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Africa Ethiopia is proceeding with construction of the controversial Grand Renaissance Dam, now 21 percent complete, in order to boost its hydropower production, Reuters reported. On Tuesday, the country began diverting part of the Nile to facilitate further construction. Fighting has damaged infrastructure and created a severe water shortage in Mali’s city of Gao, Voice [...]
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Groundwater depletion in the United States has accelerated over the last decade, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, contributing to both localized problems and global issues, like sea level rise.
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Of the fish species closely monitored by NOAA for dangerous depletion, two thirds have recovered or are rebuilding. The results are encouraging, National Geographic reported, but management plans implemented over the past 10 to 15 years have still left one third of the monitored species at low levels. State-Level Water Management Some in southern New [...]
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United States In his State of the Union address yesterday, President Obama promised to take action on climate change, even if Congress refuses. “The fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods — all are now more frequent and more intense,” he said. [...]
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Winter Storms An Israeli security barrier built mostly in occupied areas of the West Bank is blocking the drainage of flood waters after a winter storm, Reuters reported. The wall does have drainage channels, but many are closed or clogged with debris. Conditions for Syrian refugees have further deteriorated after the eastern Mediterranean region was [...]
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A bird’s eye view of the Colorado River demonstrates how persistent drought conditions affect the basin and how the southern Nevada region manages its share of what trickles down.
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The Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project envisions a dam 700 feet tall capable of producing 600 megawatts from a 39-mile-long reservoir on the Susitna River in south-central Alaska. It would generate half the electricity currently produced in the state’s most populous region, and it would be the largest dam built in the United States since the late [...]
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of its new framework for addressing the twinned problems of stormwater and sewer overflows. Nearly eight months in the making, the framework will give municipalities greater flexibility in how they meet federal water quality standards by allowing them to fix the most dire problems first. The [...]
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that a pollution permit, called a NPDES permit in the lingo, will not be necessary for stormwater coming from logging roads. The agency will continue to study the best way to reduce sediment runoff from what it calls “a relatively small subset” of roads that affect stream quality. Powder [...]
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Groundwater is a proven crutch for dry times, but how much weight can it hold?
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Surface water allocations last year were 10 percent of normal, but record levels of groundwater pumping buoyed production in the state’s top agricultural region.
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As water availability data starts coming in, this year’s water allocations and the potential consequences for irrigation, hydropower, wildfires, and flooding are being assessed — La Niña weather patterns have returned this year, but water supply conditions generally are not as extreme as they were 2011.
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Clean Water Act Interpretation The Obama administration is mulling regulatory guidance for the Clean Water Act that would reinstate language that was proposed by the George W. Bush administration, but was stymied by opposition from industry groups. Greenwire reports that the new guidance would make a broader claim as to which wetlands and small streams [...]
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Irrigators in Texas and New Mexico are unhappy with a decision by the International Boundary and Water Commission to release reservoir water to Mexico, the Associated Press reported. The U.S. farmers wanted to delay the annual water release in order to cope with drought later in the growing season, but Mexican farmers, who are dealing [...]
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Restoration Hardware The Mississippi River Delta is the beating heart of economic activity in the nation’s midsection. From grain exports to fisheries to oil and gas production, the lower stretch of the country’s longest river is a both a trade conduit and a bulwark against storm surges and rising seas. Restoring it has become a [...]
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A National Standard It’s not what clean-energy advocates would have envisioned three years ago when the House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade bill, but it’s something. Last week in the Senate, Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012, which would set national targets for energy produced from renewable and low-carbon sources. [...]
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New Mexico is suing the federal government over water allocations from a Bureau of Reclamation water project. The state, according to KRQE in Albuquerque, claims that the project is supplying irrigation districts in Texas with more water than is legally permitted. Oklahoma’s water resources agency has authorized its legal representatives to sue to adjudicate water [...]
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Afghanistan’s plans to build 12 dams on the Kabul River, and India’s support for the projects, has Pakistan up in arms. But according to researchers, the timing could not be better for a water treaty between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Texas Drought Amid a dire drought that is expected to continue into 2012, Texas has pumped [...]
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The largest reservation in the U.S. has one of the nation’s highest poverty rates — more than 40 percent — and very little water infrastructure. Many residents pay nearly 50 times the municipal cost for water, which instead is delivered from a tank in the back of a truck, often resulting in water-borne intestinal illnesses.
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Is there a conflict of interest in the U.S. State Department’s decision to assign an important environmental impact study of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to a company with financial ties to the pipeline operator? Natural Disasters in Asia Floods and typhoons in recent months have compounded North Korea’s dysfunctional food distribution system, leaving millions [...]
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