Reborn

From Ecological Soviet-Era Ruin, a Sea Is Reborn

Standing on the shore under the relentless Central Asian sun, Badarkhan Prikeyev drew on a cigarette and squinted into the distance as one fishing boat after another returned with the day's catch.

Until recently, this spot where the fish merchant was standing, in a man-made desert at the edge of nowhere, represented one of the world's worst environmental calamities.

Now fresh water was lapping at his boots, proclaiming an environmental miracle — the return of the Aral Sea. [Read rest of article]

time4climatejustice

Democracy Now!: Toxic Waters

Toxic Waters: Regulatory Absence Allows Chemical, Coal and Farm Industries to Pollute US Water Supplies

Amy Goodman speaks to New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg about the latest in his investigative series “Toxic Waters,” which examines the worsening pollution in the nation’s water systems. [read transcript]

BBC: China moves 330,000 in water plan

China moves 330,000 in water plan 

China has begun to resettle 330,000 people to make way for a project to divert water from the south of the country to the north, state media say.  [read rest of article]

NPR: How Safe Is Your Drinking Water?

How Safe Is Your Drinking Water?

An estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals, parasites, bacteria or viruses, or fails to meet federal health standards. Part of the problem, says journalist Charles Duhigg, is that water-pollution laws are not being enforced. [listen to the segment on Terry Gross - Fresh Air]

Water is as good a comfort food as chocolate, says study

Mother Nature Network:
Water is as good a comfort food as chocolate, says study

Like water for chocolate? Researchers now say that water may be just as effective a comfort food as chocolate, but without the calories. [read rest of article]

USA Today: More projects return America's rivers to their natural state

More projects return America's rivers to their natural state

 Texas. About 31 miles of the San Antonio River were channelized by the Army Corps of Engineers in a project that started in 1957, and "it absolutely does what it was designed to do: It protects our communities from flooding," says Steven Schaner, spokesman for the San Antonio River Authority. Turning the San Antonio into what Schaner describes as a "trapezoidal drainage ditch" came with major effects on the river's ecosystem.

Working with the Army Corps, the authority embarked on the $272 million restoration of 8 miles of the river south of downtown San Antonio. River meanders will be returned, as will shallow rapids important for fish. About 20,000 trees will be planted. [read rest of article]

Water shortages causes 100,000 to flee homes in Iraq: UN

Water shortages causes 100,000 to flee homes in Iraq: UN

PARIS — More than 100,000 people in northern Iraq have abandoned their homes since 2005 because of water stress, after drought and over-extraction of groundwater caused the collapse of an ancient water system, UNESCO said on Tuesday. [read rest of article]

Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

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. [read rest of article]

video: Sinkhole Recharge

Sinkhole recharge

A series of caves in Stone Oak City Park are part of the recharge zone for the Edwards Aquifer. [View video; sorry, can't embed it!]

Corpus Christi: Red tide found in Packery Channel

Red tide found in Packery Channel

PORT ARANSAS — Red tide was detected late Thursday and early Friday at the mouth of Packery Channel and between the Port Aransas jetties, said a biologist with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

Concentrations of the toxic algae were not high enough to kill fish, but were dense enough to cause minor symptoms such as coughing, throat irritation and watery eyes in people on the beach and jetties, said Meridith Byrd, the department’s Hazardous Algae Bloom response coordinator. [read rest of article]

LA Times: Yemen water crisis builds

Yemen water crisis builds

The resource's scarcity in rural areas sends migrants to swell the capital, which may run out by 2025. [read rest of article]

Montreal Gazette: Fight poverty - add water

Fight poverty - add water

Looking up at the full moon, it's hard to imagine two more different realities: Billionaire Quebec impresario/space tourist Guy Laliberté is up there somewhere - possibly wearing a red clown's nose - floating in zero gravity on a poetic mission about water conservation, while people down here are gathered in a dirt field, waiting for actors to take to a makeshift stage.

The play, also focused on the need for clean drinking water, will be a rare break for people of San Luis, who work hard just to get by. (A third of Nicaraguans live on less than $2 a day). [read rest of article]

Circus Billionaire Hosts Space Show About Water

Canadian space tourist and circus billionaire Guy Laliberte mixed star power, science lectures, music and poetry with water, hosting a TV/Internet show from the International Space Station.

SA-EN: Clean energy, clean water

Clean energy, clean water
By Tom Fowler - Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON — A Texas firm plans to use power generated by the Gulf of Mexico's waves to make its salty water drinkable.

Renew Blue Inc. says its project can address two global problems — climate change and scarce drinking water — by using clean energy to turn seawater to freshwater. [read rest of article]

NASA craft smacks the moon in quest for water

NASA craft smacks the moon in quest for water
By John Johnson Jr. Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

A NASA rocket plowed into a crater on the moon this morning, looking for evidence that water has been lying hidden in the lunar wasteland for billions of years. [read rest of article]

WWF: Wealthy world at risk from water woes elsewhere

Wealthy world at risk from water woes elsewhere

 While German households use 124 litres of water a day directly, individual Germans use 5288 litres of water a day when the water requirements of producing their food, clothes and other consumption items are included.

The report calculated Germany’s water footprint at 159.5 cubic kilometres of water annually, with only half coming from German rain and rivers. [read rest of article]