Global Rundown
- In the Brazilian Amazon, where historic drought has dried the rivers on which pregnant women travel to reach hospitals, community midwives are life-saving figures.
- Nearly two years after the Kakhovka dam was destroyed in Ukraine, scientists worry that 83,000 tons of toxic heavy metals could bioaccumulate in the Dnipro River watershed.
- More than 25,000 barrels of oil were confirmed to have spilled in the Ecuadorian Amazon earlier this month, devastating three rivers and a protected mangrove forest.
- Canada, countering U.S. tariffs and the threat of annexation, has fast-tracked more than a dozen energy and mining projects — to the detriment of lands, waters, and First Nations communities.
The Lead
Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, the practice of traditional midwifery is at risk of being lost at a time when demand is on the rise. Experienced midwives are getting older, and fewer young people are drawn to the trade, Reuters reports. Some remote rainforest communities are left with no midwives at all.
It is no easy feat for expecting mothers to access hospitals from isolated homes. They rely on rivers for travel, though the recent drought in the Brazilian Amazon has made these dangerous journeys even harder. When rivers are full, it may take hours to reach the nearest city by boat. When they are running dry, it can take more than a day.
In the state of Amazonas, “more than one in 15 women have their babies outside of hospitals, about four times the national average.” Some women, planning to give birth in a hospital, have been forced to cancel their trips due to river conditions. At least one other has given birth on the way.
Sandra Cavalcante, an official from the Amazonas state health department, told Reuters, “I keep thinking: my God, how do you provide healthcare in a territory like this?” She added: “Wherever there is a traditional midwife, women don’t die in childbirth.”
Studies have attributed the lengthy drought in the Amazon, which sent some Amazon tributaries to their lowest levels in over a century, to climate change.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- The Blue Planet: Quarterly Report: Trump Cracks Global Order — President’s second term ushers in period of worldwide tumult.
- Opinion: ‘Most Momentous Day’ in EPA History? Spare Me. — Administrator Lee Zeldin sets off pernicious assault on America’s quality of life.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
25,116
Barrels of oil which spilled from a ruptured pipeline in Ecuador earlier this month, the country’s national disaster management agency confirmed in a statement. In the immediate aftermath, three rivers, nine beaches, and at least 294 hectares (726 acres) of agricultural land were affected by the disaster, Reuters reports. The oil flowed through the Esmeraldas River for more than 50 miles and two of its tributaries turned anoxic. “At the Esmeraldas River Estuary Mangrove Wildlife Refuge, a protected area spanning 242 hectares (598 acres) at the intersection of the Esmeraldas River with the Pacific Ocean, the oil has coated mangrove channels, smothering vegetation, poisoning aquatic life and contaminating sediments,” Mongabay reports.
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The number of mining and energy projects the Canadian province of British Columbia announced in early February that it would expedite, The Narwhal reports. Multiple projects would be located on the lands of First Nations communities, and some have been flagged for potential dam failures. Another mining project announced in March, the Gibraltar copper-molybdenum mine, “will not undergo an environmental assessment for its expansion plans.” The expediency of these project approvals has been attributed, beside potential profit, to countering U.S. tariffs and the threat of annexation.
On the Radar
In June 2023, Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam — one of Europe’s largest reservoirs — was struck by explosives and destroyed. Rushing waters and sediment containing toxic heavy metals flooded both Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled settlements and the Dnipro River floodplain, submerging some areas in 15 feet of water, the Washington Post reports. The waters “obscured marked minefields and swept explosives into new locations.” Hundreds of people died and more than one million people lost access to clean drinking water.
Researchers have called the release of these pollutants a “time bomb.” In a study published earlier this month in the journal Science, scientists estimate that the residual sediment in the lakebed contains about 83,000 tons of exposed heavy metals that are susceptible to being spread down the Dnipro, or into nearby waters and soils. They are particularly concerned that these toxins will bioaccumulate in the food web, affecting generations of fish, wildlife, and human health.
Fresh: From the Great Lakes Region
A Plan for Manoomin: The Michigan Wild Rice Initiative — a group of Great Lakes tribes, researchers, and policymakers — drafted a 122-page wild rice stewardship guide, the first of its kind, Bridge Detroit reports. Produced by the University of Michigan Water Center, the guide centers the native wild rice (also called manoomin), a sacred crop and relative of the Anishinaabe peoples, within the context of climate, colonization, and both past and future health for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Manoomin was named Michigan’s state native grain in 2023.
Duluth EPA Lab in Limbo: The future of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Duluth, Minnesota, laboratory — which sits on the shores of Lake Superior and employs roughly 130 people — is unclear following a promise from the Trump administration to fire up to 75 percent of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. According to Minnesota Public Radio, the lab is “a national leader in researching environmental toxicology and studying the effects of stressors on freshwater resources, including pesticides, bacteria and land use changes on the Great Lakes.”
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.
- A pulp mill shutters, a creek comes back to life — The Narwhal
- Michigan’s newest PFAS threat: Contamination from household septic systems — Bridge Michigan
- How farmer-led research could revolutionize the relationship between agriculture and researchers — Great Lakes Now
- Federal appeals court hears ongoing Line 5 case over pipeline in Straits of Mackinac — Michigan Public