Global Rundown
- Plans to expand a bauxite mine near Perth, Australia, would significantly increase the likelihood of contaminating the region’s drinking water, a new assessment finds.
- Subsidence presents a growing threat to water delivery through California’s San Joaquin Valley, according to a state agency report.
- As drought in northwest Turkey persists, a reservoir has run dry and officials are exploring opportunities to drill new groundwater wells.
- Years of riparian rewilding and wetland restoration has helped communities in northern Belgium adapt to more erratic rain events.
The Lead
After U.S. mining company Alcoa announced plans to expand its strip mining operations near Perth, Australia, home to 2.3 million people, a new analysis from the engineering consultancy GHD has identified water contamination risks.
The analysis found “22 pathways for Alcoa’s mining to contaminate dams inland of Perth and concluded that all but one of them presented a high risk,” the Guardian reports. The assessment was conducted at the direction of Western Australia’s environmental regulator.
Three clear threats to the region’s water supply were identified: contamination from pathogens in sewage, hydrocarbons from oil spills, and excessive amounts of soil washing into water.
Alcoa, which mines bauxite, the source material for aluminum, has operated in this jarrah forested region for six decades “shielded from regular environmental oversight by a legislated agreement with the state.” But the company’s continued expansion, at the risk of the local water supply, has heightened scrutiny to levels never before seen.
The northernmost stretch of the mine already abuts the Serpentine Pipehead dam, which provides water for one-fifth of Perth. Proposed expansion would give Alcoa mining rights in the forest on the other side of the dam. According to the Guardian, if this dam is contaminated, “more than 100,000 households could be consuming contaminated water within six hours.”
Environmentalists continue to advocate for mining bans in water catchments and areas surrounding dams and reservoirs. They point to the assessment as further evidence of how communities’ health can be swiftly impacted by development.
“This move would not only protect critical drinking water supplies for WA but also strong forest habitat for threatened plants and animals, including black cockatoos and quokkas, all of which are suffering in a changing climate,” Jess Boyce, the Western Australia Forest Alliance director, tells the Guardian.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- Make America Polluted Again Starts in Iowa — Without controls, water contamination from Big Ag gets steadily worse
- As Flames Scorch Western Forests, Flagstaff Area Offers Roadmap for Post-Wildfire Flood Prevention — Floods and landslides are post-wildfire hazards spreading a slow disaster across the American West.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
21 million
Number of Californians whose ability to receive water from the state’s main canal system could be impacted by subsidence. This sinking of the land surface due to groundwater pumping has caused the system to buckle, thus reducing its capacity. According to a California Department of Water Resources report released this May, 2023 levels of subsidence have reduced the delivery capability of the State Water Project by 3 percent. If continued sinking causes more choke points and no action is taken, capacity could drop up to 87 percent in two decades. The California Aqueduct’s 444-mile stretch of canals “uses gravity and pumping to move water across California from north to south,” the Fresno Bee reports. In the immediate future, $32 million of repairs are needed for water to move efficiently through the system, which was built in 1967. Since then, some areas along the aqueduct have sunk by as much as eight to nine feet.
0 percent
Water level behind Naip Dam, located in Tekirdağ, Turkey, after a rainless June and July, Reuters reports. In the greater Marmara region, which includes the cities of Tekirdağ (population 186,000) and Istanbul (15.7 million), rainfall for July fell 95 percent below the monthly norm, and levels for the previous 10 months have been 32 percent below the historic average. Officials, forced to take drastic action, have repurposed pumps from the Turkmenli dam, originally used to irrigate fields, to deliver water to homes instead. The Tekirdag Water and Sewerage Administration is also looking into opening new wells to pump groundwater, though the water has “sunk to twice its original depth over the years,” Reuters reports. Amidst northwest Turkey’s drought, some neighborhoods have not received water for months as residents endure showerless weeks and empty sinks.
On the Radar
In northern Belgium, where increasingly erratic rainfall has produced both flooding and drought for decades, the Sigma Plan continues to prioritize wetland restoration and nature-based solutions throughout the Flanders region, Deutsche-Welle reports.
Throughout the 20th century, farmers had created polders — “land reclaimed from the water by building dikes to drain submerged areas for agriculture” — to expand their fields, though these swaths made flooding more likely and destructive along the River Scheldt and its tributaries. Since the turn of the century, dikes and quays have been built and thousands of acres of farmland have been “depoldered” to replenish wetlands along these riparian banks. According to those who have worked on the Sigma Plan, farmers acquiesced to these changes both because the compensation for their land was fair, and to benefit “the greater good.”
The plan continues in cities such as Mechelen, where rainwater is being stored separate from sewage to prevent overflows during rainstorms, and spongy green spaces are replacing paved areas.
Fresh: From the Great Lakes Region
Muskegon River Lampricide: This week, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials began spraying lampricide in Michigan’s Muskegon River, a system that was last treated in 2022, WZZM 13 reports. After 16 hours of treatment from the Croton Dam, it will take roughly three days for the chemical to reach the river’s mouth. Sea lamprey, invasive to the Great Lakes, are a significant threat to the region’s fisheries. A single specimen can eat up to 40 pounds of fish in its 12-month to 18-month feeding period.
In Context: Trump’s Budget Would Devastate Sea Lamprey Control in Great Lakes
In Context: Have You Seen This Fish Thief?
Mink Bay Nature Reserve: The new 213-acre nature reserve on the shores of Lake Superior has officially been created following a land acquisition by the Thunder Bay Naturalists Club, Thunder Bay News Watch reports.
Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, Michigan Public and The Narwhal work together to report on the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes region’s water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work here.
- Canadians were promised a national flood insurance program 6 years ago. Will Carney actually deliver? — The Narwhal
- Report finds pesticide contamination in several Michigan waterways — Michigan Public
- Report: States like Michigan ‘simply not prepared’ for data center water demand — Bridge Michigan
- Heat waves and cold snaps: Study finds the Great Lakes have entered an era of extremes — Great Lakes Now
