But who is responsible for finding a solution? Neither the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), nor the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seems certain. The SFWMD traditionally assumes responsibility for water supply across 16 counties, while the Corps controls lake releases and infrastructure functions.

During a recent meeting, the SFWMD passed the decision to the Corps. The Corps currently plans to continue with its intermitent pulses of freshwater from Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River, but only for nine days.

Debate also rages around a new water management plan to seasonally regulate lake levels, which includes the repair of a decrepit dike — an endeavor that could take over 20 years.

Commissioners, board members and environmentalists in Lee county, the area most affected by Lake Okeechobee’s dwindling supply, argue that the plan only perpetuates ecological dangers and puts commercial fisheries at risk.

”It’s three inches of water for us and three feet for the agricultural community,” Audubon Society member Pete Quasius told the Miami Herald. “It’s not about the bugs and bunnies, it’s about our quality of life.”

According to Charles Dauray, a SFWMD board member, none of the anthropocentric approaches quell public nerves. ”Taxpayers deserve more than confusion at the top,” he said. “This is very sloppy.”

Read more here.

Source: Miami Herald

“We are seeing it slowly move downstream, but we want to make sure we’ve got monitoring in place that will keep us well and truly up to date as it’s progressing along,” said Owen Russell, general manager of Victoria’s Lower Murray Water Corporation.

Low water levels and high temperatures have combined to produce the perfect conditions for such an outbreak. Algal blooms are often caused by fertilizer-rich agricultural runoff. The blooms harm river ecology, causing eutrophication — which occurs when the algae creates a barrier, preventing sunlight and oxygen from reaching organisms within the water.

The government has issued a high level red alert, as the spread exceeds 400 kilometers. Tourism businesses worry that the possibly toxic algae will discourage Easter tourists and further drive down profits. After more than a decade of drought and increasingly damaging bushfires, revenues from tourism and agriculture in Victoria and South Australia continue to plummet.

“It’s still a lovely place to visit, there’s lots of other areas within the region and within our towns,” Barb MacDermid from Yarrawonga-Mulwala Tourism told Australia’s ABC.

“But of course that is always the big worry. We’ve just got over the other part of Victoria, the fires, we’re just trying to resurrect a lot of tourism within the regions.”

Read more here and here.

Source: Australia Broadcasting Corporation

“This legislation guarantees that we will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas for granted,” Obama told press, such as the Mercury News, at a White House ceremony. “But rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share.”

Co-written by Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Dianne Feinstein, the act almost died in the House. After amendments, it finally passed 77-20 in the Senate, and 285-140 in the House. A majority of Republicans objected, due to restrictions on oil drilling.

Californian’s find the bill’s path for restoration of the San Joaquin River one of its more salient objectives. Enduring dry weather, thirsty agriculture and an uncertain snowpack melt, the state faces a serious water crisis.

The bill provides a long-term plan, allocating $400 million from farm water fees and bond money to remove fish barriers and restore levees. It also promises farmers inexpensive water in wet years, in order to encourage water banking. Although the legislation proved less than ideal for worried farmers in California, years of drought have left them with few alternatives.

Peter Moyle, a biologist at University of California-Davis, sees promising changes ahead. “Nature is amazingly resilient,” he told Mercury News. “This is a huge challenge, but I wouldn’t be working on it if I didn’t think it was possible.”

Read more here.

Source: Mercury News

Image courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov, and published here under a CC-3 license.

Using popular new media tools, the project turns viewers into participants in the unfolding crises — delivering Orwell’s dystopia into the 21st century. Scorched uses of a television series, live characters reporting on YouTube, cell phone alerts, mock news updates, blogs and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to weave a complex theater of narratives staging a desperate future for Australia.

To date, at least 10 percent of Australia’s population has taken part. Recent winner of an International Digital Emmy Award for best fiction program at the Cannes MIPTV conference, Scorched continues to earn attention and accolades across the world.

Read more here and here.

Source: Scorched, The Australian

Pepsi also plans to begin producing the bottles at the same plants in which they are filled, as well as to vacuum pack bottles without cardboard for shipping. These changes, the company says, should significantly reduce the amount of energy required to create and transport their commodity.

According to a report from the Pacific Institute, making the bottle itself constitutes the highest energy cost a water packaging company incurs. While Nestle, Coca Cola and Pepsi compete for more environmentally sound bottles, advocates of tap water consumption worry that their efforts may convince consumers put “a green veneer on a plastic bottle.”

Gigi Kellet, national director of a “Think Outside the Bottle Campaign” for Corporate Accountability International, reminded the Wall Street Journal that bottled water is still “costly for the environment, our pocketbooks and our public water systems.”

Read more here.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Benjamin Edgar, designer of Boxed Water, has created a product that appeals to consumer consciousness from several angles. The product provides an efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional product. The trees harvested to produce the boxes come from certified sustainable forests. The efficient box shape means a greater quantity of units pack into a smaller space. More boxes per truck equals fewer trucks — hence, a reduced carbon footprint.

According to a recent paper on bottled water published by the Pacific Institute, the highest bottled water energy cost to the consumer and the environment is actually the production of the plastic container itself. Contrast this with Boxed Water, which is comprised of 90 percent renewable resources and in some cases leaves behind a footprint 80 percent lower than its counterpart.

Read more here and here.

Sources: Creativity-Online, Boxed Water

Water pollution from natural gas drilling has been a quiet crisis across the United States. Hydraulic fracturing, a controversial process used to explode pockets of gas hidden between layers of rock, requires chemical components many scientists and environmentalists believe are toxic. The chemicals can contaminate local groundwater supplies and pose health risks to nearby residents.

The EPA has been reluctant to address the risk, while major fracturing proponent Halliburton assures the public their practices are safe. The Fort Lupton family has spoken with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Noble Energy Inc. The companies promise to provide them with clean water and possibly install a treatment system.

Read more on the Fort Lupton case here. Link to more information on hydraulic fracturing and natural gas risks here.

Source: KJCT8 News

California’s Department of Water Resources reports that reservoir levels in early March average just above 70 percent capacity. But averages can be deceiving. While many of the state’s smaller reservoirs meaure over 90 percent of capacity, its largest contain significantly less: Trinity measures 45 percent; Shasta contains 53 percent; Oroville holds 47 percent; and New Melones reads 52 percent. Don Pedro averages just above half of its capacity.

“Even with the recent rainfall, California faces its third consecutive year of drought and we must prepare for the worst – a fourth, fifth or even sixth year of drought,” warned Schwarzenegger. “This is a crisis, just as severe as an earthquake or raging wildfire.”

Farmers are worried, too. As the state flexes its grip on water allocations to California’s $35 billion agriculture sector, they worry their current attempts to survive — through fallowing, water banking and “Band-Aid” farming, etc. — won’t protect them from demise during what many experts call this “man-made drought.”

“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu explained to the Los Angeles Times. “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.” But some think the unsustainable birds of industrial agriculture are finally coming home to roost: perhaps the drought can force a more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly farming model on the struggling system, suggests a Reuters report in Condé Nast Portfolio.

Although farmers are altering their techniques for storage and irrigation, moving slowly toward less water-intensive crops, the Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick believes room for improvement remains. “It’s ironic because I do a lot of international water work and there’s no other place on the planet where, in my opinion, the agricultural sector is so insistent that they can’t do better,” Gleick said.

It seems the battle between cultivators, conservationists and the state’s Congress is far from finished. While the Sierra snowpack giveth and taketh away, legislators face pressure to reduce water to farmers in order to ensure the health of the vital Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. If they allow too much to be drawn from the ecosystem, they risk endangering the protected delta smelt and other species.

The latest assessment of available water finds most parties slightly more optimistic, reports the Los Angeles Times. With adequately heavy snowfall and rain in February and March, the state expects to grant Southern California five percent more of the resource than anticipated. Still, they warn, deliveries will not measure up to average: the mere 20 percent offered now falls far below the normal 70 percent.

James Powell, author of Dead Pool, a book about the Colorado River Basin and water politics in the American West, believes the prevailing attitude among his fellow Californians prevents them from implementing long-term solutions to the crisis.

Both Powell and the Pacific Institute cite the West’s crumbling water infrastructure and point out that building new dams and reservoirs unfortunately never creates more water — especially when there is already less than needed.

“Since we’re using as much as we possibly can get, there is no surplus, we would have to have amazing snowfalls for 15 or 25 years and that’s just highly unlikely to happen,” Powell told Circle of Blue. “But we just can’t break out of this short term thinking. ”

“Even with an above average flow of the river, the level of the reservoirs stayed almost exactly the same. That proves we’re using every drop there is. If we get a little bit more, we’ll use that too. We won’t store it,” said Powell. “That’s the other issue. If we get more water in California, we’re not going to fill the reservoirs; we’re going to build a new subdivision. We always have.”

Read more here, here and here.

Sources: Condé Nast Portfolio, Los Angeles Times, California Department of Water Resources

According to Al Jezeera Europe, when 300 people gathered to protest what they believe constitutes the forum’s privileging of private interests over public concerns, riot-police released tear gas and water cannons on the crowd. Two protesters from International Rivers were sent home, deported from the forum in Turkey after displaying banners rejecting the construction of new dams.

The famous – and now perhaps infamous – water forum, held every three years, brings together experts and students from public and private sectors alike to discuss international water issues. As the global fresh water crisis gains traction daily, the recently released third World Water Development Report from the United Nations encourages communication across sectors. Stakeholders must climb out of their respective water closets and work together to prevent catastrophe, it warns.

Still remaining on the World Water Forum’s agenda are sessions ranging from sustainable groundwater use, basin management and water storage, to transboundary cooperation, wealth distribution, desalination and climate change adaptation. The forum concludes on March 22nd, which marks the World Water Day for 2009. Whether this year’s gathering will accomplish its theme – Bridging Divides for Water – remains uncertain.

Stay current with Al Jezeera’s daily forum diary here and the forum’s daily session reports.

Sources: Al Jezeera English, Associated Free Press, UNESCO

Recently 70,000 people were displaced from their homes due to a water war over a newly installed borehole, the BBC reports. Conflicts occur near the border between two ethnic states. With an ambiguous and hence contentious border, schemes for water increasingly provoke anger and retaliation.

Local emergency-response officer Mohamed Nur told the BBC the recent violence “affected a huge number of people from both sides. In past conflicts, communities would fight, but they wouldn’t destroy government property, like the drilling rig.”

While the southern part of Ethiopia continues to struggle over water, the northern highlands seldom face such extreme scarcity. “Water conflicts rarely occur where I grew up,” Elyas Gebrehiwot, a human ecologist from the north, told Circle of Blue.

“I am from the highlands and water conflicts are common in the lowlands. Most lowlanders are pastoralists or nomads; because water and grazing land is so scarce in their region, they have to compete for it.”

Read more here.

Source: BBC