Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
Global Rundown
● Water infrastructure needs in Texas more than double in cost from a previous state estimate.
● Report questions Indonesia’s mining waste management as nickel production soars.
● In Sudan, where civil war created the world’s largest displacement crisis, aid groups navigate weather hazards and supply-chain complications.
● Coastal groundwater is declining more quickly, a study finds, increasing the risk of saltwater intrusion.
The Lead
A report issued in the wake of a deadly incident in February questions Indonesia’s management of mining waste, Mongabay reports.
Commissioned by Earthworks, a public-interest environmental group, and prepared by an outside consultant, the report focuses on the use of “filtered tailings,” a method of storing mining waste that is growing in popularity because it is assumed to be safer and less environmentally damaging.
The tailings are generated from leaching ore with acid. In the filtering step, much of the water is removed so that the waste is more mud than slurry. In theory, this is a safer storage option.
The report says this is not happening. It claims that companies operating in Indonesia that use filtered tailings storage are “not actually meeting the technical requirements to make good on those promises.”
Safe disposal of mining waste is an urgent matter in Indonesia. The Southeast Asian country is the world’s largest producer of nickel, a metal that is essential for electric vehicle batteries. In just the last nine years, its share of global nickel production has soared from 5 percent to 62 percent.
The February incident at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park killed one person. A filtered tailings pile liquefied and collapsed.
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The cost of adapting to water scarcity in Texas is climbing, the Texas Tribune reports. The state water agency now estimates that Texas will need $174 billion in capital spending to secure sufficient water supplies through 2080.
That’s more than double the previous estimate, from 2022. Some 3,000 projects and 6,700 management strategies are included in the draft water plan, which is now undergoing public comment.
Most projects and strategies slot into three categories: reservoirs, conservation, and reuse. Smaller categories include brackish groundwater and seawater desalination.
The consequences of poor planning are seen in Corpus Christi today, which is in a frantic attempt to avert a water crisis by drilling new wells.
“Population growth, extreme weather, and economic development needs are all increasing demands on our infrastructure, and the state is going to need more water, sooner,” Sarah Kirkle, director of policy at the Texas Water Association, told the Texas Tribune. “This is all while water projects are becoming more costly and complex because the easiest and cheapest local projects have already been developed.”
Coastal groundwater globally is at risk of saltwater intrusion. A new study published in Nature Water found coastal groundwater declines more common in the last nine years.
Combined with rising seas, overextraction of groundwater can lead to saltwater entering coastal aquifers. That’s bad for humans who drink the water, for crops that are irrigated with it, and for coastal forests that can be poisoned by too much salt.
Areas with the highest vulnerability to saltwater intrusion include large parts of the United States (Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast, and Southern California), South Africa, Australia, eastern India, and the western Mediterranean.
On the Radar
The civil war in Sudan, now entering its fourth year, has given rise to the world’s largest displacement crisis, according to the International Organization for Migration, a UN agency.
Some 9 million people remain displaced within the country, while roughly 4.5 million people have fled across borders.
IOM says that “climate-related shocks” are multiplying the war’s humanitarian crisis that includes provision of water, food, and shelter.
“Heavy rains, flooding and extreme heat have worsened food insecurity and increased the risk of water-borne diseases in communities already struggling to cope with the impacts of conflict and displacement.”
IOM is requesting $277 million to continue its work.
