YOUR GLOBAL RUNDOWN

• A new study sheds light on the staggering racial disparities of water debt in Chicago.
• Traces of fuel are once again detected in Iqaluit, Canada’s water supply.
• Earthquakes in drought-ravaged Afghanistan kill 26 people.
• For the first time in a year, California is free of exceptional drought.

In Recent Water News

In Case You Missed It:

HotSpots H2O: In Chile’s Lithium Mines, Climate and Environment Are Dueling Priorities – A battle is brewing over the future of lithium, an essential component of the world’s transition to renewable energy.

Chicago Water Affordability Report Reveals Staggering Racial Disparities

Majority-Black neighborhoods in Chicago hold ten times as much water debt than majority-white areas in the city, according to a study released on Tuesday by two urban planning nonprofits. The study also found that in 2019, customers without a water meter, who are concentrated in the city’s majority-Black and majority-Latino neighborhoods, paid an average of $500 more per year than metered customers. Some homeowners are “unable to pay off the snowballing debt,” the authors wrote, noting that half of the water debt owed to the city comes from delinquent bills.

• Why it matters: Across the country, millions of Americans are in water debt. A Circle of Blue investigation in 2020 found that more than 1.5 million households in a dozen large U.S. cities owe $1.1 billion to their water departments.

Today’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers

5 WEEKS

Traces of fuel have once again been detected in the water supply of Iqaluit, Nunavut, a rural community in northern Canada. The announcement comes just 5 weeks after a “do-not-consume” order was lifted there. Testing has determined that the water is safe to drink, but city officials are seeking an alternative water source to ease residents’ concerns drinking water with residual odors of fuel. Iqaluit’s 8,000 residents, about half of whom are Indigenous, spent two months without tap water last fall after a petroleum leak, which the city has said came from an aging underground fuel tank.

26 PEOPLE

Two earthquakes hit Afghanistan’s north-west province of Badghis on Monday, taking at least 26 lives and damaging up to one thousand homes. The disaster is but the latest strain on the province, one of Afghanistan’s poorest, which is already suffering through years of drought and the country’s ongoing political instability.

• In context: HotSpots H2O: In Afghanistan, Political Upheaval Aggravates Drought-Fueled Famine

On the Radar

Laura Gersony

Laura Gersony is a reporter with Circle of Blue and a third year at the University of Chicago, where she’s studying Political Science and Environmental Studies. She’s passionate about communicating how climate change and other environmental issues are experienced on the ground. In her free time, you can find Laura nursing seedlings on her windowsill, skateboarding around Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, or making unreasonably specific playlists on Spotify.

www.circleofblue.org/