Water: In Short Supply

EARTH – Within the next 25 years, as many as 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will face shortages of fresh water. A study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health reports that 31 countries (the majority in Africa and the Near East) already are facing a water crisis. “To avoid catastrophe,” the report warns, “it is important to act now” by slowing human population growth, curbing water pollution and conserving all available water. (The study did not consider the impacts of human-caused water shortages on plants and wildlife.) Water shortages are already hitting Australia where Sydney’s state-of-the-art water system was poisoned by giardia and cryptosporidium outbreaks in July. Residents were told to boil their water before use. An emergency $31 million sanitation upgrade was announced and the main water treatment plant was flushed with fresh water. After the emergency repairs were completed, cryptosporidium levels tested higher than in July.

Westin’s Wastin’ the Waters
PUERTO RICO – On Puerto Rico’s sunny northeast coast, communities are sick of what the tourism industry is doing to their water and land. A Westin hotel built near the coastal town of Luquillo is depleting the town’s water supply and draining hotel sewage into local beaches – including the hotel's private beach. Sewage pollution is blamed for skin disorders suffered by beach-goers and for illnesses experienced by highschool students. The local Ecological Coalition of the East (ECE) believes that Westin’s hotel is in violation of the US Clean Water Act. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico’s pro-growth government plans to replace a nearby beach and native forest with a tourist attraction called the Luquillo Fun Park featuring a water park, two golf courses, a raceway, carnival rides, video arcades and restaurants. It will take an estimated 750,000 gallons of water a day to maintain the “fun” in this park. The ECE still hopes that eco-tourism will be given a chance to save the beach. – Carmelo Ruiz

Riverbanking Clean Water
US–Wetlands are excellent natural water filtration systems, and researchers at Johns Hopkins University believe that river banks may offer the best (and certainly the most cost-effective) way of removing harmful bacteria, viruses, microbes and chemicals from drinking water. Instead of drawing drinking water directly from rivers, scientists have collected water from wells sunk alongside the Wabash and Missouri rivers. “Riverbank filtration” is better than chemical treatment, says Geography and Environmental Engineering Professor Edward J. Bouwer, because “some bacteria are becoming more resistant to [chemical] disinfection. We’re also worried about the by- products created during disinfection.” (When chlorine mixes with plant material in water, it can produce chloroform, a suspected carcinogen.) Riverbank filtration has been used in Europe for two decades and has even produced clean water from polluted stretches of the Rhine.

Noah’s Arkitects
US – With climate change inflicting greater extremes of drought and flood on many of the world’s population centers, a coalition of visionaries in Los Angeles is demonstrating how to “work with rather than against the natural cycles of water and waste.” Transagency Resources for Environmental and Economic Sustainability [TREES, a project of TreePeople, 1260 Mulholland Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90310, (818) 753-4600] has equipped a 70-year-old LA bungalow with two electronically operated 1,700-gallon cisterns to capture winter rainwater for use during times of drought. Sunken swales in lawns create ponds of rainwater that replenish local groundwater (instead of flooding nearby streets). Changing building and zoning codes to promote these inexpensive retrofits city-wide, could cut LA’s need for imported water in half. Redesigning city lawns to act as “mini-watersheds” would create an estimated 50,000 new jobs.

Torpedo the Dams, Full Speed Ahead
EARTH – In July, 18 environmental and activist groups from seven countries in North American, Asia and Europe announced the formation of Living Rivers: The International Coalition for the Restoration of Rivers and Communities Affected by Dams. The coalition’s Walker Creek Declaration notes that dams “have flooded huge areas of the world’s most beautiful and ecologically rich habitats and the lands and homes of tens of millions of people.” Because many of these dams are now obsolete, aging and unsafe, the coalition believes that it is time to start decommissioning these dams. Living Rivers will be working with the World Commission on Dams to see that dam owners, beneficiaries and financiers (such as the World Bank) shoulder the costs of removing the dams and restoring the rivers and floodplains. Members of Living Rivers include the International Rivers Network, India’s Save the Narmada Movement Wildlife Fund Thailand, Green World Ukraine and Earth Island’s John Muir Project.