Global Rundown
- Amid ongoing desertification in western Chad, the disappearance of crucial oases is forcing thousands of people to migrate elsewhere.
- Farmers and environmental groups are suing the state of Montana over a permitting loophole that allows thousands of groundwater wells to go unregulated.
- The criminal trial of Nestlé Waters, accused of illegally dumping plastic waste in France that led to severe water contamination, has been postponed.
- Oil and gas companies in Alberta, Canada, are urging officials to allow the release of billions of gallons of wastewater into the Athabasca River.
The Lead
Roughly 141,000 groundwater wells across Montana are considered by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) to be “exempt” from standard permitting — a designation given to developments that use less than 35 gallons per minute, and do not exceed 10 acre-feet per year.
This month, a coalition of environmental and agricultural groups filed a lawsuit against the DNRC alleging that this rule undermines constitutional protections safeguarding water. Many environmentalists view the statute as an unsafe loophole that allows for unregulated water use, and they say that housing developers and realtor associations have stood to gain the most, the Daily Montanan reports.
“Montanans have a right to know how their water is being used and a fair chance to participate in decisions that affect their communities,” said Laura Collins, sustainable communities director at the Montana Environmental Information Center, in a press release. “For too long, the state has allowed large-scale water use to occur through the exempt well loophole. This case is about restoring transparency, accountability, and the constitutional protections that ensure every Montanan has a voice in managing our most vital resource.”
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- Watered Down: A Weakened Global Water Strategy — U.S. policy retrenchment leaves trail of broken engagements, unfinished infrastructure, weakened institutions, and diminished water security.
- Three Great Lakes States at Greatest Risk as EPA Rolls Back Wetland Protections — Communities in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are especially vulnerable to regulatory rollbacks.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
16.7 million
Cubic feet of plastic bottle waste that Nestlé Waters allegedly illegally dumped across four locations in France’s northeastern Vosges region, according to a bombshell investigation that was released in August.
Government reports linked these sites — which sit near the wells supplying mineral water for Nestlé’s luxury-health brands — to “exorbitant” levels of microplastic pollution. Testing has revealed that the company’s Hépar and Contrex labels contain up to 1.3 million times more plastic than what is typically found in rivers and lakes, and up to 3,000 times above levels found in groundwater worldwide.
A criminal trial against Nestlé Waters was due to begin this week, but has been postponed — now for the second time — after France Nature Environnement, a co-plaintiff in the case, filed a complaint, BlueNews reports. The trial has been rescheduled for March.
150 million
Number of people in North Africa and Asia who depend on oases — which cover just 1.5 percent of the region’s drylands — for their water. Globally, fewer than 0.5 percent of oases are protected, making them “one of the least conserved ecosystems worldwide,” according to research published earlier this year in the journal PeerJ.
These fragilities are in focus in western Chad, two-thirds of which is covered by desert. According to The Guardian, “the landlocked central African country is the most vulnerable in the world to climate breakdown,” and temperatures in Kanem province are rising twice as fast as the global average. Rolling sand dunes, pushed by winds, are growing ever larger, expanding the desert landscape further and threatening the local oasis.
Roughly 500 families and 100 farmers depend on the Kaou oasis for survival, but the water’s dwindling availability has sparked a large migration to northern stretches of the country, where many young men take jobs in dangerous gold mines.
“Up there, they get used as forced labour,” Souleymane Issa, whose son made the journey, told The Guardian. “There are many deaths. They come back sick and very weak.”
Villagers in Kanem are building barricades out of palm fronds to protect their oasis from shifting dunes, though the water source continues to shrink.
On the Radar
During Canada’s spring elections this year, the country’s Liberal Party said it would “immediately introduce and pass legislation affirming that First Nations have a human right to clean drinking water.” Several months later, this law has yet to come to fruition — stoking fears among Indigenous communities that they will once again be left behind.
The Narwhal reports that Alberta’s provincial government is now considering allowing oil and gas companies to release their wastewater — called tailings ponds — into the Athabasca River, which flows for more than 700 miles and is the source of drinking water, food, and transportation for several First Nations communities living downstream. As of 2024, the volume of these tailings ponds has grown to roughly 400 billion gallons.
Wetland Watch
Ammiq Wetlands: In Lebanon, the country’s largest remaining freshwater wetlands — a family-owned parcel spanning roughly 240 hectares — are at risk as rainfall continues to decline and groundwater reserves, used for irrigation, dwindle, according to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Across the country, ongoing conflict and failing infrastructure has worsened the effects of the region’s worst drought in 65 years.
In Context: The Stream: Sweeping Water Shortages Stalk Lebanon, Enduring Worst Drought in Decades
