The Stream, May 30: New York City’s Groundwater Plan Worries Nearby Counties

The largest city in the United States wants to revive dozens of groundwater wells on Long Island as a temporary supply, Newsday reports. The new sources will be needed in 2021 when New York shuts down one of its upstate aqueducts for at least 10 months to repair leaks. Long Island residents fear that added pumping will cause salt water to infiltrate the aquifer and that the city will keep the taps open even after it completes the repairs.

On the West Coast
A living river will once again flow through Los Angeles. The Army Corps of Engineers recommended a $US 1 billion restoration project for an 18 kilometer (11 mile) stretch of the city’s namesake river, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Because of the drought, California officials have started prohibiting some farmers and small cities from taking water from rivers, National Geographic reports. These users hold junior water rights, which are the first to be cut in a shortage. The Russian River and Sacramento River watersheds are the first to be affected.

The growth of large dairies, which milk thousands of cows which produce millions of pounds of manure annually, are increasingly a cause for worry, according to Yale Environment 360. All that waste often ends up in waterways. This is a source of conflict in Wisconsin where regulators have fined dairies for contaminating groundwater.

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Brett Walton

Brett writes about agriculture, energy, infrastructure, and the politics and economics of water in the United States. He also writes the Federal Water Tap, Circle of Blue’s weekly digest of U.S. government water news. He is the winner of two Society of Environmental Journalists reporting awards, one of the top honors in American environmental journalism: first place for explanatory reporting for a series on septic system pollution in the United States(2016) and third place for beat reporting in a small market (2014). He received the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award in 2018. Brett lives in Seattle, where he hikes the mountains and bakes pies. Contact Brett Walton